FASHIONABLE WATERING-PLACES.
[Illustration: Mr. Goldwind, one of Martin’s business rivals.]
Wall, in the streets of Naples Martin met a man that he knew at home--a
man most as rich as Martin--a Mr. Goldwind, a sort of a rival in
business, I guess, and he had jest been travellin’ through Spain.
And what should P. Martyn Smythe do but proclaim it to us that evenin’
that we wuz to go to Spain.
I hearn him say to Alice--“It will be asked of me if we have been
there. Gertrude Goldwind will ask you if you have been there. Alice, we
must be able to say ‘Yes.’ So we will start immegiately. I have got to
go back to Paris anyway on important business.”
So the next day we started for Paris.
As I have sed heretofore, Martin wuz a very enthusiastick and ambitious
traveller; that is, he wanted to tell what he’d seen in foreign lands,
whether he’d seen ’em or not; but he wuz ambitious to have his body
trailed through ’em. And it made it very good and instructive for me,
though wearisome, for, of course, the more you see, the more you know,
and he had to take the hull circus with him wherever he went. And when
he promulgated the wild idee that we wuz to go to Spain, I acquiesced
immegiately and to once, and after a private interview I held with
Josiah, he did.
Sez Martin--“We won’t make a long stay there; but we will go over the
Pyrenees anyway, and step onto the soil; and when we go back to America
it can’t be said by any one that we did not see Spain.”
Oh, how different folkses key-notes is! Now, the key-note to his
character wuz--what would folks say?--the outside of the platter;
while, as for me, my key-note wuz--what I could see and learn, and what
wuz inside of the platter. And that wuz Al Faizi’s key-note, only his
key wuz stronger and deeper even than mine. Josiah and the children had
their own keys and notes, which it is needless to peticularize.
Wall, I had become some acquainted with Spain through my friend,
Washington Irving, and Mr. Bancroft, and then I wuz quite familar with
its literature. I had learned at a early age one of its poems, runnin’
thus:
“When it rains,
Do as they do in Spain--
Let it rain.”
I had often hearn and repeated this national epick to my relief and
consolation on stormy days. And though I felt that our trip bid fair to
be a hasty and sweepin’ one, yet I felt that if I could jest stand on
the top of the Pyrenees, and look down into the land, I would like it,
even if I did not step my foot into it.
So, after stayin’ a short time in Paris--for Martin to do his errents
there, I spoze--we sot sail for Spain, and the first night come to the
river Garonne, and acrost the long bridge into Bordeaux.
We stayed all night there, and the next mornin’ bright and early sot
out agin. A little after noon we come to Pau. The train stopped down by
the river Gave, a river that rushes right out of the mountains. Above
that, a hundred feet high, on a terrace lookin’ south, stands the city.
And what a view busted onto my vision as I looked out of the winder at
the hotel! Them gleamin’, silent peaks of snow are camped round Pau
like tall, silent, white-robed pickets a-guardin’ Pau from danger.
What a sight! what a sight!
But Martin, anxious to see everything that could be seen, sot off most
the first thing to see the castle--one of the grandest in France--where
Henry IV. wuz born, and I spoze they enjoyed it, for Josiah went with
him.
But what I wanted to see wuz the fountain of Lourdes. And though Martin
and Josiah kinder made light of me, they seemed willin’ enough to go
with me the next day. It is only a two hours’ ride from Pau to this
most famous place of pilgrimage in Europe. And we sot off in good
sperits. It lays down at the foot of the mountain, in a deep valley.
At one end of the village is a grotto where a young girl, years ago,
received a visit from the Virgin Mary, or she sez that she did. She
told the story to her folks and to all the neighbors, and she stuck to
the same story all her life till she died.
Of course ’em that went to the same place and didn’t see nothin’--they
didn’t believe her.
I d’no as Abraham’s folks believed him when he sed that he had had
a visit from angels. I dare presoom to say some of his relations
didn’t--his cousins now, and his mother-in-law’s folks; I dare say
they sed they wuz a-lookin’ right that way at the very time and didn’t
see a thing--Abraham must have been mistaken; and they would add most
probble--
“Abraham’s eyes are a-failin’; he ort to wear stronger specs.”
Not a-thinkin’ that their stronger specs could never give ’em a glimpse
of the things that he see; for speritual things are speritually
discerned, and we all have gifts differin’. Why should a propheysier
try to dream dreams and see visions?
Wall, finally the priests gin out that the story wuz true, but whether
their consciences wuz good in ginin’ it out I d’no--I don’t keep their
consciences in a box in my bureau draw.
But tenny rate, the first six months one hundred and fifty thousand
pilgrims visited the spot and partook of the healin’ water of the
spring that flowed out of the grotto.
And pretty soon a lofty meetin’-house riz up over that grotto. The
grounds round it are laid out like a immense waterin’-place that must
prepare for the comin’ of a multitude without number. In the season of
pilgrimage the meetin’-house is crowded all day and way into the night,
and round it the way is blocked with the pilgrims, and way up onto the
hillside their kneelin’ forms are massed.
What a seen it must be in still nights, that immense kneelin’ throng
and vast procession a-movin’ up the hill and a-carryin’ torches and
a-singin’ thrillin’ hymns!
Inside, the meetin’-house wuz richly decorated, its high arches
festooned with banners, and the walls covered with memorials of
gratitude for cures performed there.
Martin walked round with his hands in his pockets and his head up. I
don’t believe he sensed anything of the sperit of the place, nor Josiah.
Nor down in the grotto either, as we stood by that miracolous fountain
and see a-hangin’ all round us the crutches of the paryaletics and
cripples who had been cured here and walked off with no use for ’em any
more.
I don’t believe them two men took any more realizin’ sense of what they
wuz a-seein’.
Josiah drinked a cup of the water, and sez he in a pert tone--
“That is the best water I’ve drinked sence I left Jonesville. I wish I
could take a kag with me--it tastes like the spring down by the Beaver
Medder in Jonesville.”
And Martin drinked his cupful, and sed he preferred Apollinaris water.
Neither of them men realized its virtues.
But I sez to my pardner--“Josiah Allen, don’t you know that this water
heals the sick, makes the lame walk, and the blind see? Don’t you
realize it as you ort to, Josiah Allen?”
“Oh,” sez he, “I don’t feel any peticular difference in my feelin’s; I
feel jest about the same.”
And Martin sed he thought it wuz imagination mostly. Sez he, “You know
in sudden danger cripples have been known to walk off; it is the power
of their religious fervor that performs the cure.”
“Wall,” sez I, “you can call it what you please, but it is a good thing
anyway that cures ’em.” Sez I, “I dare presoom to say that they feel
like sayin’ as they walk off and look round--‘One thing I know, whereas
I was blind, now I see,’ and they feel like leapin’ and praisin’ the
power that has healed ’em.”
Martin kep’ his hands in his pockets and looked onbelievin’, but I see
that my talk wuz impressin’ my beloved companion, and he whispered to
me while Martin’s back wuz turned--“Do you spoze, Samantha, that it
would be apt to cure that corn of mine? I’m most tempted to try it.”
I sez, “Have you the faith, Josiah Allen?”
And he sez, “I have faith that it aches like the old Harry this minute.”
[Illustration: “I have faith that it aches like the old Harry.”]
Sez I, “Do you believe that the water could heal it? If you hain’t got
faith I wouldn’t take off my shue;” for my ardent companion wuz even
then a-onbuttonin’ the top button.
He paused. “But,” sez he, “would I have to leave my shue here if I
got cured--would it be fashionable and stylish to do so, and go home
barefooted?”
And I swep’ right by him, and sez I, “Come on, Josiah Allen; all the
water of Lourdes can’t cure a soul whose highest aim is to be stylish.”
And he come on a-mutterin’, “You complain if I don’t look ahead, and
you complain if I do. How did I know whether it would be expected of me
to go home in my stockin’ feet or not, and you’d complain if I got a
hole in my stockin’.” Sez he, “If I hain’t healed you complain, and if
I be healed you find fault with me.”
Sez I soothin’ly, “Dear Josiah, you might git cold in your stockin’
feet--it is all for the best, and I d’no its power over corns anyway,”
sez I.
“Wall,” sez he, “it would look queer to Pau to see me mount the hotel
steps with one shue and one red stockin’ on.”
For he had worn his dressiest pair that mornin’.
And he murmured, “If I had my dressin’-gown on, it would droop down
over my feet some.”
Al Faizi had been all this time a-lookin’ round and notin’ down things
in his note-book, and seein’ everything with his deep, strange eyes,
but sayin’ little about it, and a-thinkin’ a lot, as wuz his general
way.
The next mornin’ we left Pau, and in the afternoon we found ourselves
in the “Bay of Biscay, Oh!”
That is a quotation from a poem--in common talk the “Oh” can be omitted.
We had to wait a spell at Bayonne for the train to take us into Spain,
though Martin proposed that we should take a carriage and drive out to
Biarritz.
For Martin sed that so many of his acquaintances went there for the
winter that it would sound better for us to say that we had passed some
time there--it would be far more stylish and fashionable to say it.
“How long a time can you pass there,” sez I, “to git back to ketch the
train?”
“Wall,” sez he, “we shall have time to stay three fourths of an
hour--ample time to see everything of interest there.”
Good land!!!!!
But Martin wuz the head of the procession, as you may say, and we had
to foller on where he went and halt when he halted.
And I felt that one thing wuz favorable to me, I always had a faculty
for seein’ a good deal in a short space of time by the clock.
Biarritz is a pleasant place in the winter, and you could see that a
good many have discovered it by the number of big hotels perched up on
the bluffs, their open winders lookin’ south.
Of course Martin had to drive by the Villa Eugenia, occupied by her who
once had a empire to command, and beauty, youth, and love, and now sits
and looks over the tombs and the ruins of the hull on ’em.
Poor creeter! I always felt onreconciled to that bright young boy of
hern bein’ struck down as he wuz by a savage in a savage place, fur
from a mother’s love.
Oh, dear me!
But here Napoleon came often in the mild September, and happiness
rained in the beautiful villa, with its gay pleasure grounds.
Wall, Martin see a sight, I spoze, and as he sed a-goin’ back:
“I am so glad we stayed here some time, for I know a lot of men who
bring their families here winters, and it will be interesting to
converse with them about the beauties of the place; I’m glad I brought
all my family with me,” sez he, lookin’ complacently at Alice and
Adrian.
“But, papa, we never sat down at all,” sed Adrian.
“Never mind, my boy--you have been there, and it is a great
watering-place. And when Mr. Goldwind’s boy talks about Biarritz, you
can mention to him that you have been there and stayed for some time.”
“But Billy Goldwind stays there all winter, papa.”
“Well, we do not want to stay so long; we want to get back home before
winter. We merely wanted to go there and stay some time, and we have.”
Wall, I don’t spoze it wuz a real lie--we had been there and had stayed
some time.
Josiah sed he had stayed as long as he wanted to, and he should be glad
to git into Spain with his dressin’-gown on, and set down a spell.