Their Wedding Journey | Page 9

dangers. The draw bridges that gape upon the way, the
trains that stand smoking and steaming on the track, the rail that has
borne the wear so long that it must soon snap under it, the deep cut
where the overhanging mass of rock trembles to its fall, the obstruction
that a pitiless malice may have placed in your path,--you think of these
after the journey is done, but they seldom haunt your fancy while it
lasts. The knowledge of your helplessness in any circumstances is so
perfect that it begets a sense of irresponsibility, almost of security; and
as you drowse upon the pallet of the sleeping car, and feel yourself
hurled forward through the obscurity, you are almost thankful that you
can do nothing, for it is upon this condition only that you can endure it;
and some such condition as this, I suppose, accounts for many heroic
facts in the world. To the fantastic mood which possesses you equally,
sleeping or waking, the stoppages of the train have a weird character;
and Worcester, Springfield, New Haven, and Stamford are rather points
in dream-land than well-known towns of New England. As the train
stops you drowse if you have been waking, and wake if you have been
in a doze; but in any case you are aware of the locomotive hissing and
coughing beyond the station, of flaring gas-jets, of clattering feet of
passengers getting on and off; then of some one, conductor or
station-master, walking the whole length of the train; and then you are
aware of an insane satisfaction in renewed flight through the darkness.
You think hazily of the folk in their beds in the town left behind, who
stir uneasily at the sound of your train's departing whistle; and so all is
a blank vigil or a blank slumber.
By daylight Basil and Isabel found themselves at opposite ends of the
car, struggling severally with the problem of the morning's toilet. When
the combat was ended, they were surprised at the decency of their
appearance, and Isabel said, "I think I'm presentable to an early
Broadway public, and I've a fancy for not going to a hotel. Lucy will be
expecting us out there before noon; and we can pass the time pleasantly
enough for a few hours just wandering about."

She was a woman who loved any cheap defiance of custom, and she
had an agreeable sense of adventure in what she proposed. Besides, she
felt that nothing could be more in the unconventional spirit in which
they meant to make their whole journey than a stroll about New York
at half- past six in the morning.
"Delightful!" answered Basil, who was always charmed with these
small originalities. "You look well enough for an evening party; and
besides, you won't meet one of your own critical class on Broadway at
this hour. We will breakfast at one of those gilded metropolitan
restaurants, and then go round to Leonard's, who will be able to give us
just three unhurried seconds. After that we'll push on out to his place."
At that early hour there were not many people astir on the wide avenue
down which our friends strolled when they left the station; but in the
aspect of those they saw there was something that told of a greater heat
than they had yet known in Boston, and they were sensible of having
reached a more southern latitude. The air, though freshened by the
over- night's storm, still wanted the briskness and sparkle and pungency
of the Boston air, which is as delicious in summer as it is terrible in
winter; and the faces that showed themselves were sodden from the
yesterday's heat and perspiration. A corner-grocer, seated in a sort of
fierce despondency upon a keg near his shop door, had lightly equipped
himself for the struggle of the day in the battered armor of the day
before, and in a pair of roomy pantaloons, and a baggy shirt of neutral
tint--perhaps he had made a vow not to change it whilst the siege of the
hot weather lasted,--now confronted the advancing sunlight, before
which the long shadows of the buildings were slowly retiring. A
marketing mother of a family paused at a provision-store, and looking
weakly in at the white- aproned butcher among his meats and flies,
passes without an effort to purchase. Hurried and wearied shop-girls
tripped by in the draperies that betrayed their sad necessity to be both
fine and shabby; from a boarding-house door issued briskly one of
those cool young New Yorkers whom no circumstances can oppress:
breezy-coated, white-livened, clean, with a good cigar in the mouth, a
light cane caught upon the elbow of one of the arms holding up the
paper from which the morning's news is