THE next day was Sunday, and the church bells had little rest; indeed, I
do not think I remember anywhere else so great a choice of services as
were here offered to the devout. And while the bells made merry in the
sunshine, all the world with his dog was out shooting among the beets and
colza.
In the morning a hawker and his wife went down the street at a foot-pace,
singing to a very slow, lamentable music ‘_O France_, _mes amours_.’ It
brought everybody to the door; and when our landlady called in the man to
buy the words, he had not a copy of them left. She was not the first nor
the second who had been taken with the song. There is something very
pathetic in the love of the French people, since the war, for dismal
patriotic music-making. I have watched a forester from Alsace while some
one was singing ‘_Les malheurs de la France_,’ at a baptismal party in
the neighbourhood of Fontainebleau. He arose from the table and took his
son aside, close by where I was standing. ‘Listen, listen,’ he said,
bearing on the boy’s shoulder, ‘and remember this, my son.’ A little
after he went out into the garden suddenly, and I could hear him sobbing
in the darkness.
The humiliation of their arms and the loss of Alsace and Lorraine made a
sore pull on the endurance of this sensitive people; and their hearts are
still hot, not so much against Germany as against the Empire. In what
other country will you find a patriotic ditty bring all the world into
the street? But affliction heightens love; and we shall never know we
are Englishmen until we have lost India. Independent America is still
the cross of my existence; I cannot think of Farmer George without
abhorrence; and I never feel more warmly to my own land than when I see
the Stars and Stripes, and remember what our empire might have been.
The hawker’s little book, which I purchased, was a curious mixture. Side
by side with the flippant, rowdy nonsense of the Paris music-halls, there
were many pastoral pieces, not without a touch of poetry, I thought, and
instinct with the brave independence of the poorer class in France.
There you might read how the wood-cutter gloried in his axe, and the
gardener scorned to be ashamed of his spade. It was not very well
written, this poetry of labour, but the pluck of the sentiment redeemed
what was weak or wordy in the expression. The martial and the patriotic
pieces, on the other hand, were tearful, womanish productions one and
all. The poet had passed under the Caudine Forks; he sang for an army
visiting the tomb of its old renown, with arms reversed; and sang not of
victory, but of death. There was a number in the hawker’s collection
called ‘Conscrits Français,’ which may rank among the most dissuasive
war-lyrics on record. It would not be possible to fight at all in such a
spirit. The bravest conscript would turn pale if such a ditty were
struck up beside him on the morning of battle; and whole regiments would
pile their arms to its tune.
If Fletcher of Saltoun is in the right about the influence of national
songs, you would say France was come to a poor pass. But the thing will
work its own cure, and a sound-hearted and courageous people weary at
length of snivelling over their disasters. Already Paul Déroulède has
written some manly military verses. There is not much of the trumpet
note in them, perhaps, to stir a man’s heart in his bosom; they lack the
lyrical elation, and move slowly; but they are written in a grave,
honourable, stoical spirit, which should carry soldiers far in a good
cause. One feels as if one would like to trust Déroulède with something.
It will be happy if he can so far inoculate his fellow-countrymen that
they may be trusted with their own future. And in the meantime, here is
an antidote to ‘French Conscripts’ and much other doleful versification.
We had left the boats over-night in the custody of one whom we shall call
Carnival. I did not properly catch his name, and perhaps that was not
unfortunate for him, as I am not in a position to hand him down with
honour to posterity. To this person’s premises we strolled in the course
of the day, and found quite a little deputation inspecting the canoes.
There was a stout gentleman with a knowledge of the river, which he
seemed eager to impart. There was a very elegant young gentleman in a
black coat, with a smattering of English, who led the talk at once to the
Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. And then there were three handsome girls
from fifteen to twenty; and an old gentleman in a blouse, with no teeth
to speak of, and a strong country accent. Quite the pick of Origny, I
should suppose.
The _Cigarette_ had some mysteries to perform with his rigging in the
coach-house; so I was left to do the parade single-handed. I found
myself very much of a hero whether I would or not. The girls were full
of little shudderings over the dangers of our journey. And I thought it
would be ungallant not to take my cue from the ladies. My mishap of
yesterday, told in an off-hand way, produced a deep sensation. It was
Othello over again, with no less than three Desdemonas and a sprinkling
of sympathetic senators in the background. Never were the canoes more
flattered, or flattered more adroitly.
‘It is like a violin,’ cried one of the girls in an ecstasy.
‘I thank you for the word, mademoiselle,’ said I. ‘All the more since
there are people who call out to me that it is like a coffin.’
‘Oh! but it is really like a violin. It is finished like a violin,’ she
went on.
‘And polished like a violin,’ added a senator.
‘One has only to stretch the cords,’ concluded another, ‘and then
tum-tumty-tum’—he imitated the result with spirit.
Was not this a graceful little ovation? Where this people finds the
secret of its pretty speeches, I cannot imagine; unless the secret should
be no other than a sincere desire to please? But then no disgrace is
attached in France to saying a thing neatly; whereas in England, to talk
like a book is to give in one’s resignation to society.
The old gentleman in the blouse stole into the coach-house, and somewhat
irrelevantly informed the _Cigarette_ that he was the father of the three
girls and four more: quite an exploit for a Frenchman.
‘You are very fortunate,’ answered the _Cigarette_ politely.
And the old gentleman, having apparently gained his point, stole away
again.
We all got very friendly together. The girls proposed to start with us
on the morrow, if you please! And, jesting apart, every one was anxious
to know the hour of our departure. Now, when you are going to crawl into
your canoe from a bad launch, a crowd, however friendly, is undesirable;
and so we told them not before twelve, and mentally determined to be off
by ten at latest.
Towards evening, we went abroad again to post some letters. It was cool
and pleasant; the long village was quite empty, except for one or two
urchins who followed us as they might have followed a menagerie; the
hills and the tree-tops looked in from all sides through the clear air;
and the bells were chiming for yet another service.
Suddenly we sighted the three girls standing, with a fourth sister, in
front of a shop on the wide selvage of the roadway. We had been very
merry with them a little while ago, to be sure. But what was the
etiquette of Origny? Had it been a country road, of course we should
have spoken to them; but here, under the eyes of all the gossips, ought
we to do even as much as bow? I consulted the _Cigarette_.
‘Look,’ said he.
I looked. There were the four girls on the same spot; but now four backs
were turned to us, very upright and conscious. Corporal Modesty had
given the word of command, and the well-disciplined picket had gone
right-about-face like a single person. They maintained this formation
all the while we were in sight; but we heard them tittering among
themselves, and the girl whom we had not met laughed with open mouth, and
even looked over her shoulder at the enemy. I wonder was it altogether
modesty after all? or in part a sort of country provocation?
As we were returning to the inn, we beheld something floating in the
ample field of golden evening sky, above the chalk cliffs and the trees
that grow along their summit. It was too high up, too large, and too
steady for a kite; and as it was dark, it could not be a star. For
although a star were as black as ink and as rugged as a walnut, so amply
does the sun bathe heaven with radiance, that it would sparkle like a
point of light for us. The village was dotted with people with their
heads in air; and the children were in a bustle all along the street and
far up the straight road that climbs the hill, where we could still see
them running in loose knots. It was a balloon, we learned, which had
left Saint Quentin at half-past five that evening. Mighty composedly the
majority of the grown people took it. But we were English, and were soon
running up the hill with the best. Being travellers ourselves in a small
way, we would fain have seen these other travellers alight.
The spectacle was over by the time we gained the top of the hill. All
the gold had withered out of the sky, and the balloon had disappeared.
Whither? I ask myself; caught up into the seventh heaven? or come safely
to land somewhere in that blue uneven distance, into which the roadway
dipped and melted before our eyes? Probably the aeronauts were already
warming themselves at a farm chimney, for they say it is cold in these
unhomely regions of the air. The night fell swiftly. Roadside trees and
disappointed sightseers, returning through the meadows, stood out in
black against a margin of low red sunset. It was cheerfuller to face the
other way, and so down the hill we went, with a full moon, the colour of
a melon, swinging high above the wooded valley, and the white cliffs
behind us faintly reddened by the fire of the chalk kilns.
The lamps were lighted, and the salads were being made in Origny
Sainte-Benoîte by the river.