Page:Comin' Thro' the Rye (1898).djvu/219

Rh parture, sherry and sandwiches found no place: I was too intent on conveying my person and box to the station (anticipating a revoke of the favourable sentence) to think of probable hunger; now as the train slowly glides into Pringly station, the sight of the refreshment bar, with its fossil sandwiches, leaden buns, and orange-coloured decanters, rejoices my heart.

"Guard," I say, jumping up as that individual goes past the carriage with his flag under his arm, "will you get me some sandwiches, and two buns, and a glass of ale, please?"

"Yes, miss,"—and he vanishes.

In my hurry I have trodden heavily on the foot of one of the elderly young ladies, and she gives me a look as I make my apologies that quite revives me, it is so healthily vicious. They exchange glances of horror out of their pale eyes as I drink Bass's best or worst. In all their lives, if their complexions may be trusted to speak truth, they have never tasted anything stronger than barley-water. Now, why drinking a glass of ale in a railway carriage, when you are burnt up with dust and thirst, and scrammed with hunger, should be any worse than drinking ale at the family table when you do not particularly want it, I cannot understand; nevertheless, the British matron, the divines, and the little elderlies, all look at me with shocked eyes. If they only knew how I am inwardly laughing at them! for is not this one of those little affectations that make one smile at human nature?

Away we go again, tearing through the bright, beautiful country as though it were the desert of Sahara, and we could not leave it behind fast enough. How the sun pours down on our devoted heads! Truly August is giving us some straight burning strokes before it goes. How I fuss, and fidget, and fan myself, and adopt the hundred and one flapping and fussy measures that mortals suffering under discomfort always affect, until they resign themselves to the inevitable, and learn that hardest of hard lessons—endurance.