HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

No. 320.]

A WEEKLY JOURNAL.

CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

SATURDAY, MAY 10, 1856.

RAILWAY DREAMING.

PRICE 2d.
STAMPED 30

engaged with skipping-ropes, in mire three inches thick. At three years old the MooniWHEN was I last in France all the winter, nian babies grow up. They are by that deducting the many hours I passed upon the time familiar with coffee-houses, and used up wet and windy way between France and as to truffles. They dine at six. Soup, fish, England? In what autumn and spring was two entrées, a vegetable, a cold dish, or patéit that those Champs Elysées trees were de-foie-gras, a roast, a salad, a sweet, and a yellow and scant of leaf when I first looked preserved peach or so, form (with occasional at them out of my balcony, and were a bright whets of sardines, radishes, and Lyons sausage) and tender green when I last looked at their frugal repast. They breakfast at eleven, them on a beautiful May morning?

on a light beefsteak with Madeira sauce, a

I can't make out. I am never sure of kidney steeped in champagne, a trifle of sweettime or place upon a Railroad. I can't bread, a plate of fried potatoes, and a glass read, I can't think, I can't sleep-I can or two of wholesome Bordeaux wine. I have only dream. Rattling along in this rail- seen a marriageable young female aged five, way carriage in a state of luxurious con- in a mature bonnet and crinoline, finish off at fusion, I take it for granted I am coming a public establishment with her amiable from somewhere, and going somewhere else. parents, on coffee that would consign a I seek to know no more. Why things come child of any other nation to the family underinto my head and fly out again, whence they taker in one experiment. I have dined at a come and why they come, where they go and friendly party, sitting next to a Mooninian why they go, I am incapable of considering. baby, who ate of nine dishes besides ice and

It may be the guard's business, or the railway company's; I only know it is not mine. I know nothing about myself-for anything I know, I may be coming from the Moon.

fruit, and, wildly stimulated by sauces, in all leisure moments flourished its spoon about its head in the manner of a pictorial glory.

The Mooninian Exchange was a strange sight in my time. The Mooninians of all ranks and classes were gambling at that period (whenever it was), in the wildest manner-in a manner, which, in its extension to all possible subjects of gambling, and in the selves. I have seen them, two minutes after has few parallels that I can recall. The it has left off raining for the first time in steps of the Mooninian Bourse were thronged eight-and-forty hours, take chairs in the midst every day with a vast, hot, mad crowd, so of the mud and water, and beginto chat. I have expressive of the desperate game in which the

If I am coming from the Moon, what an extraordinary people the Mooninians must be for sitting down in the open air! I have seen them wipe the hoar-frost off the seats in the public ways, on the faintest appearance of a gleam of sun, and sit down to enjoy them- prevalence of the frenzy among all grades,

seen them by the roadside, easily reclining on iron couches, when their beards have been all but blown off their chins by the east wind. I have seen them, with no protection from the black drizzle and dirt but a satu

whole City were players, that one stood aghast. In the Mooninian Journals I read, any day, without surprise, how such Porter had rushed out of such a house and flung himself into the river, "because of

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rated canvas blind overhead, and a handful losses on the Bourse;" or how such a man of sand under foot, smoke and drink new had robbed such another, with the intent of beer, whole evenings. And the Mooninian acquiring funds for speculation on the Bourse. babies. Heavens, what a surprising race In the great Mooninian Public Drive, every are the Mooninian babies! Seventy-one of day, there were crowds of riders on bloodthese innocents have I counted, with their horses, and crowds of riders in dainty nurses and chairs, spending the day outside carriages red-velvet lined and white-leather the Café de la Lune, in weather that would harnessed, all of whom had the cards and have satisfied Herod. Thirty-nine have I counters in their pockets; who were all feedbeheld in that locality at once, with these ing the blood-horses on paper and stabling partaking of their natural refreshment them on the board; who were leading a under umbrellas. Twenty-three have I seen grand life at a great rate and with a mighty

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show; who were all profuse and prosperous while the cards could continue to be shuffled and the deals to go round.

In the same place, I'saw, nearly every day, a curious spectacle. One pretty little child

In my solitary character I have walked forth after eating my dinner and paying my bill-in the Mooninian capital we used to call the bill "the addition"-to take my coffee and cigar at some separate establishment

at a window, always waving his hand at, and devoted to such enjoyments. And in the cheering, an array of open carriages escorted customs belonging to these, as in many other by out-riders in green and gold; and no one easy and gracious customs, the Mooninians' echoing the child's acclamation. Occasional are highly deserving of imitation among ourdeference in carriages, occasional curiosity on selves. I have never had far to go, unless I foot, occasional adulation from foreigners, I have been particularly hard to please; a

noticed in that connection, in that place; but, four great streams of determined indifference I always saw flowing up and down; and I never, in six months, knew a hand or heard a voice to come in real aid of the child.

dozen houses at the utmost. A spring evening is in my mind when I sauntered from my dinner into one of these resorts, hap-hazard. The thoroughfare in which it stood, was not as wide as the Strand in London, by SomerI am not a lonely man, though I was once set House; the houses were no larger and a lonely boy; but that was long ago. The no better than are to be found in that place; Mooninian capital, however, is the place for the climate (we find ours a convenient scapelonely men to dwell in. I have tried it, and goat) had been, for months, quite as cold and have condemned myself to solitary free- wet, and very very often almost as dark, as dom expressly for the purpose. I some- the climate in the Strand. The place into times like to pretend to be childless and which I turned, had been there all the winter companionless, and to wonder whether, if I just as it was then. It was like a Strandwere really so, I should be glad to find shop, with the front altogether taken away. somebody to ask me out to dinner, instead of Within, it was Somebo sanded, prettily painted and living under constant terror of weakly papered, decorated with mirrors and glass making engagements that I don't want to chandeliers for gas; furnished with little make. Hence, I have been into many Mooni- round stone tables, crimson stools, and crimnian restaurants as a lonely man. The com- son benches. It was made much more tasteful pany have regarded me as an unfortunate (at the cost of three and fourpence a-week) by person of that description. The paternal two elegant baskets of flowers on pedestals. character, occupying the next table with two An inner raised-floor, answering to the back little boys whose legs were difficult of ad- shop in the Strand, was partitioned off with ministration in a narrow space, as never being glass, for those who might prefer to read the the right legs in the right places, has regarded papers and play at dominoes, in an atmosme, at first, with looks of envy. When the little phere free from tobacco-smoke. There, in boys have indecorously inflated themselves her neat little tribune, sits the Lady of the

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out of the seltzer-water bottle, I have seen Counter, surrounded at her needlework by discomfiture and social shame on that Mooni- lump-sugar and little punch-bowls. To nian's brow. Meanwhile I have sat majesti- whom I touch my hat; she graciously cally using my tooth-pick, in silent assertion acknowledging the salute. Forth from her of my counterfeit superiority. And yet it side comes a pleasant waiter, scrupulously has been good to see how that family Mooni- clean, brisk, attentive, honest: a man to be nian has vanquished me in the long-run. I very obliging to me, but expecting me to have never got so red in the face over my be obliging in return, and whom I cannot meat and wine, as he. I have never warmed bully-which is no deprivation to me, as I up into such enjoyment of my meal as he has don't at all want to do it. He brings me, at of his. I have never forgotten the legs of the my request, my cup of coffee and cigar, and, little boys, whereas from that Mooninian's of his own motion, a small decanter of soul they have quickly walked into oblivion. brandy and a liqueur-glass. He gives me a And when, at last, under the ripening influ- light, and leaves me to my enjoyment. The ence of dinner, those boys have both together place from which the shop-front has been pulled at that Mooninian's waistcoat (implor- taken makes a gay proscenium; as I sit ing him, as I conceived, to take them to the and smoke, the street becomes a stage, with play-house, next door but one), I have shrunk an endless procession of lively actors crossing under the glance he has given me; so empha- and re-crossing. Women with children, carts tically has it said, with the virtuous farmer in and coaches, men on horseback, soldiers, the English domestic comedy, "Dang it, water-carriers with their pails, family Squoire, can'ee doa thic!" (I may explain groups, more soldiers, lounging exquisites, in a parenthesis that "thic," which the virtu- more family groups (coming past, flushed, a ous farmer can do and the squire can't, is to little too late for the play), stone-masons lay his hand upon his heart-a result opposed leaving work on the new buildings and playto my experience in actual life, where the hum- ing tricks with one another as they go along, bugs are always able to lay their hands upon two lovers, more soldiers, wonderfully neat their hearts, and do it far oftener and much young women from shops, carrying flat boxes better than the virtuous men.) to customers; a seller of cool drink, with the

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drink in a crimson velvet temple at his back, where the bodies of all persons discovered

and a waistcoat of tumblers on; boys, dogs, more soldiers, horse-riders strolling to the Circus in amazing shirts of private life, and yellow kid gloves; family groups; pickersup of refuse, with baskets at their backs and hooked rods in their hands to fill them with; more neat young women, more soldiers.

dead, with no clue to their identity upon them, are placed, to be seen by all who chose to go and look at them. All the world knows this custom, and perhaps all the world knows that the bodies lie on inclined planes within a great glass window, as though Holbein should represent Death, in his grim

The gas begins to spring up in the street; Dance, keeping a shop, and displaying his and my brisk waiter lighting our gas, en-goods like a Regent Street or Boulevard shrines me, like an idol, in a sparkling temple. linen-draper. But, all the world may not A family group come in: father and mother have had the means of remarking perhaps, as and little child. Two short-throated old I by chance have had from time to time, ladies come in, who will pocket their spare some of the accidental peculiarities of the

sugar, and out of whom I foresee that the establishment will get as little profit as possible. Workman in his common frock comes in; orders his small bottle of beer, and lights his pipe. We are all amused, sitting seeing

place. The keeper seems to be fond of birds. In fair weather, there is always a cage outside his little window, and a something singing within it as such a something sang, thousands of ages ago, before ever a man

the traffic in the street, and the traffic in the died on this earth. The spot is sunny in the street is in its turn amused by seeing us. It forenoon, and, there being a little open space is surely better for me, and for the family there, and a market for fruit and vegetables group, and for the two old ladies, and for close at hand, and a way to the Great Cathethe workman, to have thus much of commu-dral past the door, is a reasonably good nity with the city life of all degrees, than to spot for mountebanks. Accordingly, I have be getting bilious in hideous black-holes, and often found Paillasse there, balancing a knife turning cross and suspicious in solitary places! or a straw upon his nose, with such intentI may never say a word to any of these ness that he has almost backed himself in at people in my life, nor they to me; but, we are the doorway. The learned owls have elicited all interchanging enjoyment frankly and great mirth there, within my hearing, and openly-not fencing ourselves off and boxing once the performing dog who had wait in ourselves up. We are forming a habit of his part, came and peeped in, with a red jacket mutual consideration and allowance; and on, while I was alone in the contemplation of this institution of the café (for all my enter- five bodies, one with a bullet through the tainment and pleasure in which, I pay ten- temple. It happened, on another occasion, pence), is a part of the civilised system that that a handsome youth lay in front in the requires the giant to fall into his own place centre of the window, and that a press of in a crowd, and will not allow him to take people behind me rendered it a difficult and the dwarf's; and which renders the com- slow process to get out. As I gave place to

monest person as certain of retaining his or her commonest seat in any public assembly, as the marquis is of holding his stall at the Opera through the evening.

There were many things among the Mooninians that might be changed for the better, and there were many things that they might learn from us. They could teach us, for all

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the man at my right shoulder, he slipped into the position I had occupied, with his attention so concentrated on the dead figure that he seemed unaware of the change of place. I never saw a plainer expression than that upon his features, or one that struck more enduringly into my remembrance. He was an evil-looking fellow of two or three

that, how to make and keep a Park-which and twenty, and had his left hand at the we have been accustomed to think ourselves draggled ends of his cravat, which he had rather learned in-and how to trim up our put to his mouth, and his right hand feeling ornamental streets, a dozen times a-day, with in his breast. His head was a little on one scrubbing-brushes, and sponges, and soap, and side; his eyes were intently fixed upon the chloride of lime. As to the question of sweet- figure. "Now, if I were to give that pretty ness within doors, doors, I would rather not have young fellow, my rival, a stroke with a put my own residence, even under the per- hatchet on the back of the head, or were to petual influence of peat charcoal, in competi- tumble him over into the river by night, he tion with the cheapest model lodging-house would look pretty much like that, I am in England. And one strange sight, which I thinking!" He could not have said it more have contemplated many a time during the plainly; -I have always an idea that he went last dozen years, I think is not so well away and did it. arranged in the Mooninian capital as in It is wonderful to see the people at this London, even though our coroners hold their place. Cheery married women, basket in dread courts at the little public-houses-a hand, strolling in, on their way to or from the custom which I am of course prepared to hear buying of the day's dinner; children in arms is, and which I know beforehand must be, one with little pointing fingers; young girls; of the Bulwarks of the British Constitution. prowling boys; comrades in working, sol

I am thinking of the Mooninian Morgue diering, or what not. Ninety-nine times in a hundred, nobody about to cross the threshold, in expectation, and calls forth rapturons

looking in the faces coming out, could form the least idea, from anything in their expression, of the nature of the sight. I have studied them attentively, and have reason for saying so.

But, I never derived so strange a sensation from this dismal establishment as on going in there once, and finding the keeper moving about among the bodies. I never saw any living creature in among them, before or since, and the wonder was that he looked so much more ghastly and intolerable than the dead, stark people. There is a strong light

hurrahs from the throng of passengers who crowd to the forecastle. If it be day, the eye rests on its lofty forest hills with a quiet and singular delight. These heights fully respond to the ideal of a new land only recently peopled. Clothed with forests from the margin of the sea to their very summits, they realise vividly the approach to a vast region of primæval nature. The tall white stems of the gum-trees stand thickly side by side like so many hoary columns; and, here and there amongst them descend dark ravines; while piles of rocks on the heights, alternating with

from above, and a general cold, clammy jagged chines and projecting spurs of the aspect; and I think that with the first start mountains, present their solitary masses to of seeing him must have come the impression the breeze of ocean.

that the bodies were all getting up! It was Amongst the rocks of this wild shore there instantaneous; but he looked horribly incon- are sea-caves of vast extent and solemn gruous there, even after it had departed. All aspect, which have never yet been thoroughly about him was a library of mysterious books explored. The forest extending fifty miles or that I have often had my eyes on. From more, in all directions, is one of the most dense pegs and hooks and rods, hang, for a certain and savage in the whole colony. Until time, the clothes of the dead who have been lately it was almost impassable from the buried without recognition. They mostly density of the scrub, and from the thick have been taken off people who were found in masses of vines (that is lianas, or creeping the water, and are swollen (as the people cord-like plants, chiefly parasitical), which, as often are) out of shape and likeness. Such in the forests of South America, climb from awful boots, with turned-up toes, and sand tree to tree, knitting the woods into an and gravel clinging to them, shall be seen in obscure and impenetrable shade. Excepting no other collection of dress; nor, such neck- along the track from Mr. Roadknight's cloths, long and lank, still retaining the form station, near the sources of the Barwar, of having been wrung out; nor, such slimy through the heart of the forest to Apollo garments with puffed legs and arms; nor, Bay, a distance of forty miles, you might cut such hats and caps that have been battered your way with an axe; but would find it against pile and bridge; nor, such dreadful difficult to make progress otherwise. The rags. Whose work ornaments that decent greater part of the promontory-consisting of blouse; who sewed that shirt? And the man steep hills covered with gigantic trees interwho wore it. Did he ever stand at this sected by shelving valleys, and dark with window wondering, as I do, what sleepers congregated fern-trees, beetling precipices, shall be brought to these beds, and whether and stony declivities-affords no food for wonderers as to who should occupy them, cattle. In one day, however, known to the have come to be laid down here themselves? colonists as Black Thursday, a hurricane of London! Please to get your tickets ready, flame opened its rude and impracticable wilgentlemen! I must have a coach. And dernesses to the foot of man': but presented that reminds me, how much better they him, at the same time, with a black and manage coaches for the public in the capital blasted chaos of charred trees, and gigantic of the Mooninians! But, it is done by Central- fallen trunks and branches. isation! somebody shrieks to me from some It was in this forest, in the early morning of vestry's topmost height. Then, my good sir, this memorable day, the sixth of February, let us have Centralisation. It is a long word, eighteen hundred and fifty-one, that a young but I am not at all afraid of long words when man opened his eyes and sate up to look about they represent efficient things. Circumlocu- him. He had, the day before, driven a herd tion is a long word, but it represents in- of fifty bullocks from the station of Mr. Roadefficiency; inefficiency in everything; in- knight thus far on his way towards his own efficiency from the state coach to my hackney residence in the country, between Lake

cab.

BLACK THURSDAY.

Corangamite and Mount Gellibrand. He had reached at evening a small grassy valley in the outskirts of the forest watered by a creek falling into the western Barwar; and had

As the voyager approaches the shores of there paused for the night. His mob of cattle, Victoria, the first welcome land which greets tired and hungry, were not inclined to stray him is the bold promontory of Cap Cape Otway, from the rich pasturage before them; and, If it be at night, the blaze from the light-hobbling out his splendid black horse Sorcerer, house on its southern point sends him its he prepared to pass the night in the simple cheering welcome for many a league across fashion of the settler on such journeys. A the ocean which he has so long traversed fallen log supplied him with a convenient

seat, a fire was quickly lit from the dead boughs which lay plentifully around, and his quart-pot, replenished at the creek, was soon hissing and bubbling with its side thrust into the glowing fire. He had a good store of kangaroo-sandwiches, and there he sat with his cup of strong bush-tea; looking alternately at the grazing cattle, and into the solemn, gloomy, and soundless woods, in which even the laughing jackass failed to shout his clamorous adieu to the falling day. Only the distant monotone of the morepork

forest one intricate, impenetrable scene. All was hushed as at midnight. No bird enlivened the solitude by its cries, and they had left the little stream. Suddenly there came a puff of air; but it was like the air from the jaws of a furnace, hot, dry, withering in its very touch. The young settler looked quickly in the direction from which it came, and instantly shouted to the cattle before him, in a wild, abrupt, startling shout, swung aloft the stock-whip which he held in his hand, and brought it down with the report of a pistol, and the

the nocturnal cuckoo of the Australian wilds sharp cut as with a knife, on the ear of the -reached his ear; making the profound huge bullock just before him. The stocksolitude still more solitary. He very soon | whip, with a handle about a half a yard long rolled himself in his travelling-rug, and flung and a thong of three yards long, of plaited himself down before the fire- having pre- bullock-hide, is a terrible instrument in the viously piled a fresh supply of timber upon it hands of a practised stockman. Its sound is -near where his trusty dogs lay, and where the note of terror to the cattle, it is like the Sorcerer, in the favourite fashion of the bush-report of a blunderbuss, and the stockman at horse, slept as he stood.

full gallop will hit any given spot on the

The morning was hushed and breathless. beast that he is within reach of, and cut the Instead of that bracing chill, with which the piece clean away through the thickest hide Australian lodger out of doors generally wakes that bull or bison ever wore. He will up, Robert Patterson found the perspiration strike a fly on a spot of mud at full speed, standing thick on his face, and he felt a and take away the skin with him, making strange longing for a deep breath of fresh air. the rosy blood spring into the wind, and But motion there was none, except in the the astonished animal dart forward as if little creek which trickled with a fresh and mad.

inviting aspect at a few yards from him. He Loud and louder, wilder and more fiercely arose, and stripping, plunged into the deepest shouted the squatter, and dashed his horse spot of it that he could find; and thus re-forward over fallen trees; through crashfreshed, rekindled his fire, and made his soli- |ing thickets, first on one side of the road, and tary breakfast. But all around him hung, as then on the other. Crack, crack, went the it were, a leaden and death-like heaviness. stinging, slashing whip; loud was the bark Not a bough nor a blade of grass was moved of dogs; and the mob of cattle rushed for. by the air. The trees stood inanimately wards at headlong speed. The young man moody and sullen. He cast his eyes through gazed upward; and, through the only narthe gloomy shadow beneath them, and a row opening of the forest saw strange volumes sultry, suffocating density seemed to charge of smoke rolling southward. Hotter, hotter, the atmosphere. The sky above him was stronger and more steadily came the wind. dimmed by a grey haze.

"There is something in the wind to-day, old fellow," he said, addressing his horse in his usual way; for he had long looked on him as a companion, and firmly believed that he understood all that he said to him. "There is something in the wind: yet, where is the wind?"

The perspiration streamed from him with the mere exertion of saddling his horse, and, as he mounted him to rouse up his cattle. Horse, dogs, and cattle, manifested a listlessness that only an extraordinary condition of the atmosphere could produce. If you had seen the tall, handsome young man seated on his tall and noble horse, you would have felt that they were together formed for any exploit of strength and speed. But the whole troop-cattle, man, and horse-went slowly and soberly along, as if they were oppressed by a great fatigue or the extreme exhaustion of famine.

He suddenly checked his horse, and listening, grew pale at the sound which reached him. It was a low deep roar, as of a wind in the tree-tops, or of a heavy water-fall, distant, and smothered in some deep ravine.

"God have mercy!" he exclaimed, " a bush fire! and in this thick forest!" Once more he sprang forward, shouting, thundering with his whip. He and the herd were galloping along the narrow wood track. But, as he had turned westward in the direction of his home, the woods-of which he had before seen the boundary-now closed for some miles upon him; and, as he could not turn right or left for the chaos of vines and scrub that obstructed the forest, the idea of being overtaken there by the bush-fire was horrible. Such an event would be death, and death only.

Therefore, he urged on his flying herd with desperation. Crack upon crack from his long whip, resounded through the hollow wood.

The forest closed in upon them again, and The cattle themselves seemed to hear the they proceeded along a narrow track, flanked ominous sound, and sniff the now strongly on each side by tall and densely-growing perceptible smell of burning. The roar of trees; the creeping vines making of the whole the fire came louder, and ever and anon