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Great people these in drawing-rooms or clubs; greater still in the remote Irish villages which their names still dominate; but not particularly great on the Euston platform, for there is little respect of persons there as the time of the train's departure draws near. A porter pushed his barrow, heavy with trunks and crowned with gun-cases, against the legs of an earl, who swore.
Nothing could be more complete, but I found my watchful old "bearer" already at work raising all my trunks, gun-cases, and other possessions on little stilts of bamboo, for his quick eye had detected signs of white ants.
At 2 A.M. I retired to sleep on a comfortable bed. There was a great smell of newness about certain articles in the bedroom, such as haversacks, knapsacks, portmanteaus, leather gun-cases, &c. Evidently the new Expedition had some crudities about it; but a journey into the interior would soon have lessened the stock of superfluities, which all new men at first load themselves with.
Smelling-bottles, pocket-handkerchiefs, flasks, pocket-books, gun-cases, portmanteaux, books, cigar cases, etcetera, enough to have stocked a gigantic curiosity shop, and there were several articles which one could not account for having been forgotten on any other supposition than that the owners were travelling maniacs.
Dogs, gun-cases, cartridge-boxes, men and maid servants, trunks, bags, baskets, bunches of grouse, and the passengers seemed in a chaotic huddle of confusion. In Germany at least twenty policemen would have been needed to disentangle us. I was so torpid from having been long Teutonically cared for, that I looked on momentarily paralyzed.
We are allowed to take hand-luggage into the carriage, and we take such a broad view of the word that it means with us dressing-bags, suit-cases, tennis-rackets, gun-cases, polo-sticks, golf-clubs, and as much more as the compartment will hold. The station, when we reached it yesterday, was crammed with natives squatting so thick on the platform one could hardly move without treading on them.
Count Westphal sent invitations far and wide to call his hunting friends together. Before the arrival of the Duke, carriage after carriage entered the courtyard; oceans of fur-coats, gun-cases, valises, bags, and fur-lined rugs were thrown about in the hall, to be sorted out afterward.
Moccasins were cut extra large and high, and lined with fur of the hare. Heavy rawhide dog-whips and buckskin gun-cases completed the simple winter outfit. But still there remained the question of sustenance. Game would be scarce and uncertain in the cold months. It was now seven weeks since Dick's accident. Cautiously, with many pauses, he began to rest weight on the injured foot.
The Major was a masterful man; and I knew that he would not give orders for nothing. So I obeyed, and on return found the Major packed up in an ekka gun-cases and food slung below all ready for a shooting-trip. He dismissed the driver and drove himself. We jogged along quietly while in the station; but as soon as we got to the dusty road across the plains, he made that pony fly.
What a day was that last day at home, when the tall brother sat yet amongst the family, the little ones round about him wondering at saddle-boxes, uniforms, sword-cases, gun-cases, and other wondrous apparatus of war and travel which poured in and filled the hall; the new dressing-case for the beard not yet grown; the great sword-case at which little brother Tom looks so admiringly!
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