"Yes," said the boy. He spoke the yes in English.
"Are you going to Berne?" asked Rollo.
"I don't know," said the boy.
The girl, who had been looking at Rollo during this conversation, here spoke, and said that they were going to Berne.
"We are going in that diligence," said she.
"So am I," said Rollo. "I have got a seat on the banquette."
"Yes," rejoined the boy. "I wished to have a seat on the banquette, so that I could see; but the seats were all engaged before my father went to the office; so we are going in the coupe; but I don't like it half so well."
"Nor I," said the girl.
"Where is your father?" asked Rollo.
"He is gone," replied the boy, "with mother to buy something at a shop a little way from here. Lottie and I were tired, and so we preferred to stay here. But they are coming back pretty soon."
"Are you all going to ride in the coupe?" said Rollo; "because, there will not be room. There is only room for three in the coupe."
"I know it," said Lottie; "but then, as two of us are children, father thought that we could get along. Father had a plan for getting Adolphus a seat in the interior; but he was not willing to go there, because, he said, he could not see."
Just at this moment the father and mother of Adolphus and Lottie came up the archway into the court yard where the diligence was standing. The horses had been brought out some minutes before and were now nearly harnessed. The gentleman seemed to be quite in a hurry as he came up; and, seeing that the horses were nearly ready, he said,-
"Now, children, get in and take your places as soon as possible."
So they all went to the coach, and the gentleman attempted to open the door leading to the coupe. It was fastened.
"Conductor," said he, speaking very eagerly to the conductor, who was standing near, "open this door!"
"There is plenty of time," said the conductor. "There is no need of haste."
However, in obedience to the request of the gentleman, the conductor opened the door; and the gentleman, helping his wife in, first, afterwards lifted the children in, and then got in himself. The conductor shut the door.
"Come, uncle George," said Rollo, "is not it time for us to get up to our places?"
"No," said Mr. George. "They will tell us when the proper time comes."
So Mr. George and Rollo remained quietly standing by the side of the diligence while the hostlers finished harnessing the horses. Rollo during this time was examining with great interest the little steps and projections on the side of the coach by which he expected that he and Mr. George were to climb up to their places.
It turned out in the end, however, that he was disappointed in his expectation of having a good climb; for, when the conductor was ready for the banquette passengers to take their places, he brought the step ladder and planted it against the side of the vehicle, and Mr. George and Rollo went up as easily as they would have gone up stairs.
When the passengers were seated the step ladder was taken away, and a moment afterwards the postilion started the horses forward, and the ponderous vehicle began to move down the archway, the clattering of the horses' hoofs and the lumbering noise of the wheels sounding very loud in consequence of the echoes and reverberations produced by the sides and vaulting of the archway. As soon as the diligence reached the street the postilion began to crack his whip to the right and left in the most loud and vehement manner, and the coach went thundering on through the narrow streets of the town, driving every thing from before it as if it were a railway train going express.
[Illustration: THE DILIGENCE AT THE OFFICE.]
"Uncle George," exclaimed Rollo, "they have forgotten the conductor!"
Rollo was, in fact, quite concerned for a few minutes lest the conductor should have been left behind. He knew where this official's proper seat was; namely, at the left end of the banquette-that is, at the right hand, as seen in the engraving; and as he was not there, and as he knew that all the other seats were full, he presumed, of course, that he had been left behind. He was relieved of these fears, however, very soon; for, to his great astonishment, he suddenly perceived the head of the conductor coming up the side of the coach, followed gradually by the rest of his body as he climbed up to his place. Rollo wondered how he could manage to get on and climb up, especially as the coach was at this time thundering along a descending portion of the street with a speed and uproar that was terrific.
Rollo, though at first very much astonished at this performance of the conductor, afterwards ceased to wonder at it; for he found that the conductor could ascend and descend to and from his seat at any time without any difficulty, even while the horses were going at the top of their speed. If the snapper of the coachman's whip got caught in the harness so that he could not liberate it, as it often did on the road, the conductor would climb down, run forward to the horses, set the snapper free, fall back to the coach, catch hold of the side and climb up, the coachman cracking his whip as soon as it was freed, and urging on his horses to a gallop, without troubling himself at all to consider how the conductor was to get up again.
But to return to the story. When Rollo found that the conductor was safe he amused himself by looking to the right and left into the windows of the houses at the second story. His seat was so high that he could do this very easily. Many of these windows were open, and persons were sitting at them, sewing or reading. At some of them groups of children were standing. They were looking out to see the diligence go by. The street was so narrow that Rollo found himself very near these persons as he passed by.
"A little nearer," said he to his uncle George, "and I could shake hands with them."
In a very few minutes the coach passed under a great arched gateway leading through the wall of the city, and thence over a sort of drawbridge which spanned the moat. Immediately afterwards it entered a region of smooth, green fields, and pretty rural houses, and gardens, which presented on every side very charming pictures to the view.
"Now, uncle George," said Rollo, "won't we have a magnificent ride?"
Rollo was not disappointed in his anticipations. He found the ride to Berne a very magnificent one indeed. The road was smooth and hard as a floor. From side to side it was flat and level, and all the ascents which it made were so gradual that the horses trotted on at their full speed, without any cessation, sweeping around long and graceful curves, which brought continually into view new landscapes, each one, as it seemed, more varied and beautiful than the one which had preceded it. From his lofty seat on the banquette Rollo looked abroad over a very wide extent of country; and when the coach stopped at the villages or post houses to change horses, he could look down with great advantage upon the fresh teams as they were brought out and upon the groups of hostlers and post boys employed in shifting the harness. He could hear, too, all that they said, though they generally talked so fast, and mingled their words with so much laughter and fun, that Rollo found that he could understand but little.
[Illustration: THE DILIGENCE ON THE ROAD.]
Rollo was particularly struck, as he was whirled swiftly along the road, by the appearance of the Swiss houses. They were very large, and were covered with a very broad roof, which extended so far over the walls on every side as to appear like a great, square, broad-brimmed hat. Under this roof were platforms projecting from the house, one on each story, like piazzas. These piazzas were very broad. They were bordered by balustrades on the outer edge, and were used for sheds, store houses, and tool rooms. There were wood piles, wagons, harrows, and other farming implements, bundles of straw, and stones piled up here and there upon them. In fact, the Swiss cottager has his house, and barn, and sheds, and outhouses all under one roof; and what there is not room for within he stores without upon these platforms.