Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 05: Little Journeys to the Homes of English AuthorsHubbard, Elbert
History
Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 05: Little Journeys to the Homes of English Authors
Hubbard, Elbert
Authors, English -- Homes and haunts -- Great Britain; English literature -- History and criticism
White Pigeon lived at Paris because one must needs live somewhere, and
rich Americans sometimes send her their daughters to "finish." That was
what took her over to the Lake District—she was traveling with two young
women from Grand Rapids. And so these three women were doing Great
Britain, and White Pigeon was acting as courier, chaperone and instructor.
"I need 'finish,'" I suggested in one of the long pauses.
"I was just going to suggest it," said the lady.
"You say you are going to Southey's old home tomorrow—may I go, too?" I
ventured.
And the answer was, "Of course—if you will promise not to work me up into
copy."
I promised.
I found lodgings that night at "Nab Cottage." Being well recommended, the
landlady did not hesitate, but gave me the best accommodations her house
afforded.
Hartley Coleridge does not live at "Nab Cottage" now—a moss-covered slab
marks his resting-place up at the Grasmere Churchyard, and only a step
away in a very straight row are similar old headstones that token the
graves of William, Dorothy and Mary Wordsworth. Hartley Coleridge had most
of the weaknesses of his father, and only a few of his better traits. Yet
Southey brought up the children of Coleridge and gave them just as good
advantages as he did his own.
"It is not 'advantages' that make great men—it is disadvantages!" said
White Pigeon. We were eating breakfast at the table set out under the
arbor, back of the Coleridge cottage—Grace, Myrtle, White Pigeon and I.
Grace and Myrtle were the Grand Rapids girls, and fine girls, too—pink
and twenty, with diaries and autograph-fans. Girls of that age are
charming, but they only interest me as do beautiful kittens or colts.
Women do not become wise or discreet until they are past thirty. White
Pigeon was past thirty.
We took the stage that morning at nine o'clock for Keswick. The stage
started from the Red Lion Inn. It is a great event—the starting of a
four-horse stage. The guests came out, and so did the boots, and
chamber-maids and waiters, and the cook came also. They stood in line and
bade the parting guests godspeed, and all the guests were supposed to
express gratitude tangibly. The landlady was busy, flying about like a
Plymouth Rock hen with a brood of ducks. She saw me handing up the
pink-and-white Grace and Myrtle and the dignified, tailor-made White
Pigeon, and she came out and apologized profusely for not having had room
to accommodate me the night before.
At last all the hatboxes and bloomin' luggage were safely stowed, the
trunks were lashed in place behind, and I climbed to the top of the stage
and took my seat beside my charges. A merry blast was blown from the
tallyho horn. A man with a red coat, high white hat, kid gloves and a
brick-dust complexion mounted the box and gathered up a big handful of
reins. The hostlers at the heads of the leaders let go, twenty feet of
whiplash went singing through the air—and we were off!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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