These two had sent their personal baggage
on by train: only retaining, each a knapsack.
Idle now applied himself to constantly
regretting the train, to tracking it through
the intricacies of Bradshaw's Guide, and
finding out where it was now—and where
now—and where now—and to asking what
was the use of walking, when you could
ride at such a pace as that. Was it to
see the country? If that was the object,
look at it out of carriage-windows. There
was a great deal more of it to be seen there,
than here. Besides, who wanted to see the
country? Nobody. And, again, who ever
did walk? Nobody. Fellows set off to walk,
but they never did it. They came back and
said they did, but they didn't. Then why
should he walk? He wouldn't walk. He
swore it by this milestone!

It was the fifth from London, so far had
they penetrated into the North. Submitting
to the powerful chain of argument,
Goodchild proposed a return to the Metropolis,
and a falling back upon Euston  Square
Terminus. Thomas assented with alacrity, and
so they walked down into the North by the
next morning's express, and carried their
knapsacks in the luggage-van.

It was like all other expresses, as every
express is and must be. It bore through the
harvested country, a smell like a large washing-
day, and a sharp issue of steam as from a
huge brazen tea-urn. The greatest power in
nature and art combined, it yet glided over
dangerous heights in the sight of people looking
up from fields and roads, as smoothly
and unreally as a light miniature plaything.
Now, the engine shrieked in hysterics of such
intensity, that it seemed desirable that the
men who had her in charge should hold her
feet, slap her hands, and bring her to; now,
burrowed into tunnels with a stubborn and
undemonstrative energy so confusing that the
train seemed to be flying back into leagues
of darkness. Here, were station after
station, swallowed up by the press without
stopping; here, stations where it fired itself
in like a volley of cannon-balls, swooped
away four country-people with nosegays and
three men of business with portmanteaus,
and fired itself off again, bang, bang, bang!
At long intervals were uncomfortable refreshment
rooms, made more uncomfortable by
the scorn of Beauty towards Beast, the
public (but to whom she never relented, as
Beauty did in the story, towards the other
Beast), and where sensitive stomachs were
fed, with a contemptuous sharpness occasioning
indigestion. Here, again, were stations
with nothing going but a bell, and wonderful
wooden razors set aloft on great posts,
shaving the air. In these fields, the horses,
sheep, and cattle were well used to the
thundering meteor, and didn't mind; in
those, they were all set scampering
together, and a herd of pigs scoured after
them. The pastoral country darkened,
became coaly, became smoky, became infernal,
got better, got worse, improved again, grew
rugged, turned romantic; was a wood, a
stream, a chain of hills, a gorge, a moor, a
cathedral town, a fortified place, a waste.
Now, miserable black dwellings, a black
canal, and sick black towers of chimneys;
now, a trim garden, where the
flowers were bright and fair; now, a wilderness
of hideous altars all a-blaze; now, the
water meadows with their fairy rings; now,
the mangy patch of unlet building ground
outside the stagnant town, with the larger
ring where the Circus was last week. The
temperature changed, the dialect changed,
the people changed, faces got sharper, manner
got shorter, eyes got shrewder and
harder; yet all so quickly, that the  spruce
guard in the London uniform and silver lace,
had not yet rumpled his shirt-collar, delivered
half the dispatches in his shining little pouch,
or read his newspaper.

Carlisle! Idle and Goodchild had got to
Carlisle. It looked congenially and delightfully
idle. Something in the way of public
amusement had happened last month, and
something else was going to happen before
Christmas; and, in the meantime there was
a lecture on India for those who liked it—
which Idle and Goodchild did not. Likewise,
by those who liked them, there were
impressions to be bought of all the vapid
prints, going and gone, and of nearly all the
vapid books. For those who wanted to put
anything in missionary boxes, here were the
boxes. For those who wanted the Reverend
Mr. Podgers (artist's proofs, thirty shillings),
here was Mr. Podgers to any amount. Not
less gracious and abundant, Mr. Codgers,
also of the vineyard, but opposed to Mr.
Podgers, brotherly tooth and nail. Here,
were guide-books to the neighbouring
antiquities, and eke the Lake country, in several
dry and husky sorts; here, many physically
and morally impossible heads of both sexes,
for young ladies to copy, in the exercise of the
art of drawing; here, further, a large
impression of Mr. SPURGEON, solid as to the
flesh, not to say even something gross. The
working young men of Carlisle were drawn
up, with their hands in their pockets, across
the pavements, four and six abreast, and
appeared (much to the satisfaction of Mr.
Idle) to have nothing else to do. The working
and growing young women of Carlisle,
from the age of twelve upwards, promenaded
the streets in the cool of the evening, and
rallied the said young men. Sometimes the
young men rallied the young women, as in
the case of a group gathered round an
accordion-player, from among whom a young
man advanced behind a young woman for
whom he appeared to have a  tenderness, and
hinted to her that he was there and playful,
by giving her (he wore clogs) a kick.

On market morning, Carlisle woke up
amazingly, and became (to the two Idle