I wish any one would explain to me why it is that the tastes and
pursuits of nations are far more difficult of imitation than their
languages or institutions. Nothing is more common than to find Poles and
Russians speaking half the tongues of Europe like natives. Germans
frequently attain to similar excellence; and some Englishmen have the
gift also. In the same way it would not be difficult to produce many
foreigners well acquainted with all the governmental details of the
countries they have visited--the policy, foreign and domestic; the
statistics of debt and taxation; the religious influences; the
resources, and so forth. Indeed, in our days of universal travel, this
kind of information has more or less become general, while the tastes
and habits, which appear so much more easily acquired, are the subjects
of the most absurd mistakes, or the most blundering imitation. To
instance what I mean, who ever saw any but a Hungarian dance the mazurka
with even tolerable grace? Who ever saw waltzing except among the
Austrians? Who ever beheld ‘toilette’ out of France? So it is, however.
Some artificial boundary drawn with a red line on a map by the hand of
Nesselrode or Talleyrand, some pin stuck down in the chart by the
fingers of Metternich, decides the whole question, and says, ‘Thus far
shalt thou dance and no farther. Beyond this there are no _pâtés de
Perigord_. Here begin pipes and tobacco; there end macaroni and music.’
Whatever their previous tastes, men soon conform to the habits of a
nation, and these arbitrary boundaries of the gentlemen of the red tape
become like Nature’s own frontiers of flood or mountain. Not but it must
have been somewhat puzzling in the good days of the Consulate and the
Empire to trim one’s sails quick enough for the changes of the political
hurricane. You were an Italian yesterday, you are a Frenchman to-day;
you went to bed a Prussian, and you awoke a Dutchman. These were sore
trials, and had they been pushed much further, must have led to the most
strange misconceptions and mistakes.
Now, with a word of apology for the digression, let me come back to the
cause of it--and yet why should I make my excuses on this head? These
‘Loiterings’ of mine are as much in the wide field of dreamy thought as
over the plains and valleys of the material world. I never promised to
follow a regular track, nor did I set out on my journey bound, like a
king’s messenger, to be at my destination in a given time. Not a bit of
it. I ‘ll take ‘mine ease in mine inn.’ I’ll stay a week, a fortnight--
ay, a month, here, if I please it. You may not like the accommodation,
nor wish to put up with a ‘settle and stewed parsnips.’ Be it so. Here
we part company then. If you don’t like my way of travel, there’s the
diligence, or, if you prefer it, take the extra post, and calculate, if
you can, how to pay your postillion in kreutzers--invented by the devil,
I believe, to make men swear--and for miles, that change with every
little grand-duchy of three acres in extent. I wish you joy of your
travelling companions--the German who smokes, and the Frenchman who
frowns at you; the old _vrau_ who falls asleep on your shoulder, and the
_bonne_ who gives you a baby to hold in your lap. But why have I put
myself into this towering passion? Heaven knows it’s not my wont. And
once more to go back, and find, if I can, what I was thinking of. I have
it. This same digression of mine was _apropos_ to the scene I witnessed,
as our breakfast concluded at the château.
All the world was to figure on horseback--the horses themselves no bad
evidence of the exertions used to mount the party. Here was a rugged
pony from the Ardennes, with short neck and low shoulder, his head broad
as a bull’s, and his counter like the bow of a Dutch galliot; there, a
great Flemish beast, seventeen hands high, with a tail festooned over a
straw ‘bustle,’ and even still hanging some inches on the ground--
straight in the shoulder, and straighter in the pasterns, giving the
rider a shock at every motion that to any other than a Fleming would
lead to concussion of the brain. Here stood an English thoroughbred,
sadly ‘shook’ before, and with that tremulous quivering of the forelegs
that betokens a life of hard work; still, with all his imperfections,
and the mark of a spavin behind, he looked like a gentleman among a
crowd of low fellows--a reduced gentleman it is true, but a gentleman
still; his mane was long and silky, his coat was short and glossy, his
head finely formed, and well put on his long, taper, and well-balanced
neck. Beside him was a huge Holsteiner, flapping his broad flanks with a
tail like a weeping ash--a great massive animal, that seemed from his
action as if he were in the habit of ascending stairs, and now and then
got the shock one feels when they come to a step too few. Among the mass
there were some ‘Limousins’--pretty, neatly formed little animals, with
great strength for their appearance, and showing a deal of Arab
breeding--and an odd Schimmel or two from Hungary, snorting and pawing
like a war-horse; but the staple was a collection of such screws as
every week are to be seen at Tattersall’s auction, announced as ‘first-
rate weight-carriers with any foxhounds, fast in double and single
harness, and “believed” sound by the owner.’
Well, what credulous people are the proprietors of horses! These are the
great exports to the Low Countries, repaid in mock Van Dycks, apocryphal
Rembrandts, and fabulous Hobbimas, for the exhibition of which in our
dining-rooms and libraries we are as heartily laughed at as they are for
their taste in manners equine. And in the same way exactly as we insist
upon a great name with our landscape or our battle, so your Fleming must
have a pedigree with his hunter. There must be ‘dam to Louisa,’ and ‘own
brother to Ratcatcher’ and Titus Oates, that won the ‘Levanter Handicap’
in--no matter where. Oh dear, oh dear! when shall we have sense enough
to go without Snyders and Ostade? And when will Flemings be satisfied to
ride on beasts which befit them--strong of limb, slow of gait, dull of
temper, and not over-fastidious in feeding; whose parentage has had no
registry, and whose blood relations never were chronicled?
Truly, England is the land of ‘turn-out.’ All the foreign imitations of
it are most ludicrous--from Prince Max of Bavaria, who brought back with
him to Munich a lord-mayor’s coach, gilding, emblazonry, wigs, and all,
as the true type of a London equipage, down to those strange merry-
andrew figures in orange-plush breeches and sky-blue frocks, that one
sees galloping after their masters along the Champs Élysées, like insane
comets taking an airing on horseback. The whole thing is absurd. They
cannot accomplish it, do what they will; there’s no success in the
endeavour. It is like our miserable failures to get up a _petit dîner_
or a _soirée_. If, then, French, Italians, and Germans fail so
lamentably, only think, I beseech you, of Flemings--imagine Belgium _à
cheval_! The author of _Hudibras_ discovered years ago that these people
were fish; that their land-life was a little bit of distraction they
permitted themselves to take from time to time, but that their real
element was a dyke or a canal. What would he have said had he seen them
on horseback?
Now, I am free to confess that few men have less hope to win the world
by deeds of horsemanship than Arthur O’Leary. I have ever looked upon it
as a kind of presumption in me to get into the saddle. I have regarded
my taking the reins as a species of duplicity on my part--a tacit
assumption that I had any sort of control oyer the beast. I have
appeared to myself guilty of a moral misdemeanour--the ‘obtaining a ride
under false pretences.’ Yet when I saw myself astride of the ‘roan with
the cut on her knee,’ and looked around me at the others, I fancied that
I must have taken lessons from Franconi without knowing it; and even
among the moustached heroes of the evening before, I bore myself like a
gallant cavalier.
‘You sit your horse devilish like your father; he had just the same easy
_dégagé_ way in his saddle,’ said the old colonel, tapping his snuff-
box, and looking at me with a smile of marked approval; while he
continued in a lower tone, ‘I ‘ve told Laura to get near you if the mare
becomes troublesome. The Flemings, you know, are not much to boast of as
riders.’
I acknowledged the favour as well as I could, for already my horse was
becoming fidgety--every one about me thinking it essential to spur and
whip his beast into the nearest approach to mettle, and caper about like
so many devils, while they cried out to one another--
‘Regardez, Charles, comment il est vif ce “Tear away.” C’est une bête du
diable. Ah, tiens, tiens, vois donc “Albert.” Le voilà, c’est, “All-in-
my-eye,” fils de “Charles Fox,” frère de “Sevins-de-main.”’
‘Ah, marquis, how goes it? Il est beau votre cheval.’
‘Oui, parbleu; he is frère aîné of “Kiss-mi-ladi,” qui a gagné le
handicap à l’Ile du Dogs.’
And thus did these miserable imitators of Ascot and Doncaster, of
Leamington and the Quorn, talk the most insane nonsense, which had been
told to them by some London horse-dealer as the pedigree of their
hackneys.
It was really delightful amid all this to look at the two English girls,
who sat their horses so easily and so gracefully. Bending slightly with
each curvet, they only yielded to the impulse of the animal as much as
served to keep their own balance; the light but steady finger on the
bridle, the air of quiet composure, uniting elegance with command. What
a contrast to the distorted gesture, the desperate earnestness, and the
fearful tenacity of their much-whiskered companions! And yet it was to
please and fascinate these same pinchbeck sportsmen that these girls
were then there. If they rode over everything that day--fence or rail,
brook or bank--it was because the _chasse_ to them was less _au cerf_
than _au mari_.
Such was the case. The old colonel had left England because he preferred
the Channel to the fleet; the glorious liberty which Englishmen are so
proud of would have been violated in his person had he remained. His
failing, like many others, was that he had lived ‘not wisely, but too
well’; and, in short, however cold the climate, London would have proved
too hot for him had he stayed another day in it.
What a deluge of such people float over the Continent, living well and
what is called ‘most respectably’; dining at embassies and dancing at
courts; holding their heads very high, too--most scrupulous about
acquaintances, and exclusive in all their intimacies! They usually
prefer foreign society to that of their countrymen, for obvious reasons.
Few Frenchmen read the _Gazette_. I never heard of a German who knew
anything about the list of outlaws. Of course they have no more to say
to English preserves, and so they take out a license to shoot over the
foreign manors; and though a marquis or a count are but ‘small deer,’
it’s the only game left, and they make the best of it.
At last the host appeared, attired in a scarlet frock, and wearing a
badge at his button-hole something about the shape and colour of a new
penny-piece. He was followed by above a dozen others, similarly habited,
minus the badge; and then came about twenty more, dressed in green
frocks, with red collars and cuffs--a species of smaller deities, who I
learned were called ‘Aspirants,’ though to what they aspired, where it
was, or when they hoped for it, nobody could inform me. Then there were
_piqueurs_ and grooms and whippers-in without number, all noisy and all
boisterous--about twenty couple of fox-hounds giving tongue, and a due
proportion of the scarlet folk blowing away at that melodious pipe, the
_cor de chasse_.
With this goodly company I moved forward, ‘alone, but in a crowd’; for,
unhappily, my want of tact as a sporting character the previous evening
had damaged me seriously with the hunting youths, and Mademoiselle Laura
showed no desire to accept the companionship her worthy father had
selected for her. ‘No matter,’ thought I, ‘there’s a great deal to see
here, and I can do without chatting in so stirring a scene as this.’
Her companion was the Comte d’Espagne, an admirable specimen of what the
French call ‘Tigre’; for be it known that the country which once
obtained a reputation little short of ludicrous for its excess of
courtesy and the surplusage of its ceremony, has now, in the true spirit
of reaction, adopted a degree of abruptness we should call rudeness, and
a species of cold effrontery we might mistake for insolence. The
disciples of this new school are significantly called ‘Young France,’
and are distinguished for length of hair and beard, a look of frowning
solemnity and mock preoccupation, very well-fitting garments and yellow
gloves. These gentlemen are sparing of speech, and more so of gesture.
They give one to understand that some onerous deed of regeneration is
expected at their hands, some revival of the old spirit of the nation;
though in what way it is to originate in curled moustaches and lacquered
boots is still a mystery to the many. But enough of them now; only of
these was the Comte d’Espagne.
I had almost forgotten to speak of one part of our cortége, which should
certainly not be omitted. This was a wooden edifice on wheels, drawn by
a pair of horses at a brisk rate at the tail of the procession. At first
it occurred to me that it might be an ambulant dog-kennel, to receive
the hounds on their return. Then I suspected it to be a walking hospital
for wounded sportsmen; and certainly I could not but approve of the
idea, as I called to mind the position of any unlucky _chasseur_, in the
event of a fall, with his fifteen feet of ‘metal main’ around him, and I
only hoped that a plumber accompanied the expedition. My humanity,
however, led me astray; the pagoda was destined for the accommodation of
a stag, who always assisted at the _chasse_, whenever no other game
could be started. This venerable beast, some five-and-twenty years in
the service, was like a stock piece in the theatres, which, always
ready, could be produced without a moment’s notice. Here was no
rehearsal requisite if a prima donna was sulky or a tenor was drunk; if
the fox wouldn’t show or the deer were shy, there was the stag,
perfectly prepared for a pleasant canter of a few miles, and ready, if
no one was intemperately precipitate, to give a very agreeable morning’s
sport. His perfections, however, went further than this; for he was
trained to cross the highroad at all convenient thoroughfares,
occasionally taking the main streets of a village or the market-place of
a bourg, swimming whenever the water was shallow enough to follow him on
horseback, and giving up the ghost at the blast of a _grand maître’s_
bugle with an accuracy as unerring as though he had performed at
Franconi’s.
Unhappily for me, I was not fated to witness an exhibition of his
powers; for scarcely had we emerged from the wood when the dogs were
laid on, and soon after found a fox.
For some time the scene was an animated one, as every Fleming seemed to
pin his faith on some favourite dog; and it was rather amusing to
witness the eagerness with which each followed the movements of his
adopted animal, cheering him on, and encouraging him to the top of his
bent. At last the word ‘Away’ was given, and suddenly the dogs broke
cover, and made across the plain in the direction of a great wood, or
rather forest, above a mile off. The country, happily for most of us (I
know it was so for me), was an open surface of gentle undulation,
stubble and turnips the only impediments, and clay soft enough to make a
fall easy.
The sight was so far exhilarating that red coats in a gallop have always
a pleasant effect; besides which, the very concourse of riders looks
well. However, even as unsportsmanlike an eye as mine could detect the
flaws in jockeyship about me--the fierce rushings of the gentlemen who
pushed through the deepest ground with a loose rein, flogging manfully
the while; the pendulous motions of others between the mane and the
haunches, with every stride of the beast.
But I had little time for such speculations; the hour of my own trial
was approaching. The roan was getting troublesome, the pace was
gradually working up her mettle; and she had given three or four
preparatory bounds, as though to see whether she’d part company with me
before she ran away or not. My own calculations at the moment were not
very dissimilar; I was meditating a rupture of the partnership too. The
matrix of a full-length figure of Arthur O’Leary in red clay was the
extent of any damage I could receive, and I only looked for a convenient
spot where I might fall unseen. As I turned my head on every side,
hoping for some secluded nook, some devil of a hunter, by way of
directing the dogs, gave a blast of his brass instrument about a hundred
yards before me. The thing was now settled; the roan gave a whirl of her
long vicious tail, plunged fearfully, and throwing down her head and
twisting it to one side, as if to have a peep at my confusion, away she
went. From having formed one of the rear-guard, I now closed up with the
main body--‘aspirants’ all--through whom I dashed like a catapult, and
notwithstanding repeated shouts of ‘Pull in, sir!’ ‘Hold back!’ etc, I
continued my onward course; a few seconds more and I was in the thick of
the scarlet coats, my beast at the stretch of her speed, and caring
nothing for the bridle. Amid a shower of _sacrés_ that fell upon me like
hail, I sprang through them, making the ‘red ones’ black with every
stroke of my gallop. Leaving them far behind, I flew past the _grand
maître_ himself, who rode in the van, almost upsetting him by a side
spring, as I passed--a malediction reaching me as I went; but the forest
soon received me in its dark embrace, and I saw no more.
It was at first a source of consolation to me to think that every stride
removed me from the reach of those whose denunciations I had so
unfortunately incurred; _grand maître, chasseurs_, and ‘aspirants’--they
were all behind me. Ay, for that matter, so were the dogs and the
_piqueurs_, and, for aught I knew, the fox with them. When I discovered,
however, that the roan continued her speed still unabated, I began to be
somewhat disconcerted. It was true the ground was perfectly smooth and
safe--a long _allée_ of the wood, with turf shorn close as a pleasure-
ground. I pulled and sawed the bit, I jerked the bridle, and performed
all the manual exercise I could remember as advised in such extremities,
but to no use. It seemed to me that some confounded echo started the
beast, and incited her to increased speed. Just as this notion struck
me, I heard a voice behind cry out--
‘Do hold in! Try and hold in, Mr. O’Leary!’ I turned my head, and there
was Laura, scarce a length behind, her thoroughbred straining every
sinew to come up. No one else was in sight, and there we were, galloping
like mad, with the wood all to ourselves.
I can very well conceive why the second horse in a race does his best to
get foremost, if it were only the indulgence of a very natural piece of
curiosity to see what the other has been running for; but why the first
one only goes the faster because there are others behind him, that is a
dead puzzle to me. But so it was; my ill-starred beast never seemed to
have put forth her full powers till she was followed. _Ventre à terre_,
as the French say, was now the pace; and though from time to time Laura
would cry out to me to hold back, I could almost swear I heard her
laughing at my efforts. Meanwhile the wood was becoming thicker and
closer, and the _allée_ narrower and evidently less travelled. Still it
seemed to have no end or exit; scarcely had we rounded one turn when a
vista of miles would seem to stretch away before us, passing over which,
another, as long again, would appear.
After about an hour’s hard galloping, if I dare form any conjecture as
to the flight of time, I perceived with a feeling of triumph that the
roan was relaxing somewhat in her stride; and that she was beginning to
evince, by an up-and-down kind of gait, what sailors call a ‘fore-and
aft’ motion, that she was getting enough of it. I turned and saw Laura
about twenty yards behind--her thoroughbred dead beat, and only able to
sling along at that species of lobbing canter blood-cattle can
accomplish under any exigency. With a bold effort I pulled up short, and
she came alongside of me; and before I could summon courage to meet the
reproaches I expected for having been the cause of her runaway, she
relieved my mind by a burst of as merry and good-tempered laughter as
ever I listened to. The emotion was contagious, and so I laughed too,
and it was full five minutes before either of us could speak.
‘Well, Mr. O’Leary, I hope you know where we are,’ said she, drying her
eyes, where the sparkling drops of mirth were standing, ‘for I assure
you I don’t.’
‘Oh, perfectly,’ replied I, as my eye caught a board nailed against a
tree, on which some very ill-painted letters announced ‘La route de
Bouvigne’--‘we are on the highroad to Bouvigne, wherever that may be.’
‘Bouvigne!’ exclaimed she, in an accent of some alarm; ‘why, it’s five
leagues from the château! I travelled there once by the highroad. How
are we ever to get back?’
That was the very question I was then canvassing in my own mind, without
a thought of how it was to be solved. However, I answered with an easy
indifference, ‘Oh, nothing easier; we ‘ll take a _calèche_ at Bouvigne.’
‘But they ‘ve none.’
‘Well, then, fresh horses.’
‘There’s not a horse in the place; it’s a little village near the Meuse,
surrounded with tall granite rocks, and only remarkable for its ruined
castle, the ancient schloss of Philip de Bouvigne.’
‘How interesting!’ said I, delighted to catch at anything which should
give the conversation a turn; ‘and who was Philip de Bouvigne?’
‘Philip,’ said the lady, ‘was the second or third count, I forget which,
of the name. The chronicles say that he was the handsomest and most
accomplished youth of the time. Nowhere could he meet his equal at joust
or tournament; while his skill in arms was the least of his gifts--he
was a poet and a musician. In fact, if you were only to believe his
historians, he was the most dangerous person for the young ladies of
those days to meet with. Not that he ran away with them, _sur la grande
route_.’ As she said this, a burst of laughing stopped her; and it was
one I could really forgive, though myself the object of it. ‘However,’
resumed she, ‘I believe he was just as bad. Well, to pursue my story,
when Philip was but eighteen, it chanced that a party of warriors bound
for the Holy Land came past the Castle of Bouvigne, and of course passed
the night there. From them, many of whom had already been in Palestine,
Philip heard the wondrous stories the crusaders ever brought back of
combats and encounters, of the fearful engagements with the infidels and
the glorious victories of the Cross. And at length, so excited did his
mind become by the narrations, that he resolved on the spot to set out
for the Holy Land, and see with his own eyes the wonderful things they
had been telling him.
‘This resolution could not fail of being applauded by the rest, and by
none was it met with such decided approval as by Henri de Bethune, a
young Liégeois, then setting out on his first crusade, who could not
help extolling Philip’s bravery, and above all his devotion in the great
cause, in quitting his home and his young and beautiful wife; for I must
tell you, as indeed I ought to have told you before, he had been but a
few weeks married to the lovely Alice de Franchemont, the only daughter
of the old Graf de Franchemont, of whose castle you may see the ruins
near Chaude Fontaine.’
I nodded assent, and she went on.
‘Of course you can imagine the dreadful grief of the young countess when
her husband broke to her his determination. If I were a novelist I’d
tell you of tears and entreaties and sighs and faintings, of promises
and pledges and vows, and so forth; for, indeed, it was a very sorrowful
piece of business, as she didn’t at all fancy passing some three or four
years alone in the old keep at Bouvigne, with no society, not one single
friend to speak to. At first, indeed, she would not hear of it; and it
was only at length when Henri de Bethune undertook to plead for him--for
he kindly remained several days at the château, to assist his friend at
this conjuncture--that she gave way, and consented. Still, her consent
was wrung from her against her convictions, and she was by no means
satisfied that the arguments she yielded to were a whit too sound. And
this, let me remark, _en passant_, is a most dangerous species of
assent, when given by a lady; and one she always believes to be
something of the nature of certain Catholic vows, which are only binding
while you believe them reasonable and just.’
‘Is that really so?’ interrupted I. ‘Do you, indeed, give me so low a
standard of female fidelity as this?’
‘If women are sometimes false,’ replied she, ‘it is because men are
never true; but I must go on with my tale.--Away went Count Philip, and
with him his friend De Bethune--the former, if the fact were known, just
as low-spirited, when the time came, as the countess herself. But, then,
he had the double advantage that he had a friend to talk with and make
participator of his sorrows, besides being the one leaving, not left.’
‘I don’t know,’ interrupted I at this moment, ‘that you are right there;
I think that the associations which cling to the places where we have
been happy are a good requital for the sorrowful memories they may call
up. I ‘d rather linger around the spot consecrated by the spirit of past
pleasure, and dream over again, hour by hour, day by day, the bliss I
knew there, than break up the charm of such memories by the vulgar
incidents of travel and the commonplace adventures of a journey.’
‘There I differ from you completely,’ replied she. ‘All your reflections
and reminiscences, give them as fine names as you will, are nothing but
sighings and repinings for what cannot come back again; and such things
only injure the temper, and spoil the complexion, whereas---- But what
are you laughing at?’
‘I was smiling at your remark, which has only a feminine application.’
‘How teasing you are! I declare I ‘ll argue no more with you. Do you
want to hear my story?’
‘Of all things; I ‘m greatly interested in it.’
‘Well, then, you must not interrupt me any more. Now, where was I? You
actually made me forget where I stopped.’
‘You were just at the point where they set out, Philip and his friend,
for the Holy Land.’
‘You must not expect from me any spirit-stirring narrative of the events
in Palestine. Indeed, I’m not aware if the _Chronique de Flandre_, from
which I take my tale, says anything very particular about Philip de
Bouvigne’s performances. Of course they were in accordance with his
former reputation: he killed his Saracens, like a true knight--that
there can be no doubt of. As for Henri de Bethune, before the year was
over he was badly wounded, and left on the field of battle, where some
said he expired soon after, others averring that he was carried away to
slavery. Be that as it might, Philip continued his career with all the
enthusiasm of a warrior and a devotee, a worthy son of the Church, and a
brave soldier--unfortunately, however, forgetting the poor countess he
had left behind him, pining away her youth at the barred casements of
the old château; straining her eyes from day to day along the narrow
causeway that led to the castle, and where no charger’s hoof re-echoed,
as of old, to tell of the coming of her lord. Very bad treatment, you
‘ll confess; and so, with your permission, we’ll keep her company for a
little while. Madame la Comtesse de Bouvigne, as some widows will do,
only become the prettier from desertion. Her traits of beauty mellowed
by a tender melancholy, without being marked too deeply by grief,
assumed an imaginative character, or what men mistake for it.’
‘Indeed!’ said I, catching at the confession.
‘Well, I’m sure it is so,’ replied she. ‘In the great majority of cases
you are totally ignorant of what is passing in a woman’s mind. The girl
that seemed all animation to-day may have an air of deep depression to-
morrow, and of downright wildness the next, simply by changing her
coiffure from ringlets to braids, and from a bandeau to a state of
dishevelled disorder. A little flattery of yourselves, artfully and well
done, and you are quite prepared to believe anything. In any case, the
countess was very pretty and very lonely.
‘In those good days when gentlemen left home, there were neither
theatres nor concerts to amuse their poor neglected wives; they had no
operas nor balls nor soirées nor promenades. No; their only resource was
to work away at some huge piece of landscape embroidery, which, begun in
childhood, occupied a whole life, and transmitted a considerable labour
of background and foliage to the next generation. The only pleasant
people in those times, it seems to me, were the _jongleurs_ and the
pilgrims; they went about the world fulfilling the destinies of
newspapers; they chronicled the little events of the day--births,
marriages, deaths, etc.--and must have been a great comfort on a
winter’s evening.
‘Well, it so chanced that as the countess sat at her window one evening,
as usual, watching the sun go down, she beheld a palmer coming slowly
along up the causeway, leaning on his staff, and seeming sorely tired
and weary----
‘But see,’ cried Laura, at this moment, as we gained the crest of a
gentle acclivity, ‘yonder is Bouvigne; it is a fine thing even yet.’
We both reined in our horses, the better to enjoy the prospect; and
certainly it was a grand one. Behind us, and stretching for miles in
either direction, was the great forest we had been traversing; the old
Ardennes had been a forest in the times of Caesar, its narrow pathways
echoing to the tread of Roman legions. In front was a richly cultivated
plain, undulating gently towards the Meuse, whose silver current wound
round it like a garter--the opposite bank being formed by an abrupt wall
of naked rocks of grey granite, sparkling with its brilliant hues, and
shining doubly in the calm stream at its foot. On one of the highest
cliffs, above an angle of the river, and commanding both reaches of the
stream for a considerable way, stood Bouvigne. Two great square towers
rising above a battlemented wall, pierced with long loopholes, stood out
against the clear sky; one of them, taller than the other, was
surmounted by a turret at the angle, from the top of which something
projected laterally, like a beam.
‘Do you see that piece of timber yonder?’ said Laura. ‘Yes,’ said I;
‘it’s the very thing I’ve been looking at, and wondering what it could
mean.’
‘Carry your eye downward,’ said she, ‘and try if you can’t make out a
low wall connecting two masses of rock together, far, far down: do you
see it?’
‘I see a large archway, with some ivy over it.’ ‘That’s it; that was the
great entrance to the schloss; before it is the fosse--a huge ditch cut
in the solid rock, so deep as to permit the water of the Meuse, when
flooded, to flow into it. Well, now, if you look again, you ‘ll see that
the great beam above hangs exactly over that spot. It was one of the
rude defences of the time, and intended, by means of an iron basket
which hung from its extremity, to hurl great rocks and stones upon any
assailant. The mechanism can still be traced by which it was moved back
and loaded; the piece of rope which opened the basket at each discharge
of its contents was there not many years ago. There’s a queer, uncouth
representation of the _panier de la mort_, as it is called, in the
_Chronique_, which you can see in the old library at Rochepied. But here
we are already at the ferry.’
As she spoke we had just reached the bank of the Meuse, and in front was
a beautifully situated little village, which, escarped in the mountain,
presented a succession of houses at different elevations, all looking
towards the stream. They were mostly covered with vines and
honeysuckles, and with the picturesque outlines of gable and roof,
diamond windows and rustic porches, had a very pleasing effect.
As I looked, I had little difficulty in believing that they were not a
very equestrian people--the little pathways that traversed their village
being inaccessible save to foot-passengers, frequently ascending by
steps cut in the rock, or by rude staircases of wood which hung here and
there over the edge of the cliff in anything but a tempting way, the
more so, as they trembled and shook with every foot that passed over
them. Little mindful of this, the peasants might now be seen leaning
over their frail barriers, and staring at the unwonted apparition of two
figures on horseback, while I was endeavouring, by signs and gestures,
to indicate our wish to cross over.
At last a huge raft appeared to move from beneath the willows of the
opposite bank, and by the aid of a rope fastened across the stream two
men proceeded slowly to ferry the great platform over. Leading our
horses cautiously forward, we embarked in this frail craft, and landed
safely in Bouvigne.