双城记 Book1-4a The Preparation
WHEN the mail got successfully to Dover, in the course of theforenoon, the head drawer at the Royal George Hotel opened thecoach-door as his custom was. He did it with some flourish ofceremony, for a mail journey from London in winter was anachievement to congratulate an adventurous traveller upon.
By that time, there was only one adventurous traveller leftto be congratulated; for the two others had been set down attheir respective roadside destinations. The mildewy inside ofthe coach, with its damp and dirty straw, its disagreeablesmell, and its obscurity, was rather like a larger dog-kennel.
Mr. Lorry, the passenger, shaking himself out of it in chainsof straw, a tangle of shaggy wrapper, flapping hat, and muddylegs, was rather like a larger sort of dog.
`There will be a packet to Calais, to-morrow, drawer?'
`Yes, sir, if the weather holds and the wind sets tolerablefair. The tide will serve pretty nicely at about two in theafternoon, sir. Bed, sir?'
`I shall not go to bed till night; but I want a bedroom and abarber.'
`And then breakfast, sir? Yes, sir. That way, sir, if youplease. Show Concord! Gentleman's valise and hot water toConcord. Pull off gentleman's boots in Concord. (You will finda fine sea-coal fire, sir.) Fetch barber to Concord. Stirabout there, now, for Concord!'
The Concord bed-chamber being always assigned to passenger bythe mail, and passengers by the mail being always heavilywrapped up from head to foot, the room ha' the odd interestfor the establishment of the Royal George that although butone kind of man was seen to go into it, all kinds andvarieties of men came out of it. Consequently another drawer,and two porters, and several maids and the landlady, were allloitering by accident at various points of the road betweenthe Concord and the coffee-room, when a gentle-man of sixty,formally dressed in a brown suit of clothes, pretty well worn,but very well kept, with large square cuffs and large flaps tothe pockets, passed along on his way to his breakfast.
The coffee-room had no other occupant, that forenoon, thanthe gentleman in brown. His breakfast-table was drawn beforethe fire, and as he sat, with its light shining on him,waiting for the meal, he sat so still, that he might have beensitting for his portrait.
Very orderly and methodical he looked, with a hand on eachknee, and a loud watch ticking a sonorous sermon under hisflapped waistcoat, as though it pitted its gravity andlongevity against the levity and evanescence of the briskfire. He had a good leg, and was a little vain of it, for hisbrown stockings fitted sleek and close, and were of a finetexture; his shoes and buckles, too, though plain, were trim.
He wore an odd little sleek crisp flaxen wig, setting veryclose to his head: which wig, it is to be presumed, was madeof hair, but which looked far more as though it were spun fromfilaments of silk or glass. His linen, though not of afineness in accordance with his stockings, was as white as thetops of the waves that broke upon the neighbouring beach, orthe specks of sail that glinted in the sunlight far at sea. Aface habitually suppressed and quieted, was still lighted upunder the quaint wig by a pair of moist bright eyes that itmust have cost their owner, in years gone by, some pains todrill to the composed and reserved expression of Tellson'sBank. He had a healthy colour in his cheeks, and his face,though lined, bore few traces of anxiety.
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