Page:The world's show, 1851, or, The adventures of Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys and family, who came up to London to "enjoy themselves", and to see the Great Exhibition (IA worldsshow1851or00mayh).pdf/48

 a word, walked away with the united luggage of the family, immediately on its being deposited outside the station door; while Mr. Sandboys himself had gone to learn how he and his party were to proceed.

"Where are you going to?" rapidly inquired the good-tempered and bustling station-master, as he squinted at the clock.

"T' Bull and Mouth, Holborn Hill, London," answered Mr. Cursty Sandboys, giving the whole address of his proposed resting-place in the metropolis.

"Don't know any Bull and Mouth at Holborn Hill," replied the busy official, who, called off by the guard, had not caught the last word of Mr. Sandboys' answer.

"Dustea say tha dunnet ken t' Bull an' Mouth," exclaimed the anxious Cursty, lifting up his bushy eyebrows with evident astonishment. "I thowt aw t' warl was kenning t' Bull an' Mouth, Holborn Hill."

Mr. Sandboys having, during his first and only visit to London (whither he had been summoned on a trial concerning the soundness of some cattle that he had sold to one of the dealers who yearly visited Buttermere), resided with the rest of the witnesses for some ten days at the Bull and Mouth Inn, and knowing that it was a place of considerable reputation, could not help expressing his surprise that a person filling a situation which brought him into almost daily communication with the metropolis, should be unacquainted with one of the most celebrated of its public inns.

The Workington station-master, however, unfortunately for Mr. Sandboys, referred to a different quarter of the world. The Holborn Hill he spoke of, as possessing no Bull and Mouth, was not the well-known metropolitan acclivity, so trying to the knees of cab and omnibus-horses, where coal waggons and railway vans are continually "sticking" half-way—where "bachelors' kettles" are perpetually being boiled in less than five minutes, and where sheets of gutta percha, like hardbake, and tubing of the same material, like rolls of German sausages, for ever meet the eye. No; the Holborn Hill which the Workington official alluded to was an obscure point of land situate at the extremity of the county of Cumberland, on the banks of the Duddon, and with not even so much as a village nearer than half a dozen miles. Well therefore might the station-master, thinking only of that Holborn Hill to which the Workington trains daily travelled, make answer to the poor unsophisticated Mr. Sandboys, that he had never heard of any Bull and Mouth in that quarter.

"But if you're going to Holborn Hill, sir," he added, squinting at the clock, "you'd better be quick, for in another moment the train will be off."

"Odswinge! whilk be t' carriages, man?" hastily inquired Mr. Sandboys, who had been given to understand at Cockermouth that he should have to remain a good half hour at Workington before he could proceed on his journey. No sooner was he told where to take his seat, than hurrying after his wife and children, he dragged them from