- and such doubtless would the Sandboys have ever remained but for
the advent of the year 1851. The news of the opening of the Great Exhibition had already penetrated the fastnesses of Buttermere, and the villagers, who perhaps, but for the notion that the whole world was about to treat itself to a trip to the metropolis, would have remained quiet in their mountain homes, had been, for months past, subscribing their pennies with the intention of having their share in the general holiday. Buttermere was one universal scene of excitement from Woodhouse to Gatesgarth. Mrs. Nelson was making a double allowance of her excellent oat-cakes; Mrs. Clark, of the Fish Inn, was packing up a jar of sugared butter, among other creature comforts for the occasion. John Cowman was brushing up his top-shirt; Dan Fleming was greasing his calkered boots; John Lancaster was wondering whether his hat were good enough for the great show; all the old dames were busy ironing their deep frilled caps, and airing their hoods; all the young lasses were stitching at all their dresses, while some of the more nervous villagers, who had never yet trusted themselves to a railway, were secretly making their wills—preparatory to their grand starting for the metropolis.
Amidst this general bustle and excitement there was, however, one house where the master was not absorbed in a calculation as to the probable length and expenses of the journey; where the mistress was not busy preparing for the comfort of the outward and inward man of her lord and master; where the daughter was not in deep consultation as to the prevailing metropolitan fashions—and this house was Hassness. For Mr. Sandboys, with his long-cherished conviction of the wickedness of London, had expressed in unmeasured terms his positive determination that neither he himself, nor any that belonged to him, should ever be exposed to the moral pollution of the metropolis. This was a sentiment in which Mrs. Sandboys heartily concurred, though on very different grounds—the one objecting to the moral, the other to the physical, contamination of the crowded city. Mr. Sandboys had been thrice solicited to join the Buttermere Travelling Club, and thrice he had held out against the most persuasive appeals. But Squire Jopson, who acted as Treasurer to the Travelling Association for the Great Exhibition of 1851, not liking that his old friend Sandboys should be the only one in all Buttermere who absented himself from the general visit to the metropolis, waited upon him at Hassness, to offer him the last chance of availing himself of the advantages of that valuable institution as a means of conveying himself and family, at the smallest possible expense, to the great metropolis, and of allowing him and them a week's stay, as well as the privilege of participating in all the amusements and gaieties of the capital at its gayest possible time.
It was a severe trial for Sandboys to withstand the united batteries of Jopson's enthusiastic advocacy, his daughter's entreaties, his son's assurances of steadiness. But Sandboys, though naturally possessed of a heart of butter, delighted to assure himself that he carried about a flint in his bosom; so he told Jopson, with a shake of his head, that
