_POPPERIE--NOISE--QUIET--DESCENT--CERBERUS--PICTURE--CATACOMBS
SENSATIONAL--STALACTITE--SURMISES--DREADS--POPPY--WEIRD--DESERTION--LOST--TERRORS--CANDLE--OUT!_
Arrived! These are the works that POPPERIE & Co. built. On a height,
commanding fine panoramic view. Approach to the house and stores is
through a fresh-looking garden, everything neat and trim. Quite a
surprise to find oneself suddenly among hundreds of casks and cases.
Distant sound of carts and horses, of pulleys and cranks, of bringing
in and sending out; but this sound is only a gentle hum--a murmuring
accompaniment as it were; for, considering the amount of work that
involves a lot of noise throughout the day, except, perhaps, during
the feeding hours, the note of this place is its air of quiet
activity. There is, I remark, a curious flavour in the atmosphere,
that causes me to smack my lips, quite involuntarily, as if tasting
wine. Remember somebody telling me, that the mere wine-laden
atmosphere of the London Docks is quite enough to make anyone feel
the worse for liquor, even though you do not touch a single drop in
the vaults. We have not yet reached the vaults, but somehow there's
something peculiarly exhilarating in the knowledge that we are in the
outer court of one of King Champagne's many palaces. _Mem._ Grand idea
for a scene in a Drury Lane Pantomime. Visit to Palace of POPPIN THE
FIRST, king of the Champagne country. Register copyright and suggest
it to Sir DRURY O'LANUS.
[Illustration]
DAUBINET has his hat in his hand and his overcoat over his arm.
With his handkerchief he is mopping his fevered brow. "_Piff!_" he
exclaims, "_qu'il fait chaud!_ No? You don't find it? I do. _Caramba!
O Champagnski! da Karascho! O Maman!_ Come on! Here is our leader, _le
bon_ VESQUIER! _Allons! Marchons!_ Long to reign over us!"--then as we
move forward, DAUBINET again bursts into song, as usual more or less
out of tune. This time he favours us with snatches of "_God save the
Queen!_" and finally, as we enter a huge tunnel, and, as I judge from
the steep incline, are commencing our descent into the cave, I hear
his voice behind me singing "We're leaving thee in sorrow, ANNIE!"
Darker and darker as we descend through this tunnel. Orpheus going to
find Eurydice. No Cerberus about, thank goodness. Wonder if any rats
or blackbeetles? By the way, Cerberus would have been a nasty one for
rats. Cerberus, with three to one on him ("Heads I win--tails you rats
lose"), doing a match against time in killing rats, is a fine subject
for a weird classical picture yet to be painted. What R.A. could
grapple with so tremendous a composition? On returning to "carp the
upper air," must mention the subject to Sir FREDERICK the Great.
Cerberus would be a nasty one for rats to tackle. My ideas of anything
alive underground are generally associated with suchlike warmint.
At last--out of the tunnel! and now, I presume, in the caves. Here
someone, gradually assuming a palpable form, emerges from somewhere
out of a dark corner, and hands to each of us a long piece of wood
about the length of a harlequin's bat (_note_, pantomime again), only
that this is an inch or so thick and quite two inches wide at one end,
where presently a candle is fixed by an attendant sprite,--the slave
of the tallow candle,--and the wand, so to speak, tapers off towards
the handle. _À propos_ of "tapers off"--the question occurs to me,
later on, as we pass through labyrinths of dark passages, where should
I be in the case of "taper off"? Beautiful title for sensational
story--"Lost in the Catacombs."
Our trusty guide, M. VESQUIER, is well ahead, and DAUBINET follows
closely at my heels. Thus we proceed, and if this order is preserved
throughout, I feel that the sensational romance above mentioned will
not be written, at least not on this occasion. We are in stalactite
caverns; I expect a subterranean lake,--of still champagne of
course,--and a boat; strange silver foil and gold foil fish ought to
be swimming about, and the name of the subterranean lake should be
Loch Foil, Loch Gold or Silver Foil, according to the material. No,
nothing of the sort. It is all quite dry; uncommonly dry; atmosphere
dry; ground dry; and, gradually, throats dry. Probably, champagne also
dry. But remembering what I have heard of someone else's experience of
Dock-visiting, which I presume is similar to cave-visiting, I do not
mention my sudden drought. I feel that, while down here, if I took
one glass of champagne, my head first, and then my legs, might become
unsteady, whereupon nothing would be more likely than for me to take
the wrong turning and lose my companions; if I did, what are the
chances against my ever finding them again? Or if my legs failed me
and I disappeared between the casks, who would think of looking for
me there? Then, years afterwards, in some specially and unaccountably
good vintage year, when there would be a run upon these particular
casks, my mouldering skeleton would be found, among the sawdust,
between the barrels, and some purveyor of ballads would write a
song whereof the burden would not be unlike that of the once popular
"_Mistletoe Bough_." As I follow my leader through the vaults all this
occurs to me, as does also the appropriately melancholy refrain of
another old song or "catch," "Down among the dead men let him lie!"
We are under the central dome of this Stalactite Champagne Cathedral
dedicated to the worship of Bacchus. [_Happy Thought_.--The Champagne
country is the true "Poppy Land." I present this with my compliments
to Mr. CLEMENT SCOTT, whose pleasant articles in the _Daily Telegraph_
on "Poppy Land" are, and will be, for some time to come, so deservedly
poppylar on the North coast of Norfolk. When driving round and
about Cromer, our flyman pointed out "Poppy Land" to me. _Happy
Thought_.--In future let this be known as "Caledonia Up to Date, or
the New Scott-land."] A strange light descends from somewhere above,
producing a blueish atmospheric effect. Weird, very. We are now in
the Wine Demon's Cave. More pantomimic effects: big demons and little
demons at work everywhere: champagne demons with strange faces,--I
should say "fizzes,"--moving about noiselessly: the only sound is
that of the occasional irrepressible effervescence of youth, or a
pop from a recalcitrant cork in a distant cell, and, in a mysterious
all-pervading way, an accompaniment of hammering. The lights and awful
shadows of the scene recall to my mind CRUIKSHANK's grim illustrations
to AINSWORTH's _Tower of London_. If these wild figures under this
Central Stalactited Dome, these fearsome Troglodytes, were suddenly to
join hands and dance round us, keeping a "Witches' Sabbath," I should
not feel surprised. I might be considerably alarmed; but surprised,
no. It would be in keeping with the scene. Only where's the music?
Surely a Special Champagne Dance ought to be supplied by the orchestra
of "The Monday Pops."
Here DAUBINET, being tired, sits. He has seen it all before. "He knows
his way," explains M. VESQUIER, "and we shall meet him again above."
This sounds funereal, but, as an expression of Christian sentiment,
hopeful.
DAUBINET, mopping his forehead, mutters something, in Russian I
believe, which sounds like "_Preama! Pascarry! da padadidi_," which
he is perhaps rendering into English when he says, "Go straight on! Be
quick! All r-r-r-right!"
Suddenly finding myself the only follower of our guide, I begin to
realise to its full extent the loss of one who, up to now, has been my
companion. I realise this one fact among others, but quite sufficient
of itself, namely, that if I once lose sight of M. VESQUIER in this
maze of caverns down in the depths below, I shall have the utmost
difficulty in ever coming up to the surface again. Now we are walking
on a line of rails. All at once I lose sight of M. VESQUIER. He must
have turned off to the right or left--_which?_--and I shall see his
light in the distance when I reach the opening into the right, or
left, passage.... What's that? A shriek? a howl? a flash!--"_Hé là
bas_!" and at a rapid pace out of the blackest darkness emerge two
wine-demons on a trolly. I have just time to reduce myself to the
smallest possible compass against the barrels, when the wine-demons
brandishing a small torch-light have whizzed past,--"Ho! Ho!"--goblin
laughter in the distance, as heard in _Rip Van Winkle_, and described
in _Gabriel Grub_--"Ho! Ho!"--and before I have recovered myself, they
have vanished into outer and blacker darkness, and all around me the
gloom is gloomier than ever.
[Illustration]
"_Hé!_ Monsieur VESQUIER!" I shout. I have taken a wrong turning;
that is, I have taken some turning or other to the right, and there
is no sign of my guide. My fears have come true. My forebodings
are realised. I stumble on--over the tram-way lines--against the
casks--"_Hé, là bas! Hé!_ M. VESQUIER!!"--O dear!--"_Home Sweet
Home!_" What was that negro melody that now recurs to me as a sort of
singing in my ears--"Home once more! Home once more! Shall I _ever_
see my home once more!!"--A shout in the distance--or is it an
echo--no! Is it VESQUIER! I shout in return--then in the far distance
I descry a light ... it grows bigger ... a shriek ... a wild waving
of a blazing garish torch, and again I have to compress myself against
the barrels as another trolly whizzes past at full speed, carrying two
cheerful-looking, and except for that one shout, silent demons. "Hey
trolly lolly!" I cannot stay there--they have gone like a flash--and
the obscurity is becoming oppressive.... Shall I retrace my steps?
It isn't a question of "shall I,"--it is "_can I"?_ Through how many
turnings have we come? No--I should never find my way back again.
Better push on. I shout again: desperately but nervously. There is
not even an echo. And now my candle, which has been guttering and
sputtering for the last few moments, is threatening dissolution. It
is the beginning of the end--of the candle-end. If the candle goes out
before I do--Heavens! but I must move very cautiously. What a subject
for a Jules-Verne novel! _Ah, how I should enjoy reading about it in
a story!!_ But as a personal experience ... Where am I? Is it straight
on? or to the left?--I think there is a left passage--or to the right?
I peer down in the hopes of seeing some evidence of life, at all
events the glimmer of a light, which may probably mean my guide.
No; not a sign. Are there rats here? If so.... the candle-end is
sputtering worse than ever ... it is flickering ... What's to be
done?... I shout "Hullo!" at the top of my voice. Yes, at the top of
my voice, but at the bottom of the caves. Then the question occurs to
me, of what use is it to shout in English? No one will understand me.
The candle-end is making a final struggle for life. So must I. "_He',
là bas!_" I shout "with all my might and main," like the celebrity
of the old nursery tale, who jumped into a quickset hedge as an
infallible remedy for blindness. No result. I think of the man in
the dungeon who was eaten by rats. Well-known case, but quite forget
the gentleman's name. Political prisoner probably whose offence had
been "ratting"--and so his punishment was made "to fit the crime,"
as Mr. GILBERT's _Mikado_ used to observe. Why do such grimly comic
reminiscences occur to me now, when I am in so really awful a
situation? So, once more I shout with desperation in my lungs, "_Hé!
là--! bas!_"
And--oh, the joy--oh, the rapture!--there comes back to me--"_Hé, là
bas!_ Blass the Prince of WAILES!"
It is DAUBINET. He advances from somewhere, from an opening, the
existence of which I had never suspected.
"Here! This way! _Par ici, mon ami; par ici!_"
And in another minute I am with him--I am out--_and so is the
candle-end_. Ah! I breathe again!
"The first time, I believe, that you have ever seen these caves,"
observes M. VESQUIER, quietly, "which, one way and another, represent
several miles of walking." Then looking at his watch, he adds, "It is
time for breakfast. You must be hungry."
I am. Hungry, but oh! so grateful! If it weren't so expensive, I
should give a Champagne-window to the Reims Cathedral, _in piam
memoriam_ of my fortunate escape. A _real pane_ (not coloured paper
pretence) in a window would be an appropriate memorial. Or, at all
events, I might give one small "light," which, as recalling that
little guttering, sputtering, candle, would be still more appropriate.
* * * * *