THE _Cigarette_ returned with good news. There were beds to be had some
ten minutes’ walk from where we were, at a place called Pont. We stowed
the canoes in a granary, and asked among the children for a guide. The
circle at once widened round us, and our offers of reward were received
in dispiriting silence. We were plainly a pair of Bluebeards to the
children; they might speak to us in public places, and where they had the
advantage of numbers; but it was another thing to venture off alone with
two uncouth and legendary characters, who had dropped from the clouds
upon their hamlet this quiet afternoon, sashed and be-knived, and with a
flavour of great voyages. The owner of the granary came to our
assistance, singled out one little fellow and threatened him with
corporalities; or I suspect we should have had to find the way for
ourselves. As it was, he was more frightened at the granary man than the
strangers, having perhaps had some experience of the former. But I fancy
his little heart must have been going at a fine rate; for he kept
trotting at a respectful distance in front, and looking back at us with
scared eyes. Not otherwise may the children of the young world have
guided Jove or one of his Olympian compeers on an adventure.
A miry lane led us up from Quartes with its church and bickering
windmill. The hinds were trudging homewards from the fields. A brisk
little woman passed us by. She was seated across a donkey between a pair
of glittering milk-cans; and, as she went, she kicked jauntily with her
heels upon the donkey’s side, and scattered shrill remarks among the
wayfarers. It was notable that none of the tired men took the trouble to
reply. Our conductor soon led us out of the lane and across country.
The sun had gone down, but the west in front of us was one lake of level
gold. The path wandered a while in the open, and then passed under a
trellis like a bower indefinitely prolonged. On either hand were shadowy
orchards; cottages lay low among the leaves, and sent their smoke to
heaven; every here and there, in an opening, appeared the great gold face
of the west.
I never saw the _Cigarette_ in such an idyllic frame of mind. He waxed
positively lyrical in praise of country scenes. I was little less
exhilarated myself; the mild air of the evening, the shadows, the rich
lights and the silence, made a symphonious accompaniment about our walk;
and we both determined to avoid towns for the future and sleep in
hamlets.
At last the path went between two houses, and turned the party out into a
wide muddy high-road, bordered, as far as the eye could reach on either
hand, by an unsightly village. The houses stood well back, leaving a
ribbon of waste land on either side of the road, where there were stacks
of firewood, carts, barrows, rubbish-heaps, and a little doubtful grass.
Away on the left, a gaunt tower stood in the middle of the street. What
it had been in past ages, I know not: probably a hold in time of war; but
now-a-days it bore an illegible dial-plate in its upper parts, and near
the bottom an iron letter-box.
The inn to which we had been recommended at Quartes was full, or else the
landlady did not like our looks. I ought to say, that with our long,
damp india-rubber bags, we presented rather a doubtful type of
civilisation: like rag-and-bone men, the _Cigarette_ imagined. ‘These
gentlemen are pedlars?—_Ces messieurs sont des marchands_?’—asked the
landlady. And then, without waiting for an answer, which I suppose she
thought superfluous in so plain a case, recommended us to a butcher who
lived hard by the tower, and took in travellers to lodge.
Thither went we. But the butcher was flitting, and all his beds were
taken down. Or else he didn’t like our look. As a parting shot, we had
‘These gentlemen are pedlars?’
It began to grow dark in earnest. We could no longer distinguish the
faces of the people who passed us by with an inarticulate good-evening.
And the householders of Pont seemed very economical with their oil; for
we saw not a single window lighted in all that long village. I believe
it is the longest village in the world; but I daresay in our predicament
every pace counted three times over. We were much cast down when we came
to the last auberge; and looking in at the dark door, asked timidly if we
could sleep there for the night. A female voice assented in no very
friendly tones. We clapped the bags down and found our way to chairs.
The place was in total darkness, save a red glow in the chinks and
ventilators of the stove. But now the landlady lit a lamp to see her new
guests; I suppose the darkness was what saved us another expulsion; for I
cannot say she looked gratified at our appearance. We were in a large
bare apartment, adorned with two allegorical prints of Music and
Painting, and a copy of the law against public drunkenness. On one side,
there was a bit of a bar, with some half-a-dozen bottles. Two labourers
sat waiting supper, in attitudes of extreme weariness; a plain-looking
lass bustled about with a sleepy child of two; and the landlady began to
derange the pots upon the stove, and set some beefsteak to grill.
‘These gentlemen are pedlars?’ she asked sharply. And that was all the
conversation forthcoming. We began to think we might be pedlars after
all. I never knew a population with so narrow a range of conjecture as
the innkeepers of Pont-sur-Sambre. But manners and bearing have not a
wider currency than bank-notes. You have only to get far enough out of
your beat, and all your accomplished airs will go for nothing. These
Hainaulters could see no difference between us and the average pedlar.
Indeed we had some grounds for reflection while the steak was getting
ready, to see how perfectly they accepted us at their own valuation, and
how our best politeness and best efforts at entertainment seemed to fit
quite suitably with the character of packmen. At least it seemed a good
account of the profession in France, that even before such judges we
could not beat them at our own weapons.
At last we were called to table. The two hinds (and one of them looked
sadly worn and white in the face, as though sick with over-work and
under-feeding) supped off a single plate of some sort of bread-berry,
some potatoes in their jackets, a small cup of coffee sweetened with
sugar-candy, and one tumbler of swipes. The landlady, her son, and the
lass aforesaid, took the same. Our meal was quite a banquet by
comparison. We had some beefsteak, not so tender as it might have been,
some of the potatoes, some cheese, an extra glass of the swipes, and
white sugar in our coffee.
You see what it is to be a gentleman—I beg your pardon, what it is to be
a pedlar. It had not before occurred to me that a pedlar was a great man
in a labourer’s ale-house; but now that I had to enact the part for an
evening, I found that so it was. He has in his hedge quarters somewhat
the same pre-eminency as the man who takes a private parlour in an hotel.
The more you look into it, the more infinite are the class distinctions
among men; and possibly, by a happy dispensation, there is no one at all
at the bottom of the scale; no one but can find some superiority over
somebody else, to keep up his pride withal.
We were displeased enough with our fare. Particularly the _Cigarette_,
for I tried to make believe that I was amused with the adventure, tough
beefsteak and all. According to the Lucretian maxim, our steak should
have been flavoured by the look of the other people’s bread-berry. But
we did not find it so in practice. You may have a head-knowledge that
other people live more poorly than yourself, but it is not agreeable—I
was going to say, it is against the etiquette of the universe—to sit at
the same table and pick your own superior diet from among their crusts.
I had not seen such a thing done since the greedy boy at school with his
birthday cake. It was odious enough to witness, I could remember; and I
had never thought to play the part myself. But there again you see what
it is to be a pedlar.
There is no doubt that the poorer classes in our country are much more
charitably disposed than their superiors in wealth. And I fancy it must
arise a great deal from the comparative indistinction of the easy and the
not so easy in these ranks. A workman or a pedlar cannot shutter himself
off from his less comfortable neighbours. If he treats himself to a
luxury, he must do it in the face of a dozen who cannot. And what should
more directly lead to charitable thoughts? . . . Thus the poor man,
camping out in life, sees it as it is, and knows that every mouthful he
puts in his belly has been wrenched out of the fingers of the hungry.
But at a certain stage of prosperity, as in a balloon ascent, the
fortunate person passes through a zone of clouds, and sublunary matters
are thenceforward hidden from his view. He sees nothing but the heavenly
bodies, all in admirable order, and positively as good as new. He finds
himself surrounded in the most touching manner by the attentions of
Providence, and compares himself involuntarily with the lilies and the
skylarks. He does not precisely sing, of course; but then he looks so
unassuming in his open landau! If all the world dined at one table, this
philosophy would meet with some rude knocks.