Page:ONCE A WEEK JUL TO DEC 1860.pdf/362

354

was late in the autumn of 183—, that having finished my course at the University, I first crossed the Atlantic, with the intention of spending some years in the western part of Upper Canada. A succession of fierce gales, all in our teeth, kept us at sea for the unusual period of fifty-seven days, so that I reached New York too late to proceed to my destination by the Hudson and the Erie Canal, an early frost having put a stop to the navigation for the season. I felt very reluctant to undertake so long a journey in an American stage-coach, over roads suddenly converted from the deeply-rutted mud of the Fall, into “hubs” as hard as stone; and would fain have delayed setting out until the commencement of sleighing; but my engagements prevented my doing so. I paid my fare by a line of conveyances which undertook the transport of passengers from New York to Buffalo in a week; and reaching, at the end of the first day’s travel, the town of Newburg, on the right bank of the Hudson, gladly entered the principal hotel, to enjoy a night’s repose.

Owing to the badness of the roads, we did not arrive until after the usual hour for the table-d’hôte tea, or supper, as it was called, but a second table was spread for the few passengers by the stage, and one or two others as well. We were not more than six or seven in all. The conversation turned to the condition of the roads and the discomforts of travel at such a time; and I very naturally gave utterance to such sentiments as the prospect of a six days’ and six nights’ journey in such a vehicle and over such highways as I had that day experienced, could not fail to excite in an Englishman, accustomed to macadamized roads and four-inside coaches. I expressed great regret that, in my eagerness to reach my destination, I had paid my whole fare through, instead of breaking so murderous a journey into instalments, which would have allowed me two or three nights of sleep by the way. My complaint seemed to arrest the attention of the guest who sat opposite to me, a tall, well-built man, not quite forty years of age, with dark hair, eyes, and complexion, and regular features; but whose expression, when once it had engaged the eye, did not release it easily, while it set the mind upon a fruitless endeavour to determine what character it betokened. This person pointed out to me that, in selecting the route by which I was about to travel, I had involved myself in a journey of unnecessary length, and that I might greatly shorten it, if instead of travelling along the two sides of a right-angled triangle, as I must do, by proceeding first due north to Albany, and thence nearly due west to Buffalo, I should direct my course along the hypothenuse from Newburg, where we then were, to Rochester. The roads in this direction were, he admitted, inferior in summer to those of the great angular line which I had chosen, and which traversed the most populous parts of the country; but, at that season, he said, all the roads in the Northern States were alike bad, and the gain of time by the more direct line was such as to allow the passengers to spend every night of the journey, except the last, comfortably in bed. This only called forth, on my part, a fresh expression of regret that I had paid in advance for my whole passage by the ordinary line; but my informant, turning to the landlord, who sat at the head of the table, said he believed he was an agent for both lines, and suggested that he might, perhaps, exchange the ticket I had purchased, for one by the preferable route. The proposal appeared to me somewhat unreasonable; and, as I thought, also to the landlord; but about an hour after we had risen from table, he brought me, unexpectedly, a ticket for the shorter line, which he gave me in exchange for mine. He had found, he said, a person about to proceed from Newburg to Buffalo by the longer route, to whom he had disposed of my ticket. I went to bed delighted with my good luck, my last remembered thought being one of regret that I had not had an opportunity of thanking my unknown companion at supper for the suggestion to which I owed it. I had seen him for the last time in private conversation with the landlord, a few minutes after supper.

My sleep was of that kind which, at the age I had then reached, four or five and twenty, generally follows a day of fatigue. Scarcely a moment appeared to elapse between its beginning and its end, which was caused by a volley of taps at my bed-room door, and by the appearance of an object so much akin to my latest thoughts at night, that I thought I had not slept at all; yet so strange, that the next moment I thought I had not only slept but must be still dreaming. This was my adviser of the previous evening, who entered my room, clothed in an Indian coat, as it was then called, of the very thickest blanket-cloth, with a hood or capot of the same material between the shoulders, but which differed from any garment of the kind I had yet seen, in being of a bright grass-green colour, faced round the skirts with a list of brilliant white and scarlet. He had in his hand a lighted candle, which he set down on my dressing-table, with the words, “I was afraid you might oversleep yourself, and be too late for the stage,” and immediately left the room. My gratitude for his advice on the previous evening was at first a little impaired by this officious intrusiveness, for such, with my English ideas, I considered it, and by the sudden breaking of my comfortable slumber. But finding that I had little time to spare, I dressed hastily, and on going down stairs, found the stage prepared to start with a single inside passenger, who had already taken his place. I threw myself into the opposite seat, and we drove off.

Wrapping myself as warmly as I could in the buffalo robes, as they are,—or bison-skins, as they ought to be—called, with which all American carriages were at that time liberally furnished, I resumed my broken slumbers, until I was reawakened in about an hour by the increasing roughness of the road. Endeavouring, by the aid of the increasing light, to catch the appearance of my fellow-traveller, with whom I had not yet exchanged a word, I was considerably surprised to see his features gather themselves into a resemblance to those of my new acquaintance; and soon the rays of the sun, falling on the green blanket-coat, showed me that person sitting before me. I expressed, I believe,