[346]
got safe into Liverpool, landed, and went to the Adelphi Hotel.
Mamma and Georgie were only a little sick on the way over, and that was the morning of the 13th.
As it was court time, the high sheriff of Lancashire, Sir Robert Gerauld, a fine, stout, old, gray-haired John Bull, came thundering up to the hotel at noon in his grand coach with six beautiful horses with outriders, and two trumpeters, and twelve men with javelins for a guard, all dressed in the gayest manner, and rushing along like Time in the primer, the trumpeters tootitoot-tooing like a house a-fire, and how I wished my little Charley had been there to see it!
Monday we wanted to go and see the court, so we went over to St. George's Hall, a most magnificent structure, that beats the Boston State House all hollow, and Sir Robert Gerauld himself met us, and said he would get us a good place.
So he took us away round a narrow, crooked passage, and opened a little door, where we saw nothing but a great, crimson curtain, which he told us to put aside and go straight on; and where do you think we all found ourselves?
Right on the platform with the judges in their big wigs and long robes, and facing the whole crowded court!
It was enough to frighten a body into fits, but we took it quietly as we could, and your mamma looked as meek as Moses in her little, battered straw hat and gray cloak, seeming to say, “I didn't come here on purpose.”
That same night we arrived in London, and Tuesday (August 16th), riding over the city, we called at Stafford House, and inquired if the Duchess of Sutherland was
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Houghton, Mifflin and Company, The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1889.
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