Lorcan woke once, in the middle of the night, to hear that the coach had stopped and to see Carlotta reach past their curtain to open the door and crawl sleepily out. He fell back asleep before she got back in or the coach had even stopped and the next thing he knew was his wife moving against Him. He opened his eyes to see her sitting up and taking down the food basket and helping himself to some day old sausage rolls and some juice from a bottle.
She saw him looking at her and offered him a drink. He yawned, stretched, and got up next to her. He pulled back the curtain on the window and saw that they were going through a very small village and the sun was just rising. They sat together for an hour or so, almost dozing, watching the sun come up and eating quietly.
Then they heard one of the littlies talking to its sibling, whose answer was incomprehensible, and soon everyone was dressing and putting the compartments back together. Then the coach stopped and everyone was quite busy helping the littlies, and then they all got back in…
Only to go about five miles and stop at a coachouse. “Breakfast stop!” the conductor yelled, “One hour!”
Lorcan and his wife let the others go down first and then walked to the coachouse and got a table quite by themselves. A waiter came by seconds later and, without a word, plopped down a bowl of porridge, two eggs, toast, and a glass of hot juice in front of each of them. “Three pence the both, no tip,” he said, holding out his hand and his hastily filled it and he moved rapidly on.
“Well,” Lorca said, “They have this down to a science.”
“Did you sleep well?” his wife asked him after her first rather large spoonful of porridge.
“Reasonably,” he said. “I only awoke the once, but my dreams seemed full of bumps.”
He looked over at the coach. Five separate wagons with two compartments which held four adults each… fourty people, not counting littlies, lads, and lasses, all able to travel the night. And not even an allowed tech. Truly wonderful. And all pulled by a team of horses. Of course, they changed the horses frequently.
“Are you going to eat?” his wife asked him and, startled, he turned to his food. She was already done.
“Do you want to shop?” he asked her between bites.
“No, not really,” she said, “but I do want to look around.”
“Go ahead,” he said, “I’ll catch up to you.”
She pushed her chair back and hurried into the coachhouse store. He wondered what could be so interesting. He supposed that each of these small towns produced slightly different goods and foods and all. And probably the economics of transport meant that the prices were different in the different areas…
“I’ve found you a book,” he heard and looked up to see her hurrying back. “They have a small pawn type shop in there and I saw a book. It is called ‘Johnson on Grains’ and I thought you might want it. They aren’t asking much for it, who would want it out here, this isn’t even a grain area…”
Lorcan shoveled in his last bite and hurried after her. Sure enough. A fascinating book, and only a dime.
“We need to get back in the coach,” his wife said, pulling at him. “You took forever eating, and then with buying the book, we don’t want to be late.”
They made it there just in time to help that woman in with her littlies, and then the coach started and he settled back to read the book.
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Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,
Von