Amanda Scott by Highland Spirits Read Free Book Online Page A

even six stories; and, in some places, stone or brick walls lined the road. From time to time she would see a truly fine structure, such as a church or a hospital, and twice she saw sedan chairs with a gentleman inside swaying along between two, or sometimes four, chairmen.
    Tradesmen’s signs hung over the shops, swaying in the breeze that wafted up from the river. One hung tipsily from a single chain, its other having come loose, and threatened to clout the head of any unwary pedestrian who walked beneath it.
    Even with the windows up, the din was ear-shattering. The dowager countess, though generally talkative, had remained unnaturally silent since Highgate Hill, too busy watching the passing scene to talk, other than to point out certain amazing sites when she saw them, of course. In the busy street, however, the noise precluded any rational conversation.
    Above the racket of iron wheels and horseshoes on the cobblestones, sounded a constant clanging and ringing of bells—not only church bells but handbells. Dustmen, sweeps, knife grinders, and postmen all carried bells of one sort or another. Adding to the din was a cacophony of cries from the costermongers and other assorted vendors who littered the pavement, all of whom tended to dart from the footways out to the vehicles—or even to dash in front of them—crying their wares without ever seeming to stop for breath.
    Their voices rang in chorus with the bells, making it difficult to know just what each one was saying: “Brick dust! Buy my cod! Knives to grind…dainty live cod! New-laid eggs…last dying confessions…sixpence a groat…Scissors to grind!…of all the malefactors…Cat’s meat…chairs to mend…fresh cat’s meat!…executed at Tyburn last week! Buy my roasted pig! Crab, crab! Oysters, buy my oysters! Will ye crab? Artichokes! Swe-e-e-e-eep, fresh artichokes!”
    Before long, the pace slowed considerably, and soon all three coaches were creeping along in a jam of street traffic. Pinkie had given up trying to make sense of it all by then, and just gazed out the window, fascinated, resisting the urge to cover her ears. She would have liked to hold her nose though, had she not feared to offend passersby, for the stench of raw sewage running along a kennel down the middle of the road was nearly as overpowering to her senses as the din.
    As they negotiated the turn into Oxford Street, she could see the other two coaches just behind. The window of the second one was down, and Roddy hung out precariously, prevented only by his nurse’s firm grip on his jacket from falling into the road. His delight was clear in his wide eyes and open mouth, and Pinkie envied him his ability to ignore the noise and the press of unwashed humanity.
    After a time, the coach turned again, into Park Street, and the din abated at last Bells still rang, but they seemed more distant and less deafening; and when Mary suggested letting down the windows again so they could see better, neither Pinkie nor Lady Agnes objected.
    Sedan chairs appeared frequently now, a number of them holding fashionable ladies instead of gentlemen. Vendors still cried their wares, and once a woman thrust a bunch of lavender in through a window, but she released it and backed away with a bobbed curtsy when the earl tossed her a sixpence. Pinkie picked up the little nosegay and inhaled its agreeable scent with delight.
    The street was much cleaner, the pedestrians fewer and generally better dressed. For a short distance, she saw shops with bowfront windows and glass doors, through which she saw intriguing articles of elegance and fashion. The shop fronts bore numbers now instead of signs swaying perilously over the walkways, and the stones of the street were flat, rather than rounded.
    The houses here were built of stone, and new gutters lined each side of the street instead of a kennel down in the center. There were raised footways, and doorsteps no longer jutted into them. The greatest discomfort for