Certainties were evidently still unattainable.
Finally, the stage arrived--a vehicle drawn by two horses, and intended
to seat four persons. In it were already two ladies, with bags and
bundles, two trunks, a champagne basket, numberless packages, and about
fifty bottles of soda water, laid in among the straw covering the bottom
of the accommodating conveyance. The driver, a good-natured, intelligent
man, gave our travellers his bench, and arranged a seat for himself and
the champagne basket on a sort of shelf overhanging the tails of the
horses. At the top of the first hill is the village of Houstonville,
where they stopped at the post office to leave the mail, and where two
ladies appeared as claimants for seats in the stage. The driver at first
demurred; but, finding the ladies persistent, he drew forth a board,
and, fastening it at either end to a perpendicular prop, constructed a
third bench, on which the two new passengers took their places.
The stage was by this time more than well packed; but ere long the
process of lightening up commenced, as first the champagne basket, then
packages, bundles, and newspapers, were left at various dwellings along
the roadside. One novelty especially striking was the wayside post
office, consisting of a box on a pole, intended to contain the daily
newspaper therein thrust to await the coming of the owners.
Of course the driver was plied with numerous questions regarding the
thus far nameless lake.
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