We borrowed books from all our friends, and sought second-hand
bookstalls for every conceivable authority, and a month before our day
for starting we were so brimful of knowledge, that we decided to acquire
no more, but to depend on what we had already achieved.
How tedious the days before the one memorable day which should see us
off to Bale, and how alarming a cold in the head, caught by one of us
two days before the date! Would it develop into something too serious to
travel upon? Surely, never did so simple an ailment command so careful a
treatment or portend so formidable, or possibly formidable, a
catastrophe! Breakfast in bed was the order of the last two mornings,
and two visits from a doctor, who won golden opinions from the two jolly
bachelors for prescribing change as the best medicine. He is a wise
doctor, that Scotchman, and we will seek his counsel on other
occasions--though not just at present, we trust.
We left Victoria Station on an April morning, being "seen off" by three
kind friends, one of whom nearly lost his life by foolishly standing on
the carriage step while the train steamed to the full extent of the
platform. The risk our friend underwent only made us love him the more
for his devotion to his chums; and, really, we would prefer to see no
possible danger in such a friendly desire to prolong the last glimpse of
such interesting worthies as ourselves.
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