The Edinburgh Coach – 211

In which the world changes its century, and I fail to pretend I am not astonished.

My dear Mary,

You would laugh to see us now — half travelers, half apparitions, trying to behave as though stepping through centuries were an ordinary errand. The air itself feels heavier here, dense with horse-breath and coal smoke. Each sound arrives with an edge, as if the world had only recently invented echo.

Claire is radiant with fear. She insists she’s fine, but her hands tremble whenever the coach lurches. I try to speak calmly, though I suspect my own voice shakes more than hers. The driver calls something in a dialect I can barely understand. The wheels find rhythm; time itself, perhaps, begins to believe in us.

Across from us sit two gentlemen — travelers of evident breeding, their clothes too fine for merchants. The elder greets us with a kindly nod. His accent is Scottish but tempered by thought. I sense he listens more than he speaks, that his silence gathers meaning. The younger, meanwhile, takes notes in a small bound book and glances up with curiosity.

Claire, bold as ever, cannot resist:
“May I ask, sir, what occupies your pen so urgently on such a wet road?”

He smiles. “My master here dictates thoughts on the progress of nations. I only keep them from escaping.”

The elder waves him off with gentle humor. “Nonsense, Dugald, I am quite capable of misplacing my own ideas.”

And there it was — the name struck me like a bell. Dugald Stewart. Which means the other must be—

But I hesitate to believe it even now. Adam Smith, alive and traveling the same rain-soaked road, speaking of nations as if they were living things.

Claire looks at me, eyes wide, and for once she does not speak.

I cannot tell whether we have entered their time, or they have entered ours. Perhaps the boundary is thinner than either world supposes.

The coach rattles northward. Tomorrow, I think, we will dine in Edinburgh with the ghosts of progress themselves.

Yours in bewildered delight,
Percy