I first looked at the map and saw where nearest to me was a
quadrilateral bare of railways. This formula, to look for a
quadrilateral bare of railways, is a very useful formula for the man
who is seeking another world. Then I fixed at random upon one little
roadside station upon the main line; I determined to get out there and
to walk aimlessly and westward until I should strike the other side of
the quadrilateral. I made no plan, not even of the hours of the day.
I came into my roadside station at half-past eight of the long summer
night, broad daylight that is, but with night advancing. I got out and
began my westward march. At once there crowded upon me any number of
unexpected and entertaining things!
The first thing I found was a street which was used by horses as well
as by men, and yet was made up of broad steps. It was a sort of
stair-case going up a hill. At the top of it I found a woman leading a
child by the hand. I asked her the name of the steps. She told me they
were called “The Steps of St. John.”
A quarter of a mile further down the narrow lane I saw to my
astonishment an enormous castle, ruined and open to the sky. There are
many such ruins famous in Europe, but of this one I had never even
heard. I went lonely under the evening and looked at its main gate and
saw on it a moulded escutcheon, carved, and the motto in French,
“Henceforward,” which word made me think a great deal, but resolved no
problem in my mind.
I went on again westward as the darkness fell and saw what I had not
seen before, though my reading had told me of its existence, a long
line of trees marking a ridge on the horizon, which line was the border
of that ancient road the Roman soldiers built leading from the west
into Amiens. “Along that road,” thought I, “St. Martin rode before he
became a monk, and while he was yet a soldier and was serving under
Julian the Apostate. Along that road he came to the west gate of Amiens
and there cut his cloak in two and gave the half of it to a beggar.”
The memory of St. Martin’s deed entertained me for some miles of my
way, and I remembered how, when I was a child, it had seemed to me
ridiculous to cut your coat in two whether for a beggar or for anybody
else. Not that I thought charity ridiculous—God forbid!—but that a coat
seemed to me a thing you could not cut in two with any profit to the
user of either half. You might cut it in latitude and turn it into an
Eton jacket and a kilt, neither of much use to a Gallo-Roman beggar. Or
you might cut it in meridian and leave but one sleeve: mere folly.
Considering these things, I went on over the rolling plateau. I saw a
great owl flying before me against the sky, different from the owls of
home. I saw Jupiter shining above a cloud and Venus shining below one.
The long light lingered in the north above the English sea. At last I
came quite unexpectedly upon that delight and plaything of the French:
a light railway, or steam tram such as that people build in great
profusion to link up their villages and their streams. The road where I
came upon it made a level crossing, and there was a hut there, and a
woman living in it who kept the level crossing and warned the
passers-by. She told me no more trains, or rather little trams, would
pass that night, but that three miles further on I should come to a
place called “The Mills of the Vidame.”
Now the name “Vidame” reminded me that a “Vidame” was the lay protector
of a Cathedral Chapter in feudal times, so the name gave me a renewed
pleasure.
But it was now near midnight, and when I came to this village I
remembered how in similar night walks I had sometimes been refused
lodging. When I got among the few houses all was dark. I found,
however, in the darkness two young men, each bearing an enormous curled
trumpet of the kind which the French call _cors de chasse_, that is,
hunting horns, so I asked them where the inn was. They took me to it
and woke up the hostess, who received us with oaths. This she did lest
the young men with hunting horns should demand a commission. Her heart,
however, was better than her mouth, and she put me up, but she charged
me tenpence for my room, counting coffee in the morning, which was, I
am sure, more than her usual rate.
Next day I took the little steam tram away from the place and went on
vaguely whither it should please God to take me, until the plateau
changed and the light railway fell into a charming valley, and, seeing
a town rooted therein, I got out and paid my fare and visited the town.
In this town I went to church, as it was early morning (you must excuse
the foible), and, coming out of church, I had an argument with a
working man upon the matter of religion, in which argument, as I
believe, I was the victor. I then went on north out of this town and
came into a wood of enormous size. It was miles and miles across, and
the trees were higher than anything I have seen outside of California.
It was an enchanted wood. The sun shone down through a hundred feet of
silence by little rounds between the leaves, and there was silence
everywhere. In this wood I sojourned all day long, making slowly
westward, till, in the very midst of it, I found a troubled man. He was
a man of middle age, short, intelligent, fat, and weary. He said to me:
“Have you noticed any special mark upon the trees? A white mark of the
number 90?”
“No,” said I. “Are there any wild boars in this forest?”
“Yes,” he answered, “a few, but not of use. I am looking for trees
marked in white with the number 90. I have paid a price for them, and I
cannot find them.”
I saluted him and went on my way. At last I came to an open clearing,
where there was a town, and in the town I found a very delightful inn,
where they would cook anything one felt inclined for, within reason,
and charged one very moderately indeed. I have retained its name.
By this time I was completely lost, and in the heart of Fairyland, when
suddenly I remembered that everyone that strikes root in Fairyland
loses something, at the least his love and at the worst his soul, and
that it is a perilous business to linger there, so I asked them in that
hotel how they worked it when they wanted to go west into the great
towns. They put me into an omnibus, which charged me fourpence for a
journey of some two miles. It took me, as Heaven ordained, to a common
great railway, and that common great railway took me through the night
to the town of Dieppe, which I have known since I could speak and
before, and which was about as much of Fairyland to me as Piccadilly or
Monday morning.
Thus ended those two days, in which I had touched again the unknown
places—and all that heaven was but two days, and cost me not fifty
shillings.
Excuse the folly of this.