Chapter II.
Planning
"What part of the diligence are we going to ride in, father?" asked Rollo, as they were seated at dinner.
"In the coupé,"1 said Mr. Holiday.
"Ah, father!" said Rollo; "I wish you would go on the banquette. We can see so much better on the banquette."
"It would be rather hard climbing for mother," said Mr. Holiday, "to get up to the banquettesuch a long ladder."
"O, mother can get up just as easily as not," said Rollo. "Couldn't you, mother?"
"I am more afraid about getting down than getting up," said his mother.
"But it is a great deal pleasanter on the banquette," said Rollo. "They keep talking all the timethe conductor, and the drivers, and the other passengers that are there; while in the coupé we shall be all by ourselves. Besides, it is so much cheaper."
"It is cheaper, I know," said Mr. Holiday; "but then as to the talking, I think we shall want to be quiet, and go to sleep if we can. You see it will be night."
"Yes, father, that is true," said Rollo; "but I had rather hear them talk. I can understand almost all they say. And then I like to see them change horses, and to see the conductor climb up and down. Then, besides, at almost all the villages they have parcels to leave at the inns; and it is good fun to see them take the parcels out and toss them down, and tell the bar maid at the inn what she is to do with them."
"All that must be very amusing," said Mr. Holiday; "but it would not be so comfortable for your mother to mount up there. Besides, I have engaged our places already in the coupé, and paid for them."
"Why, father!" said Rollo. "When did you do it?"
"I sent last evening," said Mr. Holiday. "It is necessary to engage the places beforehand at this season. There is so much travelling into Switzerland now that the diligences are all full. I had to send to three offices before I could get places."
"Are there three offices?" asked Rollo.
"Yes," said his father; "there are three different lines.
"But I'll tell you what you may do, Rollo, if you please," continued his father. "You may go to the bureau,2 and see if you can exchange your seat in the coupé for one in the banquette, if you think you would like better to ride there. There may be some passenger who could not get a place in the coupé, on account of my having taken them all, and who, consequently, took one on the banquette, and would now be glad to exchange, and pay the difference."
"How much would the difference be?" asked Rollo.
"I don't know," said Mr. Holiday; "five or six francs, probably. You would save that sum by riding on the banquette, and you could have it to buy something with in Geneva."
"Well, sir," said Rollo, joyfully, "I should like that plan very much."
"But do you think," said Mrs. Holiday, "that you know French enough to explain it at the bureau, and make the change?"
"O, yes, mother," said Rollo; "I have no doubt I can."
So Rollo said he would finish his dinner as soon as he could, and go off at once to the bureau.
"There is one other condition," said his father. "If I let you ride on the banquette, and let you have all the money that you save for your own, you must write a full account of your night's journey, and send it to your cousin Lucy."
"Well, sir," said Rollo, "I will."
Rollo left the dinner table while his father and mother were taking their coffee. The table was one of a number of separate tables arranged along by the windows on the front side of a quaint and queer-looking dining roomor salle à manger, as they call itin one of the Lyons inns. Indeed, the whole inn was very quaint and queer, with its old stone staircases, and long corridors leading to the various apartments, and its antique ceiling,reminding one, as Mr. Holiday said, of the inns we read of in Don Quixote and other ancient romances.
Rollo left his father and mother at this table, taking their coffee, and sallied forth to find his way to the bureau of the diligence.
"If you meet with any difficulty," said Mr. Holiday, as Rollo went away, "engage the first cab you see, and the cabman will take you directly there for a franc or so."
"Yes, sir," said Rollo, "I will."
"And if you don't find any cab readily," continued his father, "engage a commissioner to go with you and show you the way."
"Yes, sir," said Rollo.
A commissioner is a sort of porter who stands at the corners of the streets in the French towns, ready to do any thing for any body that calls upon him.
Rollo resolved not to employ either a cabman or a commissioner, if it could possibly be avoided. He took the address of the bureau from his father, and sallied forth.
He first went round the corner to a bookstore where he recollected to have seen a map of Lyons hanging in the window. He looked at this map, and found the street on it where he wished to go. He then studied out the course which he was to take. Lyons stands at, or rather near, the confluence of the two rivers Rhone and Saone. In coming to Lyons from Paris, the party had come down the valley of the Saone; but now they were to leave this valley, and follow up that of the Rhone to Geneva, which is situated, as has already been said, on the Rhone, at the point where that river issues from the Lake of Geneva.
The hotel where Rollo's father had taken lodgings was near the Saone; and Rollo found that the bureau was on the other side of the town, where it fronts on the Rhone.
So Rollo followed the course which he had marked out for himself on the map. In a short time he saw before him signs of bridges and a river.
"Ah," says he to himself; "I am right; I am coming to the Rhone."
He went on, drawing nearer and nearer. At length he came out upon the broad and beautiful quay, with large and elegant stone buildings on one side of it, and a broad but low parapet wall on the other, separating the quay from the water. There was a sidewalk along this wall, with many people walking on it; and here and there men were to be seen leaning upon the wall, and looking over at the boats on the river. The river was broad, and it flowed very rapidly, as almost all water does which has just come from Switzerland and the Alps. On looking up and down, Rollo saw a great number of bridges crossing this stream, with teams and diligences, and in one place a long troop of soldiers passing over. On the other side, the bank was lined with massive blocks of stone buildings. In a word, the whole scene presented a very bright and animated spectacle to view.
Nearly opposite to the place where Rollo came out upon the river, he saw, over the parapet wall that extended along on the outer side of the quay, a very large, square net suspended in the air. It was hung by means of ropes at the four corners, which met in a point above, whence a larger rope went up to a pulley which was attached to the end of a spar that projected from the stern of a boat. The net was slowly descending into the water when Rollo first caught a view of it; so he ran across, and looked over the parapet to see.
THE GREAT NET.
The net descended slowly into the water. It was let down by men in the boat paying out the line that held it.
"Ah," said Rollo to himself; "that's a curious way to rig a net. I should like to stay and see them pull it up again, so as to see how many fish they take; but business first and pleasure afterwards is the rule."
So he left the parapet, and walked along the quay towards the place where the bureau was situated.
"I'll come back here," said he to himself, "when I have got my place on the banquette, and see them fish a little while, if I find there is time."
So he left the parapet, and walked along the quay towards the place where the bureau was situated.
"I'll come back here," said he to himself, "when I have got my place on the banquette, and see them fish a little while, if I find there is time."
In a few minutes Rollo came to the place he was seeking. It was in a little square, called Concert Place, opening towards the river. Rollo knew the bureau by seeing the diligence standing before the door. It had been brought up there to be ready for the baggage, though the horses were not yet harnessed to it.
Rollo went into the office. He found himself in a small room, with trunks and baggage arranged along on one side of it, and a little enclosure of railings, with a desk behind it, on the other. There was a young man sitting at this desk, writing.
"This must be a clerk, I suppose," said Rollo to himself.
Opposite to where the clerk was sitting there was a little opening in the railings, for people to pay their money and take their tickets; for people take tickets for places in the diligence, in Europe, just as they do for the railroad. Rollo advanced to this opening, and, looking through it, he stated his case to the clerk. He said that he had a place in the coupé that his father had taken for him, but that he would rather ride on the banquette, if there was room there, and if any body would take his place in the coupé.
The clerk said that there had been a great many persons after a place in the coupé since it had been taken, and that one lady had taken a place on the banquette, because all the other places in the coach had been engaged.
"I think," said the clerk, "that she will be very glad to exchange with you, and pay you the difference. She lives not far from here, and if you will wait a few minutes, I will send and see."
So the clerk called a commissioner who stood at the door, and after giving him his directions, sent him away. In a few minutes the commissioner returned, saying that the lady was very glad indeed to exchange. He brought in his hand a five franc piece and three francs, which was the difference in the price of the two places. The clerk gave this money to Rollo, and altered the entry on his books so as to put the lady in the coupé and Rollo on the banquette. Thus the affair was all arranged.
Rollo found that it was now six o'clock. The diligence was not to set out until half past seven; but by the rules of the service the passengers were all to be on the spot, with their baggage, half an hour before the time; so that Rollo knew that his father and mother would be there at seven.
"That gives me just an hour," said he to himself; "so I shall have plenty of time to go and see how they manage fishing with that big net."
He accordingly went to see the fishing, but was very careful to return some minutes before the appointed time.
Rollo had a very pleasant ride that night to Geneva. He wrote a long and full account of it afterwards, and sent it to his cousin Lucy. This letter I shall give in the next chapter.
The reason why Rollo wrote so long an account of his journey was this: that his father required him, when travelling, to spend one hour and a half every day in study of some kind; and writing letters, or any other intellectual occupation that was calculated to advance his education, was considered as study. In consequence of this arrangement, Rollo was never in a hurry to come to the end of his letters, for he liked the work of writing them better than writing French exercises, or working on arithmetic, or engaging in any of the other avocations which devolved upon him when he had no letters on hand.
Chapter III.
The Ride To Geneva
"Dear Lucy:
"I am going to give you an account of my night ride from Lyons to Geneva.
"I got to the diligence office before father came, because I was going to ride up in the bellows-top. I call it the bellows-top so that you may understand it better. It is a place up in the second story of the diligence, where there are seats for four persons, and a great bellows-top over their heads. I think it is the best place, though people have to pay more for the coupé, which is right under it. I got eight francs, which is more than a dollar and a half, for exchanging my seat in the coupé for one on the banquette. I exchanged with a lady. I suppose she did not like to climb up the ladder. You see in the coupé you step right in as you would into a carriage; but you have to go up quite a long ladder to get to the banquette. I counted the steps. There were thirteen.
"When I got to the office, the men were using the ladder to put up the baggage. They put the baggage on the top of the diligence, along the whole length of it behind the bellows-top. They pack it all in very closely, beginning immediately behind, and coming regularly forward, as far as it will reach. There is a frame over it, and a great leather covering. They pull the covering forward as fast as they get the trunks packed, until at last the baggage is all covered over as far forward as to the back of the bellows-top.
"The men were using the ladders when I came, getting up the baggage; so I climbed up by the little steps that are made on the side of the diligence. I liked my seat very much. Before me was a great leather boot. The boot was fastened to an iron bar that went across in front, so that it did not come against my knees. Above me was the bellows-top, to keep off the rain. Up under the roof of the bellows-top there was a sash folded together and fastened up by straps. I unfastened one of the straps, and saw that I could let down the sash if I wished, and thus make a glass window in front of me, so as to shut me in nicely from the wind, if it should grow cold in the night. Behind me was a curtain. The curtain was loose. I pushed it back, and found I could look out on the top of the diligence where the men were at work packing the trunks and baggage. The men wore blue frocks shaped like cartmen's frocks.3
"Right before the boot was the postilion's seat. It was a little lower than my seat, and was large enough for two. The conductor's seat was at the end of my seat, under the bellows-top. There was one thing curious about his seat, and that is, that there was a joint in the iron bar of the boot, so that he could open his end of it, and get out and in without disturbing the boot before the rest of the passengers. When I wanted to get out I had to climb over the boot to the postilion's seat, and so get down by the little iron steps.
"The reason I wanted to get down was so as to buy some oranges. There was a woman down there with oranges to sell. She had them in a basket. I thought perhaps that I might be thirsty in the night, and that I could not get down very well to get a drink of water. So I climbed down and bought four oranges. I bought one for myself, and two to give father and mother, and one more because the woman looked so poor. Besides, they were not very dearonly fifteen centimes apiece. It takes five centimes to make a sou, and a sou is about as much as a cent.
"When I had bought my oranges I climbed up into my place again.
"There were several people beginning to come and stand about the door of the bureau. I suppose they were the travellers. Some came in cabs, with their trunks on before with the postilion. I counted up how many the diligence would hold, and found that in all, including the two postilion's seats, and the conductor's, that there were places for twenty-one. But when we started we had twenty-four in all. Where the other three sat you will see by and by.4
"As fast as the passengers came to the office, the men took their baggage and packed it with the rest, on the top of the diligence, and the passengers themselves stood about the door, waiting for the horses to be put in.