THE most patient people grow weary at last with being continually wetted
with rain; except of course in the Scottish Highlands, where there are
not enough fine intervals to point the difference. That was like to be
our case, the day we left Noyon. I remember nothing of the voyage; it
was nothing but clay banks and willows, and rain; incessant, pitiless,
beating rain; until we stopped to lunch at a little inn at Pimprez, where
the canal ran very near the river. We were so sadly drenched that the
landlady lit a few sticks in the chimney for our comfort; there we sat in
a steam of vapour, lamenting our concerns. The husband donned a game-bag
and strode out to shoot; the wife sat in a far corner watching us. I
think we were worth looking at. We grumbled over the misfortune of La
Fère; we forecast other La Fères in the future;—although things went
better with the _Cigarette_ for spokesman; he had more aplomb altogether
than I; and a dull, positive way of approaching a landlady that carried
off the india-rubber bags. Talking of La Fère put us talking of the
reservists.
‘Reservery,’ said he, ‘seems a pretty mean way to spend ones autumn
holiday.’
‘About as mean,’ returned I dejectedly, ‘as canoeing.’
‘These gentlemen travel for their pleasure?’ asked the landlady, with
unconscious irony.
It was too much. The scales fell from our eyes. Another wet day, it was
determined, and we put the boats into the train.
The weather took the hint. That was our last wetting. The afternoon
faired up: grand clouds still voyaged in the sky, but now singly, and
with a depth of blue around their path; and a sunset in the daintiest
rose and gold inaugurated a thick night of stars and a month of unbroken
weather. At the same time, the river began to give us a better outlook
into the country. The banks were not so high, the willows disappeared
from along the margin, and pleasant hills stood all along its course and
marked their profile on the sky.
In a little while the canal, coming to its last lock, began to discharge
its water-houses on the Oise; so that we had no lack of company to fear.
Here were all our old friends; the _Deo Gratias_ of Condé and the _Four
Sons of Aymon_ journeyed cheerily down stream along with us; we exchanged
waterside pleasantries with the steersman perched among the lumber, or
the driver hoarse with bawling to his horses; and the children came and
looked over the side as we paddled by. We had never known all this while
how much we missed them; but it gave us a fillip to see the smoke from
their chimneys.
A little below this junction we made another meeting of yet more account.
For there we were joined by the Aisne, already a far-travelled river and
fresh out of Champagne. Here ended the adolescence of the Oise; this was
his marriage day; thenceforward he had a stately, brimming march,
conscious of his own dignity and sundry dams. He became a tranquil
feature in the scene. The trees and towns saw themselves in him, as in a
mirror. He carried the canoes lightly on his broad breast; there was no
need to work hard against an eddy: but idleness became the order of the
day, and mere straightforward dipping of the paddle, now on this side,
now on that, without intelligence or effort. Truly we were coming into
halcyon weather upon all accounts, and were floated towards the sea like
gentlemen.
We made Compiègne as the sun was going down: a fine profile of a town
above the river. Over the bridge, a regiment was parading to the drum.
People loitered on the quay, some fishing, some looking idly at the
stream. And as the two boats shot in along the water, we could see them
pointing them out and speaking one to another. We landed at a floating
lavatory, where the washerwomen were still beating the clothes.