AT Landrecies the rain still fell and the wind still blew; but we found a
double-bedded room with plenty of furniture, real water-jugs with real
water in them, and dinner: a real dinner, not innocent of real wine.
After having been a pedlar for one night, and a butt for the elements
during the whole of the next day, these comfortable circumstances fell on
my heart like sunshine. There was an English fruiterer at dinner,
travelling with a Belgian fruiterer; in the evening at the _café_, we
watched our compatriot drop a good deal of money at corks; and I don’t
know why, but this pleased us.
It turned out we were to see more of Landrecies than we expected; for the
weather next day was simply bedlamite. It is not the place one would
have chosen for a day’s rest; for it consists almost entirely of
fortifications. Within the ramparts, a few blocks of houses, a long row
of barracks, and a church, figure, with what countenance they may, as the
town. There seems to be no trade; and a shopkeeper from whom I bought a
sixpenny flint-and-steel, was so much affected that he filled my pockets
with spare flints into the bargain. The only public buildings that had
any interest for us were the hotel and the _café_. But we visited the
church. There lies Marshal Clarke. But as neither of us had ever heard
of that military hero, we bore the associations of the spot with
fortitude.
In all garrison towns, guard-calls, and _réveilles_, and such like, make
a fine romantic interlude in civic business. Bugles, and drums, and
fifes, are of themselves most excellent things in nature; and when they
carry the mind to marching armies, and the picturesque vicissitudes of
war, they stir up something proud in the heart. But in a shadow of a
town like Landrecies, with little else moving, these points of war made a
proportionate commotion. Indeed, they were the only things to remember.
It was just the place to hear the round going by at night in the
darkness, with the solid tramp of men marching, and the startling
reverberations of the drum. It reminded you, that even this place was a
point in the great warfaring system of Europe, and might on some future
day be ringed about with cannon smoke and thunder, and make itself a name
among strong towns.
The drum, at any rate, from its martial voice and notable physiological
effect, nay, even from its cumbrous and comical shape, stands alone among
the instruments of noise. And if it be true, as I have heard it said,
that drums are covered with asses’ skin, what a picturesque irony is
there in that! As if this long-suffering animal’s hide had not been
sufficiently belaboured during life, now by Lyonnese costermongers, now
by presumptuous Hebrew prophets, it must be stripped from his poor hinder
quarters after death, stretched on a drum, and beaten night after night
round the streets of every garrison town in Europe. And up the heights
of Alma and Spicheren, and wherever death has his red flag a-flying, and
sounds his own potent tuck upon the cannons, there also must the
drummer-boy, hurrying with white face over fallen comrades, batter and
bemaul this slip of skin from the loins of peaceable donkeys.
Generally a man is never more uselessly employed than when he is at this
trick of bastinadoing asses’ hide. We know what effect it has in life,
and how your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating. But in this
state of mummy and melancholy survival of itself, when the hollow skin
reverberates to the drummer’s wrist, and each dub-a-dub goes direct to a
man’s heart, and puts madness there, and that disposition of the pulses
which we, in our big way of talking, nickname Heroism:—is there not
something in the nature of a revenge upon the donkey’s persecutors? Of
old, he might say, you drubbed me up hill and down dale, and I must
endure; but now that I am dead, those dull thwacks that were scarcely
audible in country lanes, have become stirring music in front of the
brigade; and for every blow that you lay on my old greatcoat, you will
see a comrade stumble and fall.
Not long after the drums had passed the _café_, the _Cigarette_ and the
_Arethusa_ began to grow sleepy, and set out for the hotel, which was
only a door or two away. But although we had been somewhat indifferent
to Landrecies, Landrecies had not been indifferent to us. All day, we
learned, people had been running out between the squalls to visit our two
boats. Hundreds of persons, so said report, although it fitted ill with
our idea of the town—hundreds of persons had inspected them where they
lay in a coal-shed. We were becoming lions in Landrecies, who had been
only pedlars the night before in Pont.
And now, when we left the _café_, we were pursued and overtaken at the
hotel door by no less a person than the _Juge de Paix_: a functionary, as
far as I can make out, of the character of a Scots Sheriff-Substitute.
He gave us his card and invited us to sup with him on the spot, very
neatly, very gracefully, as Frenchmen can do these things. It was for
the credit of Landrecies, said he; and although we knew very well how
little credit we could do the place, we must have been churlish fellows
to refuse an invitation so politely introduced.
The house of the Judge was close by; it was a well-appointed bachelor’s
establishment, with a curious collection of old brass warming-pans upon
the walls. Some of these were most elaborately carved. It seemed a
picturesque idea for a collector. You could not help thinking how many
night-caps had wagged over these warming-pans in past generations; what
jests may have been made, and kisses taken, while they were in service;
and how often they had been uselessly paraded in the bed of death. If
they could only speak, at what absurd, indecorous, and tragical scenes
had they not been present!
The wine was excellent. When we made the Judge our compliments upon a
bottle, ‘I do not give it you as my worst,’ said he. I wonder when
Englishmen will learn these hospitable graces. They are worth learning;
they set off life, and make ordinary moments ornamental.
There were two other Landrecienses present. One was the collector of
something or other, I forget what; the other, we were told, was the
principal notary of the place. So it happened that we all five more or
less followed the law. At this rate, the talk was pretty certain to
become technical. The _Cigarette_ expounded the Poor Laws very
magisterially. And a little later I found myself laying down the Scots
Law of Illegitimacy, of which I am glad to say I know nothing. The
collector and the notary, who were both married men, accused the Judge,
who was a bachelor, of having started the subject. He deprecated the
charge, with a conscious, pleased air, just like all the men I have ever
seen, be they French or English. How strange that we should all, in our
unguarded moments, rather like to be thought a bit of a rogue with the
women!
As the evening went on, the wine grew more to my taste; the spirits
proved better than the wine; the company was genial. This was the
highest water mark of popular favour on the whole cruise. After all,
being in a Judge’s house, was there not something semi-official in the
tribute? And so, remembering what a great country France is, we did full
justice to our entertainment. Landrecies had been a long while asleep
before we returned to the hotel; and the sentries on the ramparts were
already looking for daybreak.