THE JOURNEY.
Trevanion came at last. He had obtained my passport, and engaged a
carriage to convey me about eight miles, where I should overtake the
diligence—such a mode of travelling being judged more likely to favour
my escape, by attracting less attention than posting. It was past ten
when I left the Rue St. Honore, having shaken hands with Trevanion for
the last time, and charged him with ten thousand soft messages for the
“friends” I left behind me.
When I arrived at the village of St. Jacques, the diligence had not
come up. To pass away the time, I ordered a little supper and a bottle
of St. Julien. Scarcely had I seated myself to my “cotelette,” when the
rapid whirl of wheels was heard without, and a cab drew up suddenly at
the door. So naturally does the fugitive suspect pursuit, that my
immediate impression was, that I was followed. In this notion I was
strengthened by the tones of a cracked, discordant voice, asking in
very peculiar French if the “diligence had passed?” Being answered in
the negative he walked into the room where I was, and speedily by his
appearance, removed any apprehensions I had felt as to my safety.
Nothing could less resemble the tall port and sturdy bearing of a
gendarme, than the diminutive and dwarfish individual before me. His
height could scarcely have reached five feet, of which the head formed
fully a fourth part; and even this was rendered in appearance still
greater by a mass of loosely floating black hair that fell upon his
neck and shoulders, and gave him much the air of a “black lion” on a
sign board. His black frock, fur-collared and braided—his ill-made
boots, his meerschaum projecting from his breast-pocket, above all, his
unwashed hands, and a heavy gold ring upon his thumb—all made up an
ensemble of evidences that showed he could be nothing but a German. His
manner was bustling, impatient, and had it not been ludicrous, would
certainly be considered as insolent to every one about him, for he
stared each person abruptly in the face, and mumbled some broken
expressions of his opinion of them half-aloud in German. His comments
ran on:—“Bon soir, Monsieur,” to the host: “Ein boesewicht, ganz
sicher”—“a scoundrel without doubt;” and then added, still lower, “Rob
you here as soon as look at you.” “Ah, postillion! comment va?”—“much
more like a brigand after all—I know which I’d take you for.” “Ver
fluchte fraw”—“how ugly the woman is.” This compliment was intended for
the hostess, who curtsied down to the ground in her ignorance. At last
approaching me, he stopped, and having steadily surveyed me, muttered,
“Ein echter Englander”—“a thorough Englishman, always eating.” I could
not resist the temptation to assure him that I was perfectly aware of
his flattering impression in my behalf, though I had speedily to regret
my precipitancy, for, less mindful of the rebuke than pleased at
finding some one who understood German, he drew his chair beside me and
entered into conversation.
Every one has surely felt, some time or other in life, the insufferable
annoyance of having his thoughts and reflections interfered with, and
broken in upon by the vulgar impertinence and egotism of some “bore,”
who, mistaking your abstraction for attention and your despair for
delight, inflicts upon you his whole life and adventures, when your own
immediate destinies are perhaps vacillating in the scale.
Such a doom was now mine! Occupied as I was by the hope of the future,
and my fears lest any impediment to my escape should blast my prospects
for ever, I preferred appearing to pay attention to this confounded
fellow’s “personal narrative” lest his questions, turning on my own
affairs, might excite suspicions as to the reasons of my journey.
I longed most ardently for the arrival of the diligence, trusting that
with true German thrift, by friend might prefer the cheapness of the
“interieure” to the magnificence of the “coupé,” and that thus I should
see no more of him. But in this pleasing hope I was destined to be
disappointed, for I was scarcely seated in my place when I found him
beside me. The third occupant of this “privileged den,” as well as my
lamp-light survey of him permitted, afforded nothing to build on as a
compensation for the German. He was a tall, lanky, lantern-jawed man,
with a hook nose and projecting chin; his hair, which had only been
permitted to grow very lately, formed that curve upon his forehead we
see in certain old fashioned horse-shoe wigs; his compressed lip and
hard features gave the expression of one who had seen a good deal of
the world, and didn’t think the better of it in consequence. I observed
that he listened to the few words we spoke while getting in with some
attention, and then, like a person who did not comprehend the language,
turned his shoulder towards us, and soon fell asleep. I was now left to
the “tender mercies” of my talkative companion, who certainly spared me
not. Notwithstanding my vigorous resolves to turn a deaf ear to his
narratives, I could not avoid learning that he was the director of
music to some German prince—that he had been to Paris to bring out an
opera which having, as he said, a “succes pyramidal,” he was about to
repeat in Strasbourg. He further informed me that a depute from Alsace
had obtained for him a government permission to travel with the
courier; but that he being “social” withal, and no ways proud,
preferred the democracy of the diligence to the solitary grandeur of
the caleche, (for which heaven confound him,) and thus became my
present companion.
Music, in all its shapes and forms made up the staple of the little
man’s talk. There was scarcely an opera or an overture, from Mozart to
Donizetti, that he did not insist upon singing a scene from; and wound
up all by a very pathetic lamentation over English insensibility to
music, which he in great part attributed to our having only one opera,
which he kindly informed me was “Bob et Joan.” However indisposed to
check the current of his loquacity by any effort of mine, I could not
avoid the temptation to translate for him a story which Sir Walter
Scott once related to me, and was so far apropos, as conveying my own
sense of the merits of our national music, such as we have it, by its
association with scenes, and persons, and places we are all familiar
with, however unintelligible to the ear of a stranger.
A young French viscomte was fortunate enough to obtain in marriage the
hand of a singularly pretty Scotch heiress of an old family and good
fortune, who, amongst her other endowments, possessed a large
old-fashioned house in a remote district of the highlands, where her
ancestors had resided for centuries. Thither the young couple repaired
to pass their honeymoon; the enamoured bridegroom gladly availing
himself of the opportunity to ingratiate himself with his new
connexion, by adopting the seclusion he saw practised by the English on
such occasions. However consonant to our notions of happiness, and
however conducive to our enjoyment this custom be—and I have strong
doubts upon the subject—it certainly prospered ill with the volatile
Frenchman, who pined for Paris, its cafes, its boulevards, its maisons
de jeu, and its soirees. His days were passed in looking from the deep
and narrow windows of some oak-framed room upon the bare and heath-clad
moors, or watching the cloud’s shadows as they passed across the dark
pine trees that closed the distance.
Ennuyee to death, and convinced that he had sacrificed enough and more
than enough to the barbarism which demanded such a “sejour,” he was
sitting one evening listlessly upon the terrace in front of the house,
plotting a speedy escape from his gloomy abode, and meditating upon the
life of pleasure that awaited him, when the discordant twang of some
savage music broke upon his ear, and roused him from his reverie. The
wild scream and fitful burst of a highland pibroch is certainly not the
most likely thing in nature to allay the irritable and ruffled feelings
of an irascible person—unless, perhaps, the hearer eschew breeches. So
thought the viscomte. He started hurriedly up, and straight before him,
upon the gravel-walk, beheld the stalwart figure and bony frame of an
old highlander, blowing, with all his lungs, the “Gathering of the
clans.” With all the speed he could muster, he rushed into the house,
and, calling his servants, ordered them to expel the intruder, and
drive him at once outside the demesne. When the mandate was made known
to the old piper, it was with the greatest difficulty he could be
brought to comprehend it—for, time out of mind, his approach had been
hailed with every demonstration of rejoicing; and now—but no; the thing
was impossible—there must be a mistake somewhere. He was accordingly
about to recommence, when a second and stronger hint suggested to him
that it were safer to depart. “Maybe the ‘carl’ did na like the pipes,”
said the highlander musingly, as he packed them up for his march.
“Maybe he did na like me;” “perhaps, too, he was na in the humour of
music.” He paused for an instant as if reflecting—not satisfied,
probably, that he had hit upon the true solution—when suddenly his eye
brightened, his lips curled, and fixing a look upon the angry
Frenchman, he said—“Maybe ye are right enow—ye heard them ower muckle
in Waterloo to like the skirl o’ them ever since;” with which
satisfactory explanation, made in no spirit of bitterness or raillery,
but in the simple belief that he had at last hit the mark of the
viscomte’s antipathy, the old man gathered up his plaid and departed.
However disposed I might have felt towards sleep, the little German
resolved I should not obtain any, for when for half an hour together I
would preserve a rigid silence, he, nowise daunted, had recourse to
some German “lied,” which he gave forth with an energy of voice and
manner that must have aroused every sleeper in the diligence: so that,
fain to avoid this, I did my best to keep him on the subject of his
adventures, which, as a man of successful gallantry, were manifold
indeed. Wearying at last, even of this subordinate part, I fell into a
kind of half doze. The words of a student song he continued to sing
without ceasing for above an hour—being the last waking thought on my
memory.
Less as a souvenir of the singer than a specimen of its class I give
here a rough translation of the well-known Burschen melody called
THE POPE
I.
The Pope, he leads a happy life,
He fears not married care, nor strife,
He drinks the best of Rhenish wine,
I would the Pope’s gay lot were mine.
CHORUS.
He drinks the best of Rhenish wine.
I would the Pope’s gay lot were mine.
II.
But then all happy’s not his life,
He has not maid, nor blooming wife;
Nor child has he to raise his hope—
I would not wish to be the Pope.
III.
The Sultan better pleases me,
His is a life of jollity;
His wives are many as he will—
I would the Sultan’s throne then fill.
IV.
But even he’s a wretched man,
He must obey his Alcoran;
And dares not drink one drop of wine—
I would not change his lot for mine.
V.
So then I’ll hold my lowly stand,
And live in German Vaterland;
I’ll kiss my maiden fair and fine,
And drink the best of Rhenish wine.
VI.
Whene’er my maiden kisses me,
I’ll think that I the Sultan be;
And when my cheery glass I tope,
I’ll fancy then I am the Pope.