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diff --git a/534-0.txt b/534-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d52f4e0 --- /dev/null +++ b/534-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3905 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, An Inland Voyage, by Robert Louis Stevenson, +Illustrated by Walter Crane + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: An Inland Voyage + + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + + + +Release Date: February 10, 2013 [eBook #534] +[This file was first posted on March 19, 1996] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN INLAND VOYAGE*** + + +Transcribed from 1904 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org Second proof by Margaret Price + + [Picture: Picture of Pan by a river, by Walter Crane] + + + + + + AN INLAND VOYAGE + + + BY + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + A NEW EDITION + + WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY WALTER CRANE + + * * * * * + + LONDON + CHATTO & WINDUS + 1904 + + * * * * * + + ‘Thus sang they in the English boat.’ + + MARVELL. + + + + +PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION + + +TO equip so small a book with a preface is, I am half afraid, to sin +against proportion. But a preface is more than an author can resist, for +it is the reward of his labours. When the foundation stone is laid, the +architect appears with his plans, and struts for an hour before the +public eye. So with the writer in his preface: he may have never a word +to say, but he must show himself for a moment in the portico, hat in +hand, and with an urbane demeanour. + +It is best, in such circumstances, to represent a delicate shade of +manner between humility and superiority: as if the book had been written +by some one else, and you had merely run over it and inserted what was +good. But for my part I have not yet learned the trick to that +perfection; I am not yet able to dissemble the warmth of my sentiments +towards a reader; and if I meet him on the threshold, it is to invite him +in with country cordiality. + +To say truth, I had no sooner finished reading this little book in proof, +than I was seized upon by a distressing apprehension. It occurred to me +that I might not only be the first to read these pages, but the last as +well; that I might have pioneered this very smiling tract of country all +in vain, and find not a soul to follow in my steps. The more I thought, +the more I disliked the notion; until the distaste grew into a sort of +panic terror, and I rushed into this Preface, which is no more than an +advertisement for readers. + +What am I to say for my book? Caleb and Joshua brought back from +Palestine a formidable bunch of grapes; alas! my book produces naught so +nourishing; and for the matter of that, we live in an age when people +prefer a definition to any quantity of fruit. + +I wonder, would a negative be found enticing? for, from the negative +point of view, I flatter myself this volume has a certain stamp. +Although it runs to considerably upwards of two hundred pages, it +contains not a single reference to the imbecility of God’s universe, nor +so much as a single hint that I could have made a better one myself.—I +really do not know where my head can have been. I seem to have forgotten +all that makes it glorious to be man.—’Tis an omission that renders the +book philosophically unimportant; but I am in hopes the eccentricity may +please in frivolous circles. + +To the friend who accompanied me I owe many thanks already, indeed I wish +I owed him nothing else; but at this moment I feel towards him an almost +exaggerated tenderness. He, at least, will become my reader:—if it were +only to follow his own travels alongside of mine. + + R.L.S. + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE +ANTWERP TO BOOM 1 +ON THE WILLEBROEK CANAL 8 +THE ROYAL SPORT NAUTIQUE 16 +AT MAUBEUGE 25 +ON THE SAMBRE CANALISED: TO QUARTES 33 +PONT-SUR-SAMBRE: + WE ARE PEDLARS 42 + THE TRAVELLING MERCHANT 51 +ON THE SAMBRE CANALISED: TO LANDRECIES 59 +AT LANDRECIES 67 +SAMBRE AND OISE CANAL: CANAL BOATS 75 +THE OISE IN FLOOD 83 +ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOÎTE + A BY-DAY 95 + THE COMPANY AT TABLE 105 +DOWN THE OISE: TO MOY 116 +LA FÈRE OF CURSED MEMORY 124 +DOWN THE OISE: THROUGH THE GOLDEN VALLEY 133 +NOYON CATHEDRAL 137 +DOWN THE OISE: TO COMPIÈGNE 145 +CHANGED TIMES 157 +DOWN THE OISE: CHURCH INTERIORS 167 +PRÉCY AND THE MARIONNETTES 177 +BACK TO THE WORLD 194 + +_TO_ +_SIR WALTER GRINDLAY SIMPSON_, _BART._ + + +_My dear Cigarette_, + +_It was enough that you should have shared so liberally in the rains and +portages of our voyage_; _that you should have had so hard a paddle to +recover the derelict_ ‘_Arethusa_’ _on the flooded Oise_; _and that you +should thenceforth have piloted a mere wreck of mankind to Origny +Sainte-Benoîte and a supper so eagerly desired_. _It was perhaps more +than enough_, _as you once somewhat piteously complained_, _that I should +have set down all the strong language to you_, _and kept the appropriate +reflexions for myself_. _I could not in decency expose you to share the +disgrace of another and more public shipwreck_. _But now that this +voyage of ours is going into a cheap edition_, _that peril_, _we shall +hope_, _is at an end_, _and I may put your name on the burgee_. + +_But I cannot pause till I have lamented the fate of our two ships_. +_That_, _sir_, _was not a fortunate day when we projected the possession +of a canal barge_; _it was not a fortunate day when we shared our +day-dream with the most hopeful of day-dreamers_. _For a while_, +_indeed_, _the world looked smilingly_. _The barge was procured and +christened_, _and as the_ ‘_Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne_,’ _lay +for some months_, _the admired of all admirers_, _in a pleasant river and +under the walls of an ancient town_. _M. Mattras_, _the accomplished +carpenter of Moret_, _had made her a centre of emulous labour_; _and you +will not have forgotten the amount of sweet champagne consumed in the inn +at the bridge end_, _to give zeal to the workmen and speed to the work_. +_On the financial aspect_, _I would not willingly dwell_. _The_ ‘_Eleven +Thousand Virgins of Cologne_’ _rotted in the stream where she was +beautified_. _She felt not the impulse of the breeze_; _she was never +harnessed to the patient track-horse_. _And when at length she was +sold_, _by the indignant carpenter of Moret_, _there were sold along with +her the_ ‘_Arethusa_’ _and the_ ‘_Cigarette_,’ _she of cedar_, _she_, _as +we knew so keenly on a portage_, _of solid-hearted English oak_. _Now +these historic vessels fly the tricolor and are known by new and alien +names_. + + _R. L. S._ + + + + +ANTWERP TO BOOM + + +WE made a great stir in Antwerp Docks. A stevedore and a lot of dock +porters took up the two canoes, and ran with them for the slip. A crowd +of children followed cheering. The _Cigarette_ went off in a splash and +a bubble of small breaking water. Next moment the _Arethusa_ was after +her. A steamer was coming down, men on the paddle-box shouted hoarse +warnings, the stevedore and his porters were bawling from the quay. But +in a stroke or two the canoes were away out in the middle of the Scheldt, +and all steamers, and stevedores, and other ‘long-shore vanities were +left behind. + +The sun shone brightly; the tide was making—four jolly miles an hour; the +wind blew steadily, with occasional squalls. For my part, I had never +been in a canoe under sail in my life; and my first experiment out in the +middle of this big river was not made without some trepidation. What +would happen when the wind first caught my little canvas? I suppose it +was almost as trying a venture into the regions of the unknown as to +publish a first book, or to marry. But my doubts were not of long +duration; and in five minutes you will not be surprised to learn that I +had tied my sheet. + +I own I was a little struck by this circumstance myself; of course, in +company with the rest of my fellow-men, I had always tied the sheet in a +sailing-boat; but in so little and crank a concern as a canoe, and with +these charging squalls, I was not prepared to find myself follow the same +principle; and it inspired me with some contemptuous views of our regard +for life. It is certainly easier to smoke with the sheet fastened; but I +had never before weighed a comfortable pipe of tobacco against an obvious +risk, and gravely elected for the comfortable pipe. It is a commonplace, +that we cannot answer for ourselves before we have been tried. But it is +not so common a reflection, and surely more consoling, that we usually +find ourselves a great deal braver and better than we thought. I believe +this is every one’s experience: but an apprehension that they may belie +themselves in the future prevents mankind from trumpeting this cheerful +sentiment abroad. I wish sincerely, for it would have saved me much +trouble, there had been some one to put me in a good heart about life +when I was younger; to tell me how dangers are most portentous on a +distant sight; and how the good in a man’s spirit will not suffer itself +to be overlaid, and rarely or never deserts him in the hour of need. But +we are all for tootling on the sentimental flute in literature; and not a +man among us will go to the head of the march to sound the heady drums. + +It was agreeable upon the river. A barge or two went past laden with +hay. Reeds and willows bordered the stream; and cattle and grey +venerable horses came and hung their mild heads over the embankment. +Here and there was a pleasant village among trees, with a noisy +shipping-yard; here and there a villa in a lawn. The wind served us well +up the Scheldt and thereafter up the Rupel; and we were running pretty +free when we began to sight the brickyards of Boom, lying for a long way +on the right bank of the river. The left bank was still green and +pastoral, with alleys of trees along the embankment, and here and there a +flight of steps to serve a ferry, where perhaps there sat a woman with +her elbows on her knees, or an old gentleman with a staff and silver +spectacles. But Boom and its brickyards grew smokier and shabbier with +every minute; until a great church with a clock, and a wooden bridge over +the river, indicated the central quarters of the town. + +Boom is not a nice place, and is only remarkable for one thing: that the +majority of the inhabitants have a private opinion that they can speak +English, which is not justified by fact. This gave a kind of haziness to +our intercourse. As for the Hôtel de la Navigation, I think it is the +worst feature of the place. It boasts of a sanded parlour, with a bar at +one end, looking on the street; and another sanded parlour, darker and +colder, with an empty bird-cage and a tricolour subscription box by way +of sole adornment, where we made shift to dine in the company of three +uncommunicative engineer apprentices and a silent bagman. The food, as +usual in Belgium, was of a nondescript occasional character; indeed I +have never been able to detect anything in the nature of a meal among +this pleasing people; they seem to peck and trifle with viands all day +long in an amateur spirit: tentatively French, truly German, and somehow +falling between the two. + +The empty bird-cage, swept and garnished, and with no trace of the old +piping favourite, save where two wires had been pushed apart to hold its +lump of sugar, carried with it a sort of graveyard cheer. The engineer +apprentices would have nothing to say to us, nor indeed to the bagman; +but talked low and sparingly to one another, or raked us in the gaslight +with a gleam of spectacles. For though handsome lads, they were all (in +the Scots phrase) barnacled. + +There was an English maid in the hotel, who had been long enough out of +England to pick up all sorts of funny foreign idioms, and all sorts of +curious foreign ways, which need not here be specified. She spoke to us +very fluently in her jargon, asked us information as to the manners of +the present day in England, and obligingly corrected us when we attempted +to answer. But as we were dealing with a woman, perhaps our information +was not so much thrown away as it appeared. The sex likes to pick up +knowledge and yet preserve its superiority. It is good policy, and +almost necessary in the circumstances. If a man finds a woman admire +him, were it only for his acquaintance with geography, he will begin at +once to build upon the admiration. It is only by unintermittent snubbing +that the pretty ones can keep us in our place. Men, as Miss Howe or Miss +Harlowe would have said, ‘are such _encroachers_.’ For my part, I am +body and soul with the women; and after a well-married couple, there is +nothing so beautiful in the world as the myth of the divine huntress. It +is no use for a man to take to the woods; we know him; St. Anthony tried +the same thing long ago, and had a pitiful time of it by all accounts. +But there is this about some women, which overtops the best gymnosophist +among men, that they suffice to themselves, and can walk in a high and +cold zone without the countenance of any trousered being. I declare, +although the reverse of a professed ascetic, I am more obliged to women +for this ideal than I should be to the majority of them, or indeed to any +but one, for a spontaneous kiss. There is nothing so encouraging as the +spectacle of self-sufficiency. And when I think of the slim and lovely +maidens, running the woods all night to the note of Diana’s horn; moving +among the old oaks, as fancy-free as they; things of the forest and the +starlight, not touched by the commotion of man’s hot and turbid +life—although there are plenty other ideals that I should prefer—I find +my heart beat at the thought of this one. ’Tis to fail in life, but to +fail with what a grace! That is not lost which is not regretted. And +where—here slips out the male—where would be much of the glory of +inspiring love, if there were no contempt to overcome? + + + + +ON THE WILLEBROEK CANAL + + +NEXT morning, when we set forth on the Willebroek Canal, the rain began +heavy and chill. The water of the canal stood at about the drinking +temperature of tea; and under this cold aspersion, the surface was +covered with steam. The exhilaration of departure, and the easy motion +of the boats under each stroke of the paddles, supported us through this +misfortune while it lasted; and when the cloud passed and the sun came +out again, our spirits went up above the range of stay-at-home humours. +A good breeze rustled and shivered in the rows of trees that bordered the +canal. The leaves flickered in and out of the light in tumultuous +masses. It seemed sailing weather to eye and ear; but down between the +banks, the wind reached us only in faint and desultory puffs. There was +hardly enough to steer by. Progress was intermittent and unsatisfactory. +A jocular person, of marine antecedents, hailed us from the tow-path with +a ‘_C’est vite_, _mais c’est long_.’ + +The canal was busy enough. Every now and then we met or overtook a long +string of boats, with great green tillers; high sterns with a window on +either side of the rudder, and perhaps a jug or a flower-pot in one of +the windows; a dinghy following behind; a woman busied about the day’s +dinner, and a handful of children. These barges were all tied one behind +the other with tow ropes, to the number of twenty-five or thirty; and the +line was headed and kept in motion by a steamer of strange construction. +It had neither paddle-wheel nor screw; but by some gear not rightly +comprehensible to the unmechanical mind, it fetched up over its bow a +small bright chain which lay along the bottom of the canal, and paying it +out again over the stern, dragged itself forward, link by link, with its +whole retinue of loaded skows. Until one had found out the key to the +enigma, there was something solemn and uncomfortable in the progress of +one of these trains, as it moved gently along the water with nothing to +mark its advance but an eddy alongside dying away into the wake. + +Of all the creatures of commercial enterprise, a canal barge is by far +the most delightful to consider. It may spread its sails, and then you +see it sailing high above the tree-tops and the windmill, sailing on the +aqueduct, sailing through the green corn-lands: the most picturesque of +things amphibious. Or the horse plods along at a foot-pace as if there +were no such thing as business in the world; and the man dreaming at the +tiller sees the same spire on the horizon all day long. It is a mystery +how things ever get to their destination at this rate; and to see the +barges waiting their turn at a lock, affords a fine lesson of how easily +the world may be taken. There should be many contented spirits on board, +for such a life is both to travel and to stay at home. + +The chimney smokes for dinner as you go along; the banks of the canal +slowly unroll their scenery to contemplative eyes; the barge floats by +great forests and through great cities with their public buildings and +their lamps at night; and for the bargee, in his floating home, +‘travelling abed,’ it is merely as if he were listening to another man’s +story or turning the leaves of a picture-book in which he had no concern. +He may take his afternoon walk in some foreign country on the banks of +the canal, and then come home to dinner at his own fireside. + +There is not enough exercise in such a life for any high measure of +health; but a high measure of health is only necessary for unhealthy +people. The slug of a fellow, who is never ill nor well, has a quiet +time of it in life, and dies all the easier. + +I am sure I would rather be a bargee than occupy any position under +heaven that required attendance at an office. There are few callings, I +should say, where a man gives up less of his liberty in return for +regular meals. The bargee is on shipboard—he is master in his own +ship—he can land whenever he will—he can never be kept beating off a +lee-shore a whole frosty night when the sheets are as hard as iron; and +so far as I can make out, time stands as nearly still with him as is +compatible with the return of bed-time or the dinner-hour. It is not +easy to see why a bargee should ever die. + +Half-way between Willebroek and Villevorde, in a beautiful reach of canal +like a squire’s avenue, we went ashore to lunch. There were two eggs, a +junk of bread, and a bottle of wine on board the _Arethusa_; and two eggs +and an Etna cooking apparatus on board the _Cigarette_. The master of +the latter boat smashed one of the eggs in the course of disembarkation; +but observing pleasantly that it might still be cooked _à la papier_, he +dropped it into the Etna, in its covering of Flemish newspaper. We +landed in a blink of fine weather; but we had not been two minutes ashore +before the wind freshened into half a gale, and the rain began to patter +on our shoulders. We sat as close about the Etna as we could. The +spirits burned with great ostentation; the grass caught flame every +minute or two, and had to be trodden out; and before long, there were +several burnt fingers of the party. But the solid quantity of cookery +accomplished was out of proportion with so much display; and when we +desisted, after two applications of the fire, the sound egg was little +more than loo-warm; and as for _à la papier_, it was a cold and sordid +_fricassée_ of printer’s ink and broken egg-shell. We made shift to +roast the other two, by putting them close to the burning spirits; and +that with better success. And then we uncorked the bottle of wine, and +sat down in a ditch with our canoe aprons over our knees. It rained +smartly. Discomfort, when it is honestly uncomfortable and makes no +nauseous pretensions to the contrary, is a vastly humorous business; and +people well steeped and stupefied in the open air are in a good vein for +laughter. From this point of view, even egg _à la papier_ offered by way +of food may pass muster as a sort of accessory to the fun. But this +manner of jest, although it may be taken in good part, does not invite +repetition; and from that time forward, the Etna voyaged like a gentleman +in the locker of the _Cigarette_. + +It is almost unnecessary to mention that when lunch was over and we got +aboard again and made sail, the wind promptly died away. The rest of the +journey to Villevorde, we still spread our canvas to the unfavouring air; +and with now and then a puff, and now and then a spell of paddling, +drifted along from lock to lock, between the orderly trees. + +It was a fine, green, fat landscape; or rather a mere green water-lane, +going on from village to village. Things had a settled look, as in +places long lived in. Crop-headed children spat upon us from the bridges +as we went below, with a true conservative feeling. But even more +conservative were the fishermen, intent upon their floats, who let us go +by without one glance. They perched upon sterlings and buttresses and +along the slope of the embankment, gently occupied. They were +indifferent, like pieces of dead nature. They did not move any more than +if they had been fishing in an old Dutch print. The leaves fluttered, +the water lapped, but they continued in one stay like so many churches +established by law. You might have trepanned every one of their innocent +heads, and found no more than so much coiled fishing-line below their +skulls. I do not care for your stalwart fellows in india-rubber +stockings breasting up mountain torrents with a salmon rod; but I do +dearly love the class of man who plies his unfruitful art, for ever and a +day, by still and depopulated waters. + +At the last lock, just beyond Villevorde, there was a lock-mistress who +spoke French comprehensibly, and told us we were still a couple of +leagues from Brussels. At the same place, the rain began again. It fell +in straight, parallel lines; and the surface of the canal was thrown up +into an infinity of little crystal fountains. There were no beds to be +had in the neighbourhood. Nothing for it but to lay the sails aside and +address ourselves to steady paddling in the rain. + +Beautiful country houses, with clocks and long lines of shuttered +windows, and fine old trees standing in groves and avenues, gave a rich +and sombre aspect in the rain and the deepening dusk to the shores of the +canal. I seem to have seen something of the same effect in engravings: +opulent landscapes, deserted and overhung with the passage of storm. And +throughout we had the escort of a hooded cart, which trotted shabbily +along the tow-path, and kept at an almost uniform distance in our wake. + + + + +THE ROYAL SPORT NAUTIQUE + + +THE rain took off near Laeken. But the sun was already down; the air was +chill; and we had scarcely a dry stitch between the pair of us. Nay, now +we found ourselves near the end of the Allée Verte, and on the very +threshold of Brussels, we were confronted by a serious difficulty. The +shores were closely lined by canal boats waiting their turn at the lock. +Nowhere was there any convenient landing-place; nowhere so much as a +stable-yard to leave the canoes in for the night. We scrambled ashore +and entered an _estaminet_ where some sorry fellows were drinking with +the landlord. The landlord was pretty round with us; he knew of no +coach-house or stable-yard, nothing of the sort; and seeing we had come +with no mind to drink, he did not conceal his impatience to be rid of us. +One of the sorry fellows came to the rescue. Somewhere in the corner of +the basin there was a slip, he informed us, and something else besides, +not very clearly defined by him, but hopefully construed by his hearers. + +Sure enough there was the slip in the corner of the basin; and at the top +of it two nice-looking lads in boating clothes. The _Arethusa_ addressed +himself to these. One of them said there would be no difficulty about a +night’s lodging for our boats; and the other, taking a cigarette from his +lips, inquired if they were made by Searle and Son. The name was quite +an introduction. Half-a-dozen other young men came out of a boat-house +bearing the superscription ROYAL SPORT NAUTIQUE, and joined in the talk. +They were all very polite, voluble, and enthusiastic; and their discourse +was interlarded with English boating terms, and the names of English +boat-builders and English clubs. I do not know, to my shame, any spot in +my native land where I should have been so warmly received by the same +number of people. We were English boating-men, and the Belgian +boating-men fell upon our necks. I wonder if French Huguenots were as +cordially greeted by English Protestants when they came across the +Channel out of great tribulation. But after all, what religion knits +people so closely as a common sport? + +The canoes were carried into the boat-house; they were washed down for us +by the Club servants, the sails were hung out to dry, and everything made +as snug and tidy as a picture. And in the meanwhile we were led upstairs +by our new-found brethren, for so more than one of them stated the +relationship, and made free of their lavatory. This one lent us soap, +that one a towel, a third and fourth helped us to undo our bags. And all +the time such questions, such assurances of respect and sympathy! I +declare I never knew what glory was before. + +‘Yes, yes, the _Royal Sport Nautique_ is the oldest club in Belgium.’ + +‘We number two hundred.’ + +‘We’—this is not a substantive speech, but an abstract of many speeches, +the impression left upon my mind after a great deal of talk; and very +youthful, pleasant, natural, and patriotic it seems to me to be—‘We have +gained all races, except those where we were cheated by the French.’ + +‘You must leave all your wet things to be dried.’ + +‘O! _entre frères_! In any boat-house in England we should find the +same.’ (I cordially hope they might.) + +‘_En Angleterre_, _vous employez des sliding-seats_, _n’est-ce pas_?’ + +‘We are all employed in commerce during the day; but in the evening, +_voyez-vous_, _nous sommes sérieux_.’ + +These were the words. They were all employed over the frivolous +mercantile concerns of Belgium during the day; but in the evening they +found some hours for the serious concerns of life. I may have a wrong +idea of wisdom, but I think that was a very wise remark. People +connected with literature and philosophy are busy all their days in +getting rid of second-hand notions and false standards. It is their +profession, in the sweat of their brows, by dogged thinking, to recover +their old fresh view of life, and distinguish what they really and +originally like, from what they have only learned to tolerate perforce. +And these Royal Nautical Sportsmen had the distinction still quite +legible in their hearts. They had still those clean perceptions of what +is nice and nasty, what is interesting and what is dull, which envious +old gentlemen refer to as illusions. The nightmare illusion of middle +age, the bear’s hug of custom gradually squeezing the life out of a man’s +soul, had not yet begun for these happy-starred young Belgians. They +still knew that the interest they took in their business was a trifling +affair compared to their spontaneous, long-suffering affection for +nautical sports. To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying Amen +to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your +soul alive. Such a man may be generous; he may be honest in something +more than the commercial sense; he may love his friends with an elective, +personal sympathy, and not accept them as an adjunct of the station to +which he has been called. He may be a man, in short, acting on his own +instincts, keeping in his own shape that God made him in; and not a mere +crank in the social engine-house, welded on principles that he does not +understand, and for purposes that he does not care for. + +For will any one dare to tell me that business is more entertaining than +fooling among boats? He must have never seen a boat, or never seen an +office, who says so. And for certain the one is a great deal better for +the health. There should be nothing so much a man’s business as his +amusements. Nothing but money-grubbing can be put forward to the +contrary; no one but + + Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell + From Heaven, + +durst risk a word in answer. It is but a lying cant that would represent +the merchant and the banker as people disinterestedly toiling for +mankind, and then most useful when they are most absorbed in their +transactions; for the man is more important than his services. And when +my Royal Nautical Sportsman shall have so far fallen from his hopeful +youth that he cannot pluck up an enthusiasm over anything but his ledger, +I venture to doubt whether he will be near so nice a fellow, and whether +he would welcome, with so good a grace, a couple of drenched Englishmen +paddling into Brussels in the dusk. + +When we had changed our wet clothes and drunk a glass of pale ale to the +Club’s prosperity, one of their number escorted us to an hotel. He would +not join us at our dinner, but he had no objection to a glass of wine. +Enthusiasm is very wearing; and I begin to understand why prophets were +unpopular in Judæa, where they were best known. For three stricken hours +did this excellent young man sit beside us to dilate on boats and +boat-races; and before he left, he was kind enough to order our bedroom +candles. + +We endeavoured now and again to change the subject; but the diversion did +not last a moment: the Royal Nautical Sportsman bridled, shied, answered +the question, and then breasted once more into the swelling tide of his +subject. I call it his subject; but I think it was he who was subjected. +The _Arethusa_, who holds all racing as a creature of the devil, found +himself in a pitiful dilemma. He durst not own his ignorance for the +honour of Old England, and spoke away about English clubs and English +oarsmen whose fame had never before come to his ears. Several times, +and, once above all, on the question of sliding-seats, he was within an +ace of exposure. As for the _Cigarette_, who has rowed races in the heat +of his blood, but now disowns these slips of his wanton youth, his case +was still more desperate; for the Royal Nautical proposed that he should +take an oar in one of their eights on the morrow, to compare the English +with the Belgian stroke. I could see my friend perspiring in his chair +whenever that particular topic came up. And there was yet another +proposal which had the same effect on both of us. It appeared that the +champion canoeist of Europe (as well as most other champions) was a Royal +Nautical Sportsman. And if we would only wait until the Sunday, this +infernal paddler would be so condescending as to accompany us on our next +stage. Neither of us had the least desire to drive the coursers of the +sun against Apollo. + +When the young man was gone, we countermanded our candles, and ordered +some brandy and water. The great billows had gone over our head. The +Royal Nautical Sportsmen were as nice young fellows as a man would wish +to see, but they were a trifle too young and a thought too nautical for +us. We began to see that we were old and cynical; we liked ease and the +agreeable rambling of the human mind about this and the other subject; we +did not want to disgrace our native land by messing an eight, or toiling +pitifully in the wake of the champion canoeist. In short, we had +recourse to flight. It seemed ungrateful, but we tried to make that good +on a card loaded with sincere compliments. And indeed it was no time for +scruples; we seemed to feel the hot breath of the champion on our necks. + + + + +AT MAUBEUGE + + +PARTLY from the terror we had of our good friends the Royal Nauticals, +partly from the fact that there were no fewer than fifty-five locks +between Brussels and Charleroi, we concluded that we should travel by +train across the frontier, boats and all. Fifty-five locks in a day’s +journey was pretty well tantamount to trudging the whole distance on +foot, with the canoes upon our shoulders, an object of astonishment to +the trees on the canal side, and of honest derision to all right-thinking +children. + +To pass the frontier, even in a train, is a difficult matter for the +_Arethusa_. He is somehow or other a marked man for the official eye. +Wherever he journeys, there are the officers gathered together. Treaties +are solemnly signed, foreign ministers, ambassadors, and consuls sit +throned in state from China to Peru, and the Union Jack flutters on all +the winds of heaven. Under these safeguards, portly clergymen, +school-mistresses, gentlemen in grey tweed suits, and all the ruck and +rabble of British touristry pour unhindered, _Murray_ in hand, over the +railways of the Continent, and yet the slim person of the _Arethusa_ is +taken in the meshes, while these great fish go on their way rejoicing. +If he travels without a passport, he is cast, without any figure about +the matter, into noisome dungeons: if his papers are in order, he is +suffered to go his way indeed, but not until he has been humiliated by a +general incredulity. He is a born British subject, yet he has never +succeeded in persuading a single official of his nationality. He +flatters himself he is indifferent honest; yet he is rarely taken for +anything better than a spy, and there is no absurd and disreputable means +of livelihood but has been attributed to him in some heat of official or +popular distrust. . . . + +For the life of me I cannot understand it. I too have been knolled to +church, and sat at good men’s feasts; but I bear no mark of it. I am as +strange as a Jack Indian to their official spectacles. I might come from +any part of the globe, it seems, except from where I do. My ancestors +have laboured in vain, and the glorious Constitution cannot protect me in +my walks abroad. It is a great thing, believe me, to present a good +normal type of the nation you belong to. + +Nobody else was asked for his papers on the way to Maubeuge; but I was; +and although I clung to my rights, I had to choose at last between +accepting the humiliation and being left behind by the train. I was +sorry to give way; but I wanted to get to Maubeuge. + +Maubeuge is a fortified town, with a very good inn, the _Grand Cerf_. It +seemed to be inhabited principally by soldiers and bagmen; at least, +these were all that we saw, except the hotel servants. We had to stay +there some time, for the canoes were in no hurry to follow us, and at +last stuck hopelessly in the custom-house until we went back to liberate +them. There was nothing to do, nothing to see. We had good meals, which +was a great matter; but that was all. + +The _Cigarette_ was nearly taken up upon a charge of drawing the +fortifications: a feat of which he was hopelessly incapable. And +besides, as I suppose each belligerent nation has a plan of the other’s +fortified places already, these precautions are of the nature of shutting +the stable door after the steed is away. But I have no doubt they help +to keep up a good spirit at home. It is a great thing if you can +persuade people that they are somehow or other partakers in a mystery. +It makes them feel bigger. Even the Freemasons, who have been shown up +to satiety, preserve a kind of pride; and not a grocer among them, +however honest, harmless, and empty-headed he may feel himself to be at +bottom, but comes home from one of their _coenacula_ with a portentous +significance for himself. + +It is an odd thing, how happily two people, if there are two, can live in +a place where they have no acquaintance. I think the spectacle of a +whole life in which you have no part paralyses personal desire. You are +content to become a mere spectator. The baker stands in his door; the +colonel with his three medals goes by to the _café_ at night; the troops +drum and trumpet and man the ramparts, as bold as so many lions. It +would task language to say how placidly you behold all this. In a place +where you have taken some root, you are provoked out of your +indifference; you have a hand in the game; your friends are fighting with +the army. But in a strange town, not small enough to grow too soon +familiar, nor so large as to have laid itself out for travellers, you +stand so far apart from the business, that you positively forget it would +be possible to go nearer; you have so little human interest around you, +that you do not remember yourself to be a man. Perhaps, in a very short +time, you would be one no longer. Gymnosophists go into a wood, with all +nature seething around them, with romance on every side; it would be much +more to the purpose if they took up their abode in a dull country town, +where they should see just so much of humanity as to keep them from +desiring more, and only the stale externals of man’s life. These +externals are as dead to us as so many formalities, and speak a dead +language in our eyes and ears. They have no more meaning than an oath or +a salutation. We are so much accustomed to see married couples going to +church of a Sunday that we have clean forgotten what they represent; and +novelists are driven to rehabilitate adultery, no less, when they wish to +show us what a beautiful thing it is for a man and a woman to live for +each other. + +One person in Maubeuge, however, showed me something more than his +outside. That was the driver of the hotel omnibus: a mean enough looking +little man, as well as I can remember; but with a spark of something +human in his soul. He had heard of our little journey, and came to me at +once in envious sympathy. How he longed to travel! he told me. How he +longed to be somewhere else, and see the round world before he went into +the grave! ‘Here I am,’ said he. ‘I drive to the station. Well. And +then I drive back again to the hotel. And so on every day and all the +week round. My God, is that life?’ I could not say I thought it was—for +him. He pressed me to tell him where I had been, and where I hoped to +go; and as he listened, I declare the fellow sighed. Might not this have +been a brave African traveller, or gone to the Indies after Drake? But +it is an evil age for the gypsily inclined among men. He who can sit +squarest on a three-legged stool, he it is who has the wealth and glory. + +I wonder if my friend is still driving the omnibus for the Grand Cerf? +Not very likely, I believe; for I think he was on the eve of mutiny when +we passed through, and perhaps our passage determined him for good. +Better a thousand times that he should be a tramp, and mend pots and pans +by the wayside, and sleep under trees, and see the dawn and the sunset +every day above a new horizon. I think I hear you say that it is a +respectable position to drive an omnibus? Very well. What right has he +who likes it not, to keep those who would like it dearly out of this +respectable position? Suppose a dish were not to my taste, and you told +me that it was a favourite amongst the rest of the company, what should I +conclude from that? Not to finish the dish against my stomach, I +suppose. + +Respectability is a very good thing in its way, but it does not rise +superior to all considerations. I would not for a moment venture to hint +that it was a matter of taste; but I think I will go as far as this: that +if a position is admittedly unkind, uncomfortable, unnecessary, and +superfluously useless, although it were as respectable as the Church of +England, the sooner a man is out of it, the better for himself, and all +concerned. + + + + +ON THE SAMBRE CANALISED: TO QUARTES + + +ABOUT three in the afternoon the whole establishment of the _Grand Cerf_ +accompanied us to the water’s edge. The man of the omnibus was there +with haggard eyes. Poor cage-bird! Do I not remember the time when I +myself haunted the station, to watch train after train carry its +complement of freemen into the night, and read the names of distant +places on the time-bills with indescribable longings? + +We were not clear of the fortifications before the rain began. The wind +was contrary, and blew in furious gusts; nor were the aspects of nature +any more clement than the doings of the sky. For we passed through a +stretch of blighted country, sparsely covered with brush, but handsomely +enough diversified with factory chimneys. We landed in a soiled meadow +among some pollards, and there smoked a pipe in a flaw of fair weather. +But the wind blew so hard, we could get little else to smoke. There were +no natural objects in the neighbourhood, but some sordid workshops. A +group of children headed by a tall girl stood and watched us from a +little distance all the time we stayed. I heartily wonder what they +thought of us. + +At Hautmont, the lock was almost impassable; the landing-place being +steep and high, and the launch at a long distance. Near a dozen grimy +workmen lent us a hand. They refused any reward; and, what is much +better, refused it handsomely, without conveying any sense of insult. +‘It is a way we have in our countryside,’ said they. And a very becoming +way it is. In Scotland, where also you will get services for nothing, +the good people reject your money as if you had been trying to corrupt a +voter. When people take the trouble to do dignified acts, it is worth +while to take a little more, and allow the dignity to be common to all +concerned. But in our brave Saxon countries, where we plod threescore +years and ten in the mud, and the wind keeps singing in our ears from +birth to burial, we do our good and bad with a high hand and almost +offensively; and make even our alms a witness-bearing and an act of war +against the wrong. + +After Hautmont, the sun came forth again and the wind went down; and a +little paddling took us beyond the ironworks and through a delectable +land. The river wound among low hills, so that sometimes the sun was at +our backs, and sometimes it stood right ahead, and the river before us +was one sheet of intolerable glory. On either hand, meadows and orchards +bordered, with a margin of sedge and water flowers, upon the river. The +hedges were of great height, woven about the trunks of hedgerow elms; and +the fields, as they were often very small, looked like a series of bowers +along the stream. There was never any prospect; sometimes a hill-top +with its trees would look over the nearest hedgerow, just to make a +middle distance for the sky; but that was all. The heaven was bare of +clouds. The atmosphere, after the rain, was of enchanting purity. The +river doubled among the hillocks, a shining strip of mirror glass; and +the dip of the paddles set the flowers shaking along the brink. + +In the meadows wandered black and white cattle fantastically marked. One +beast, with a white head and the rest of the body glossy black, came to +the edge to drink, and stood gravely twitching his ears at me as I went +by, like some sort of preposterous clergyman in a play. A moment after I +heard a loud plunge, and, turning my head, saw the clergyman struggling +to shore. The bank had given way under his feet. + +Besides the cattle, we saw no living things except a few birds and a +great many fishermen. These sat along the edges of the meadows, +sometimes with one rod, sometimes with as many as half a score. They +seemed stupefied with contentment; and when we induced them to exchange a +few words with us about the weather, their voices sounded quiet and far +away. There was a strange diversity of opinion among them as to the kind +of fish for which they set their lures; although they were all agreed in +this, that the river was abundantly supplied. Where it was plain that no +two of them had ever caught the same kind of fish, we could not help +suspecting that perhaps not any one of them had ever caught a fish at +all. I hope, since the afternoon was so lovely, that they were one and +all rewarded; and that a silver booty went home in every basket for the +pot. Some of my friends would cry shame on me for this; but I prefer a +man, were he only an angler, to the bravest pair of gills in all God’s +waters. I do not affect fishes unless when cooked in sauce; whereas an +angler is an important piece of river scenery, and hence deserves some +recognition among canoeists. He can always tell you where you are after +a mild fashion; and his quiet presence serves to accentuate the solitude +and stillness, and remind you of the glittering citizens below your boat. + +The Sambre turned so industriously to and fro among his little hills, +that it was past six before we drew near the lock at Quartes. There were +some children on the tow-path, with whom the _Cigarette_ fell into a +chaffing talk as they ran along beside us. It was in vain that I warned +him. In vain I told him, in English, that boys were the most dangerous +creatures; and if once you began with them, it was safe to end in a +shower of stones. For my own part, whenever anything was addressed to +me, I smiled gently and shook my head as though I were an inoffensive +person inadequately acquainted with French. For indeed I have had such +experience at home, that I would sooner meet many wild animals than a +troop of healthy urchins. + +But I was doing injustice to these peaceable young Hainaulters. When the +_Cigarette_ went off to make inquiries, I got out upon the bank to smoke +a pipe and superintend the boats, and became at once the centre of much +amiable curiosity. The children had been joined by this time by a young +woman and a mild lad who had lost an arm; and this gave me more security. +When I let slip my first word or so in French, a little girl nodded her +head with a comical grown-up air. ‘Ah, you see,’ she said, ‘he +understands well enough now; he was just making believe.’ And the little +group laughed together very good-naturedly. + +They were much impressed when they heard we came from England; and the +little girl proffered the information that England was an island ‘and a +far way from here—_bien loin d’ici_.’ + +‘Ay, you may say that, a far way from here,’ said the lad with one arm. + +I was as nearly home-sick as ever I was in my life; they seemed to make +it such an incalculable distance to the place where I first saw the day. +They admired the canoes very much. And I observed one piece of delicacy +in these children, which is worthy of record. They had been deafening us +for the last hundred yards with petitions for a sail; ay, and they +deafened us to the same tune next morning when we came to start; but +then, when the canoes were lying empty, there was no word of any such +petition. Delicacy? or perhaps a bit of fear for the water in so crank a +vessel? I hate cynicism a great deal worse than I do the devil; unless +perhaps the two were the same thing? And yet ’tis a good tonic; the cold +tub and bath-towel of the sentiments; and positively necessary to life in +cases of advanced sensibility. + +From the boats they turned to my costume. They could not make enough of +my red sash; and my knife filled them with awe. + +‘They make them like that in England,’ said the boy with one arm. I was +glad he did not know how badly we make them in England now-a-days. ‘They +are for people who go away to sea,’ he added, ‘and to defend one’s life +against great fish.’ + +I felt I was becoming a more and more romantic figure to the little group +at every word. And so I suppose I was. Even my pipe, although it was an +ordinary French clay pretty well ‘trousered,’ as they call it, would have +a rarity in their eyes, as a thing coming from so far away. And if my +feathers were not very fine in themselves, they were all from over seas. +One thing in my outfit, however, tickled them out of all politeness; and +that was the bemired condition of my canvas shoes. I suppose they were +sure the mud at any rate was a home product. The little girl (who was +the genius of the party) displayed her own sabots in competition; and I +wish you could have seen how gracefully and merrily she did it. + +The young woman’s milk-can, a great amphora of hammered brass, stood some +way off upon the sward. I was glad of an opportunity to divert public +attention from myself, and return some of the compliments I had received. +So I admired it cordially both for form and colour, telling them, and +very truly, that it was as beautiful as gold. They were not surprised. +The things were plainly the boast of the countryside. And the children +expatiated on the costliness of these amphoræ, which sell sometimes as +high as thirty francs apiece; told me how they were carried on donkeys, +one on either side of the saddle, a brave caparison in themselves; and +how they were to be seen all over the district, and at the larger farms +in great number and of great size. + + + + +PONT-SUR-SAMBRE + + +WE ARE PEDLARS + + +THE _Cigarette_ returned with good news. There were beds to be had some +ten minutes’ walk from where we were, at a place called Pont. We stowed +the canoes in a granary, and asked among the children for a guide. The +circle at once widened round us, and our offers of reward were received +in dispiriting silence. We were plainly a pair of Bluebeards to the +children; they might speak to us in public places, and where they had the +advantage of numbers; but it was another thing to venture off alone with +two uncouth and legendary characters, who had dropped from the clouds +upon their hamlet this quiet afternoon, sashed and be-knived, and with a +flavour of great voyages. The owner of the granary came to our +assistance, singled out one little fellow and threatened him with +corporalities; or I suspect we should have had to find the way for +ourselves. As it was, he was more frightened at the granary man than the +strangers, having perhaps had some experience of the former. But I fancy +his little heart must have been going at a fine rate; for he kept +trotting at a respectful distance in front, and looking back at us with +scared eyes. Not otherwise may the children of the young world have +guided Jove or one of his Olympian compeers on an adventure. + +A miry lane led us up from Quartes with its church and bickering +windmill. The hinds were trudging homewards from the fields. A brisk +little woman passed us by. She was seated across a donkey between a pair +of glittering milk-cans; and, as she went, she kicked jauntily with her +heels upon the donkey’s side, and scattered shrill remarks among the +wayfarers. It was notable that none of the tired men took the trouble to +reply. Our conductor soon led us out of the lane and across country. +The sun had gone down, but the west in front of us was one lake of level +gold. The path wandered a while in the open, and then passed under a +trellis like a bower indefinitely prolonged. On either hand were shadowy +orchards; cottages lay low among the leaves, and sent their smoke to +heaven; every here and there, in an opening, appeared the great gold face +of the west. + +I never saw the _Cigarette_ in such an idyllic frame of mind. He waxed +positively lyrical in praise of country scenes. I was little less +exhilarated myself; the mild air of the evening, the shadows, the rich +lights and the silence, made a symphonious accompaniment about our walk; +and we both determined to avoid towns for the future and sleep in +hamlets. + +At last the path went between two houses, and turned the party out into a +wide muddy high-road, bordered, as far as the eye could reach on either +hand, by an unsightly village. The houses stood well back, leaving a +ribbon of waste land on either side of the road, where there were stacks +of firewood, carts, barrows, rubbish-heaps, and a little doubtful grass. +Away on the left, a gaunt tower stood in the middle of the street. What +it had been in past ages, I know not: probably a hold in time of war; but +now-a-days it bore an illegible dial-plate in its upper parts, and near +the bottom an iron letter-box. + +The inn to which we had been recommended at Quartes was full, or else the +landlady did not like our looks. I ought to say, that with our long, +damp india-rubber bags, we presented rather a doubtful type of +civilisation: like rag-and-bone men, the _Cigarette_ imagined. ‘These +gentlemen are pedlars?—_Ces messieurs sont des marchands_?’—asked the +landlady. And then, without waiting for an answer, which I suppose she +thought superfluous in so plain a case, recommended us to a butcher who +lived hard by the tower, and took in travellers to lodge. + +Thither went we. But the butcher was flitting, and all his beds were +taken down. Or else he didn’t like our look. As a parting shot, we had +‘These gentlemen are pedlars?’ + +It began to grow dark in earnest. We could no longer distinguish the +faces of the people who passed us by with an inarticulate good-evening. +And the householders of Pont seemed very economical with their oil; for +we saw not a single window lighted in all that long village. I believe +it is the longest village in the world; but I daresay in our predicament +every pace counted three times over. We were much cast down when we came +to the last auberge; and looking in at the dark door, asked timidly if we +could sleep there for the night. A female voice assented in no very +friendly tones. We clapped the bags down and found our way to chairs. + +The place was in total darkness, save a red glow in the chinks and +ventilators of the stove. But now the landlady lit a lamp to see her new +guests; I suppose the darkness was what saved us another expulsion; for I +cannot say she looked gratified at our appearance. We were in a large +bare apartment, adorned with two allegorical prints of Music and +Painting, and a copy of the law against public drunkenness. On one side, +there was a bit of a bar, with some half-a-dozen bottles. Two labourers +sat waiting supper, in attitudes of extreme weariness; a plain-looking +lass bustled about with a sleepy child of two; and the landlady began to +derange the pots upon the stove, and set some beefsteak to grill. + +‘These gentlemen are pedlars?’ she asked sharply. And that was all the +conversation forthcoming. We began to think we might be pedlars after +all. I never knew a population with so narrow a range of conjecture as +the innkeepers of Pont-sur-Sambre. But manners and bearing have not a +wider currency than bank-notes. You have only to get far enough out of +your beat, and all your accomplished airs will go for nothing. These +Hainaulters could see no difference between us and the average pedlar. +Indeed we had some grounds for reflection while the steak was getting +ready, to see how perfectly they accepted us at their own valuation, and +how our best politeness and best efforts at entertainment seemed to fit +quite suitably with the character of packmen. At least it seemed a good +account of the profession in France, that even before such judges we +could not beat them at our own weapons. + +At last we were called to table. The two hinds (and one of them looked +sadly worn and white in the face, as though sick with over-work and +under-feeding) supped off a single plate of some sort of bread-berry, +some potatoes in their jackets, a small cup of coffee sweetened with +sugar-candy, and one tumbler of swipes. The landlady, her son, and the +lass aforesaid, took the same. Our meal was quite a banquet by +comparison. We had some beefsteak, not so tender as it might have been, +some of the potatoes, some cheese, an extra glass of the swipes, and +white sugar in our coffee. + +You see what it is to be a gentleman—I beg your pardon, what it is to be +a pedlar. It had not before occurred to me that a pedlar was a great man +in a labourer’s ale-house; but now that I had to enact the part for an +evening, I found that so it was. He has in his hedge quarters somewhat +the same pre-eminency as the man who takes a private parlour in an hotel. +The more you look into it, the more infinite are the class distinctions +among men; and possibly, by a happy dispensation, there is no one at all +at the bottom of the scale; no one but can find some superiority over +somebody else, to keep up his pride withal. + +We were displeased enough with our fare. Particularly the _Cigarette_, +for I tried to make believe that I was amused with the adventure, tough +beefsteak and all. According to the Lucretian maxim, our steak should +have been flavoured by the look of the other people’s bread-berry. But +we did not find it so in practice. You may have a head-knowledge that +other people live more poorly than yourself, but it is not agreeable—I +was going to say, it is against the etiquette of the universe—to sit at +the same table and pick your own superior diet from among their crusts. +I had not seen such a thing done since the greedy boy at school with his +birthday cake. It was odious enough to witness, I could remember; and I +had never thought to play the part myself. But there again you see what +it is to be a pedlar. + +There is no doubt that the poorer classes in our country are much more +charitably disposed than their superiors in wealth. And I fancy it must +arise a great deal from the comparative indistinction of the easy and the +not so easy in these ranks. A workman or a pedlar cannot shutter himself +off from his less comfortable neighbours. If he treats himself to a +luxury, he must do it in the face of a dozen who cannot. And what should +more directly lead to charitable thoughts? . . . Thus the poor man, +camping out in life, sees it as it is, and knows that every mouthful he +puts in his belly has been wrenched out of the fingers of the hungry. + +But at a certain stage of prosperity, as in a balloon ascent, the +fortunate person passes through a zone of clouds, and sublunary matters +are thenceforward hidden from his view. He sees nothing but the heavenly +bodies, all in admirable order, and positively as good as new. He finds +himself surrounded in the most touching manner by the attentions of +Providence, and compares himself involuntarily with the lilies and the +skylarks. He does not precisely sing, of course; but then he looks so +unassuming in his open landau! If all the world dined at one table, this +philosophy would meet with some rude knocks. + + + +THE TRAVELLING MERCHANT + + +LIKE the lackeys in Molière’s farce, when the true nobleman broke in on +their high life below stairs, we were destined to be confronted with a +real pedlar. To make the lesson still more poignant for fallen gentlemen +like us, he was a pedlar of infinitely more consideration than the sort +of scurvy fellows we were taken for: like a lion among mice, or a ship of +war bearing down upon two cock-boats. Indeed, he did not deserve the +name of pedlar at all: he was a travelling merchant. + +I suppose it was about half-past eight when this worthy, Monsieur Hector +Gilliard of Maubeuge, turned up at the ale-house door in a tilt cart +drawn by a donkey, and cried cheerily on the inhabitants. He was a lean, +nervous flibbertigibbet of a man, with something the look of an actor, +and something the look of a horse-jockey. He had evidently prospered +without any of the favours of education; for he adhered with stern +simplicity to the masculine gender, and in the course of the evening +passed off some fancy futures in a very florid style of architecture. +With him came his wife, a comely young woman with her hair tied in a +yellow kerchief, and their son, a little fellow of four, in a blouse and +military _képi_. It was notable that the child was many degrees better +dressed than either of the parents. We were informed he was already at a +boarding-school; but the holidays having just commenced, he was off to +spend them with his parents on a cruise. An enchanting holiday +occupation, was it not? to travel all day with father and mother in the +tilt cart full of countless treasures; the green country rattling by on +either side, and the children in all the villages contemplating him with +envy and wonder? It is better fun, during the holidays, to be the son of +a travelling merchant, than son and heir to the greatest cotton-spinner +in creation. And as for being a reigning prince—indeed I never saw one +if it was not Master Gilliard! + +While M. Hector and the son of the house were putting up the donkey, and +getting all the valuables under lock and key, the landlady warmed up the +remains of our beefsteak, and fried the cold potatoes in slices, and +Madame Gilliard set herself to waken the boy, who had come far that day, +and was peevish and dazzled by the light. He was no sooner awake than he +began to prepare himself for supper by eating galette, unripe pears, and +cold potatoes—with, so far as I could judge, positive benefit to his +appetite. + +The landlady, fired with motherly emulation, awoke her own little girl; +and the two children were confronted. Master Gilliard looked at her for +a moment, very much as a dog looks at his own reflection in a mirror +before he turns away. He was at that time absorbed in the galette. His +mother seemed crestfallen that he should display so little inclination +towards the other sex; and expressed her disappointment with some candour +and a very proper reference to the influence of years. + +Sure enough a time will come when he will pay more attention to the +girls, and think a great deal less of his mother: let us hope she will +like it as well as she seemed to fancy. But it is odd enough; the very +women who profess most contempt for mankind as a sex, seem to find even +its ugliest particulars rather lively and high-minded in their own sons. + +The little girl looked longer and with more interest, probably because +she was in her own house, while he was a traveller and accustomed to +strange sights. And besides there was no galette in the case with her. + +All the time of supper, there was nothing spoken of but my young lord. +The two parents were both absurdly fond of their child. Monsieur kept +insisting on his sagacity: how he knew all the children at school by +name; and when this utterly failed on trial, how he was cautious and +exact to a strange degree, and if asked anything, he would sit and +think—and think, and if he did not know it, ‘my faith, he wouldn’t tell +you at all—_foi_, _il ne vous le dira pas_’: which is certainly a very +high degree of caution. At intervals, M. Hector would appeal to his +wife, with his mouth full of beefsteak, as to the little fellow’s age at +such or such a time when he had said or done something memorable; and I +noticed that Madame usually pooh-poohed these inquiries. She herself was +not boastful in her vein; but she never had her fill of caressing the +child; and she seemed to take a gentle pleasure in recalling all that was +fortunate in his little existence. No schoolboy could have talked more +of the holidays which were just beginning and less of the black +school-time which must inevitably follow after. She showed, with a pride +perhaps partly mercantile in origin, his pockets preposterously swollen +with tops and whistles and string. When she called at a house in the way +of business, it appeared he kept her company; and whenever a sale was +made, received a sou out of the profit. Indeed they spoiled him vastly, +these two good people. But they had an eye to his manners for all that, +and reproved him for some little faults in breeding, which occurred from +time to time during supper. + +On the whole, I was not much hurt at being taken for a pedlar. I might +think that I ate with greater delicacy, or that my mistakes in French +belonged to a different order; but it was plain that these distinctions +would be thrown away upon the landlady and the two labourers. In all +essential things we and the Gilliards cut very much the same figure in +the ale-house kitchen. M. Hector was more at home, indeed, and took a +higher tone with the world; but that was explicable on the ground of his +driving a donkey-cart, while we poor bodies tramped afoot. I daresay, +the rest of the company thought us dying with envy, though in no ill +sense, to be as far up in the profession as the new arrival. + +And of one thing I am sure: that every one thawed and became more +humanised and conversible as soon as these innocent people appeared upon +the scene. I would not very readily trust the travelling merchant with +any extravagant sum of money; but I am sure his heart was in the right +place. In this mixed world, if you can find one or two sensible places +in a man—above all, if you should find a whole family living together on +such pleasant terms—you may surely be satisfied, and take the rest for +granted; or, what is a great deal better, boldly make up your mind that +you can do perfectly well without the rest; and that ten thousand bad +traits cannot make a single good one any the less good. + +It was getting late. M. Hector lit a stable lantern and went off to his +cart for some arrangements; and my young gentleman proceeded to divest +himself of the better part of his raiment, and play gymnastics on his +mother’s lap, and thence on to the floor, with accompaniment of laughter. + +‘Are you going to sleep alone?’ asked the servant lass. + +‘There’s little fear of that,’ says Master Gilliard. + +‘You sleep alone at school,’ objected his mother. ‘Come, come, you must +be a man.’ + +But he protested that school was a different matter from the holidays; +that there were dormitories at school; and silenced the discussion with +kisses: his mother smiling, no one better pleased than she. + +There certainly was, as he phrased it, very little fear that he should +sleep alone; for there was but one bed for the trio. We, on our part, +had firmly protested against one man’s accommodation for two; and we had +a double-bedded pen in the loft of the house, furnished, beside the beds, +with exactly three hat-pegs and one table. There was not so much as a +glass of water. But the window would open, by good fortune. + +Some time before I fell asleep the loft was full of the sound of mighty +snoring: the Gilliards, and the labourers, and the people of the inn, all +at it, I suppose, with one consent. The young moon outside shone very +clearly over Pont-sur-Sambre, and down upon the ale-house where all we +pedlars were abed. + + + + +ON THE SAMBRE CANALISED: TO LANDRECIES + + +IN the morning, when we came downstairs, the landlady pointed out to us +two pails of water behind the street-door. ‘_Voilà de l’eau pour vous +débarbouiller_,’ says she. And so there we made a shift to wash +ourselves, while Madame Gilliard brushed the family boots on the outer +doorstep, and M. Hector, whistling cheerily, arranged some small goods +for the day’s campaign in a portable chest of drawers, which formed a +part of his baggage. Meanwhile the child was letting off Waterloo +crackers all over the floor. + +I wonder, by-the-bye, what they call Waterloo crackers in France; perhaps +Austerlitz crackers. There is a great deal in the point of view. Do you +remember the Frenchman who, travelling by way of Southampton, was put +down in Waterloo Station, and had to drive across Waterloo Bridge? He +had a mind to go home again, it seems. + +Pont itself is on the river, but whereas it is ten minutes’ walk from +Quartes by dry land, it is six weary kilometres by water. We left our +bags at the inn, and walked to our canoes through the wet orchards +unencumbered. Some of the children were there to see us off, but we were +no longer the mysterious beings of the night before. A departure is much +less romantic than an unexplained arrival in the golden evening. +Although we might be greatly taken at a ghost’s first appearance, we +should behold him vanish with comparative equanimity. + +The good folk of the inn at Pont, when we called there for the bags, were +overcome with marvelling. At sight of these two dainty little boats, +with a fluttering Union Jack on each, and all the varnish shining from +the sponge, they began to perceive that they had entertained angels +unawares. The landlady stood upon the bridge, probably lamenting she had +charged so little; the son ran to and fro, and called out the neighbours +to enjoy the sight; and we paddled away from quite a crowd of wrapt +observers. These gentlemen pedlars, indeed! Now you see their quality +too late. + +The whole day was showery, with occasional drenching plumps. We were +soaked to the skin, then partially dried in the sun, then soaked once +more. But there were some calm intervals, and one notably, when we were +skirting the forest of Mormal, a sinister name to the ear, but a place +most gratifying to sight and smell. It looked solemn along the +river-side, drooping its boughs into the water, and piling them up aloft +into a wall of leaves. What is a forest but a city of nature’s own, full +of hardy and innocuous living things, where there is nothing dead and +nothing made with the hands, but the citizens themselves are the houses +and public monuments? There is nothing so much alive, and yet so quiet, +as a woodland; and a pair of people, swinging past in canoes, feel very +small and bustling by comparison. + +And surely of all smells in the world, the smell of many trees is the +sweetest and most fortifying. The sea has a rude, pistolling sort of +odour, that takes you in the nostrils like snuff, and carries with it a +fine sentiment of open water and tall ships; but the smell of a forest, +which comes nearest to this in tonic quality, surpasses it by many +degrees in the quality of softness. Again, the smell of the sea has +little variety, but the smell of a forest is infinitely changeful; it +varies with the hour of the day, not in strength merely, but in +character; and the different sorts of trees, as you go from one zone of +the wood to another, seem to live among different kinds of atmosphere. +Usually the resin of the fir predominates. But some woods are more +coquettish in their habits; and the breath of the forest of Mormal, as it +came aboard upon us that showery afternoon, was perfumed with nothing +less delicate than sweetbrier. + +I wish our way had always lain among woods. Trees are the most civil +society. An old oak that has been growing where he stands since before +the Reformation, taller than many spires, more stately than the greater +part of mountains, and yet a living thing, liable to sicknesses and +death, like you and me: is not that in itself a speaking lesson in +history? But acres on acres full of such patriarchs contiguously rooted, +their green tops billowing in the wind, their stalwart younglings pushing +up about their knees: a whole forest, healthy and beautiful, giving +colour to the light, giving perfume to the air: what is this but the most +imposing piece in nature’s repertory? Heine wished to lie like Merlin +under the oaks of Broceliande. I should not be satisfied with one tree; +but if the wood grew together like a banyan grove, I would be buried +under the tap-root of the whole; my parts should circulate from oak to +oak; and my consciousness should be diffused abroad in all the forest, +and give a common heart to that assembly of green spires, so that it also +might rejoice in its own loveliness and dignity. I think I feel a +thousand squirrels leaping from bough to bough in my vast mausoleum; and +the birds and the winds merrily coursing over its uneven, leafy surface. + +Alas! the forest of Mormal is only a little bit of a wood, and it was but +for a little way that we skirted by its boundaries. And the rest of the +time the rain kept coming in squirts and the wind in squalls, until one’s +heart grew weary of such fitful, scolding weather. It was odd how the +showers began when we had to carry the boats over a lock, and must expose +our legs. They always did. This is a sort of thing that readily begets +a personal feeling against nature. There seems no reason why the shower +should not come five minutes before or five minutes after, unless you +suppose an intention to affront you. The _Cigarette_ had a mackintosh +which put him more or less above these contrarieties. But I had to bear +the brunt uncovered. I began to remember that nature was a woman. My +companion, in a rosier temper, listened with great satisfaction to my +Jeremiads, and ironically concurred. He instanced, as a cognate matter, +the action of the tides, ‘which,’ said he, ‘was altogether designed for +the confusion of canoeists, except in so far as it was calculated to +minister to a barren vanity on the part of the moon.’ + +At the last lock, some little way out of Landrecies, I refused to go any +farther; and sat in a drift of rain by the side of the bank, to have a +reviving pipe. A vivacious old man, whom I take to have been the devil, +drew near and questioned me about our journey. In the fulness of my +heart, I laid bare our plans before him. He said it was the silliest +enterprise that ever he heard of. Why, did I not know, he asked me, that +it was nothing but locks, locks, locks, the whole way? not to mention +that, at this season of the year, we should find the Oise quite dry? +‘Get into a train, my little young man,’ said he, I and go you away home +to your parents.’ I was so astounded at the man’s malice, that I could +only stare at him in silence. A tree would never have spoken to me like +this. At last I got out with some words. We had come from Antwerp +already, I told him, which was a good long way; and we should do the rest +in spite of him. Yes, I said, if there were no other reason, I would do +it now, just because he had dared to say we could not. The pleasant old +gentleman looked at me sneeringly, made an allusion to my canoe, and +marched of, waggling his head. + +I was still inwardly fuming, when up came a pair of young fellows, who +imagined I was the _Cigarette’s_ servant, on a comparison, I suppose, of +my bare jersey with the other’s mackintosh, and asked me many questions +about my place and my master’s character. I said he was a good enough +fellow, but had this absurd voyage on the head. ‘O no, no,’ said one, +‘you must not say that; it is not absurd; it is very courageous of him.’ +I believe these were a couple of angels sent to give me heart again. It +was truly fortifying to reproduce all the old man’s insinuations, as if +they were original to me in my character of a malcontent footman, and +have them brushed away like so many flies by these admirable young men. + +When I recounted this affair to the _Cigarette_, ‘They must have a +curious idea of how English servants behave,’ says he dryly, ‘for you +treated me like a brute beast at the lock.’ + +I was a good deal mortified; but my temper had suffered, it is a fact. + + + + +AT LANDRECIES + + +AT Landrecies the rain still fell and the wind still blew; but we found a +double-bedded room with plenty of furniture, real water-jugs with real +water in them, and dinner: a real dinner, not innocent of real wine. +After having been a pedlar for one night, and a butt for the elements +during the whole of the next day, these comfortable circumstances fell on +my heart like sunshine. There was an English fruiterer at dinner, +travelling with a Belgian fruiterer; in the evening at the _café_, we +watched our compatriot drop a good deal of money at corks; and I don’t +know why, but this pleased us. + +It turned out we were to see more of Landrecies than we expected; for the +weather next day was simply bedlamite. It is not the place one would +have chosen for a day’s rest; for it consists almost entirely of +fortifications. Within the ramparts, a few blocks of houses, a long row +of barracks, and a church, figure, with what countenance they may, as the +town. There seems to be no trade; and a shopkeeper from whom I bought a +sixpenny flint-and-steel, was so much affected that he filled my pockets +with spare flints into the bargain. The only public buildings that had +any interest for us were the hotel and the _café_. But we visited the +church. There lies Marshal Clarke. But as neither of us had ever heard +of that military hero, we bore the associations of the spot with +fortitude. + +In all garrison towns, guard-calls, and _réveilles_, and such like, make +a fine romantic interlude in civic business. Bugles, and drums, and +fifes, are of themselves most excellent things in nature; and when they +carry the mind to marching armies, and the picturesque vicissitudes of +war, they stir up something proud in the heart. But in a shadow of a +town like Landrecies, with little else moving, these points of war made a +proportionate commotion. Indeed, they were the only things to remember. +It was just the place to hear the round going by at night in the +darkness, with the solid tramp of men marching, and the startling +reverberations of the drum. It reminded you, that even this place was a +point in the great warfaring system of Europe, and might on some future +day be ringed about with cannon smoke and thunder, and make itself a name +among strong towns. + +The drum, at any rate, from its martial voice and notable physiological +effect, nay, even from its cumbrous and comical shape, stands alone among +the instruments of noise. And if it be true, as I have heard it said, +that drums are covered with asses’ skin, what a picturesque irony is +there in that! As if this long-suffering animal’s hide had not been +sufficiently belaboured during life, now by Lyonnese costermongers, now +by presumptuous Hebrew prophets, it must be stripped from his poor hinder +quarters after death, stretched on a drum, and beaten night after night +round the streets of every garrison town in Europe. And up the heights +of Alma and Spicheren, and wherever death has his red flag a-flying, and +sounds his own potent tuck upon the cannons, there also must the +drummer-boy, hurrying with white face over fallen comrades, batter and +bemaul this slip of skin from the loins of peaceable donkeys. + +Generally a man is never more uselessly employed than when he is at this +trick of bastinadoing asses’ hide. We know what effect it has in life, +and how your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating. But in this +state of mummy and melancholy survival of itself, when the hollow skin +reverberates to the drummer’s wrist, and each dub-a-dub goes direct to a +man’s heart, and puts madness there, and that disposition of the pulses +which we, in our big way of talking, nickname Heroism:—is there not +something in the nature of a revenge upon the donkey’s persecutors? Of +old, he might say, you drubbed me up hill and down dale, and I must +endure; but now that I am dead, those dull thwacks that were scarcely +audible in country lanes, have become stirring music in front of the +brigade; and for every blow that you lay on my old greatcoat, you will +see a comrade stumble and fall. + +Not long after the drums had passed the _café_, the _Cigarette_ and the +_Arethusa_ began to grow sleepy, and set out for the hotel, which was +only a door or two away. But although we had been somewhat indifferent +to Landrecies, Landrecies had not been indifferent to us. All day, we +learned, people had been running out between the squalls to visit our two +boats. Hundreds of persons, so said report, although it fitted ill with +our idea of the town—hundreds of persons had inspected them where they +lay in a coal-shed. We were becoming lions in Landrecies, who had been +only pedlars the night before in Pont. + +And now, when we left the _café_, we were pursued and overtaken at the +hotel door by no less a person than the _Juge de Paix_: a functionary, as +far as I can make out, of the character of a Scots Sheriff-Substitute. +He gave us his card and invited us to sup with him on the spot, very +neatly, very gracefully, as Frenchmen can do these things. It was for +the credit of Landrecies, said he; and although we knew very well how +little credit we could do the place, we must have been churlish fellows +to refuse an invitation so politely introduced. + +The house of the Judge was close by; it was a well-appointed bachelor’s +establishment, with a curious collection of old brass warming-pans upon +the walls. Some of these were most elaborately carved. It seemed a +picturesque idea for a collector. You could not help thinking how many +night-caps had wagged over these warming-pans in past generations; what +jests may have been made, and kisses taken, while they were in service; +and how often they had been uselessly paraded in the bed of death. If +they could only speak, at what absurd, indecorous, and tragical scenes +had they not been present! + +The wine was excellent. When we made the Judge our compliments upon a +bottle, ‘I do not give it you as my worst,’ said he. I wonder when +Englishmen will learn these hospitable graces. They are worth learning; +they set off life, and make ordinary moments ornamental. + +There were two other Landrecienses present. One was the collector of +something or other, I forget what; the other, we were told, was the +principal notary of the place. So it happened that we all five more or +less followed the law. At this rate, the talk was pretty certain to +become technical. The _Cigarette_ expounded the Poor Laws very +magisterially. And a little later I found myself laying down the Scots +Law of Illegitimacy, of which I am glad to say I know nothing. The +collector and the notary, who were both married men, accused the Judge, +who was a bachelor, of having started the subject. He deprecated the +charge, with a conscious, pleased air, just like all the men I have ever +seen, be they French or English. How strange that we should all, in our +unguarded moments, rather like to be thought a bit of a rogue with the +women! + +As the evening went on, the wine grew more to my taste; the spirits +proved better than the wine; the company was genial. This was the +highest water mark of popular favour on the whole cruise. After all, +being in a Judge’s house, was there not something semi-official in the +tribute? And so, remembering what a great country France is, we did full +justice to our entertainment. Landrecies had been a long while asleep +before we returned to the hotel; and the sentries on the ramparts were +already looking for daybreak. + + + + +SAMBRE AND OISE CANAL: CANAL BOATS + + +NEXT day we made a late start in the rain. The Judge politely escorted +us to the end of the lock under an umbrella. We had now brought +ourselves to a pitch of humility in the matter of weather, not often +attained except in the Scottish Highlands. A rag of blue sky or a +glimpse of sunshine set our hearts singing; and when the rain was not +heavy, we counted the day almost fair. + +Long lines of barges lay one after another along the canal; many of them +looking mighty spruce and shipshape in their jerkin of Archangel tar +picked out with white and green. Some carried gay iron railings, and +quite a parterre of flower-pots. Children played on the decks, as +heedless of the rain as if they had been brought up on Loch Carron side; +men fished over the gunwale, some of them under umbrellas; women did +their washing; and every barge boasted its mongrel cur by way of +watch-dog. Each one barked furiously at the canoes, running alongside +until he had got to the end of his own ship, and so passing on the word +to the dog aboard the next. We must have seen something like a hundred +of these embarkations in the course of that day’s paddle, ranged one +after another like the houses in a street; and from not one of them were +we disappointed of this accompaniment. It was like visiting a menagerie, +the _Cigarette_ remarked. + +These little cities by the canal side had a very odd effect upon the +mind. They seemed, with their flower-pots and smoking chimneys, their +washings and dinners, a rooted piece of nature in the scene; and yet if +only the canal below were to open, one junk after another would hoist +sail or harness horses and swim away into all parts of France; and the +impromptu hamlet would separate, house by house, to the four winds. The +children who played together to-day by the Sambre and Oise Canal, each at +his own father’s threshold, when and where might they next meet? + +For some time past the subject of barges had occupied a great deal of our +talk, and we had projected an old age on the canals of Europe. It was to +be the most leisurely of progresses, now on a swift river at the tail of +a steam-boat, now waiting horses for days together on some inconsiderable +junction. We should be seen pottering on deck in all the dignity of +years, our white beards falling into our laps. We were ever to be busied +among paint-pots; so that there should be no white fresher, and no green +more emerald than ours, in all the navy of the canals. There should be +books in the cabin, and tobacco-jars, and some old Burgundy as red as a +November sunset and as odorous as a violet in April. There should be a +flageolet, whence the _Cigarette_, with cunning touch, should draw +melting music under the stars; or perhaps, laying that aside, upraise his +voice—somewhat thinner than of yore, and with here and there a quaver, or +call it a natural grace-note—in rich and solemn psalmody. + +All this, simmering in my mind, set me wishing to go aboard one of these +ideal houses of lounging. I had plenty to choose from, as I coasted one +after another, and the dogs bayed at me for a vagrant. At last I saw a +nice old man and his wife looking at me with some interest, so I gave +them good-day and pulled up alongside. I began with a remark upon their +dog, which had somewhat the look of a pointer; thence I slid into a +compliment on Madame’s flowers, and thence into a word in praise of their +way of life. + +If you ventured on such an experiment in England you would get a slap in +the face at once. The life would be shown to be a vile one, not without +a side shot at your better fortune. Now, what I like so much in France +is the clear unflinching recognition by everybody of his own luck. They +all know on which side their bread is buttered, and take a pleasure in +showing it to others, which is surely the better part of religion. And +they scorn to make a poor mouth over their poverty, which I take to be +the better part of manliness. I have heard a woman in quite a better +position at home, with a good bit of money in hand, refer to her own +child with a horrid whine as ‘a poor man’s child.’ I would not say such +a thing to the Duke of Westminster. And the French are full of this +spirit of independence. Perhaps it is the result of republican +institutions, as they call them. Much more likely it is because there +are so few people really poor, that the whiners are not enough to keep +each other in countenance. + +The people on the barge were delighted to hear that I admired their +state. They understood perfectly well, they told me, how Monsieur envied +them. Without doubt Monsieur was rich; and in that case he might make a +canal boat as pretty as a villa—_joli comme un château_. And with that +they invited me on board their own water villa. They apologised for +their cabin; they had not been rich enough to make it as it ought to be. + +‘The fire should have been here, at this side,’ explained the husband. +‘Then one might have a writing-table in the middle—books—and’ +(comprehensively) ‘all. It would be quite coquettish—_ça serait +tout-à-fait coquet_.’ And he looked about him as though the improvements +were already made. It was plainly not the first time that he had thus +beautified his cabin in imagination; and when next he makes a bit, I +should expect to see the writing-table in the middle. + +Madame had three birds in a cage. They were no great thing, she +explained. Fine birds were so dear. They had sought to get a +_Hollandais_ last winter in Rouen (Rouen? thought I; and is this whole +mansion, with its dogs and birds and smoking chimneys, so far a traveller +as that? and as homely an object among the cliffs and orchards of the +Seine as on the green plains of Sambre?)—they had sought to get a +_Hollandais_ last winter in Rouen; but these cost fifteen francs +apiece—picture it—fifteen francs! + +‘_Pour un tout petit oiseau_—For quite a little bird,’ added the husband. + +As I continued to admire, the apologetics died away, and the good people +began to brag of their barge, and their happy condition in life, as if +they had been Emperor and Empress of the Indies. It was, in the Scots +phrase, a good hearing, and put me in good humour with the world. If +people knew what an inspiriting thing it is to hear a man boasting, so +long as he boasts of what he really has, I believe they would do it more +freely and with a better grace. + +They began to ask about our voyage. You should have seen how they +sympathised. They seemed half ready to give up their barge and follow +us. But these _canaletti_ are only gypsies semi-domesticated. The +semi-domestication came out in rather a pretty form. Suddenly Madam’s +brow darkened. ‘_Cependant_,’ she began, and then stopped; and then +began again by asking me if I were single? + +‘Yes,’ said I. + +‘And your friend who went by just now?’ + +He also was unmarried. + +O then—all was well. She could not have wives left alone at home; but +since there were no wives in the question, we were doing the best we +could. + +‘To see about one in the world,’ said the husband, ‘_il n’y a que +ça_—there is nothing else worth while. A man, look you, who sticks in +his own village like a bear,’ he went on, ‘—very well, he sees nothing. +And then death is the end of all. And he has seen nothing.’ + +Madame reminded her husband of an Englishman who had come up this canal +in a steamer. + +‘Perhaps Mr. Moens in the _Ytene_,’ I suggested. + +‘That’s it,’ assented the husband. ‘He had his wife and family with him, +and servants. He came ashore at all the locks and asked the name of the +villages, whether from boatmen or lock-keepers; and then he wrote, wrote +them down. Oh, he wrote enormously! I suppose it was a wager.’ + +A wager was a common enough explanation for our own exploits, but it +seemed an original reason for taking notes. + + + + +THE OISE IN FLOOD + + +BEFORE nine next morning the two canoes were installed on a light country +cart at Étreux: and we were soon following them along the side of a +pleasant valley full of hop-gardens and poplars. Agreeable villages lay +here and there on the slope of the hill; notably, Tupigny, with the +hop-poles hanging their garlands in the very street, and the houses +clustered with grapes. There was a faint enthusiasm on our passage; +weavers put their heads to the windows; children cried out in ecstasy at +sight of the two ‘boaties’—_barguettes_: and bloused pedestrians, who +were acquainted with our charioteer, jested with him on the nature of his +freight. + +We had a shower or two, but light and flying. The air was clean and +sweet among all these green fields and green things growing. There was +not a touch of autumn in the weather. And when, at Vadencourt, we +launched from a little lawn opposite a mill, the sun broke forth and set +all the leaves shining in the valley of the Oise. + +The river was swollen with the long rains. From Vadencourt all the way +to Origny, it ran with ever-quickening speed, taking fresh heart at each +mile, and racing as though it already smelt the sea. The water was +yellow and turbulent, swung with an angry eddy among half-submerged +willows, and made an angry clatter along stony shores. The course kept +turning and turning in a narrow and well-timbered valley. Now the river +would approach the side, and run griding along the chalky base of the +hill, and show us a few open colza-fields among the trees. Now it would +skirt the garden-walls of houses, where we might catch a glimpse through +a doorway, and see a priest pacing in the chequered sunlight. Again, the +foliage closed so thickly in front, that there seemed to be no issue; +only a thicket of willows, overtopped by elms and poplars, under which +the river ran flush and fleet, and where a kingfisher flew past like a +piece of the blue sky. On these different manifestations the sun poured +its clear and catholic looks. The shadows lay as solid on the swift +surface of the stream as on the stable meadows. The light sparkled +golden in the dancing poplar leaves, and brought the hills into communion +with our eyes. And all the while the river never stopped running or took +breath; and the reeds along the whole valley stood shivering from top to +toe. + +There should be some myth (but if there is, I know it not) founded on the +shivering of the reeds. There are not many things in nature more +striking to man’s eye. It is such an eloquent pantomime of terror; and +to see such a number of terrified creatures taking sanctuary in every +nook along the shore, is enough to infect a silly human with alarm. +Perhaps they are only a-cold, and no wonder, standing waist-deep in the +stream. Or perhaps they have never got accustomed to the speed and fury +of the river’s flux, or the miracle of its continuous body. Pan once +played upon their forefathers; and so, by the hands of his river, he +still plays upon these later generations down all the valley of the Oise; +and plays the same air, both sweet and shrill, to tell us of the beauty +and the terror of the world. + +The canoe was like a leaf in the current. It took it up and shook it, +and carried it masterfully away, like a Centaur carrying off a nymph. To +keep some command on our direction required hard and diligent plying of +the paddle. The river was in such a hurry for the sea! Every drop of +water ran in a panic, like as many people in a frightened crowd. But +what crowd was ever so numerous, or so single-minded? All the objects of +sight went by at a dance measure; the eyesight raced with the racing +river; the exigencies of every moment kept the pegs screwed so tight, +that our being quivered like a well-tuned instrument; and the blood shook +off its lethargy, and trotted through all the highways and byways of the +veins and arteries, and in and out of the heart, as if circulation were +but a holiday journey, and not the daily moil of threescore years and +ten. The reeds might nod their heads in warning, and with tremulous +gestures tell how the river was as cruel as it was strong and cold, and +how death lurked in the eddy underneath the willows. But the reeds had +to stand where they were; and those who stand still are always timid +advisers. As for us, we could have shouted aloud. If this lively and +beautiful river were, indeed, a thing of death’s contrivance, the old +ashen rogue had famously outwitted himself with us. I was living three +to the minute. I was scoring points against him every stroke of my +paddle, every turn of the stream. I have rarely had better profit of my +life. + +For I think we may look upon our little private war with death somewhat +in this light. If a man knows he will sooner or later be robbed upon a +journey, he will have a bottle of the best in every inn, and look upon +all his extravagances as so much gained upon the thieves. And above all, +where instead of simply spending, he makes a profitable investment for +some of his money, when it will be out of risk of loss. So every bit of +brisk living, and above all when it is healthful, is just so much gained +upon the wholesale filcher, death. We shall have the less in our +pockets, the more in our stomach, when he cries stand and deliver. A +swift stream is a favourite artifice of his, and one that brings him in a +comfortable thing per annum; but when he and I come to settle our +accounts, I shall whistle in his face for these hours upon the upper +Oise. + +Towards afternoon we got fairly drunken with the sunshine and the +exhilaration of the pace. We could no longer contain ourselves and our +content. The canoes were too small for us; we must be out and stretch +ourselves on shore. And so in a green meadow we bestowed our limbs on +the grass, and smoked deifying tobacco and proclaimed the world +excellent. It was the last good hour of the day, and I dwell upon it +with extreme complacency. + +On one side of the valley, high up on the chalky summit of the hill, a +ploughman with his team appeared and disappeared at regular intervals. +At each revelation he stood still for a few seconds against the sky: for +all the world (as the _Cigarette_ declared) like a toy Burns who should +have just ploughed up the Mountain Daisy. He was the only living thing +within view, unless we are to count the river. + +On the other side of the valley a group of red roofs and a belfry showed +among the foliage. Thence some inspired bell-ringer made the afternoon +musical on a chime of bells. There was something very sweet and taking +in the air he played; and we thought we had never heard bells speak so +intelligibly, or sing so melodiously, as these. It must have been to +some such measure that the spinners and the young maids sang, ‘Come away, +Death,’ in the Shakespearian Illyria. There is so often a threatening +note, something blatant and metallic, in the voice of bells, that I +believe we have fully more pain than pleasure from hearing them; but +these, as they sounded abroad, now high, now low, now with a plaintive +cadence that caught the ear like the burthen of a popular song, were +always moderate and tunable, and seemed to fall in with the spirit of +still, rustic places, like the noise of a waterfall or the babble of a +rookery in spring. I could have asked the bell-ringer for his blessing, +good, sedate old man, who swung the rope so gently to the time of his +meditations. I could have blessed the priest or the heritors, or whoever +may be concerned with such affairs in France, who had left these sweet +old bells to gladden the afternoon, and not held meetings, and made +collections, and had their names repeatedly printed in the local paper, +to rig up a peal of brand-new, brazen, Birmingham-hearted substitutes, +who should bombard their sides to the provocation of a brand-new +bell-ringer, and fill the echoes of the valley with terror and riot. + +At last the bells ceased, and with their note the sun withdrew. The +piece was at an end; shadow and silence possessed the valley of the Oise. +We took to the paddle with glad hearts, like people who have sat out a +noble performance and returned to work. The river was more dangerous +here; it ran swifter, the eddies were more sudden and violent. All the +way down we had had our fill of difficulties. Sometimes it was a weir +which could be shot, sometimes one so shallow and full of stakes that we +must withdraw the boats from the water and carry them round. But the +chief sort of obstacle was a consequence of the late high winds. Every +two or three hundred yards a tree had fallen across the river, and +usually involved more than another in its fall. + +Often there was free water at the end, and we could steer round the leafy +promontory and hear the water sucking and bubbling among the twigs. +Often, again, when the tree reached from bank to bank, there was room, by +lying close, to shoot through underneath, canoe and all. Sometimes it +was necessary to get out upon the trunk itself and pull the boats across; +and sometimes, when the stream was too impetuous for this, there was +nothing for it but to land and ‘carry over.’ This made a fine series of +accidents in the day’s career, and kept us aware of ourselves. + +Shortly after our re-embarkation, while I was leading by a long way, and +still full of a noble, exulting spirit in honour of the sun, the swift +pace, and the church bells, the river made one of its leonine pounces +round a corner, and I was aware of another fallen tree within a +stone-cast. I had my backboard down in a trice, and aimed for a place +where the trunk seemed high enough above the water, and the branches not +too thick to let me slip below. When a man has just vowed eternal +brotherhood with the universe, he is not in a temper to take great +determinations coolly, and this, which might have been a very important +determination for me, had not been taken under a happy star. The tree +caught me about the chest, and while I was yet struggling to make less of +myself and get through, the river took the matter out of my hands, and +bereaved me of my boat. The _Arethusa_ swung round broadside on, leaned +over, ejected so much of me as still remained on board, and thus +disencumbered, whipped under the tree, righted, and went merrily away +down stream. + +I do not know how long it was before I scrambled on to the tree to which +I was left clinging, but it was longer than I cared about. My thoughts +were of a grave and almost sombre character, but I still clung to my +paddle. The stream ran away with my heels as fast as I could pull up my +shoulders, and I seemed, by the weight, to have all the water of the Oise +in my trousers-pockets. You can never know, till you try it, what a dead +pull a river makes against a man. Death himself had me by the heels, for +this was his last ambuscado, and he must now join personally in the fray. +And still I held to my paddle. At last I dragged myself on to my stomach +on the trunk, and lay there a breathless sop, with a mingled sense of +humour and injustice. A poor figure I must have presented to Burns upon +the hill-top with his team. But there was the paddle in my hand. On my +tomb, if ever I have one, I mean to get these words inscribed: ‘He clung +to his paddle.’ + +The _Cigarette_ had gone past a while before; for, as I might have +observed, if I had been a little less pleased with the universe at the +moment, there was a clear way round the tree-top at the farther side. He +had offered his services to haul me out, but as I was then already on my +elbows, I had declined, and sent him down stream after the truant +_Arethusa_. The stream was too rapid for a man to mount with one canoe, +let alone two, upon his hands. So I crawled along the trunk to shore, +and proceeded down the meadows by the river-side. I was so cold that my +heart was sore. I had now an idea of my own why the reeds so bitterly +shivered. I could have given any of them a lesson. The _Cigarette_ +remarked facetiously that he thought I was ‘taking exercise’ as I drew +near, until he made out for certain that I was only twittering with cold. +I had a rub down with a towel, and donned a dry suit from the +india-rubber bag. But I was not my own man again for the rest of the +voyage. I had a queasy sense that I wore my last dry clothes upon my +body. The struggle had tired me; and perhaps, whether I knew it or not, +I was a little dashed in spirit. The devouring element in the universe +had leaped out against me, in this green valley quickened by a running +stream. The bells were all very pretty in their way, but I had heard +some of the hollow notes of Pan’s music. Would the wicked river drag me +down by the heels, indeed? and look so beautiful all the time? Nature’s +good-humour was only skin-deep after all. + +There was still a long way to go by the winding course of the stream, and +darkness had fallen, and a late bell was ringing in Origny +Sainte-Benoîte, when we arrived. + + + + +ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOÎTE + + +A BY-DAY + + +THE next day was Sunday, and the church bells had little rest; indeed, I +do not think I remember anywhere else so great a choice of services as +were here offered to the devout. And while the bells made merry in the +sunshine, all the world with his dog was out shooting among the beets and +colza. + +In the morning a hawker and his wife went down the street at a foot-pace, +singing to a very slow, lamentable music ‘_O France_, _mes amours_.’ It +brought everybody to the door; and when our landlady called in the man to +buy the words, he had not a copy of them left. She was not the first nor +the second who had been taken with the song. There is something very +pathetic in the love of the French people, since the war, for dismal +patriotic music-making. I have watched a forester from Alsace while some +one was singing ‘_Les malheurs de la France_,’ at a baptismal party in +the neighbourhood of Fontainebleau. He arose from the table and took his +son aside, close by where I was standing. ‘Listen, listen,’ he said, +bearing on the boy’s shoulder, ‘and remember this, my son.’ A little +after he went out into the garden suddenly, and I could hear him sobbing +in the darkness. + +The humiliation of their arms and the loss of Alsace and Lorraine made a +sore pull on the endurance of this sensitive people; and their hearts are +still hot, not so much against Germany as against the Empire. In what +other country will you find a patriotic ditty bring all the world into +the street? But affliction heightens love; and we shall never know we +are Englishmen until we have lost India. Independent America is still +the cross of my existence; I cannot think of Farmer George without +abhorrence; and I never feel more warmly to my own land than when I see +the Stars and Stripes, and remember what our empire might have been. + +The hawker’s little book, which I purchased, was a curious mixture. Side +by side with the flippant, rowdy nonsense of the Paris music-halls, there +were many pastoral pieces, not without a touch of poetry, I thought, and +instinct with the brave independence of the poorer class in France. +There you might read how the wood-cutter gloried in his axe, and the +gardener scorned to be ashamed of his spade. It was not very well +written, this poetry of labour, but the pluck of the sentiment redeemed +what was weak or wordy in the expression. The martial and the patriotic +pieces, on the other hand, were tearful, womanish productions one and +all. The poet had passed under the Caudine Forks; he sang for an army +visiting the tomb of its old renown, with arms reversed; and sang not of +victory, but of death. There was a number in the hawker’s collection +called ‘Conscrits Français,’ which may rank among the most dissuasive +war-lyrics on record. It would not be possible to fight at all in such a +spirit. The bravest conscript would turn pale if such a ditty were +struck up beside him on the morning of battle; and whole regiments would +pile their arms to its tune. + +If Fletcher of Saltoun is in the right about the influence of national +songs, you would say France was come to a poor pass. But the thing will +work its own cure, and a sound-hearted and courageous people weary at +length of snivelling over their disasters. Already Paul Déroulède has +written some manly military verses. There is not much of the trumpet +note in them, perhaps, to stir a man’s heart in his bosom; they lack the +lyrical elation, and move slowly; but they are written in a grave, +honourable, stoical spirit, which should carry soldiers far in a good +cause. One feels as if one would like to trust Déroulède with something. +It will be happy if he can so far inoculate his fellow-countrymen that +they may be trusted with their own future. And in the meantime, here is +an antidote to ‘French Conscripts’ and much other doleful versification. + +We had left the boats over-night in the custody of one whom we shall call +Carnival. I did not properly catch his name, and perhaps that was not +unfortunate for him, as I am not in a position to hand him down with +honour to posterity. To this person’s premises we strolled in the course +of the day, and found quite a little deputation inspecting the canoes. +There was a stout gentleman with a knowledge of the river, which he +seemed eager to impart. There was a very elegant young gentleman in a +black coat, with a smattering of English, who led the talk at once to the +Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. And then there were three handsome girls +from fifteen to twenty; and an old gentleman in a blouse, with no teeth +to speak of, and a strong country accent. Quite the pick of Origny, I +should suppose. + +The _Cigarette_ had some mysteries to perform with his rigging in the +coach-house; so I was left to do the parade single-handed. I found +myself very much of a hero whether I would or not. The girls were full +of little shudderings over the dangers of our journey. And I thought it +would be ungallant not to take my cue from the ladies. My mishap of +yesterday, told in an off-hand way, produced a deep sensation. It was +Othello over again, with no less than three Desdemonas and a sprinkling +of sympathetic senators in the background. Never were the canoes more +flattered, or flattered more adroitly. + +‘It is like a violin,’ cried one of the girls in an ecstasy. + +‘I thank you for the word, mademoiselle,’ said I. ‘All the more since +there are people who call out to me that it is like a coffin.’ + +‘Oh! but it is really like a violin. It is finished like a violin,’ she +went on. + +‘And polished like a violin,’ added a senator. + +‘One has only to stretch the cords,’ concluded another, ‘and then +tum-tumty-tum’—he imitated the result with spirit. + +Was not this a graceful little ovation? Where this people finds the +secret of its pretty speeches, I cannot imagine; unless the secret should +be no other than a sincere desire to please? But then no disgrace is +attached in France to saying a thing neatly; whereas in England, to talk +like a book is to give in one’s resignation to society. + +The old gentleman in the blouse stole into the coach-house, and somewhat +irrelevantly informed the _Cigarette_ that he was the father of the three +girls and four more: quite an exploit for a Frenchman. + +‘You are very fortunate,’ answered the _Cigarette_ politely. + +And the old gentleman, having apparently gained his point, stole away +again. + +We all got very friendly together. The girls proposed to start with us +on the morrow, if you please! And, jesting apart, every one was anxious +to know the hour of our departure. Now, when you are going to crawl into +your canoe from a bad launch, a crowd, however friendly, is undesirable; +and so we told them not before twelve, and mentally determined to be off +by ten at latest. + +Towards evening, we went abroad again to post some letters. It was cool +and pleasant; the long village was quite empty, except for one or two +urchins who followed us as they might have followed a menagerie; the +hills and the tree-tops looked in from all sides through the clear air; +and the bells were chiming for yet another service. + +Suddenly we sighted the three girls standing, with a fourth sister, in +front of a shop on the wide selvage of the roadway. We had been very +merry with them a little while ago, to be sure. But what was the +etiquette of Origny? Had it been a country road, of course we should +have spoken to them; but here, under the eyes of all the gossips, ought +we to do even as much as bow? I consulted the _Cigarette_. + +‘Look,’ said he. + +I looked. There were the four girls on the same spot; but now four backs +were turned to us, very upright and conscious. Corporal Modesty had +given the word of command, and the well-disciplined picket had gone +right-about-face like a single person. They maintained this formation +all the while we were in sight; but we heard them tittering among +themselves, and the girl whom we had not met laughed with open mouth, and +even looked over her shoulder at the enemy. I wonder was it altogether +modesty after all? or in part a sort of country provocation? + +As we were returning to the inn, we beheld something floating in the +ample field of golden evening sky, above the chalk cliffs and the trees +that grow along their summit. It was too high up, too large, and too +steady for a kite; and as it was dark, it could not be a star. For +although a star were as black as ink and as rugged as a walnut, so amply +does the sun bathe heaven with radiance, that it would sparkle like a +point of light for us. The village was dotted with people with their +heads in air; and the children were in a bustle all along the street and +far up the straight road that climbs the hill, where we could still see +them running in loose knots. It was a balloon, we learned, which had +left Saint Quentin at half-past five that evening. Mighty composedly the +majority of the grown people took it. But we were English, and were soon +running up the hill with the best. Being travellers ourselves in a small +way, we would fain have seen these other travellers alight. + +The spectacle was over by the time we gained the top of the hill. All +the gold had withered out of the sky, and the balloon had disappeared. +Whither? I ask myself; caught up into the seventh heaven? or come safely +to land somewhere in that blue uneven distance, into which the roadway +dipped and melted before our eyes? Probably the aeronauts were already +warming themselves at a farm chimney, for they say it is cold in these +unhomely regions of the air. The night fell swiftly. Roadside trees and +disappointed sightseers, returning through the meadows, stood out in +black against a margin of low red sunset. It was cheerfuller to face the +other way, and so down the hill we went, with a full moon, the colour of +a melon, swinging high above the wooded valley, and the white cliffs +behind us faintly reddened by the fire of the chalk kilns. + +The lamps were lighted, and the salads were being made in Origny +Sainte-Benoîte by the river. + + + +THE COMPANY AT TABLE + + +ALTHOUGH we came late for dinner, the company at table treated us to +sparkling wine. ‘That is how we are in France,’ said one. ‘Those who +sit down with us are our friends.’ And the rest applauded. + +They were three altogether, and an odd trio to pass the Sunday with. + +Two of them were guests like ourselves, both men of the north. One +ruddy, and of a full habit of body, with copious black hair and beard, +the intrepid hunter of France, who thought nothing so small, not even a +lark or a minnow, but he might vindicate his prowess by its capture. For +such a great, healthy man, his hair flourishing like Samson’s, his +arteries running buckets of red blood, to boast of these infinitesimal +exploits, produced a feeling of disproportion in the world, as when a +steam-hammer is set to cracking nuts. The other was a quiet, subdued +person, blond and lymphatic and sad, with something the look of a Dane: +‘_Tristes têtes de Danois_!’ as Gaston Lafenestre used to say. + +I must not let that name go by without a word for the best of all good +fellows now gone down into the dust. We shall never again see Gaston in +his forest costume—he was Gaston with all the world, in affection, not in +disrespect—nor hear him wake the echoes of Fontainebleau with the +woodland horn. Never again shall his kind smile put peace among all +races of artistic men, and make the Englishman at home in France. Never +more shall the sheep, who were not more innocent at heart than he, sit +all unconsciously for his industrious pencil. He died too early, at the +very moment when he was beginning to put forth fresh sprouts, and blossom +into something worthy of himself; and yet none who knew him will think he +lived in vain. I never knew a man so little, for whom yet I had so much +affection; and I find it a good test of others, how much they had learned +to understand and value him. His was indeed a good influence in life +while he was still among us; he had a fresh laugh, it did you good to see +him; and however sad he may have been at heart, he always bore a bold and +cheerful countenance, and took fortune’s worst as it were the showers of +spring. But now his mother sits alone by the side of Fontainebleau +woods, where he gathered mushrooms in his hardy and penurious youth. + +Many of his pictures found their way across the Channel: besides those +which were stolen, when a dastardly Yankee left him alone in London with +two English pence, and perhaps twice as many words of English. If any +one who reads these lines should have a scene of sheep, in the manner of +Jacques, with this fine creature’s signature, let him tell himself that +one of the kindest and bravest of men has lent a hand to decorate his +lodging. There may be better pictures in the National Gallery; but not a +painter among the generations had a better heart. Precious in the sight +of the Lord of humanity, the Psalms tell us, is the death of his saints. +It had need to be precious; for it is very costly, when by the stroke, a +mother is left desolate, and the peace-maker, and _peace-looker_, of a +whole society is laid in the ground with Cæsar and the Twelve Apostles. + +There is something lacking among the oaks of Fontainebleau; and when the +dessert comes in at Barbizon, people look to the door for a figure that +is gone. + +The third of our companions at Origny was no less a person than the +landlady’s husband: not properly the landlord, since he worked himself in +a factory during the day, and came to his own house at evening as a +guest: a man worn to skin and bone by perpetual excitement, with baldish +head, sharp features, and swift, shining eyes. On Saturday, describing +some paltry adventure at a duck-hunt, he broke a plate into a score of +fragments. Whenever he made a remark, he would look all round the table +with his chin raised, and a spark of green light in either eye, seeking +approval. His wife appeared now and again in the doorway of the room, +where she was superintending dinner, with a ‘Henri, you forget yourself,’ +or a ‘Henri, you can surely talk without making such a noise.’ Indeed, +that was what the honest fellow could not do. On the most trifling +matter his eyes kindled, his fist visited the table, and his voice rolled +abroad in changeful thunder. I never saw such a petard of a man; I think +the devil was in him. He had two favourite expressions: ‘it is logical,’ +or illogical, as the case might be: and this other, thrown out with a +certain bravado, as a man might unfurl a banner, at the beginning of many +a long and sonorous story: ‘I am a proletarian, you see.’ Indeed, we saw +it very well. God forbid that ever I should find him handling a gun in +Paris streets! That will not be a good moment for the general public. + +I thought his two phrases very much represented the good and evil of his +class, and to some extent of his country. It is a strong thing to say +what one is, and not be ashamed of it; even although it be in doubtful +taste to repeat the statement too often in one evening. I should not +admire it in a duke, of course; but as times go, the trait is honourable +in a workman. On the other hand, it is not at all a strong thing to put +one’s reliance upon logic; and our own logic particularly, for it is +generally wrong. We never know where we are to end, if once we begin +following words or doctors. There is an upright stock in a man’s own +heart, that is trustier than any syllogism; and the eyes, and the +sympathies and appetites, know a thing or two that have never yet been +stated in controversy. Reasons are as plentiful as blackberries; and, +like fisticuffs, they serve impartially with all sides. Doctrines do not +stand or fall by their proofs, and are only logical in so far as they are +cleverly put. An able controversialist no more than an able general +demonstrates the justice of his cause. But France is all gone wandering +after one or two big words; it will take some time before they can be +satisfied that they are no more than words, however big; and when once +that is done, they will perhaps find logic less diverting. + +The conversation opened with details of the day’s shooting. When all the +sportsmen of a village shoot over the village territory _pro indiviso_, +it is plain that many questions of etiquette and priority must arise. + +‘Here now,’ cried the landlord, brandishing a plate, ‘here is a field of +beet-root. Well. Here am I then. I advance, do I not? _Eh bien_! +_sacristi_,’ and the statement, waxing louder, rolls off into a +reverberation of oaths, the speaker glaring about for sympathy, and +everybody nodding his head to him in the name of peace. + +The ruddy Northman told some tales of his own prowess in keeping order: +notably one of a Marquis. + +‘Marquis,’ I said, ‘if you take another step I fire upon you. You have +committed a dirtiness, Marquis.’ + +Whereupon, it appeared, the Marquis touched his cap and withdrew. + +The landlord applauded noisily. ‘It was well done,’ he said. ‘He did +all that he could. He admitted he was wrong.’ And then oath upon oath. +He was no marquis-lover either, but he had a sense of justice in him, +this proletarian host of ours. + +From the matter of hunting, the talk veered into a general comparison of +Paris and the country. The proletarian beat the table like a drum in +praise of Paris. ‘What is Paris? Paris is the cream of France. There +are no Parisians: it is you and I and everybody who are Parisians. A man +has eighty chances per cent. to get on in the world in Paris.’ And he +drew a vivid sketch of the workman in a den no bigger than a dog-hutch, +making articles that were to go all over the world. ‘_Eh bien_, _quoi_, +_c’est magnifique_, _ca_!’ cried he. + +The sad Northman interfered in praise of a peasant’s life; he thought +Paris bad for men and women; ‘_centralisation_,’ said he— + +But the landlord was at his throat in a moment. It was all logical, he +showed him; and all magnificent. ‘What a spectacle! What a glance for +an eye!’ And the dishes reeled upon the table under a cannonade of +blows. + +Seeking to make peace, I threw in a word in praise of the liberty of +opinion in France. I could hardly have shot more amiss. There was an +instant silence, and a great wagging of significant heads. They did not +fancy the subject, it was plain; but they gave me to understand that the +sad Northman was a martyr on account of his views. ‘Ask him a bit,’ said +they. ‘Just ask him.’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ said he in his quiet way, answering me, although I had not +spoken, ‘I am afraid there is less liberty of opinion in France than you +may imagine.’ And with that he dropped his eyes, and seemed to consider +the subject at an end. + +Our curiosity was mightily excited at this. How, or why, or when, was +this lymphatic bagman martyred? We concluded at once it was on some +religious question, and brushed up our memories of the Inquisition, which +were principally drawn from Poe’s horrid story, and the sermon in +_Tristram Shandy_, I believe. + +On the morrow we had an opportunity of going further into the question; +for when we rose very early to avoid a sympathising deputation at our +departure, we found the hero up before us. He was breaking his fast on +white wine and raw onions, in order to keep up the character of martyr, I +conclude. We had a long conversation, and made out what we wanted in +spite of his reserve. But here was a truly curious circumstance. It +seems possible for two Scotsmen and a Frenchman to discuss during a long +half-hour, and each nationality have a different idea in view throughout. +It was not till the very end that we discovered his heresy had been +political, or that he suspected our mistake. The terms and spirit in +which he spoke of his political beliefs were, in our eyes, suited to +religious beliefs. And _vice versâ_. + +Nothing could be more characteristic of the two countries. Politics are +the religion of France; as Nanty Ewart would have said, ‘A d-d bad +religion’; while we, at home, keep most of our bitterness for little +differences about a hymn-book, or a Hebrew word which perhaps neither of +the parties can translate. And perhaps the misconception is typical of +many others that may never be cleared up: not only between people of +different race, but between those of different sex. + +As for our friend’s martyrdom, he was a Communist, or perhaps only a +Communard, which is a very different thing; and had lost one or more +situations in consequence. I think he had also been rejected in +marriage; but perhaps he had a sentimental way of considering business +which deceived me. He was a mild, gentle creature, anyway; and I hope he +has got a better situation, and married a more suitable wife since then. + + + + +DOWN THE OISE: TO MOY + + +CARNIVAL notoriously cheated us at first. Finding us easy in our ways, +he regretted having let us off so cheaply; and taking me aside, told me a +cock-and-bull story with the moral of another five francs for the +narrator. The thing was palpably absurd; but I paid up, and at once +dropped all friendliness of manner, and kept him in his place as an +inferior with freezing British dignity. He saw in a moment that he had +gone too far, and killed a willing horse; his face fell; I am sure he +would have refunded if he could only have thought of a decent pretext. +He wished me to drink with him, but I would none of his drinks. He grew +pathetically tender in his professions; but I walked beside him in +silence or answered him in stately courtesies; and when we got to the +landing-place, passed the word in English slang to the _Cigarette_. + +In spite of the false scent we had thrown out the day before, there must +have been fifty people about the bridge. We were as pleasant as we could +be with all but Carnival. We said good-bye, shaking hands with the old +gentleman who knew the river and the young gentleman who had a smattering +of English; but never a word for Carnival. Poor Carnival! here was a +humiliation. He who had been so much identified with the canoes, who had +given orders in our name, who had shown off the boats and even the +boatmen like a private exhibition of his own, to be now so publicly +shamed by the lions of his caravan! I never saw anybody look more +crestfallen than he. He hung in the background, coming timidly forward +ever and again as he thought he saw some symptom of a relenting humour, +and falling hurriedly back when he encountered a cold stare. Let us hope +it will be a lesson to him. + +I would not have mentioned Carnival’s peccadillo had not the thing been +so uncommon in France. This, for instance, was the only case of +dishonesty or even sharp practice in our whole voyage. We talk very much +about our honesty in England. It is a good rule to be on your guard +wherever you hear great professions about a very little piece of virtue. +If the English could only hear how they are spoken of abroad, they might +confine themselves for a while to remedying the fact; and perhaps even +when that was done, give us fewer of their airs. + +The young ladies, the graces of Origny, were not present at our start, +but when we got round to the second bridge, behold, it was black with +sightseers! We were loudly cheered, and for a good way below, young lads +and lasses ran along the bank still cheering. What with current and +paddling, we were flashing along like swallows. It was no joke to keep +up with us upon the woody shore. But the girls picked up their skirts, +as if they were sure they had good ankles, and followed until their +breath was out. The last to weary were the three graces and a couple of +companions; and just as they too had had enough, the foremost of the +three leaped upon a tree-stump and kissed her hand to the canoeists. Not +Diana herself, although this was more of a Venus after all, could have +done a graceful thing more gracefully. ‘Come back again!’ she cried; and +all the others echoed her; and the hills about Origny repeated the words, +‘Come back.’ But the river had us round an angle in a twinkling, and we +were alone with the green trees and running water. + +Come back? There is no coming back, young ladies, on the impetuous +stream of life. + + ‘The merchant bows unto the seaman’s star, + The ploughman from the sun his season takes.’ + +And we must all set our pocket-watches by the clock of fate. There is a +headlong, forthright tide, that bears away man with his fancies like a +straw, and runs fast in time and space. It is full of curves like this, +your winding river of the Oise; and lingers and returns in pleasant +pastorals; and yet, rightly thought upon, never returns at all. For +though it should revisit the same acre of meadow in the same hour, it +will have made an ample sweep between-whiles; many little streams will +have fallen in; many exhalations risen towards the sun; and even although +it were the same acre, it will no more be the same river of Oise. And +thus, O graces of Origny, although the wandering fortune of my life +should carry me back again to where you await death’s whistle by the +river, that will not be the old I who walks the street; and those wives +and mothers, say, will those be you? + +There was never any mistake about the Oise, as a matter of fact. In +these upper reaches it was still in a prodigious hurry for the sea. It +ran so fast and merrily, through all the windings of its channel, that I +strained my thumb, fighting with the rapids, and had to paddle all the +rest of the way with one hand turned up. Sometimes it had to serve +mills; and being still a little river, ran very dry and shallow in the +meanwhile. We had to put our legs out of the boat, and shove ourselves +off the sand of the bottom with our feet. And still it went on its way +singing among the poplars, and making a green valley in the world. After +a good woman, and a good book, and tobacco, there is nothing so agreeable +on earth as a river. I forgave it its attempt on my life; which was +after all one part owing to the unruly winds of heaven that had blown +down the tree, one part to my own mismanagement, and only a third part to +the river itself, and that not out of malice, but from its great +preoccupation over its business of getting to the sea. A difficult +business, too; for the détours it had to make are not to be counted. The +geographers seem to have given up the attempt; for I found no map +represent the infinite contortion of its course. A fact will say more +than any of them. After we had been some hours, three if I mistake not, +flitting by the trees at this smooth, break-neck gallop, when we came +upon a hamlet and asked where we were, we had got no farther than four +kilometres (say two miles and a half) from Origny. If it were not for +the honour of the thing (in the Scots saying), we might almost as well +have been standing still. + +We lunched on a meadow inside a parallelogram of poplars. The leaves +danced and prattled in the wind all round about us. The river hurried on +meanwhile, and seemed to chide at our delay. Little we cared. The river +knew where it was going; not so we: the less our hurry, where we found +good quarters and a pleasant theatre for a pipe. At that hour, +stockbrokers were shouting in Paris Bourse for two or three per cent.; +but we minded them as little as the sliding stream, and sacrificed a +hecatomb of minutes to the gods of tobacco and digestion. Hurry is the +resource of the faithless. Where a man can trust his own heart, and +those of his friends, to-morrow is as good as to-day. And if he die in +the meanwhile, why then, there he dies, and the question is solved. + +We had to take to the canal in the course of the afternoon; because, +where it crossed the river, there was, not a bridge, but a siphon. If it +had not been for an excited fellow on the bank, we should have paddled +right into the siphon, and thenceforward not paddled any more. We met a +man, a gentleman, on the tow-path, who was much interested in our cruise. +And I was witness to a strange seizure of lying suffered by the +_Cigarette_: who, because his knife came from Norway, narrated all sorts +of adventures in that country, where he has never been. He was quite +feverish at the end, and pleaded demoniacal possession. + +Moy (pronounce Moÿ) was a pleasant little village, gathered round a +château in a moat. The air was perfumed with hemp from neighbouring +fields. At the Golden Sheep we found excellent entertainment. German +shells from the siege of La Fère, Nürnberg figures, gold-fish in a bowl, +and all manner of knick-knacks, embellished the public room. The +landlady was a stout, plain, short-sighted, motherly body, with something +not far short of a genius for cookery. She had a guess of her excellence +herself. After every dish was sent in, she would come and look on at the +dinner for a while, with puckered, blinking eyes. ‘_C’est bon_, +_n’est-ce pas_?’ she would say; and when she had received a proper +answer, she disappeared into the kitchen. That common French dish, +partridge and cabbages, became a new thing in my eyes at the Golden +Sheep; and many subsequent dinners have bitterly disappointed me in +consequence. Sweet was our rest in the Golden Sheep at Moy. + + + + +LA FÈRE OF CURSED MEMORY + + +WE lingered in Moy a good part of the day, for we were fond of being +philosophical, and scorned long journeys and early starts on principle. +The place, moreover, invited to repose. People in elaborate shooting +costumes sallied from the château with guns and game-bags; and this was a +pleasure in itself, to remain behind while these elegant pleasure-seekers +took the first of the morning. In this way, all the world may be an +aristocrat, and play the duke among marquises, and the reigning monarch +among dukes, if he will only outvie them in tranquillity. An +imperturbable demeanour comes from perfect patience. Quiet minds cannot +be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune or misfortune at their +own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm. + +We made a very short day of it to La Fère; but the dusk was falling, and +a small rain had begun before we stowed the boats. La Fère is a +fortified town in a plain, and has two belts of rampart. Between the +first and the second extends a region of waste land and cultivated +patches. Here and there along the wayside were posters forbidding +trespass in the name of military engineering. At last, a second gateway +admitted us to the town itself. Lighted windows looked gladsome, whiffs +of comfortable cookery came abroad upon the air. The town was full of +the military reserve, out for the French Autumn Manœuvres, and the +reservists walked speedily and wore their formidable great-coats. It was +a fine night to be within doors over dinner, and hear the rain upon the +windows. + +The _Cigarette_ and I could not sufficiently congratulate each other on +the prospect, for we had been told there was a capital inn at La Fère. +Such a dinner as we were going to eat! such beds as we were to sleep +in!—and all the while the rain raining on houseless folk over all the +poplared countryside! It made our mouths water. The inn bore the name +of some woodland animal, stag, or hart, or hind, I forget which. But I +shall never forget how spacious and how eminently habitable it looked as +we drew near. The carriage entry was lighted up, not by intention, but +from the mere superfluity of fire and candle in the house. A rattle of +many dishes came to our ears; we sighted a great field of table-cloth; +the kitchen glowed like a forge and smelt like a garden of things to eat. + +Into this, the inmost shrine and physiological heart of a hostelry, with +all its furnaces in action, and all its dressers charged with viands, you +are now to suppose us making our triumphal entry, a pair of damp +rag-and-bone men, each with a limp india-rubber bag upon his arm. I do +not believe I have a sound view of that kitchen; I saw it through a sort +of glory: but it seemed to me crowded with the snowy caps of cookmen, who +all turned round from their saucepans and looked at us with surprise. +There was no doubt about the landlady, however: there she was, heading +her army, a flushed, angry woman, full of affairs. Her I asked +politely—too politely, thinks the _Cigarette_—if we could have beds: she +surveying us coldly from head to foot. + +‘You will find beds in the suburb,’ she remarked. ‘We are too busy for +the like of you.’ + +If we could make an entrance, change our clothes, and order a bottle of +wine, I felt sure we could put things right; so said I: ‘If we cannot +sleep, we may at least dine,’—and was for depositing my bag. + +What a terrible convulsion of nature was that which followed in the +landlady’s face! She made a run at us, and stamped her foot. + +‘Out with you—out of the door!’ she screeched. ‘_Sortez_! _sortez_! +_sortez par la porte_!’ + +I do not know how it happened, but next moment we were out in the rain +and darkness, and I was cursing before the carriage entry like a +disappointed mendicant. Where were the boating men of Belgium? where the +Judge and his good wines? and where the graces of Origny? Black, black +was the night after the firelit kitchen; but what was that to the +blackness in our heart? This was not the first time that I have been +refused a lodging. Often and often have I planned what I should do if +such a misadventure happened to me again. And nothing is easier to plan. +But to put in execution, with the heart boiling at the indignity? Try +it; try it only once; and tell me what you did. + +It is all very fine to talk about tramps and morality. Six hours of +police surveillance (such as I have had), or one brutal rejection from an +inn-door, change your views upon the subject like a course of lectures. +As long as you keep in the upper regions, with all the world bowing to +you as you go, social arrangements have a very handsome air; but once get +under the wheels, and you wish society were at the devil. I will give +most respectable men a fortnight of such a life, and then I will offer +them twopence for what remains of their morality. + +For my part, when I was turned out of the Stag, or the Hind, or whatever +it was, I would have set the temple of Diana on fire, if it had been +handy. There was no crime complete enough to express my disapproval of +human institutions. As for the _Cigarette_, I never knew a man so +altered. ‘We have been taken for pedlars again,’ said he. ‘Good God, +what it must be to be a pedlar in reality!’ He particularised a +complaint for every joint in the landlady’s body. Timon was a +philanthropist alongside of him. And then, when he was at the top of his +maledictory bent, he would suddenly break away and begin whimperingly to +commiserate the poor. ‘I hope to God,’ he said,—and I trust the prayer +was answered,—‘that I shall never be uncivil to a pedlar.’ Was this the +imperturbable _Cigarette_? This, this was he. O change beyond report, +thought, or belief! + +Meantime the heaven wept upon our heads; and the windows grew brighter as +the night increased in darkness. We trudged in and out of La Fère +streets; we saw shops, and private houses where people were copiously +dining; we saw stables where carters’ nags had plenty of fodder and clean +straw; we saw no end of reservists, who were very sorry for themselves +this wet night, I doubt not, and yearned for their country homes; but had +they not each man his place in La Fère barracks? And we, what had we? + +There seemed to be no other inn in the whole town. People gave us +directions, which we followed as best we could, generally with the effect +of bringing us out again upon the scene of our disgrace. We were very +sad people indeed by the time we had gone all over La Fère; and the +_Cigarette_ had already made up his mind to lie under a poplar and sup +off a loaf of bread. But right at the other end, the house next the +town-gate was full of light and bustle. ‘_Bazin_, _aubergiste_, _loge à +pied_,’ was the sign. ‘_À la Croix de Malte_.’ There were we received. + +The room was full of noisy reservists drinking and smoking; and we were +very glad indeed when the drums and bugles began to go about the streets, +and one and all had to snatch shakoes and be off for the barracks. + +Bazin was a tall man, running to fat: soft-spoken, with a delicate, +gentle face. We asked him to share our wine; but he excused himself, +having pledged reservists all day long. This was a very different type +of the workman-innkeeper from the bawling disputatious fellow at Origny. +He also loved Paris, where he had worked as a decorative painter in his +youth. There were such opportunities for self-instruction there, he +said. And if any one has read Zola’s description of the workman’s +marriage-party visiting the Louvre, they would do well to have heard +Bazin by way of antidote. He had delighted in the museums in his youth. +‘One sees there little miracles of work,’ he said; ‘that is what makes a +good workman; it kindles a spark.’ We asked him how he managed in La +Fère. ‘I am married,’ he said, ‘and I have my pretty children. But +frankly, it is no life at all. From morning to night I pledge a pack of +good enough fellows who know nothing.’ + +It faired as the night went on, and the moon came out of the clouds. We +sat in front of the door, talking softly with Bazin. At the guard-house +opposite, the guard was being for ever turned out, as trains of field +artillery kept clanking in out of the night, or patrols of horsemen +trotted by in their cloaks. Madame Bazin came out after a while; she was +tired with her day’s work, I suppose; and she nestled up to her husband +and laid her head upon his breast. He had his arm about her, and kept +gently patting her on the shoulder. I think Bazin was right, and he was +really married. Of how few people can the same be said! + +Little did the Bazins know how much they served us. We were charged for +candles, for food and drink, and for the beds we slept in. But there was +nothing in the bill for the husband’s pleasant talk; nor for the pretty +spectacle of their married life. And there was yet another item +unchanged. For these people’s politeness really set us up again in our +own esteem. We had a thirst for consideration; the sense of insult was +still hot in our spirits; and civil usage seemed to restore us to our +position in the world. + +How little we pay our way in life! Although we have our purses +continually in our hand, the better part of service goes still +unrewarded. But I like to fancy that a grateful spirit gives as good as +it gets. Perhaps the Bazins knew how much I liked them? perhaps they +also were healed of some slights by the thanks that I gave them in my +manner? + + + + +DOWN THE OISE: THROUGH THE GOLDEN VALLEY + + +BELOW La Fère the river runs through a piece of open pastoral country; +green, opulent, loved by breeders; called the Golden Valley. In wide +sweeps, and with a swift and equable gallop, the ceaseless stream of +water visits and makes green the fields. Kine, and horses, and little +humorous donkeys, browse together in the meadows, and come down in troops +to the river-side to drink. They make a strange feature in the +landscape; above all when they are startled, and you see them galloping +to and fro with their incongruous forms and faces. It gives a feeling as +of great, unfenced pampas, and the herds of wandering nations. There +were hills in the distance upon either hand; and on one side, the river +sometimes bordered on the wooded spurs of Coucy and St. Gobain. + +The artillery were practising at La Fère; and soon the cannon of heaven +joined in that loud play. Two continents of cloud met and exchanged +salvos overhead; while all round the horizon we could see sunshine and +clear air upon the hills. What with the guns and the thunder, the herds +were all frightened in the Golden Valley. We could see them tossing +their heads, and running to and fro in timorous indecision; and when they +had made up their minds, and the donkey followed the horse, and the cow +was after the donkey, we could hear their hooves thundering abroad over +the meadows. It had a martial sound, like cavalry charges. And +altogether, as far as the ears are concerned, we had a very rousing +battle-piece performed for our amusement. + +At last the guns and the thunder dropped off; the sun shone on the wet +meadows; the air was scented with the breath of rejoicing trees and +grass; and the river kept unweariedly carrying us on at its best pace. +There was a manufacturing district about Chauny; and after that the banks +grew so high that they hid the adjacent country, and we could see nothing +but clay sides, and one willow after another. Only, here and there, we +passed by a village or a ferry, and some wondering child upon the bank +would stare after us until we turned the corner. I daresay we continued +to paddle in that child’s dreams for many a night after. + +Sun and shower alternated like day and night, making the hours longer by +their variety. When the showers were heavy, I could feel each drop +striking through my jersey to my warm skin; and the accumulation of small +shocks put me nearly beside myself. I decided I should buy a mackintosh +at Noyon. It is nothing to get wet; but the misery of these individual +pricks of cold all over my body at the same instant of time made me flail +the water with my paddle like a madman. The _Cigarette_ was greatly +amused by these ebullitions. It gave him something else to look at +besides clay banks and willows. + +All the time, the river stole away like a thief in straight places, or +swung round corners with an eddy; the willows nodded, and were undermined +all day long; the clay banks tumbled in; the Oise, which had been so many +centuries making the Golden Valley, seemed to have changed its fancy, and +be bent upon undoing its performance. What a number of things a river +does, by simply following Gravity in the innocence of its heart! + + + + +NOYON CATHEDRAL + + +NOYON stands about a mile from the river, in a little plain surrounded by +wooded hills, and entirely covers an eminence with its tile roofs, +surmounted by a long, straight-backed cathedral with two stiff towers. +As we got into the town, the tile roofs seemed to tumble uphill one upon +another, in the oddest disorder; but for all their scrambling, they did +not attain above the knees of the cathedral, which stood, upright and +solemn, over all. As the streets drew near to this presiding genius, +through the market-place under the Hôtel de Ville, they grew emptier and +more composed. Blank walls and shuttered windows were turned to the +great edifice, and grass grew on the white causeway. ‘Put off thy shoes +from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.’ +The Hôtel du Nord, nevertheless, lights its secular tapers within a +stone-cast of the church; and we had the superb east-end before our eyes +all morning from the window of our bedroom. I have seldom looked on the +east-end of a church with more complete sympathy. As it flanges out in +three wide terraces and settles down broadly on the earth, it looks like +the poop of some great old battle-ship. Hollow-backed buttresses carry +vases, which figure for the stern lanterns. There is a roll in the +ground, and the towers just appear above the pitch of the roof, as though +the good ship were bowing lazily over an Atlantic swell. At any moment +it might be a hundred feet away from you, climbing the next billow. At +any moment a window might open, and some old admiral thrust forth a +cocked hat, and proceed to take an observation. The old admirals sail +the sea no longer; the old ships of battle are all broken up, and live +only in pictures; but this, that was a church before ever they were +thought upon, is still a church, and makes as brave an appearance by the +Oise. The cathedral and the river are probably the two oldest things for +miles around; and certainly they have both a grand old age. + +The Sacristan took us to the top of one of the towers, and showed us the +five bells hanging in their loft. From above, the town was a tesselated +pavement of roofs and gardens; the old line of rampart was plainly +traceable; and the Sacristan pointed out to us, far across the plain, in +a bit of gleaming sky between two clouds, the towers of Château Coucy. + +I find I never weary of great churches. It is my favourite kind of +mountain scenery. Mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made +a cathedral: a thing as single and specious as a statue to the first +glance, and yet, on examination, as lively and interesting as a forest in +detail. The height of spires cannot be taken by trigonometry; they +measure absurdly short, but how tall they are to the admiring eye! And +where we have so many elegant proportions, growing one out of the other, +and all together into one, it seems as if proportion transcended itself, +and became something different and more imposing. I could never fathom +how a man dares to lift up his voice to preach in a cathedral. What is +he to say that will not be an anti-climax? For though I have heard a +considerable variety of sermons, I never yet heard one that was so +expressive as a cathedral. ’Tis the best preacher itself, and preaches +day and night; not only telling you of man’s art and aspirations in the +past, but convicting your own soul of ardent sympathies; or rather, like +all good preachers, it sets you preaching to yourself;—and every man is +his own doctor of divinity in the last resort. + +As I sat outside of the hotel in the course of the afternoon, the sweet +groaning thunder of the organ floated out of the church like a summons. +I was not averse, liking the theatre so well, to sit out an act or two of +the play, but I could never rightly make out the nature of the service I +beheld. Four or five priests and as many choristers were singing +_Miserere_ before the high altar when I went in. There was no +congregation but a few old women on chairs and old men kneeling on the +pavement. After a while a long train of young girls, walking two and +two, each with a lighted taper in her hand, and all dressed in black with +a white veil, came from behind the altar, and began to descend the nave; +the four first carrying a Virgin and child upon a table. The priests and +choristers arose from their knees and followed after, singing ‘Ave Mary’ +as they went. In this order they made the circuit of the cathedral, +passing twice before me where I leaned against a pillar. The priest who +seemed of most consequence was a strange, down-looking old man. He kept +mumbling prayers with his lips; but as he looked upon me darkling, it did +not seem as if prayer were uppermost in his heart. Two others, who bore +the burthen of the chaunt, were stout, brutal, military-looking men of +forty, with bold, over-fed eyes; they sang with some lustiness, and +trolled forth ‘Ave Mary’ like a garrison catch. The little girls were +timid and grave. As they footed slowly up the aisle, each one took a +moment’s glance at the Englishman; and the big nun who played marshal +fairly stared him out of countenance. As for the choristers, from first +to last they misbehaved as only boys can misbehave; and cruelly marred +the performance with their antics. + +I understood a great deal of the spirit of what went on. Indeed it would +be difficult not to understand the _Miserere_, which I take to be the +composition of an atheist. If it ever be a good thing to take such +despondency to heart, the _Miserere_ is the right music, and a cathedral +a fit scene. So far I am at one with the Catholics:—an odd name for +them, after all? But why, in God’s name, these holiday choristers? why +these priests who steal wandering looks about the congregation while they +feign to be at prayer? why this fat nun, who rudely arranges her +procession and shakes delinquent virgins by the elbow? why this spitting, +and snuffing, and forgetting of keys, and the thousand and one little +misadventures that disturb a frame of mind laboriously edified with +chaunts and organings? In any play-house reverend fathers may see what +can be done with a little art, and how, to move high sentiments, it is +necessary to drill the supernumeraries and have every stool in its proper +place. + +One other circumstance distressed me. I could bear a _Miserere_ myself, +having had a good deal of open-air exercise of late; but I wished the old +people somewhere else. It was neither the right sort of music nor the +right sort of divinity for men and women who have come through most +accidents by this time, and probably have an opinion of their own upon +the tragic element in life. A person up in years can generally do his +own _Miserere_ for himself; although I notice that such an one often +prefers _Jubilate Deo_ for his ordinary singing. On the whole, the most +religious exercise for the aged is probably to recall their own +experience; so many friends dead, so many hopes disappointed, so many +slips and stumbles, and withal so many bright days and smiling +providences; there is surely the matter of a very eloquent sermon in all +this. + +On the whole, I was greatly solemnised. In the little pictorial map of +our whole Inland Voyage, which my fancy still preserves, and sometimes +unrolls for the amusement of odd moments, Noyon cathedral figures on a +most preposterous scale, and must be nearly as large as a department. I +can still see the faces of the priests as if they were at my elbow, and +hear _Ave Maria_, _ora pro nobis_, sounding through the church. All +Noyon is blotted out for me by these superior memories; and I do not care +to say more about the place. It was but a stack of brown roofs at the +best, where I believe people live very reputably in a quiet way; but the +shadow of the church falls upon it when the sun is low, and the five +bells are heard in all quarters, telling that the organ has begun. If +ever I join the Church of Rome, I shall stipulate to be Bishop of Noyon +on the Oise. + + + + +DOWN THE OISE: TO COMPIÈGNE + + +THE most patient people grow weary at last with being continually wetted +with rain; except of course in the Scottish Highlands, where there are +not enough fine intervals to point the difference. That was like to be +our case, the day we left Noyon. I remember nothing of the voyage; it +was nothing but clay banks and willows, and rain; incessant, pitiless, +beating rain; until we stopped to lunch at a little inn at Pimprez, where +the canal ran very near the river. We were so sadly drenched that the +landlady lit a few sticks in the chimney for our comfort; there we sat in +a steam of vapour, lamenting our concerns. The husband donned a game-bag +and strode out to shoot; the wife sat in a far corner watching us. I +think we were worth looking at. We grumbled over the misfortune of La +Fère; we forecast other La Fères in the future;—although things went +better with the _Cigarette_ for spokesman; he had more aplomb altogether +than I; and a dull, positive way of approaching a landlady that carried +off the india-rubber bags. Talking of La Fère put us talking of the +reservists. + +‘Reservery,’ said he, ‘seems a pretty mean way to spend ones autumn +holiday.’ + +‘About as mean,’ returned I dejectedly, ‘as canoeing.’ + +‘These gentlemen travel for their pleasure?’ asked the landlady, with +unconscious irony. + +It was too much. The scales fell from our eyes. Another wet day, it was +determined, and we put the boats into the train. + +The weather took the hint. That was our last wetting. The afternoon +faired up: grand clouds still voyaged in the sky, but now singly, and +with a depth of blue around their path; and a sunset in the daintiest +rose and gold inaugurated a thick night of stars and a month of unbroken +weather. At the same time, the river began to give us a better outlook +into the country. The banks were not so high, the willows disappeared +from along the margin, and pleasant hills stood all along its course and +marked their profile on the sky. + +In a little while the canal, coming to its last lock, began to discharge +its water-houses on the Oise; so that we had no lack of company to fear. +Here were all our old friends; the _Deo Gratias_ of Condé and the _Four +Sons of Aymon_ journeyed cheerily down stream along with us; we exchanged +waterside pleasantries with the steersman perched among the lumber, or +the driver hoarse with bawling to his horses; and the children came and +looked over the side as we paddled by. We had never known all this while +how much we missed them; but it gave us a fillip to see the smoke from +their chimneys. + +A little below this junction we made another meeting of yet more account. +For there we were joined by the Aisne, already a far-travelled river and +fresh out of Champagne. Here ended the adolescence of the Oise; this was +his marriage day; thenceforward he had a stately, brimming march, +conscious of his own dignity and sundry dams. He became a tranquil +feature in the scene. The trees and towns saw themselves in him, as in a +mirror. He carried the canoes lightly on his broad breast; there was no +need to work hard against an eddy: but idleness became the order of the +day, and mere straightforward dipping of the paddle, now on this side, +now on that, without intelligence or effort. Truly we were coming into +halcyon weather upon all accounts, and were floated towards the sea like +gentlemen. + +We made Compiègne as the sun was going down: a fine profile of a town +above the river. Over the bridge, a regiment was parading to the drum. +People loitered on the quay, some fishing, some looking idly at the +stream. And as the two boats shot in along the water, we could see them +pointing them out and speaking one to another. We landed at a floating +lavatory, where the washerwomen were still beating the clothes. + + + + +AT COMPIÈGNE + + +WE put up at a big, bustling hotel in Compiègne, where nobody observed +our presence. + +Reservery and general _militarismus_ (as the Germans call it) were +rampant. A camp of conical white tents without the town looked like a +leaf out of a picture Bible; sword-belts decorated the walls of the +_cafés_; and the streets kept sounding all day long with military music. +It was not possible to be an Englishman and avoid a feeling of elation; +for the men who followed the drums were small, and walked shabbily. Each +man inclined at his own angle, and jolted to his own convenience, as he +went. There was nothing of the superb gait with which a regiment of tall +Highlanders moves behind its music, solemn and inevitable, like a natural +phenomenon. Who that has seen it can forget the drum-major pacing in +front, the drummers’ tiger-skins, the pipers’ swinging plaids, the +strange elastic rhythm of the whole regiment footing it in time—and the +bang of the drum, when the brasses cease, and the shrill pipes take up +the martial story in their place? + +A girl, at school in France, began to describe one of our regiments on +parade to her French schoolmates; and as she went on, she told me, the +recollection grew so vivid, she became so proud to be the countrywoman of +such soldiers, and so sorry to be in another country, that her voice +failed her and she burst into tears. I have never forgotten that girl; +and I think she very nearly deserves a statue. To call her a young lady, +with all its niminy associations, would be to offer her an insult. She +may rest assured of one thing: although she never should marry a heroic +general, never see any great or immediate result of her life, she will +not have lived in vain for her native land. + +But though French soldiers show to ill advantage on parade, on the march +they are gay, alert, and willing like a troop of fox-hunters. I remember +once seeing a company pass through the forest of Fontainebleau, on the +Chailly road, between the Bas Bréau and the Reine Blanche. One fellow +walked a little before the rest, and sang a loud, audacious marching +song. The rest bestirred their feet, and even swung their muskets in +time. A young officer on horseback had hard ado to keep his countenance +at the words. You never saw anything so cheerful and spontaneous as +their gait; schoolboys do not look more eagerly at hare and hounds; and +you would have thought it impossible to tire such willing marchers. + +My great delight in Compiègne was the town-hall. I doted upon the +town-hall. It is a monument of Gothic insecurity, all turreted, and +gargoyled, and slashed, and bedizened with half a score of architectural +fancies. Some of the niches are gilt and painted; and in a great square +panel in the centre, in black relief on a gilt ground, Louis XII. rides +upon a pacing horse, with hand on hip and head thrown back. There is +royal arrogance in every line of him; the stirruped foot projects +insolently from the frame; the eye is hard and proud; the very horse +seems to be treading with gratification over prostrate serfs, and to have +the breath of the trumpet in his nostrils. So rides for ever, on the +front of the town-hall, the good king Louis XII., the father of his +people. + +Over the king’s head, in the tall centre turret, appears the dial of a +clock; and high above that, three little mechanical figures, each one +with a hammer in his hand, whose business it is to chime out the hours +and halves and quarters for the burgesses of Compiègne. The centre +figure has a gilt breast-plate; the two others wear gilt trunk-hose; and +they all three have elegant, flapping hats like cavaliers. As the +quarter approaches, they turn their heads and look knowingly one to the +other; and then, _kling_ go the three hammers on three little bells +below. The hour follows, deep and sonorous, from the interior of the +tower; and the gilded gentlemen rest from their labours with contentment. + +I had a great deal of healthy pleasure from their manœuvres, and took +good care to miss as few performances as possible; and I found that even +the _Cigarette_, while he pretended to despise my enthusiasm, was more or +less a devotee himself. There is something highly absurd in the +exposition of such toys to the outrages of winter on a housetop. They +would be more in keeping in a glass case before a Nürnberg clock. Above +all, at night, when the children are abed, and even grown people are +snoring under quilts, does it not seem impertinent to leave these +ginger-bread figures winking and tinkling to the stars and the rolling +moon? The gargoyles may fitly enough twist their ape-like heads; fitly +enough may the potentate bestride his charger, like a centurion in an old +German print of the _Via Dolorosa_; but the toys should be put away in a +box among some cotton, until the sun rises, and the children are abroad +again to be amused. + +In Compiègne post-office a great packet of letters awaited us; and the +authorities were, for this occasion only, so polite as to hand them over +upon application. + +In some ways, our journey may be said to end with this letter-bag at +Compiègne. The spell was broken. We had partly come home from that +moment. + +No one should have any correspondence on a journey; it is bad enough to +have to write; but the receipt of letters is the death of all holiday +feeling. + +‘Out of my country and myself I go.’ I wish to take a dive among new +conditions for a while, as into another element. I have nothing to do +with my friends or my affections for the time; when I came away, I left +my heart at home in a desk, or sent it forward with my portmanteau to +await me at my destination. After my journey is over, I shall not fail +to read your admirable letters with the attention they deserve. But I +have paid all this money, look you, and paddled all these strokes, for no +other purpose than to be abroad; and yet you keep me at home with your +perpetual communications. You tug the string, and I feel that I am a +tethered bird. You pursue me all over Europe with the little vexations +that I came away to avoid. There is no discharge in the war of life, I +am well aware; but shall there not be so much as a week’s furlough? + +We were up by six, the day we were to leave. They had taken so little +note of us that I hardly thought they would have condescended on a bill. +But they did, with some smart particulars too; and we paid in a civilised +manner to an uninterested clerk, and went out of that hotel, with the +india-rubber bags, unremarked. No one cared to know about us. It is not +possible to rise before a village; but Compiègne was so grown a town, +that it took its ease in the morning; and we were up and away while it +was still in dressing-gown and slippers. The streets were left to people +washing door-steps; nobody was in full dress but the cavaliers upon the +town-hall; they were all washed with dew, spruce in their gilding, and +full of intelligence and a sense of professional responsibility. _Kling_ +went they on the bells for the half-past six as we went by. I took it +kind of them to make me this parting compliment; they never were in +better form, not even at noon upon a Sunday. + +There was no one to see us off but the early washerwomen—early and +late—who were already beating the linen in their floating lavatory on the +river. They were very merry and matutinal in their ways; plunged their +arms boldly in, and seemed not to feel the shock. It would be +dispiriting to me, this early beginning and first cold dabble of a most +dispiriting day’s work. But I believe they would have been as unwilling +to change days with us as we could be to change with them. They crowded +to the door to watch us paddle away into the thin sunny mists upon the +river; and shouted heartily after us till we were through the bridge. + + + + +CHANGED TIMES + + +THERE is a sense in which those mists never rose from off our journey; +and from that time forth they lie very densely in my note-book. As long +as the Oise was a small rural river, it took us near by people’s doors, +and we could hold a conversation with natives in the riparian fields. +But now that it had grown so wide, the life along shore passed us by at a +distance. It was the same difference as between a great public highway +and a country by-path that wanders in and out of cottage gardens. We now +lay in towns, where nobody troubled us with questions; we had floated +into civilised life, where people pass without salutation. In sparsely +inhabited places, we make all we can of each encounter; but when it comes +to a city, we keep to ourselves, and never speak unless we have trodden +on a man’s toes. In these waters we were no longer strange birds, and +nobody supposed we had travelled farther than from the last town. I +remember, when we came into L’Isle Adam, for instance, how we met dozens +of pleasure-boats outing it for the afternoon, and there was nothing to +distinguish the true voyager from the amateur, except, perhaps, the +filthy condition of my sail. The company in one boat actually thought +they recognised me for a neighbour. Was there ever anything more +wounding? All the romance had come down to that. Now, on the upper +Oise, where nothing sailed as a general thing but fish, a pair of +canoeists could not be thus vulgarly explained away; we were strange and +picturesque intruders; and out of people’s wonder sprang a sort of light +and passing intimacy all along our route. There is nothing but +tit-for-tat in this world, though sometimes it be a little difficult to +trace: for the scores are older than we ourselves, and there has never +yet been a settling-day since things were. You get entertainment pretty +much in proportion as you give. As long as we were a sort of odd +wanderers, to be stared at and followed like a quack doctor or a caravan, +we had no want of amusement in return; but as soon as we sank into +commonplace ourselves, all whom we met were similarly disenchanted. And +here is one reason of a dozen, why the world is dull to dull persons. + +In our earlier adventures there was generally something to do, and that +quickened us. Even the showers of rain had a revivifying effect, and +shook up the brain from torpor. But now, when the river no longer ran in +a proper sense, only glided seaward with an even, outright, but +imperceptible speed, and when the sky smiled upon us day after day +without variety, we began to slip into that golden doze of the mind which +follows upon much exercise in the open air. I have stupefied myself in +this way more than once; indeed, I dearly love the feeling; but I never +had it to the same degree as when paddling down the Oise. It was the +apotheosis of stupidity. + +We ceased reading entirely. Sometimes when I found a new paper, I took a +particular pleasure in reading a single number of the current novel; but +I never could bear more than three instalments; and even the second was a +disappointment. As soon as the tale became in any way perspicuous, it +lost all merit in my eyes; only a single scene, or, as is the way with +these _feuilletons_, half a scene, without antecedent or consequence, +like a piece of a dream, had the knack of fixing my interest. The less I +saw of the novel, the better I liked it: a pregnant reflection. But for +the most part, as I said, we neither of us read anything in the world, +and employed the very little while we were awake between bed and dinner +in poring upon maps. I have always been fond of maps, and can voyage in +an atlas with the greatest enjoyment. The names of places are singularly +inviting; the contour of coasts and rivers is enthralling to the eye; and +to hit, in a map, upon some place you have heard of before, makes history +a new possession. But we thumbed our charts, on these evenings, with the +blankest unconcern. We cared not a fraction for this place or that. We +stared at the sheet as children listen to their rattle; and read the +names of towns or villages to forget them again at once. We had no +romance in the matter; there was nobody so fancy-free. If you had taken +the maps away while we were studying them most intently, it is a fair bet +whether we might not have continued to study the table with the same +delight. + +About one thing we were mightily taken up, and that was eating. I think +I made a god of my belly. I remember dwelling in imagination upon this +or that dish till my mouth watered; and long before we got in for the +night my appetite was a clamant, instant annoyance. Sometimes we paddled +alongside for a while and whetted each other with gastronomical fancies +as we went. Cake and sherry, a homely rejection, but not within reach +upon the Oise, trotted through my head for many a mile; and once, as we +were approaching Verberie, the _Cigarette_ brought my heart into my mouth +by the suggestion of oyster-patties and Sauterne. + +I suppose none of us recognise the great part that is played in life by +eating and drinking. The appetite is so imperious that we can stomach +the least interesting viands, and pass off a dinner-hour thankfully +enough on bread and water; just as there are men who must read something, +if it were only _Bradshaw’s Guide_. But there is a romance about the +matter after all. Probably the table has more devotees than love; and I +am sure that food is much more generally entertaining than scenery. Do +you give in, as Walt Whitman would say, that you are any the less +immortal for that? The true materialism is to be ashamed of what we are. +To detect the flavour of an olive is no less a piece of human perfection +than to find beauty in the colours of the sunset. + +Canoeing was easy work. To dip the paddle at the proper inclination, now +right, now left; to keep the head down stream; to empty the little pool +that gathered in the lap of the apron; to screw up the eyes against the +glittering sparkles of sun upon the water; or now and again to pass below +the whistling tow-rope of the _Deo Gratias_ of Condé, or the _Four Sons +of Aymon_—there was not much art in that; certain silly muscles managed +it between sleep and waking; and meanwhile the brain had a whole holiday, +and went to sleep. We took in, at a glance, the larger features of the +scene; and beheld, with half an eye, bloused fishers and dabbling +washerwomen on the bank. Now and again we might be half-wakened by some +church spire, by a leaping fish, or by a trail of river grass that clung +about the paddle and had to be plucked off and thrown away. But these +luminous intervals were only partially luminous. A little more of us was +called into action, but never the whole. The central bureau of nerves, +what in some moods we call Ourselves, enjoyed its holiday without +disturbance, like a Government Office. The great wheels of intelligence +turned idly in the head, like fly-wheels, grinding no grist. I have gone +on for half an hour at a time, counting my strokes and forgetting the +hundreds. I flatter myself the beasts that perish could not underbid +that, as a low form of consciousness. And what a pleasure it was! What +a hearty, tolerant temper did it bring about! There is nothing captious +about a man who has attained to this, the one possible apotheosis in +life, the Apotheosis of Stupidity; and he begins to feel dignified and +longævous like a tree. + +There was one odd piece of practical metaphysics which accompanied what I +may call the depth, if I must not call it the intensity, of my +abstraction. What philosophers call _me_ and _not-me_, _ego_ and _non +ego_, preoccupied me whether I would or no. There was less _me_ and more +_not-me_ than I was accustomed to expect. I looked on upon somebody +else, who managed the paddling; I was aware of somebody else’s feet +against the stretcher; my own body seemed to have no more intimate +relation to me than the canoe, or the river, or the river banks. Nor +this alone: something inside my mind, a part of my brain, a province of +my proper being, had thrown off allegiance and set up for itself, or +perhaps for the somebody else who did the paddling. I had dwindled into +quite a little thing in a corner of myself. I was isolated in my own +skull. Thoughts presented themselves unbidden; they were not my +thoughts, they were plainly some one else’s; and I considered them like a +part of the landscape. I take it, in short, that I was about as near +Nirvana as would be convenient in practical life; and if this be so, I +make the Buddhists my sincere compliments; ’tis an agreeable state, not +very consistent with mental brilliancy, not exactly profitable in a money +point of view, but very calm, golden, and incurious, and one that sets a +man superior to alarms. It may be best figured by supposing yourself to +get dead drunk, and yet keep sober to enjoy it. I have a notion that +open-air labourers must spend a large portion of their days in this +ecstatic stupor, which explains their high composure and endurance. A +pity to go to the expense of laudanum, when here is a better paradise for +nothing! + +This frame of mind was the great exploit of our voyage, take it all in +all. It was the farthest piece of travel accomplished. Indeed, it lies +so far from beaten paths of language, that I despair of getting the +reader into sympathy with the smiling, complacent idiocy of my condition; +when ideas came and went like motes in a sunbeam; when trees and church +spires along the bank surged up, from time to time into my notice, like +solid objects through a rolling cloudland; when the rhythmical swish of +boat and paddle in the water became a cradle-song to lull my thoughts +asleep; when a piece of mud on the deck was sometimes an intolerable +eyesore, and sometimes quite a companion for me, and the object of +pleased consideration;—and all the time, with the river running and the +shores changing upon either hand, I kept counting my strokes and +forgetting the hundreds, the happiest animal in France. + + + + +DOWN THE OISE: CHURCH INTERIORS + + +WE made our first stage below Compiègne to Pont Sainte Maxence. I was +abroad a little after six the next morning. The air was biting, and +smelt of frost. In an open place a score of women wrangled together over +the day’s market; and the noise of their negotiation sounded thin and +querulous like that of sparrows on a winter’s morning. The rare +passengers blew into their hands, and shuffled in their wooden shoes to +set the blood agog. The streets were full of icy shadow, although the +chimneys were smoking overhead in golden sunshine. If you wake early +enough at this season of the year, you may get up in December to break +your fast in June. + +I found my way to the church; for there is always something to see about +a church, whether living worshippers or dead men’s tombs; you find there +the deadliest earnest, and the hollowest deceit; and even where it is not +a piece of history, it will be certain to leak out some contemporary +gossip. It was scarcely so cold in the church as it was without, but it +looked colder. The white nave was positively arctic to the eye; and the +tawdriness of a continental altar looked more forlorn than usual in the +solitude and the bleak air. Two priests sat in the chancel, reading and +waiting penitents; and out in the nave, one very old woman was engaged in +her devotions. It was a wonder how she was able to pass her beads when +healthy young people were breathing in their palms and slapping their +chest; but though this concerned me, I was yet more dispirited by the +nature of her exercises. She went from chair to chair, from altar to +altar, circumnavigating the church. To each shrine she dedicated an +equal number of beads and an equal length of time. Like a prudent +capitalist with a somewhat cynical view of the commercial prospect, she +desired to place her supplications in a great variety of heavenly +securities. She would risk nothing on the credit of any single +intercessor. Out of the whole company of saints and angels, not one but +was to suppose himself her champion elect against the Great Assize! I +could only think of it as a dull, transparent jugglery, based upon +unconscious unbelief. + +She was as dead an old woman as ever I saw; no more than bone and +parchment, curiously put together. Her eyes, with which she interrogated +mine, were vacant of sense. It depends on what you call seeing, whether +you might not call her blind. Perhaps she had known love: perhaps borne +children, suckled them and given them pet names. But now that was all +gone by, and had left her neither happier nor wiser; and the best she +could do with her mornings was to come up here into the cold church and +juggle for a slice of heaven. It was not without a gulp that I escaped +into the streets and the keen morning air. Morning? why, how tired of it +she would be before night! and if she did not sleep, how then? It is +fortunate that not many of us are brought up publicly to justify our +lives at the bar of threescore years and ten; fortunate that such a +number are knocked opportunely on the head in what they call the flower +of their years, and go away to suffer for their follies in private +somewhere else. Otherwise, between sick children and discontented old +folk, we might be put out of all conceit of life. + +I had need of all my cerebral hygiene during that day’s paddle: the old +devotee stuck in my throat sorely. But I was soon in the seventh heaven +of stupidity; and knew nothing but that somebody was paddling a canoe, +while I was counting his strokes and forgetting the hundreds. I used +sometimes to be afraid I should remember the hundreds; which would have +made a toil of a pleasure; but the terror was chimerical, they went out +of my mind by enchantment, and I knew no more than the man in the moon +about my only occupation. + +At Creil, where we stopped to lunch, we left the canoes in another +floating lavatory, which, as it was high noon, was packed with +washerwomen, red-handed and loud-voiced; and they and their broad jokes +are about all I remember of the place. I could look up my history-books, +if you were very anxious, and tell you a date or two; for it figured +rather largely in the English wars. But I prefer to mention a girls’ +boarding-school, which had an interest for us because it was a girls’ +boarding-school, and because we imagined we had rather an interest for +it. At least—there were the girls about the garden; and here were we on +the river; and there was more than one handkerchief waved as we went by. +It caused quite a stir in my heart; and yet how we should have wearied +and despised each other, these girls and I, if we had been introduced at +a croquet-party! But this is a fashion I love: to kiss the hand or wave +a handkerchief to people I shall never see again, to play with +possibility, and knock in a peg for fancy to hang upon. It gives the +traveller a jog, reminds him that he is not a traveller everywhere, and +that his journey is no more than a siesta by the way on the real march of +life. + +The church at Creil was a nondescript place in the inside, splashed with +gaudy lights from the windows, and picked out with medallions of the +Dolorous Way. But there was one oddity, in the way of an _ex voto_, +which pleased me hugely: a faithful model of a canal boat, swung from the +vault, with a written aspiration that God should conduct the _Saint +Nicolas_ of Creil to a good haven. The thing was neatly executed, and +would have made the delight of a party of boys on the waterside. But +what tickled me was the gravity of the peril to be conjured. You might +hang up the model of a sea-going ship, and welcome: one that is to plough +a furrow round the world, and visit the tropic or the frosty poles, runs +dangers that are well worth a candle and a mass. But the _Saint Nicolas_ +of Creil, which was to be tugged for some ten years by patient +draught-horses, in a weedy canal, with the poplars chattering overhead, +and the skipper whistling at the tiller; which was to do all its errands +in green inland places, and never get out of sight of a village belfry in +all its cruising; why, you would have thought if anything could be done +without the intervention of Providence, it would be that! But perhaps +the skipper was a humorist: or perhaps a prophet, reminding people of the +seriousness of life by this preposterous token. + +At Creil, as at Noyon, Saint Joseph seemed a favourite saint on the score +of punctuality. Day and hour can be specified; and grateful people do +not fail to specify them on a votive tablet, when prayers have been +punctually and neatly answered. Whenever time is a consideration, Saint +Joseph is the proper intermediary. I took a sort of pleasure in +observing the vogue he had in France, for the good man plays a very small +part in my religion at home. Yet I could not help fearing that, where +the Saint is so much commanded for exactitude, he will be expected to be +very grateful for his tablet. + +This is foolishness to us Protestants; and not of great importance +anyway. Whether people’s gratitude for the good gifts that come to them +be wisely conceived or dutifully expressed, is a secondary matter, after +all, so long as they feel gratitude. The true ignorance is when a man +does not know that he has received a good gift, or begins to imagine that +he has got it for himself. The self-made man is the funniest windbag +after all! There is a marked difference between decreeing light in +chaos, and lighting the gas in a metropolitan back-parlour with a box of +patent matches; and do what we will, there is always something made to +our hand, if it were only our fingers. + +But there was something worse than foolishness placarded in Creil Church. +The Association of the Living Rosary (of which I had never previously +heard) is responsible for that. This Association was founded, according +to the printed advertisement, by a brief of Pope Gregory Sixteenth, on +the 17th of January 1832: according to a coloured bas-relief, it seems to +have been founded, sometime other, by the Virgin giving one rosary to +Saint Dominic, and the Infant Saviour giving another to Saint Catharine +of Siena. Pope Gregory is not so imposing, but he is nearer hand. I +could not distinctly make out whether the Association was entirely +devotional, or had an eye to good works; at least it is highly organised: +the names of fourteen matrons and misses were filled in for each week of +the month as associates, with one other, generally a married woman, at +the top for _zélatrice_: the leader of the band. Indulgences, plenary +and partial, follow on the performance of the duties of the Association. +‘The partial indulgences are attached to the recitation of the rosary.’ +On ‘the recitation of the required _dizaine_,’ a partial indulgence +promptly follows. When people serve the kingdom of heaven with a +pass-book in their hands, I should always be afraid lest they should +carry the same commercial spirit into their dealings with their +fellow-men, which would make a sad and sordid business of this life. + +There is one more article, however, of happier import. ‘All these +indulgences,’ it appeared, ‘are applicable to souls in purgatory.’ For +God’s sake, ye ladies of Creil, apply them all to the souls in purgatory +without delay! Burns would take no hire for his last songs, preferring +to serve his country out of unmixed love. Suppose you were to imitate +the exciseman, mesdames, and even if the souls in purgatory were not +greatly bettered, some souls in Creil upon the Oise would find themselves +none the worse either here or hereafter. + +I cannot help wondering, as I transcribe these notes, whether a +Protestant born and bred is in a fit state to understand these signs, and +do them what justice they deserve; and I cannot help answering that he is +not. They cannot look so merely ugly and mean to the faithful as they do +to me. I see that as clearly as a proposition in Euclid. For these +believers are neither weak nor wicked. They can put up their tablet +commanding Saint Joseph for his despatch, as if he were still a village +carpenter; they can ‘recite the required _dizaine_,’ and metaphorically +pocket the indulgence, as if they had done a job for Heaven; and then +they can go out and look down unabashed upon this wonderful river flowing +by, and up without confusion at the pin-point stars, which are themselves +great worlds full of flowing rivers greater than the Oise. I see it as +plainly, I say, as a proposition in Euclid, that my Protestant mind has +missed the point, and that there goes with these deformities some higher +and more religious spirit than I dream. + +I wonder if other people would make the same allowances for me! Like the +ladies of Creil, having recited my rosary of toleration, I look for my +indulgence on the spot. + + + + +PRÉCY AND THE MARIONNETTES + + +WE made Précy about sundown. The plain is rich with tufts of poplar. In +a wide, luminous curve, the Oise lay under the hillside. A faint mist +began to rise and confound the different distances together. There was +not a sound audible but that of the sheep-bells in some meadows by the +river, and the creaking of a cart down the long road that descends the +hill. The villas in their gardens, the shops along the street, all +seemed to have been deserted the day before; and I felt inclined to walk +discreetly as one feels in a silent forest. All of a sudden, we came +round a corner, and there, in a little green round the church, was a bevy +of girls in Parisian costumes playing croquet. Their laughter, and the +hollow sound of ball and mallet, made a cheery stir in the neighbourhood; +and the look of these slim figures, all corseted and ribboned, produced +an answerable disturbance in our hearts. We were within sniff of Paris, +it seemed. And here were females of our own species playing croquet, +just as if Précy had been a place in real life, instead of a stage in the +fairyland of travel. For, to be frank, the peasant woman is scarcely to +be counted as a woman at all, and after having passed by such a +succession of people in petticoats digging and hoeing and making dinner, +this company of coquettes under arms made quite a surprising feature in +the landscape, and convinced us at once of being fallible males. + +The inn at Précy is the worst inn in France. Not even in Scotland have I +found worse fare. It was kept by a brother and sister, neither of whom +was out of their teens. The sister, so to speak, prepared a meal for us; +and the brother, who had been tippling, came in and brought with him a +tipsy butcher, to entertain us as we ate. We found pieces of loo-warm +pork among the salad, and pieces of unknown yielding substance in the +_ragoût_. The butcher entertained us with pictures of Parisian life, +with which he professed himself well acquainted; the brother sitting the +while on the edge of the billiard-table, toppling precariously, and +sucking the stump of a cigar. In the midst of these diversions, bang +went a drum past the house, and a hoarse voice began issuing a +proclamation. It was a man with marionnettes announcing a performance +for that evening. + +He had set up his caravan and lighted his candles on another part of the +girls’ croquet-green, under one of those open sheds which are so common +in France to shelter markets; and he and his wife, by the time we +strolled up there, were trying to keep order with the audience. + +It was the most absurd contention. The show-people had set out a certain +number of benches; and all who sat upon them were to pay a couple of +_sous_ for the accommodation. They were always quite full—a bumper +house—as long as nothing was going forward; but let the show-woman appear +with an eye to a collection, and at the first rattle of her tambourine +the audience slipped off the seats, and stood round on the outside with +their hands in their pockets. It certainly would have tried an angel’s +temper. The showman roared from the proscenium; he had been all over +France, and nowhere, nowhere, ‘not even on the borders of Germany,’ had +he met with such misconduct. Such thieves and rogues and rascals, as he +called them! And every now and again, the wife issued on another round, +and added her shrill quota to the tirade. I remarked here, as elsewhere, +how far more copious is the female mind in the material of insult. The +audience laughed in high good-humour over the man’s declamations; but +they bridled and cried aloud under the woman’s pungent sallies. She +picked out the sore points. She had the honour of the village at her +mercy. Voices answered her angrily out of the crowd, and received a +smarting retort for their trouble. A couple of old ladies beside me, who +had duly paid for their seats, waxed very red and indignant, and +discoursed to each other audibly about the impudence of these +mountebanks; but as soon as the show-woman caught a whisper of this, she +was down upon them with a swoop: if mesdames could persuade their +neighbours to act with common honesty, the mountebanks, she assured them, +would be polite enough: mesdames had probably had their bowl of soup, and +perhaps a glass of wine that evening; the mountebanks also had a taste +for soup, and did not choose to have their little earnings stolen from +them before their eyes. Once, things came as far as a brief personal +encounter between the showman and some lads, in which the former went +down as readily as one of his own marionnettes to a peal of jeering +laughter. + +I was a good deal astonished at this scene, because I am pretty well +acquainted with the ways of French strollers, more or less artistic; and +have always found them singularly pleasing. Any stroller must be dear to +the right-thinking heart; if it were only as a living protest against +offices and the mercantile spirit, and as something to remind us that +life is not by necessity the kind of thing we generally make it. Even a +German band, if you see it leaving town in the early morning for a +campaign in country places, among trees and meadows, has a romantic +flavour for the imagination. There is nobody, under thirty, so dead but +his heart will stir a little at sight of a gypsies’ camp. ‘We are not +cotton-spinners all’; or, at least, not all through. There is some life +in humanity yet: and youth will now and again find a brave word to say in +dispraise of riches, and throw up a situation to go strolling with a +knapsack. + +An Englishman has always special facilities for intercourse with French +gymnasts; for England is the natural home of gymnasts. This or that +fellow, in his tights and spangles, is sure to know a word or two of +English, to have drunk English _aff-’n-aff_, and perhaps performed in an +English music-hall. He is a countryman of mine by profession. He leaps, +like the Belgian boating men, to the notion that I must be an athlete +myself. + +But the gymnast is not my favourite; he has little or no tincture of the +artist in his composition; his soul is small and pedestrian, for the most +part, since his profession makes no call upon it, and does not accustom +him to high ideas. But if a man is only so much of an actor that he can +stumble through a farce, he is made free of a new order of thoughts. He +has something else to think about beside the money-box. He has a pride +of his own, and, what is of far more importance, he has an aim before him +that he can never quite attain. He has gone upon a pilgrimage that will +last him his life long, because there is no end to it short of +perfection. He will better upon himself a little day by day; or even if +he has given up the attempt, he will always remember that once upon a +time he had conceived this high ideal, that once upon a time he had +fallen in love with a star. ‘’Tis better to have loved and lost.’ +Although the moon should have nothing to say to Endymion, although he +should settle down with Audrey and feed pigs, do you not think he would +move with a better grace, and cherish higher thoughts to the end? The +louts he meets at church never had a fancy above Audrey’s snood; but +there is a reminiscence in Endymion’s heart that, like a spice, keeps it +fresh and haughty. + +To be even one of the outskirters of art, leaves a fine stamp on a man’s +countenance. I remember once dining with a party in the inn at Château +Landon. Most of them were unmistakable bagmen; others well-to-do +peasantry; but there was one young fellow in a blouse, whose face stood +out from among the rest surprisingly. It looked more finished; more of +the spirit looked out through it; it had a living, expressive air, and +you could see that his eyes took things in. My companion and I wondered +greatly who and what he could be. It was fair-time in Château Landon, +and when we went along to the booths, we had our question answered; for +there was our friend busily fiddling for the peasants to caper to. He +was a wandering violinist. + +A troop of strollers once came to the inn where I was staying, in the +department of Seine et Marne. There was a father and mother; two +daughters, brazen, blowsy hussies, who sang and acted, without an idea of +how to set about either; and a dark young man, like a tutor, a +recalcitrant house-painter, who sang and acted not amiss. The mother was +the genius of the party, so far as genius can be spoken of with regard to +such a pack of incompetent humbugs; and her husband could not find words +to express his admiration for her comic countryman. ‘You should see my +old woman,’ said he, and nodded his beery countenance. One night they +performed in the stable-yard, with flaring lamps—a wretched exhibition, +coldly looked upon by a village audience. Next night, as soon as the +lamps were lighted, there came a plump of rain, and they had to sweep +away their baggage as fast as possible, and make off to the barn where +they harboured, cold, wet, and supperless. In the morning, a dear friend +of mine, who has as warm a heart for strollers as I have myself, made a +little collection, and sent it by my hands to comfort them for their +disappointment. I gave it to the father; he thanked me cordially, and we +drank a cup together in the kitchen, talking of roads, and audiences, and +hard times. + +When I was going, up got my old stroller, and off with his hat. ‘I am +afraid,’ said he, ‘that Monsieur will think me altogether a beggar; but I +have another demand to make upon him.’ I began to hate him on the spot. +‘We play again to-night,’ he went on. ‘Of course, I shall refuse to +accept any more money from Monsieur and his friends, who have been +already so liberal. But our programme of to-night is something truly +creditable; and I cling to the idea that Monsieur will honour us with his +presence.’ And then, with a shrug and a smile: ‘Monsieur understands—the +vanity of an artist!’ Save the mark! The vanity of an artist! That is +the kind of thing that reconciles me to life: a ragged, tippling, +incompetent old rogue, with the manners of a gentleman, and the vanity of +an artist, to keep up his self-respect! + +But the man after my own heart is M. de Vauversin. It is nearly two +years since I saw him first, and indeed I hope I may see him often again. +Here is his first programme, as I found it on the breakfast-table, and +have kept it ever since as a relic of bright days: + + ‘_Mesdames et Messieurs_, + + ‘_Mademoiselle Ferrario et M. de Vauversin auront l’honneur de + chanter ce soir les morceaux suivants_. + + ‘_Madermoiselle Ferrario chantera—Mignon—Oiseaux Légers—France—Des + Français dorment là—Le château bleu—Où voulez-vous aller_? + + ‘_M. de Vauversin—Madame Fontaine et M. Robinet—Les plongeurs à + cheval—Le Mari mécontent—Tais-toi, gamin—Mon voisin + l’original—Heureux comme ça—Comme on est trompé_.’ + +They made a stage at one end of the _salle-à-manger_. And what a sight +it was to see M. de Vauversin, with a cigarette in his mouth, twanging a +guitar, and following Mademoiselle Ferrario’s eyes with the obedient, +kindly look of a dog! The entertainment wound up with a tombola, or +auction of lottery tickets: an admirable amusement, with all the +excitement of gambling, and no hope of gain to make you ashamed of your +eagerness; for there, all is loss; you make haste to be out of pocket; it +is a competition who shall lose most money for the benefit of M. de +Vauversin and Mademoiselle Ferrario. + +M. de Vauversin is a small man, with a great head of black hair, a +vivacious and engaging air, and a smile that would be delightful if he +had better teeth. He was once an actor in the Châtelet; but he +contracted a nervous affection from the heat and glare of the footlights, +which unfitted him for the stage. At this crisis Mademoiselle Ferrario, +otherwise Mademoiselle Rita of the Alcazar, agreed to share his wandering +fortunes. ‘I could never forget the generosity of that lady,’ said he. +He wears trousers so tight that it has long been a problem to all who +knew him how he manages to get in and out of them. He sketches a little +in water-colours; he writes verses; he is the most patient of fishermen, +and spent long days at the bottom of the inn-garden fruitlessly dabbling +a line in the clear river. + +You should hear him recounting his experiences over a bottle of wine; +such a pleasant vein of talk as he has, with a ready smile at his own +mishaps, and every now and then a sudden gravity, like a man who should +hear the surf roar while he was telling the perils of the deep. For it +was no longer ago than last night, perhaps, that the receipts only +amounted to a franc and a half, to cover three francs of railway fare and +two of board and lodging. The Maire, a man worth a million of money, sat +in the front seat, repeatedly applauding Mlle. Ferrario, and yet gave no +more than three _sous_ the whole evening. Local authorities look with +such an evil eye upon the strolling artist. Alas! I know it well, who +have been myself taken for one, and pitilessly incarcerated on the +strength of the misapprehension. Once, M. de Vauversin visited a +commissary of police for permission to sing. The commissary, who was +smoking at his ease, politely doffed his hat upon the singer’s entrance. +‘Mr. Commissary,’ he began, ‘I am an artist.’ And on went the +commissary’s hat again. No courtesy for the companions of Apollo! ‘They +are as degraded as that,’ said M. de Vauversin with a sweep of his +cigarette. + +But what pleased me most was one outbreak of his, when we had been +talking all the evening of the rubs, indignities, and pinchings of his +wandering life. Some one said, it would be better to have a million of +money down, and Mlle. Ferrario admitted that she would prefer that +mightily. ‘_Eh bien_, _moi non_;—not I,’ cried De Vauversin, striking +the table with his hand. ‘If any one is a failure in the world, is it +not I? I had an art, in which I have done things well—as well as +some—better perhaps than others; and now it is closed against me. I must +go about the country gathering coppers and singing nonsense. Do you +think I regret my life? Do you think I would rather be a fat burgess, +like a calf? Not I! I have had moments when I have been applauded on +the boards: I think nothing of that; but I have known in my own mind +sometimes, when I had not a clap from the whole house, that I had found a +true intonation, or an exact and speaking gesture; and then, messieurs, I +have known what pleasure was, what it was to do a thing well, what it was +to be an artist. And to know what art is, is to have an interest for +ever, such as no burgess can find in his petty concerns. _Tenez_, +_messieurs_, _je vais vous le dire_—it is like a religion.’ + +Such, making some allowance for the tricks of memory and the inaccuracies +of translation, was the profession of faith of M. de Vauversin. I have +given him his own name, lest any other wanderer should come across him, +with his guitar and cigarette, and Mademoiselle Ferrario; for should not +all the world delight to honour this unfortunate and loyal follower of +the Muses? May Apollo send him rimes hitherto undreamed of; may the +river be no longer scanty of her silver fishes to his lure; may the cold +not pinch him on long winter rides, nor the village jack-in-office +affront him with unseemly manners; and may he never miss Mademoiselle +Ferrario from his side, to follow with his dutiful eyes and accompany on +the guitar! + +The marionnettes made a very dismal entertainment. They performed a +piece, called _Pyramus and Thisbe_, in five mortal acts, and all written +in Alexandrines fully as long as the performers. One marionnette was the +king; another the wicked counsellor; a third, credited with exceptional +beauty, represented Thisbe; and then there were guards, and obdurate +fathers, and walking gentlemen. Nothing particular took place during the +two or three acts that I sat out; but you will he pleased to learn that +the unities were properly respected, and the whole piece, with one +exception, moved in harmony with classical rules. That exception was the +comic countryman, a lean marionnette in wooden shoes, who spoke in prose +and in a broad _patois_ much appreciated by the audience. He took +unconstitutional liberties with the person of his sovereign; kicked his +fellow-marionnettes in the mouth with his wooden shoes, and whenever none +of the versifying suitors were about, made love to Thisbe on his own +account in comic prose. + +This fellow’s evolutions, and the little prologue, in which the showman +made a humorous eulogium of his troop, praising their indifference to +applause and hisses, and their single devotion to their art, were the +only circumstances in the whole affair that you could fancy would so much +as raise a smile. But the villagers of Précy seemed delighted. Indeed, +so long as a thing is an exhibition, and you pay to see it, it is nearly +certain to amuse. If we were charged so much a head for sunsets, or if +God sent round a drum before the hawthorns came in flower, what a work +should we not make about their beauty! But these things, like good +companions, stupid people early cease to observe: and the Abstract Bagman +tittups past in his spring gig, and is positively not aware of the +flowers along the lane, or the scenery of the weather overhead. + + + + +BACK TO THE WORLD + + +OF the next two days’ sail little remains in my mind, and nothing +whatever in my note-book. The river streamed on steadily through +pleasant river-side landscapes. Washerwomen in blue dresses, fishers in +blue blouses, diversified the green banks; and the relation of the two +colours was like that of the flower and the leaf in the forget-me-not. A +symphony in forget-me-not; I think Théophile Gautier might thus have +characterised that two days’ panorama. The sky was blue and cloudless; +and the sliding surface of the river held up, in smooth places, a mirror +to the heaven and the shores. The washerwomen hailed us laughingly; and +the noise of trees and water made an accompaniment to our dozing +thoughts, as we fleeted down the stream. + +The great volume, the indefatigable purpose of the river, held the mind +in chain. It seemed now so sure of its end, so strong and easy in its +gait, like a grown man full of determination. The surf was roaring for +it on the sands of Havre. + +For my own part, slipping along this moving thoroughfare in my +fiddle-case of a canoe, I also was beginning to grow aweary for my ocean. +To the civilised man, there must come, sooner or later, a desire for +civilisation. I was weary of dipping the paddle; I was weary of living +on the skirts of life; I wished to be in the thick of it once more; I +wished to get to work; I wished to meet people who understood my own +speech, and could meet with me on equal terms, as a man, and no longer as +a curiosity. + +And so a letter at Pontoise decided us, and we drew up our keels for the +last time out of that river of Oise that had faithfully piloted them, +through rain and sunshine, for so long. For so many miles had this fleet +and footless beast of burthen charioted our fortunes, that we turned our +back upon it with a sense of separation. We had made a long détour out +of the world, but now we were back in the familiar places, where life +itself makes all the running, and we are carried to meet adventure +without a stroke of the paddle. Now we were to return, like the voyager +in the play, and see what rearrangements fortune had perfected the while +in our surroundings; what surprises stood ready made for us at home; and +whither and how far the world had voyaged in our absence. You may paddle +all day long; but it is when you come back at nightfall, and look in at +the familiar room, that you find Love or Death awaiting you beside the +stove; and the most beautiful adventures are not those we go to seek. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN INLAND VOYAGE*** + + +******* This file should be named 534-0.txt or 534-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/3/534 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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