After much serious deliberation, it was finally arranged that Postlethwaite should lead the pony on to the "smiddy," at Loweswater, to be shod, and then ride him over to Dodgson's, the grocer's, at Cockermouth.
Postlethwaite, already tired, and, it must be confessed, not a little vexed at the refusal of Mr. Sandboys to permit him to accompany his fellow-villagers on this London trip—the greatest event of all their lives—started very sulky, and came back, long after dusk, with the pony lamed by a stone in his foot, and himself savage with hunger, and almost rebellious with fatigue; for, on getting to the "smiddy," he found that Beck the blacksmith had ruddled on his door the inscription—
"Geane to Lunnon for to see t' Girt 'Shibition!"
and, worse than all to Postlethwaite, he discovered, moreover, on seeking his usual ale at Kirkstile, that Harry Pearson, the landlord, had accompanied the Buttermere travellers' train up to town; and that John Wilkinson, the other landlord, had followed him the day after; so that there was neither bite nor sup to be had in the place, and no entertainment either for man or beast.
In pity to Paddy, if not in remembrance of the farmer's good cheer, Postlethwaite, on his way back, turned down to Joe Watson's, at Lanthwaite, and there found it impossible to make anybody hear him, for the farmer and his six noble-looking sons—known for miles round as the flower of the country—had also joined the sight-seers on their way to the train at Cockermouth.
This was sad news to the little household. It was the first incident that gave Mrs. Sandboys an insight into the possible difficulties that their remaining behind, alone, at Hassness, might entail upon the family. She, and Mr. Sandboys, had hitherto only thought of the inconveniences attending a visit to London, and little dreamt that their absence from it, at such a time, might force them to undergo even greater troubles. She could perhaps have cheerfully tolerated the abdication of the Cockermouth milliner—she might have heard, without a sigh, that Mr. Bailey had put up the shutters of his circulating library, and stopped the supply of "Henrietta Temples," "Emilia Wyndhams," and "The Two Old Men;" she might not even have complained had Thompson Martin, the draper, cut short her ribbons and laces, by shutting up his shop altogether—but to have taken away her tea and sugar, was more than a lady in the vale of years, and the valley of Buttermere, could be expected to endure, without some outrage to philosophy!
The partiality of the sex in general for their morning and evening cup of souchong and "best refined," is now ranked by physiologists among those inscrutable instincts of sentient nature, which are beyond the reach of scientific explanation. What oil is to the Esquimaux, what the juice of the cocoa-nut is to the monkey, what water is to the fish, what dew is to the flower, and what milk is to the cat—so is tea to woman! No person yet, in our own country, has propounded any sufficient theory to account for the English washerwomen's all-absorbing
