WHERE IS MY TRUNK?
It is well known in Scotland that the road from Edinburgh to Dundee, though only forty-three miles in extent, is rendered tedious and troublesome by the interposition of two arms of the sea, namely, the Friths of Forth and Tay, one of which is seven, and the other three miles across. Several rapid and well-conducted stage-coaches travel upon this road; but, from their frequent loading and unloading at the ferries, there is not only considerable delay to the travellers, but also rather more than the usual risk of damage and loss to their luggage. On one occasion it happened that the common chances against the safety of a traveller’s integuments were multiplied in a mysterious, but most amusing manner—as the following little narrative will show.
The gentleman in question was an inside passenger—a very tall man, which was so much the worse for him in that situation—and it appeared that his whole baggage consisted of a single black trunk—one of medium size, and no way remarkable in appearance. On our leaving Edinburgh, this trunk had been disposed in the boot of the coach, amidst a great variety of other trunks, bundles, and carpet bags, belonging to the rest of the passengers.
Having arrived at Newhaven, the luggage was brought forth from the coach, and disposed upon a barrow, in order that it might be taken down to the steam-boat which wasto convey us across. Just as the barrow was moving off, the tall gentleman said,
“Guard, have you got my trunk?”
“Oh, yes, sir,” answered the guard; “you may be sure it’s there.”
“Not so sure of that,” quoth the gentleman; “whereabouts is it?”
The guard poked into the barrow, and looked in vain among the numberless articles for the trunk. At length, after he had noozled about for two or three minutes through all the holes and corners of the mass of integuments, he drew out his head, like a terrier tired of earthing a badger, and seemed a little nonplussed.
“Why, here it is in the boot!” exclaimed the passenger, “snug at the bottom, where it might have remained, I suppose, for you, till safely returned to the coach-yard in Edinburgh.”
The guard made an awkward apology, put the trunk upon the barrow, and away we all went to the steam-boat.
Nothing farther occurred till we were all standing beside the coach at Pettycur, ready to proceed on our journey through Fife.
Every thing seemed to have been stowed into the coach, and most of the passengers had taken their proper places, when the tall gentleman cried out,
“Guard, where is my trunk?”
“In the boot, sir,” answered the guard; “you may depend upon that.”
“I have not seen it put in,” said the passenger, “and I don’t believe it is there.”
“Oh, sir,” said the guard, quite distressed, “there can surely be no doubt about the trunk now.”
“There! I declare—there!” cried the owner of the missing property; “my trunk is still lying down yonder upon the sands. Don’t you see it? The sea, I declare, is just about reaching it. What a careless set of porters!I protest I never was so treated on any journey before.”
The trunk was instantly rescued from its somewhat perilous situation, and, all having been at length put to rights, we went on our way to Cupar.
Here the coach stops a few minutes at the inn, and there is generally a partial discharge of passengers. As some individuals, on the present occasion, had to leave the coach, there was a slight discomposure of the luggage, and various trunks and bundles were presently seen departing on the backs of porters, after the gentlemen to whom they belonged. After all seemed to have been again put to rights, the tall gentleman made his wonted inquiry respecting his trunk.
“The trunk, sir,” said the guard, rather pettishly, “is in the boot.”
“Not a bit of it,” said its owner, who in the meantime had been peering about. “There it lies in the lobby of the inn!”
The guard now began to think that this trunk was in some way bewitched, and possessed a power, unenjoyed by other earthly trunks, of removing itself or staying behind, according to its own good pleasure.
“The Lord have a care o’ us!” cried the astonished custodier of baggage, who, to do him justice, seemed an exceedingly sober and attentive person. “The Lord have a care o’ us, sir! That trunk’s no canny.”[8]
“It’scannyenough, you fool,” said the gentleman sharply; “but only you don’t pay proper attention to it.”
The fact was, that the trunk had been taken out of the coach and placed in the lobby, in order to allow of certain other articles being got at which lay beneath. It was now once more stowed away, and we set forward upon the remaining part of our journey, hoping that there would beno more disturbance about this pestilent member of the community of trunks. All was right till we came to the lonely inn of St Michael’s, where a side-road turns off to St Andrew’s, and where it happened that a passenger had to leave us to walk to that seat of learning, a servant having been in waiting to carry his luggage.
The tall gentleman, hearing a bustle about the boot, projected his immensely long slender body through the coach window, in order, like the lady in the fairy tale, to see what he could see.
“Hollo, fellow!” cried he to the servant following the gentleman down the St Andrew’s road; “is not that my trunk? Come back, if you please, and let me inspect it.”
“The trunk, sir,” interposed the guard, in a sententious manner, “is that gemman’s trunk, and not yours: yours is in the boot.”
“We’ll make sure of that, Mr Guard, if you please. Come back, my good fellow, and let me see the trunk you have got with you.”
The trunk was accordingly brought back, and, to the confusion of the guard, who had thought himself fairly infallible for this time, it was the tall man’s property, as clear as brass nails could make it.
The trunk was now the universal subject of talk, both inside and outside, and every body said he would be surprised if it got to its journey’s end in safety. All agreed that it manifested a most extraordinary disposition to be lost, stolen, or strayed, but yet every one thought that there was a kind of special providence about it, which kept it on the right road after all; and, therefore, it became a fair subject of debate, whether the chancesagainst, or the chancesfor, were likely to prevail.
Before we arrived at Newport, where we had to go on board the ferry steam-boat for Dundee, the conversation had gone into other channels, and, each being engaged about his own concerns, no one thought any more aboutthe trunk, till just as the barrow was descending along the pier, the eternal long man cried out,
“Guard, have you got my trunk?”
“Oh, yes,” cried the guard very promptly; “I’ve taken care of it now. There it is on the top of all.”
“It’s no such thing,” cried a gentleman who had come into the coach at Cupar; “that’smytrunk.”
Every body then looked about for the enchanted trunk; the guard ran back, and once more searched the boot, which he knew to have been searched to the bottom before; and the tall gentleman gazed over land, water, and sky, in quest of his necessary property.
“Well, guard,” cried he at length, “what a pretty fellow you are! There, don’t you see?—there’s my trunk thrust into the shed like a piece of lumber!”
And so it really was. At the head of the pier at Newport there is a shed, with seats within, where people wait for the ferry-boats; and there,perdubeneath a form, lay the enchanted trunk, having been so disposed, in the bustle of unloading, by means which nobody could pretend to understand. The guard, with a half-frightened look, approached the awful object, and soon placed it with the other things on board the ferry-boat.
On our landing at Dundee pier, the proprietor of the trunk saw so well after it himself, that it was evident no accident was for this time to be expected. However, it appeared that this was only a lull to our attention. The tall gentleman was to go on to Aberdeen by a coach then just about to start from Merchant’s Inn; while I, for my part, was to proceed by another coach, which was about to proceed from the same place to Perth. A great bustle took place in the narrow street at the inn door, and some of my late fellow-travellers were getting into the one coach, and some into the other. The Aberdeen coach was soonest prepared to start, and, just as the guard cried “all’s right,” the long figure devolved from the window, and said, in an anxious tone of voice,
“Guard, have you got my trunk?”
“Your trunk, sir!” cried the man; “what like is your trunk?—we have nothing here but bags and baskets.”
“Heaven preserve me!” exclaimed the unfortunate gentleman, and burst out of the coach.
It immediately appeared that the trunk had been deposited by mistake in the Perth, instead of the Aberdeen coach; and unless the owner had spoken, it would have been, in less than an hour, half way up the Carse of Gowrie. A transfer was immediately made, to the no small amusement of myself and one or two other persons in both coaches who had witnessed its previous misadventures on the road through Fife. Seeing a friend on the Aberdeen vehicle, I took an opportunity of privately requesting that he would, on arriving at his destination, send me an account by post of all the further mistakes and dangers which were sure to befall the trunk in the course of the journey. To this he agreed, and, about a week after, I received the following letter:—
“Dear——,“All went well with myself, my fellow travellers, andthe Trunk, till we had got a few miles on this side of Stonehaven, when, just as we were passing one of the boggiest parts of the whole of that boggy road, an unfortunate lurch threw us over upon one side, and the exterior passengers, along with several heavy articles of luggage, were all projected several yards off into the morass. As the place was rather soft, nobody was much hurt; but, after every thing had been again put to rights, the tall man put some two-thirds of himself through the coach window, in his usual manner, and asked the guard if he was sure the trunk was safe in the boot.“‘Oh Lord, sir!’ cried the guard, as if a desperate idea had at that moment rushed into his mind; ‘the trunk was on the top. Has nobody seen it lying about any where?’“‘If it be a trunk ye’re looking after,’ cried a rustic,very coolly, ‘I saw it sink into that well-ee[9]a quarter of an hour syne.’“‘Good God!’ exclaimed the distracted owner, ‘my trunk is gone for ever. Oh, my poor dear trunk!—where is the place—show me where it disappeared!’“The place being pointed out, he rushed madly up to it, and seemed as if he would have plunged into the watery profound to search for his lost property, or die in the attempt. Being informed that the bogs in this part of the country were perfectly bottomless, he soon saw how vain every endeavour of that kind would be; and so he was with difficulty induced to resume his place in the coach, loudly threatening, however, to make the proprietors of the vehicle pay sweetly for his loss.“What was in the trunk, I have not been able to learn. Perhaps the title-deeds of an estate were among the contents; perhaps it was only filled with bricks and rags, in order to impose upon the innkeepers. In all likelihood, the mysterious object is still descending and descending, like the angel’s hatchet in Rabbinical story, down the groundless abyss: in which case its contents will not probably be revealed till a great many things of more importance and equal mystery are made plain.”
“Dear——,
“All went well with myself, my fellow travellers, andthe Trunk, till we had got a few miles on this side of Stonehaven, when, just as we were passing one of the boggiest parts of the whole of that boggy road, an unfortunate lurch threw us over upon one side, and the exterior passengers, along with several heavy articles of luggage, were all projected several yards off into the morass. As the place was rather soft, nobody was much hurt; but, after every thing had been again put to rights, the tall man put some two-thirds of himself through the coach window, in his usual manner, and asked the guard if he was sure the trunk was safe in the boot.
“‘Oh Lord, sir!’ cried the guard, as if a desperate idea had at that moment rushed into his mind; ‘the trunk was on the top. Has nobody seen it lying about any where?’
“‘If it be a trunk ye’re looking after,’ cried a rustic,very coolly, ‘I saw it sink into that well-ee[9]a quarter of an hour syne.’
“‘Good God!’ exclaimed the distracted owner, ‘my trunk is gone for ever. Oh, my poor dear trunk!—where is the place—show me where it disappeared!’
“The place being pointed out, he rushed madly up to it, and seemed as if he would have plunged into the watery profound to search for his lost property, or die in the attempt. Being informed that the bogs in this part of the country were perfectly bottomless, he soon saw how vain every endeavour of that kind would be; and so he was with difficulty induced to resume his place in the coach, loudly threatening, however, to make the proprietors of the vehicle pay sweetly for his loss.
“What was in the trunk, I have not been able to learn. Perhaps the title-deeds of an estate were among the contents; perhaps it was only filled with bricks and rags, in order to impose upon the innkeepers. In all likelihood, the mysterious object is still descending and descending, like the angel’s hatchet in Rabbinical story, down the groundless abyss: in which case its contents will not probably be revealed till a great many things of more importance and equal mystery are made plain.”
END OF THE VOLUME.
Printed by W. and R.Chambers,19, Waterloo Place, Edinburgh.
FOOTNOTES:[8]Not innocent—a phrase applied by the common people in Scotland to any thing which they suppose invested with supernatural powers of a noxious kind.[9]The orifice of a deep pool in a morass is so called in Scotland.
[8]Not innocent—a phrase applied by the common people in Scotland to any thing which they suppose invested with supernatural powers of a noxious kind.
[8]Not innocent—a phrase applied by the common people in Scotland to any thing which they suppose invested with supernatural powers of a noxious kind.
[9]The orifice of a deep pool in a morass is so called in Scotland.
[9]The orifice of a deep pool in a morass is so called in Scotland.