CHAPTER I

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THE WORKS OF

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

SWANSTON EDITION

VOLUME I

_Of this SWANSTON EDITION in Twenty-five

Volumes of the Works of ROBERT LOUIS

STEVENSON Two Thousand and Sixty Copies

have been printed, of which only Two Thousand

Copies are for sale._

_This is No. 1678_

[Illustration: AN INLAND VOYAGE TITLE-PAGE DESIGNED BY MR. WALTER CRANE]

THE WORKS OF

ROBERT LOUIS

STEVENSON

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

ANDREW LANG

VOLUME ONE

LONDON: PUBLISHED BY CHATTO AND

WINDUS: IN ASSOCIATION WITH CASSELL

AND COMPANY LIMITED: WILLIAM

HEINEMANN: AND LONGMANS GREEN

AND COMPANY MDCCCCXI

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION TO THE SWANSTON EDITION ix

AN INLAND VOYAGE

ANTWERP TO BOOM 7

ON THE WILLEBROEK CANAL 11

THE ROYAL SPORT NAUTIQUE 16

AT MAUBEUGE 21

ON THE SAMBRE CANALISED: TO QUARTES 26

PONT-SUR-SAMBRE:

WE ARE PEDLARS 31

THE TRAVELLING MERCHANT 36

ON THE SAMBRE CANALISED: TO LANDRECIES 41

AT LANDRECIES 46

SAMBRE AND OISE CANAL: CANAL BOATS 50

THE OISE IN FLOOD 55

ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOITE:

A BY-DAY 62

THE COMPANY AT TABLE 68

DOWN THE OISE: TO MOY 74

LA FERE OF CURSED MEMORY 79

DOWN THE OISE: THROUGH THE GOLDEN VALLEY 84

NOYON CATHEDRAL 86

DOWN THE OISE: TO COMPIEGNE 91

AT COMPIEGNE 94

CHANGED TIMES 99

DOWN THE OISE: CHURCH INTERIORS 105

PRECY AND THE MARIONNETTES 111

BACK TO THE WORLD 120

EPILOGUE 122

TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY IN THE CEVENNES

VELAY

THE DONKEY, THE PACK, AND THE PACK-SADDLE 143

THE GREEN DONKEY-DRIVER 149

I HAVE A GOAD 158

UPPER GEVAUDAN

A CAMP IN THE DARK 167

CHEYLARD AND LUC 177

OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS

FATHER APOLLINARIS 183

THE MONKS 188

THE BOARDERS 195

UPPER GEVAUDAN (_continued_)

ACROSS THE GOULET 203

A NIGHT AMONG THE PINES 206

THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS

ACROSS THE LOZERE 213

PONT DE MONTVERT 218

IN THE VALLEY OF THE TARN 224

FLORAC 234

IN THE VALLEY OF THE MIMENTE 237

THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY 241

THE LAST DAY 248

FAREWELL, MODESTINE! 253

A MOUNTAIN TOWN IN FRANCE 257

EDINBURGH:

CHAPTER

I. INTRODUCTORY 271

II. OLD TOWN: THE LANDS 278

III. THE PARLIAMENT CLOSE 285

IV. LEGENDS 291

V. GREYFRIARS 298

VI. NEW TOWN: TOWN AND COUNTRY 305

VII. THE VILLA QUARTERS 311

VIII. THE CALTON HILL 314

IX. WINTER AND NEW YEAR 320

X. TO THE PENTLAND HILLS 327

INTRODUCTION TO THE SWANSTON EDITION

So much has been written on R. L. Stevenson, as a boy, a man, and a man

of letters, so much has been written both by himself and others, that I

can hope to add nothing essential to the world's knowledge of his

character and appreciation of his genius. What is essential has been

said, once for all, by Sir Sidney Colvin in "Notes and Introductions" to

R. L. S.'s "Letters to His Family and Friends." I can but contribute the

personal views of one who knew, loved, and esteemed his junior that is

already a classic; but who never was of the inner circle of his

intimates. We shared, however, a common appreciation of his genius, for

he was not so dull as to suppose, or so absurd as to pretend to suppose,

that much of his work was not excellent. His tale "Thrawn Janet" "is

good," he says in a letter, with less vigour than but with as much truth

as Thackeray exclaiming "that's genius," when he describes Becky's

admiration of Rawdon's treatment of Lord Steyne, in the affray in Curzon

Street. About the work of other men and novelists, or poets, we were

almost invariably of the same mind; we were of one mind about the great

Charles Gordon. "He was filled," too, "with enthusiasm for Joan of Arc,"

says his biographer, "a devotion, and also a cool headed admiration,

which he never lost." In a letter he quotes Byron as having said that

Jeanne "was a fanatical strumpet," and he cries shame on the noble

poet. He projected an essay on the Blessed Maid, which is not in "the

veniable part of things lost."

Thus we were so much of the same sentiments, in so many ways, that I can

hope to speak with sympathy, if not always with complete understanding,

of Stevenson. Like a true Scot, he was interested in his ancestry, his

heredity; regarding Robert Fergusson, the young Scottish poet, who died

so young, in an asylum, as his spiritual forefather, and hoping to

attach himself to a branch of the Royal Clan Alpine, the MacGregors, as

the root of the Stevensons. Of Fergusson, he had, in early youth, the

waywardness, the liking for taverns and tavern talk, the half-rueful

appreciation of the old closes and wynds of Old Edinburgh, a touch of

the recklessness and more than all the pictorial power which, in

Fergusson, Burns so magnanimously admired.

But genealogical research shows that Stevenson drew nothing from the

dispossessed MacGregors, a clan greatly wronged, from Robert Bruce's

day, and greatly given to wronging others. Alan Breck did not like "the

Gregara," apart from their courage, and in Alan's day they were not

consistent walkers.

Stevenson, as far as one can learn, had no Celtic blood; none, at least,

of traceable infusion: he was more purely Lowland than Sir Walter Scott.

His paternal line could be traced back to a West Country Stevenson of

1675; probably a tenant farmer, who was contemporary with the Whig

rising at Bothwell Bridge, with the murder of Archbishop Sharp, with

Claverhouse, and Sir George Mackenzie, called "the bluidy Advocate." An

earnest student of Mr. Wodrow's "History of the Sufferings," Louis did

not find "James Stevenson in Nether Carsewell" among the many martyrs

who live in the _Libre d'Or_ of the Remnant. But he had "a Covenanting

childhood;" his father, Mr. Thomas Stevenson, was loyal to the positions

of John Knox (the theological positions); and, brought up in these,

Louis had a taste, when the tenets of Calvin ceased to convince his

reason, of what non-Covenanters endured at the hands of the godly in

their day of power.

Every little Presbyterian, fifty years ago, was compelled to be familiar

with the Genevan creed, as expressed in "The Shorter Catechism," but

most little Presbyterians regarded that document as a necessary but

unintelligible evil--the sorrow that haunted the Sabbath. I knew it by

rote, Effectual Calling and all, but did not perceive that it possessed

either meaning or actuality. Nobody was so unkind as to interpret the

significance of the questions and answers; but somebody did interpret

them for Stevenson, or his early genius enabled him to discover what it

is all about, as he told me once, and it seems that the tendency of the

theology is terribly depressing. A happier though more or less

theological influence on his childhood he found in the adventures and

sufferings of the Covenanters. It is curious (and shows how much early

education can do) that he never was a little Royalist: always his heart,

like Lockhart's, which is no less strange, was with the true blue

Remnant. I can remember no proof that he was fascinated by the greatness

of Montrose.

As is well known, at about the age of sixteen he perverted a romance of

his own making, "Hackston of Rathillet" (a fanatic of Fife), into a

treatise: "The Pentland Rising, a Page of History," published in 1866.

One would rather have possessed the romance.

Stevenson came from the Balfours of Pilrig, and was of gentle blood, on

the spindle side. An ancestress of his mother was a granddaughter of Sir

Gilbert Elliot (as a "law lord," or judge, Lord Minto), and so he could

say: "I have shaken a spear in the debatable land, and shouted the

slogan of the Elliots": perhaps "And wha dares meddle wi' me!" In "Weir

of Hermiston" he returns to "the auld bauld Elliots" with zest. He was

not, perhaps, aware that, through some remote ancestress on the spindle

side, he "came of Harden's line," so that he and I had a common forebear

with Sir Walter Scott, and were hundredth cousins of each other, if we

reckon in the primitive manner by female descent. Of these Border

ancestors, Louis inherited the courage; he was a fearless person, but

one would not trace his genius to "The Bard of Rule," an Elliot named

"Sweet Milk" who was slain in a duel by another minstrel, about 1627.

Genius is untraceable; the granite intellect of Louis's great

engineering forefathers, the Stevensons, was not, like his, tuneful:

though his father was imaginative, diverting himself with daydreams; and

his uncle, Alan Stevenson, the builder of Skerryvore, yielded to the

fascinations of the religious Muse. A volume of verse was the pledge of

this dalliance. His mother, who gave him her gay indifference to

discomfort and readiness for travel, also read to him, in his childhood,

much good literature; for not till he was eight years of age was he an

unreluctant reader--which is strange. The whole record of his life, from

his eighteenth month, is a chronicle of fever and ill-health, borne

always with heroic fortitude. His dear nurse, Alison Cunningham, seems

to have been a kind of festive Cameronian. Her recitation of hymns was,

though she hated "the playhouse," "grand and dramatic." There is a hymn,

"Jehovah Tsidkenu," in which he rejoiced; and no wonder, for the refrain

"Jehovah Tsidkenu was nothing to me," moves with the galloping

hoof-beats of

"'Tis up wi' the bonnets o' Bonny Dundee!"

I have, however, ascertained that this theological piece is not sung to

the tune, "The cavalry canter of Bonny Dundee." When the experiment is

made, the results are unspeakably strange.

It need not be said, Stevenson has told us in verse and prose, that in

childhood "his whole vocation was endless imitation." He was the hunter

and the pirate and the king--throwing his fancy very seriously into each

of his _roles_, though visualizing never passed with him, as with some

children it does, into actual hallucination. He had none of the

invisible playmates that, to some children, are visible and real. He was

less successful than Shelley in seeing apparitions: but the dreams which

he communicated to Mr. Frederic Myers were curious illustrations of his

subconscious activities--his Brownies, as he called them. They told him

stories of which he could not foresee the end; one led up to a love

affair forbidden even by exogamous law (with male descent and the

sub-class system), and thus a fine plot was ruined.

Throughout life, he always played his part, as in childhood, with full

conscious and picturesque effect, as did the great Montrose and the

English Admirals, in whom he notes this dramatic trait. He was not a

_poseur_; he was merely sensitively conscious of himself and of life as

an art. As a little boy with curls and a velvet tunic, he read

"Ministering Children," and yearned to be a ministering child. An

opportunity seemed to present itself; the class of boys called "keelies"

by the more comfortable boys in Edinburgh, used to play in the street

under the windows of his father's house. One lame boy, a baker's son,

could only look on. Here was a chance to minister! Louis, with a beating

heart, walked out on his angelic mission.

"Little boy, would you like to play with me?" he asked.

"You go to ----!" was the answer of the independent son of the hardy

baker.

It is difficult to pass from the enchanted childhood of this eternal

child, with its imaginative playing at everything, broken only by fevers

whereof the dreams were the nightmares of unconscious genius. He has

told of all this as only he could tell it.

As a boy, despite his interrupted education, he laid the foundations of

a knowledge of French and German, acquired Latin, and was not like that

other boy who, _Euclide viso, cohorruit et evasit._ He was a

mathematician! He never played cricket, I deeply regret to say, and his

early love of football deserted him. He was no golfer, and a good day's

trout-fishing, during which he neglected to kill each trout as it was

taken, caused remorse, and made him abandon the contemplative boy's

recreation. Boating, riding, and walking were his exercises. He read the

good books that never lose their charm--Scott, Dumas, Shakespeare, "The

Arabian Nights"; when very young he was delighted with "The Book of

Snobs"; he also read Mayne Reid and "Ballantyne the Brave," and any

story that contained _Skeltica_, cloaks, swords, wigs on the green,

pirates and great adventures. He lived in literature, for Romance.

His doings at Edinburgh University, and as a budding engineer, he has

chronicled; he took part in snowball rows, in the debates of the

Speculative Society, and in private dramatic performances, organized by

his senior and friend, Professor Fleeming Jenkin. To "dress up" in old

costumes always pleased him. He happened to praise the acting of a girl

of fourteen, who, in her family circle, said, "Perhaps when I am old,

like the lady in Ronsard, I will say 'R. L. Stevenson sang of me.'" His

gambols "with the wild Prince and Poins" are not unrecorded. These were

his Fergussonian years. Perhaps he might have expressed Burns's esteem

for the "class of men called black-guards," as far as their

unconventionality is concerned. He saw a great deal of life in many

varieties; like Scott in Liddesdale, "he was making himsel' a' the

time." With his cousin R. A. M. Stevenson, Walter Ferrier, Mr. Charles

Baxter, and Sir Walter Simpson (a good golfer and not a bad bat), he

performed "acts of Libbelism," and discussed all things in the universe.

He was wildly gay, and profoundly serious, he had the earnestness of the

Covenanter in forming speculations more or less unorthodox. It is

needless to dwell on the strain caused by his theological ideals and

those of a loving but sternly Calvinistic sire, to whom his love was

ever loyal.

These things bred melancholy, of necessity, and melancholy was purged by

an almost unexampled interest, not in literature alone, but in the

technique of style, and the construction of sentences and periods. Few

of his confessions are better known than those on his apprenticeship in

style to the great authors of the past. He gave himself up to the

schools of Hazlitt, Lamb, Wordsworth, Sir Thomas Browne, Defoe,

Hawthorne, Montaigne, Baudelaire, William Morris, and Obermann (De

Senancour).

This he did when he was aged about eighteen, when other lads are trying

to write Latin prose like Cicero, or Livy, or Tacitus (Tacitus is the

easiest to ape, in a way), and Latin verse like Ovid, or Horace, or

Virgil. This they do because it is "part of the curricoolum," as the

Scottish baronet said, of school and college. But I do not remember

anecdotes of other boys with a genius for English prose who set

themselves to acquire style before they deemed that they had anything in

particular to say.

In English essays at college a young fellow may be told by his tutor not

to imitate Carlyle or Macaulay: the attempt to repeat the tones of

Thackeray is most incident to youth. But to aim, like Stevenson while a

student of Edinburgh University, at "the choice of the essential note

and the right word," in exercises written for his own improvement, is a

thing so original that it keeps me wondering. Like most of us, I have

always thought, with Mr. Froude, when asked how he acquired his style,

that a man sits down and says what he has to say, and there is an end of

it. We must not write like Clarendon now, even if we could; our

sentences must be brief. It would be affectation to write like Sir

Thomas Browne, if we could; or like de Quincey; and nobody can write

like Mr. Ruskin, when he is simple, or like the late Master of Balliol,

Mr. Jowett.

How far and how early Stevenson succeeded in the pursuit of style may be

seen in his "Juvenilia": for example, in the essay on the Old Gardener.

But one is inclined to think that he succeeded because he had a very

keen natural perception of all things, was a most minute observer, knew

what told in the matter of words, in fact, had a genius of his own; and

that these graces came to him, though he says that they did not, by

nature. He tells us how often he wrote and rewrote some of his

chapters, some of his books. His _prima cura_ we have not seen; perhaps

it was as good as his most polished copy. "Prince Otto" has even seemed

to me, in places, over-written. He now and then ran near the rock of

preciosity, though he very seldom piled up his barque on that reef. His

style is, to the right reader, a perpetual feast, "a dreiping roast,"

and his style cannot be parodied. I never saw a parody that came within

a league of the jest it aimed at, save one burlesque of the deliberately

stilted manner of his "New Arabian Nights." This triumph was achieved by

Mr. Walter Pollock.

Stevenson's manner was too appropriate to his matter for parody: for

nobody could reproduce his matter and the vividness of his

visualization. When his characters were Scots, Lowlanders or

Highlanders, it seems to me that their style has no rival except in the

talk of Sir Walter's countrymen. A minute student who knew Stevenson,

has told me that he once suggested "chafts," where Louis had written

"cheeks" or "jaws," and that the emendation was accepted, but his Scots

always use "the right word," and never (in prose) say "tae" for "to," I

think. Theirs is the good Scots.

Perhaps I am biased in my doubt concerning the usefulness of his

persistence in re-writing, by my regret that he destroyed so many of his

romances, as not worthy of him. "King's chaff is better than other

folk's corn" says our proverb. In his day, I bored him by pressing him

to write more, and more rapidly; he never could have been commonplace,

he never could have been less than excellent. But his conscience was

adamant: no man was less of an improviser, as, fortunately, Scott was;

had he _not_ been, there would not be so many Waverley Novels.

Stevenson was hard on Scott, who wrote much as he himself did in

boyhood. "I forgot to say," remarks the early Stevensonian hero, after

describing a day full of adventures with Red Indians, "that I had made

love to a beautiful girl." There is a faint resemblance to this

over-sight in a long sentence of "Guy Mannering," which Stevenson

criticized; but "Guy Mannering" was written in about six weeks, "to

refresh the machine." Fastidious himself, conscientious almost to a

fault in style, Stevenson's joy was in the romances of Xavier de

Montepin and Fortune du Boisgobey, names which suggest

"Old crusading knights austere,

That bore King Louis company."

When Dumas and Scott, and perhaps Mrs. Radcliffe, had been read too

recently, Louis went to Fortune and Xavier, and, doubtless, to the

father of them, Gaboriau. None of these benefactors of the race was a

student of style, but they gave him what Thackeray liked, stories "hot,

_with_," as he says, briefly but adequately.

All of us are led, like that ancient people Israel, like all humanity,

by a way we know not, and a path we do not understand. If some

benevolent genie, who understood Stevenson's qualities and genius, could

have directed his career, how would that spirit have educated him?

For some reason not intelligible he was put on an allowance of five

shillings weekly, for his _menus plaisirs_, till he was twenty-three

years of age. He never was an expensive man (except in giving, wherein

he knew no stint); his favourite velvet coats, his yellow shoes, his

black shirts, with a necktie of a scrap of carpet, he said (I failed to

guess its nature), were not extravagant. (The last occasion on which I

saw him in the legendary velvet coat was also the only moment in which I

viewed the author of his being. The circumstances were of the wildest

comedy, but the tale can never be told; though in all respects it

redounds to the credit of everybody concerned. Not one of us let a laugh

out of himself.)

But a young man in his position likes to do many harmless things which

cannot be done on five shillings a week, and so he sought the haunts of

"thieves and chimney sweeps!" he says, and wrote sonnets in those shy

retreats, which are known, perhaps, in Scotland, as "shebeens." Why

"shebeens"? Is the word Gaelic misspelled? Cases of "shebeening" are

tried before the Edinburgh magistrates, and as "my circle was being

continually changed by the action of the police magistrates" (he says)

conceivably his was a shebeening circle.

Another lad of his age, some eighty years earlier, was partial, like

him, to taverns and old clothes. "They be good enough for drinking in,"

said Walter Scott, when Erskine, or some other friend, ventured to

remonstrate. Scott, like Stevenson, knew queer people, knew beggars--but

had not one of them shaken hands with Prince Charles? Certainly, after

Scott met Green Mantle, and sheltered her, as she came from church,

under his umbrella (a piece of furniture which Stevenson can never have

possessed), he left off his old clothes, and went into the best company.

But R. L. S. did not delight in the good company of his native town; nor

did he suffer gladly the conventional raiment of the evening hours.

Green Mantle there was none, as far as we learn. He was not popular with

the young Scots of his age, his biographer says so candidly; candidly

have they said as much to me, yet they were good fellows.

From childhood he had enjoyed all the indulgences of an only son, and an

invalid; now he was "brought up short," and there were the religious

disputes with a sire to whom he was devoted. The climate of his own

romantic town (the worst in the world) was his foe; the wandering spirit

in his blood called him to the south and the sun; he tells of months in

which he had no mortal to whom he could speak freely, his cousin Bob

being absent; he was unhappy; he was out of his _milieu_.

What would the genie have done for him? Neither of the English

Universities would have been to his taste; the rebel in him would have

kicked at morning chapel, lectures, cap and gown, Proctors, the talk of

"oars" and "bats"; manifestly Balliol was not the place for R. L. S.,

though he might have been happy with his contemporary John Churton

Collins. He, I remember--even to the velvet coat--was like Stevenson,

and was a rebel. Grant Allen, too, would have been his contemporary--the

only man in Oxford who took to Herbert Spencer, whom Stevenson also read

with much edification.

Yet it is clear that Stevenson should not have been domiciled in the

paternal mansion of Heriot Row. The genie might have transported him to

a German University, perhaps to Heidelberg.

_Dis aliter visum_, and the result, for us, is his matchless book on

Edinburgh. To see a copy thereof is to take it up, and read through it

again; it is better at every reading.

In 1871 he broke to his father the news that the profession of

engineering was not for him. The Scottish Bar (1874-1875) was not more

attractive, and in 1873 his meeting with Mr. (now Sir) Sidney Colvin

(then Slade Professor of Fine Art at Cambridge, and already well known

as a critic), and with a lady, Mrs. Sitwell, to whom many of his most

carefully written early letters are addressed, probably sealed Stevenson

into the profession of literature.

He has left this note on his prospects:

I think now, this 5th or 6th of April, 1873, that I can see my

future life. I think it will run stiller and stiller year by year; a

very quiet, desultorily studious existence. If God only gives me

tolerable health, I think now I shall be very happy; work and

science calm the mind and stop gnawing in the brain; and as I am

glad to say that I do now recognise that I shall never be a great

man, I may set myself peacefully on a smaller journey; not without

hope of coming to the inn before nightfall.

O dass mein Leben

Nach diesem Ziel ein ewig Wandeln sey!

DESIDERATA

I. Good Health

II. 2 to 3 hundred a year

III. O du lieber Gott, _friends_!

AMEN

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

He wrote an article, this born wayfarer, on "Roads," which was accepted

by P. G. Hamerton for the "Portfolio," but in November, 1873, "nervous

exhaustion, with a threatening of phthisis," caused him to be "Ordered

South" to Mentone--a lonely exile. Here he was joined by Mr. Colvin, and

in Mr. Colvin's rooms, for I also was "ordered South," I first met this

surprising figure. Our schooldays had just overlapped; he was a "gyte"

(a child in the lowest form; "class" we called it), when I was in the

highest, but I had never seen him, nor heard of him.

In some rhymes of his later years, when Count Nerli was painting his

portrait, Louis wrote:

"Oh, will he paint me the way I like, and as bonny as a girlie,

Or will he make me an ugly tyke; and be d---- to Mr. Nerli?"

When first we met, he really was "as bonny as a girlie"; with his oval

face, his flushed cheeks, his brown eyes, large and radiant, and his

hair of a length more romantic than conventional. He wore a wide blue

cloak, with a grace which hovered between that of an Italian poet and an

early pirate.

It was impossible not to discover, in a short conversation, that he was

very clever, but, as a girl said once of her first meeting with another

girl, "We looked at each other with horny eyes of disapproval." I

thought that he was affecting the poet, and in me he found a donnish

affectation of the British sportsman. He said later that I complained,

concerning Monsieur Paul de St. Victor, that he was "no sportsman,"

though his style was effulgent.

We seldom met again, unhappily, for I was then with a family in whose

company he would have been happy: all young, all kind, simple, and

beautiful, and all doomed. Stevenson was then seriously ill, certainly a

short walk fatigued him.

The next news I had of him was in his essay, "Ordered South," concerning

the emotions, apathies, and pleasures, on that then fairy coast, of a

young man who thinks that his days are numbered. After reading this

paper, I was absolutely convinced that, among the writers of our

generation, Stevenson was first, like Eclipse, and the rest nowhere.

There was nobody to be spoken of in his company as a writer. It was not

his style alone--Pater's style had bewitched me in his first book--but

it was the life that underlay the style of Stevenson.

He came home, and found peace at home, and a less inadequate allowance,

and he put up a brazen plate, "R. L. Stevenson, Advocate," on the door in

Heriot Row. But his practice was a jest. Some senior men sought his

society, his old friends were with him; his articles were welcomed by

Mr. Leslie Stephen in "The Cornhill Magazine," and were eagerly expected

by a few. Directed by Mr. Stephen, he found Mr. Henley in the Edinburgh

Infirmary, and that friendship began which was of such considerable

influence in his life and work.

Mr. Henley's "maimed strength," his impeded vigour, even his blond

upstanding hair and "beard all tangled," his uncomplaining fortitude

under the most cruel trials, and the candid freshness of his

conversation on men and books, won Stevenson's heart.

In London, Stevenson appeared now and again at the Savile Club, then

tenanting a rather gloomy little house in Savile Row. The members were

mostly connected with science, literature, journalism, and the stage,

and Stevenson became intimate with many of them, especially with the

staff and the sub-editor (in those days) of "The Saturday Review," Mr.

Walter Pollock; and with Mr. Saintsbury, Mr. Traill, Mr. Charles

Brookfield, Sir Walter Besant; a little later with Mr. Edmund Gosse, who

was by much his favourite in this little society. In addition to the

chaff of the "Saturday" reviewers, he enjoyed the talk of Prof.

Robertson Smith, Prof. W. H. Clifford, and Prof. Fleeming Jenkin.

Stevenson never wrote, to my knowledge, in "The Saturday Review";

journalism never "set his genius." For one reason among many, his manner

was by far too personal in those days of unsigned contributions. He

needed money, he wished to be financially independent, but, in the

Press, his independence could not be all that he desired. He did not

wield the ready, punctual pen of him whom Lockhart most invidiously

calls "the bronzed and mother-naked gentleman of the Press."

His conversation at luncheon, and after luncheon, in the Club was the

delight of all, but, for various reasons, I was seldom present. I do

remember an afternoon when I had him all to myself, but that was later.

He poured out stories of his American wanderings, including a tale of a

murderous lonely inn, kept by Scots, whose genius tended to

assassination. He knew nothing of their exploits at home, but, then or

afterwards, I heard of them from a boatman on Loch Awe. Their mother was

a witch!

At this period Stevenson was much in Paris, and alone, or with his

cousin Bob dwelt at Barbizon and other forest haunts of painters. The

chronicle of these merry days is written in the early chapters of "The

Wrecker."

In literature he was "finding himself," in his Essays, but the world did

not find him easily or early.

History much attracted him, as it did Thackeray, who said, "I like

history, it is so gentlemanly." But it can only be written by gentlemen

of independent means. Stevenson's favourite period was that of the

France of the fifteenth century, and he studied later some aspects of

that time in essays on Charles d'Orleans, in his admirable picture of

Villon as a man and poet, and especially in "A Lodging for the Night,"

and "The Sieur de Maletroit's Door," shut on a windy night in the month

after the Maid failed at Paris (September, 1429).

These unexcelled short stories really revealed Stevenson as the

narrator, his path lay clear before him. But even his friends were then

divided in opinion; some preferring his essays, and his two books of

sentimental travel, "An Inland Voyage" (1878) and "Travels with a

Donkey" (1879). These were, indeed, admirable in style, humour,

description, and incident, but the creative imagination in the stories

of Villon's night and of the Sieur de Maletroit's door, the painting of

character, the romance, the vividness, were worth many such volumes.

They were well received by the Press, these sketches of travel, but, as

Monsieur Got says in his "Journal" (1857), "Les succes des delicats

sont, meme quand ils s'etablissent, trop lents a s'etablir. La foule

s'est tellement democratisee qu'il n'a pas de salut si l'on ne frappe

brutalement." The needful brutality was not employed till Stevenson

"knocked them" with "Jekyll and Hyde."

"The world is so full of a number of things," that a few essays, two or

three short stories in a magazine, a little book of sketches in prose,

may be masterpieces in their three several ways, but they escape the

notice of all but a few amateurs. Mr. Kipling's knock was much more

insistent; he could not be unheard. It was not by essays on Burns and

Knox, however independently done, that Stevenson could make his mark.

Concerning these heroes, Scotland has a vision of her own, and no man

must undo it; no man must tell, about Knox, facts ignored by Professors

of Church History. Indeed, to study Knox afresh demands research for

which Stevenson had not the opportunity. The Covenanting side of his

nature appeared in his study of the moral aspect of Burns; his feet of

clay. It is agreed that we must veil the feet of clay. As Lockhart says,

Scott infuriated Mr. Alexander Peterkin by remarking that Burns "was not

chivalrous." Stevenson went further, and annoyed the Peterkins of his

day. His task required courage: it was not found wanting.

In 1877, Stevenson had a new, if very narrow, opening. A friend of his

at Edinburgh University, a young Mr. Caldwell Brown (so Stevenson named

him to me; his real name seems to have been Glasgow Brown), came to the

great metropolis to found a Conservative weekly journal. "London" was

its name, but Edinburgh was its nature, and base, if a base it had. The

editor was "in the air"; he knew nothing of his business and its

difficulties; nothing of what the Conservative public, with sixpences to

spend, was likely to want. He approached some of Stevenson's friends,

and he gave the Conservative party scores of lively _ballades,

villanelles_, and _rondeaux_. They were brilliant. Stevenson would not

tell me the author's name; he proved to be Mr. Henley, who came to town,

and, on the death of Mr. Brown, edited this unread periodical. There

were "Society" notes, although Mr. Henley's haunts were not those of

that kind of society, and one occasional contributor ventured to

remonstrate about the chatter on the "professional beauties" of that

distant day.

The "New Arabian Nights," with all their humour, and horror, all their

intellectual high spirits, and reckless absurdity, were poured by

Stevenson into this outcast flutterer of a Tory paper, to the great joy

of some of the very irregular contributors. (It was an honest

flutterer--its contributors received their wages.)

Then "London" died, and then seriousness enough came into the life of

our Arabian author. In August, 1879, he disappeared; he went to America

to marry the lady whom he had first met at Fontainebleau, whom he wedded

at San Francisco (1880), and loved with all his heart.

Reconciled to his father, he returned to Scotland. His health had been

anew impaired by troubles and privations, and the rest of his life in

the Old World was occupied by a series of maladies, vain roamings in

search of climate, and hard work constantly interrupted.

From his early childhood onwards, an army of maladies surrounded him,

invested him, cut him off if, in an hour of health, he ventured on any

sally; but they never overcame his invincible resolution. He was, as one

of his favourite old authors says about I forget what emperor, "an

entertainer of fortune by the day," making the most of every sunny hour,

and the best of every hour passed under the shadow of imminent death. I

remember that, soon after his marriage, he was staying in London at the

house of a friend. Going to see him, I noted in him a somewhat anxious

look, and I did not wonder at it! Mr. Henley was seated in a great

chair, the whole of his face, from the eyes downwards, muffled in a huge

crimson silk pocket handkerchief, of which the point covered his aureate

beard.

The room was a large room, and as Louis flitted about it, _more suo_, he

managed to tell me privily that Henley had a very bad cold, and that he

himself caught every cold which came within a limited radius. He _did_

catch that cold, I heard, and when once such an invader entered his

system, nobody knew what the end of it might be. His lungs usually

suffered; hemorrhage was frequent and often alarming. In one of these

accesses, unable to speak, he wrote, "Do not be frightened. If this is

the end it is an easy one."

Many scraps written by him in circumstances like these used to exist;

some of them, though brief, were rich in the simple eloquence of

indignation.

Almost no climate did him any good: in 1880-1881, he chiefly suffered at

Davos, and in the tempests of September, in Braemar. At Davos he had few

consolations except the society of Mr. J. A. Symonds (the Opalstein of

his essay on "Talk and Talkers") and his family. He was still attached

to the indigent Muse of History: meditating a "History of the

Highlands," and another book on that much trampled topic, the Union of

1707. When one thinks of the commercial statistics necessary to the

student of the Union--to take that grim aspect of it alone--_enfin_, "I

have been there, and would not go." In the nature of things the History

of the Union would have become a romance, with that impudent,

entertaining rogue, Ker of Kersland, and his bewildered Cameronians, for

the heroes: with Hamilton the waverer, and the dark, sardonic Lockhart

of Carnwath, and Daniel Defoe as the English looker-on. The study of

Highland history led to the reading of the Trial of James of the Glens,

and the vain hunt for Alan Breck, and so to "Kidnapped."

Stevenson felt and described the exhilaration of Alpine mornings, but

his style was as sensitive as his bronchial apparatus, and he declares

that when he tried to write, the style suffered from "yeasty inflation,"

while his nights were haunted by the nightmares of his childhood.

The next change carried him to a cottage near Pitlochry, whence he wrote

that he was engaged in the composition of "crawlers." The first and best

of these, "Thrawn Janet," was (with his "Tod Lapraik" in "Kidnapped")

the only pendant to Scott's "Wandering Willie's Tale," in the northern

vernacular. The tale has a limited circle; no Southern can appreciate

all its merits, the thing is so absolutely and essentially Scots;

especially the atmosphere. He said that it was "true for a hill parish

in Scotland in old days, not true for mankind and the world." So it is

fortunate to be a native of a hill parish in Scotland!

"The Merry Men," as "a fantasia or vision of the sea," is excellent; the

poor negro never was, to myself, "convincing." However, knowing

Stevenson's taste in art, I designed for him, in Skeltic taste, an

illustration (coloured) of the negro pursuing the wicked uncle (in the

philabeg) over the crests of Ben Mor, Mull.

Descending from these heights, Stevenson, like every bookish Scot,

"ettled at" a professorial chair--that of "History and Constitutional

Law," in the University of Edinburgh.

The election was in the winter, the legist and historian occupied the

autumn in composing the first half of "Treasure Island" (originally "The

Sea Cook").

Everyone knows the story: how, playing with his stepson, Stevenson drew

a map of an island--an island like a _dragon seyant_; considered the

caves and hills and streams, and thought of the place as a haunt of

these serviceable pirates, who always dumped down their hard-earned swag

on distant and on deadly shores, which they carefully abstained from

revisiting. The legends of Captain Kidd's _caches_ have long haunted the

imagination; the idea of Hidden Treasure has its eternal charm, and the

story thereof was told, once for all, by Poe. Soon after "Treasure

Island" appeared there was a real treasure hunt. The deposit, so I was

informed, was "put down by a Fin," and Mr. Rider Haggard and I were

actually paying (at least Mr. Haggard sent me a cheque) for shares in

this alluring enterprise, when I learned that the Fin (or Finn? a native

of Finland), had looted the church plate of some Spanish cathedral in

America. Knowing this, I returned his cheque to Mr. Haggard; happily,

for the isle was the playroom of young earthquakes, which had upset the

soil and the landmarks to such a degree that the gentleman adventurer

returned--_bredouille_! I hope Stevenson had nothing on.

In the Highland cottage, during the rain eternal, he amused himself with

writing his story, as Shelley, Byron, Polidori, and Mary Godwin had

diverted themselves in Swiss wet weather, with their ghost stories,

"Frankenstein," and Byron's good opening of a romance of a vampire.

Visitors came--Mr. Colvin, Mr. Gosse, and Dr. Japp--they liked the tale

as chapter by chapter was read aloud, and it was offered to a penny

periodical for boys. A much better market might easily have been found;

indeed, Stevenson "wasted his mercies." He was paid like the humblest of

unknown scribblers; not even illustrations were given to the obscure

romance running in dim inner pages of the periodical, and it appears

that, as Theophile Gautier's editor said about one of _his_ narratives,

"the _abonne_ was bored with the style."

It was an audacious thing for a man of Louis's health, and intermittent

inspiration, to send in half the "copy," meaning to send the rest later

from Davos. He might not be able, physically, to write--the inspiration

might vanish--and there was John Addington Symonds, eager for him to

write on the "Characters" of Theophrastus! He might as well have

written, or better, on the "Characters" of Sir Thomas Overbury, which

are rather less remote from the ken of the British public than those of

the Greek.

If any young man or woman, not in possession of independent means, reads

these lines of mine, let him or her take warning, and deserting history,

morals, the essay, biography, and shunning anthropology as they would

kippered sturgeon or the devil, cleave only to fiction!

Biography also allured Stevenson--his literary tastes were nearly his

ruin; he wanted, at Davos, to write a "Life of Hazlitt," and at

Bournemouth a biography of Arthur, Duke of Wellington. But time and

strength were lacking; nor have we R. L. S.'s mature opinion of the

strategy and tactics of the victor of Assaye. The Muse of piratical

enterprise returned, and "Treasure Island" reached its haven, with no

applause, in the paper for boys.

In the following May, Messrs. Cassell proposed to publish "Treasure

Island" in book form, being spirited up, I suppose, by Mr. Henley, who

was editing for them "The Magazine of Art," in which Stevenson wrote two

or three articles. (I remember that a letter of my own to "The Editor,"

as Mr. Henley had proudly signed himself, came automatically into the

hands of the General Editor, a clergyman, if I do not err, and that my

observations on the Art of Savages, lighting on the wrong sort of

ground, sprang up and nearly choked Mr. Henley.) Stevenson was already

the victim of the Yankee pirate, whose industry, at least, made his

name, though wrongly spelled, known to the community which later paid

him so well for his work, and displayed for him an enthusiasm of

affectionate admiration.

In 1884 he worked at the often rewritten "Prince Otto," and did a

pot-boiler--"The Black Arrow"--which pleased the boy public of the paper

much better than "Treasure Island." His time, from January, 1883, to

May, 1884, was passed at Hyeres. In the end of November, "Treasure

Island" was published in book form, and was warmly welcomed by the Press

and by such friends of the author as retained, at least in letters, any

smack of youth. It was forced, as far as "You must read it, please,"

even on the friends of the friends, and so on in successive waves, yet

it did not reach a wide circle: five or six thousand copies were sold in

the first year. That is failure in the eyes of many of our novelists

whose style does not bore the unfastidious _abonne_. Stevenson, in

writing an article for a magazine on his "First Book," chose "Treasure

Island," for books other than novels do not count as books. He spoke of

terror as the motive and interest of the tale; the dread for each and

all of a mutiny headed by his ruthless favourite, John Silver. Indeed,

terror, whether caused by the eccentric furies of Mr. William Bones,

mariner, or of the awful blind Pew with his tapping staff, runs through

the volume as the dominant motive. But there is so much else: the many

landscapes, so various and so vivid; the humour of the Doctor and the

Squire, the variety of the seamen's characters; the Man of the Island,

with his craving for a piece of cheese; above all, John Silver. He is

terrible, this coldly cruel, crafty, and masterful Odysseus of the

Pacific. His creator liked him, but I could have seen Silver withering

on the wuddie at Execution Dock, or suspended from a yardarm, without

shedding the tears of sensibility. "A pirate is rather a beast than

otherwise," says a young critic in "The Human Boy," and I cannot get

over Silver gloating on the prospect of torturing Trelawny. At all

events, he is an original creation, and a miraculous portent in a boy's

book.

Fiercer attacks of illness in various forms drove Stevenson to

Bournemouth; he was engaged, when he had the strength, on those plays

(in collaboration with Mr. Henley) which prove that he had not the

mysterious gift of writing for the stage. "I hope Mr. Henley wrote most

of it," said a lady, as she left the theatre where she had seen "Deacon

Brodie" played. Had Deacon Brodie been Archdeacon Brodie, there would

have been more piquancy in the contrast of his "double life."

This idea of the double life of each man had long haunted Stevenson. He

told me once that he meant to write a story "about a fellow who was two

fellows," which did not, when thus stated, seem a fortunate idea.

However, happily, he continued to think of Hyde and Jekyll, yet knew not

how to manage them. One night, after eating bread and jam freely, he had

a nightmare; he saw Hyde, pursued, take refuge in a closet, swallow "the

mixture as before"--the mysterious powder or potion--and change horribly

into Jekyll.

He set to work at once, and in three feverish days completed the first

draft of his parable. In this the Hyde aspect was only Jekyll's

unassuming disguise, adopted at hours when he wished to be a little gay.

Stevenson burned his first draft, and rewrote the whole in three days.

He knew, it seems, that the magical powder was an error. One sees how

the thing could be managed otherwise, with a slight strain on the

resources of psychical research. But in no way could the story have

attained "the probable impossible," which Aristotle preferred to "the

improbable possible."

Stevenson sent the manuscript to my friend Mr. Charles Longman, who, in

turn, sent it to me. I began to read it one night, in the security of a

modest London drawing-room, and, naturally, it fascinated me from the

first page. Then I came to a certain page, which produced such an

emotion that I threw the manuscript on a chair, and scuttled

apprehensively to the safety of bed. Later, a kinsman, who seldom read a

book, told me that, living alone in a great Highland house, he had

thrown down the printed book at the same passage, and made the same

inglorious retreat. Anyone who knows the book, knows what the passage

is.

The story was produced in a paper-covered volume costing a shilling, and

was little heeded till a reviewer in _The Times_ "caught this great

stupid public by the ear," as Thackeray said.

The clergy of all denominations did the rest. As they had preached on

"Pamela," a hundred and forty years earlier, so they called the

attention of their flocks to Hyde and to Jekyll. "Who are Hyde and

Jekyll, my brethren? _You_ are Hyde and Jekyll. _I_ am Jekyll and Hyde;

each of us is Jekyll, and, alas, _each of us is Hyde_!"

Stevenson had long ago "found himself"; now he was found by the public.

The names of his two rascally heroes (Dr. Jekyll is even less of a

gentleman than Hyde) became proverbial.

The gruesome parable occupied an interval in the making of what I

suppose is his masterpiece--"Kidnapped." The story centres on the Appin

Murder of 1751, about which he had made inquiries in the neighbourhood

of Rannoch, where Alan Breck skulked after the shooting of Campbell of

Glenure in the hanging wood south of Ballachulish. Stevenson could not

learn who "the other man" was--the real murderer in the romance. I know,

but respect the Celtic secret. The fatal gun was found, very many years

after the deed, by an old woman, in a hollow tree, and it was _not_ the

gun of James Stewart.

(I have a friend whose great-great-grandfather was standing beside James

of the Glens, watching the digging of potatoes. A horse was heard

approaching at such a pace that James said, "Whoever the rider is, the

horse is not his own." As he galloped past, the rider shouted: "Glenure

is shot!" "Who did it I don't know, but I am the man that will hang for

it," said James, too truly.)

Of "Kidnapped," Stevenson said (as Thackeray said of Henry Esmond and

Lady Castlewood, as Scott says of Dugald Dalgetty) that, in this book

alone of his, "the characters took the bit in their teeth," at a certain

point. "It was they who spoke, it was they who wrote the remainder of

the story."

They are spontaneous, they are living. Balfour, in the _scenario_ of the

tale, was to have been kidnapped and carried to the American

plantations. But he and Alan "went their ain gait." At the end, you can

see the pen drop from the weary fingers; they left half-told the story

of Alan, to be continued in "Catriona."

A love of Jacobite times, and of Alan Breck's country, Lochaber,

Glencoe, Mamore, may bias me; but in "Kidnapped" Stevenson appears to me

to reach the height of his genius in designing character and landscape;

in humour, dialogue, and creative power. As in his preceding stories,

there is hardly the flutter of a petticoat, but the tale, like Prince

Charles at Holyrood, can point to a Highland man of the sword, and say,

"These are my beauties." I remember that Mr. Matthew Arnold admired the

story greatly, and _he_ had no Jacobite or local bias.

In May, 1887, Stevenson lost his father, and paid his last visit to his

native country.

It was during this period, in 1886 probably, that I, for the first time,

saw Stevenson confined to bed in one of his frequent illnesses, and

then, also, I saw him for the last time. So emaciated was he (we need

not dwell on what seemed that "last face of Hippocrates"), that we could

not believe there remained for him some crowded years of life and

comparatively healthy and joy-bestowing energy. If the ocean was

henceforth to roll between us, at least he said that we were always best

friends when furthest apart; though, indeed, we were never so intimate

as to be otherwise than friendly. It was never the man that I knew best;

but the genius that I delighted in, "on this side idolatry." Always, in

verse or in prose, in Scots or in English, he made one reader happy; by

a kind of pre-established harmony of taste which might not have

prevailed in the intercourse of every day's life.

In August, 1887, Stevenson left England for ever, arriving at New York

as a lion, hunted by reporters, whom, no doubt, he received with the

majestic courtesy of his own Prince of Bohemia. Two versions of Jekyll

and Hyde were being acted; all this was very unlike the calm

indifference of his native land. It seems that in Jekyll, as "Terryfled"

(in Scott's phrase), there is a "love interest"; love is alien to Dr.

Jekyll, as to the shepherd before he found that Love was a dweller on

the rocks. The Terryfication was, at least, an advertisement. To

advertise himself, in the modern way, Stevenson was not competent. He

never was interviewed as a Celebrity at Home, as far as I am aware.

Indeed, he loved not society papers, and lit a bonfire and danced a

dance around it in his garden, when some editor of a journal of that

sort was committed to prison. His name is not mentioned, but Stevenson

and I had against him a grudge of very old standing.

Dollars in sufficient profusion were offered for his works, and in the

Adirondack Hills, beside a frozen river in the starlit night, he dreamed

of "a story of many years and countries, of the sea and the land,

savagery and civilization." He thought of that old Indian marvel, the

suspended life of the buried fakir, over whose grave the corn is sown

and grown. He thought of an evil genius on whom this method should be

tried in frozen Canadian earth. Thus, what seems like the far-fetched

idea of a wearied fancy in "The Master of Ballantrae" was, from the

first, of the essence of that bitter romance. The new conception fitted

in with a tale, already dreamed of on the Perthshire moors, about the

dark adventurous years of the Jacobite eclipse. The Prince was hidden in

a convent of Paris, or flashing for a moment in the Mall, or cruising, a

dingy bearded wanderer, in Germany or the Netherlands; while his

followers were serving under French colours, under Montcalm or

Lally-Tolendal. Men who had charged side by side at Gledsmuir and

Culloden, might meet as foes in Canada or Hindostan. There is matter

enough, in 1750-1765, for scores of romances, but who now can write

them? But the Master did not now begin his deeds of bale. Stevenson's

stepson, Mr. Osbourne, then very young, himself wrote "The Finsbury

Tontine; or The Game of Bluff," and I was informed at the time by

Stevenson's devoted admirer, Mr. McClure, that the book was completed by

Mr. Osbourne for the Press. Then Stevenson took up the manuscript, and,

as Mr. Osbourne says, "forced the thing to live as it had never lived

before." Indeed, the style of "The Wrong Box" throughout, is Louis's

style in such romantic farces as "The New Arabian Nights," a manner of

his own creation.

I seem to remember that I saw the finished manuscript, or perhaps an

early copy of the book, and I did not care for it. Mr. Kipling rather

surprised me by finding it so very amusing. Mr. Osbourne says that the

story "still retains (it seems to me) a sense of failure," and that the

public does not relish it. For my own part, on later re-readings, the

little farce has made me laugh hysterically at the sorrows of Mr.

William Pitman, that mild drawing-master, caught up and whirled away

into adventures worthy of the great Fortune du Boisgobey. The scene in

which he is described as the American Broadwood, a person inured to a

simple patriarchal life, a being of violent passions; with the immortal

John in the character of the Great Vance; and that joy for ever, Uncle

Joseph, with his deathless thirst for popular information and

instruction--these personages, this "educated insolence," never cease to

amuse. Uncle Joseph is no caricature. But the world likes its

sensational novels to be written with becoming seriousness; in short,

"The Wrong Box" is aimed at a small but devoted circle of admirers.

People constantly ask men who have collaborated how they do the

business? As a rule, so some French collaborator says, "some one is the

dupe, and he is the man of genius." This was not true, too notably, in

the case of Alexandre Dumas, nor was it true in Stevenson's case. As a

rule, one man does the work, and the other looks on, but, again, this

was not the way in which Stevenson and Mr. Osbourne worked. They first

talked over the book together, and ideas were struck out in the

encounter of minds. This practice may, very probably, prove unfruitful,

or even injurious, to many writers; they are confused rather than

assisted. After or during the course of the conversations (when he had

an ally), after reflection, when he had not, Stevenson used to write out

a series of chapter headings. One, I remember, was "The Master of

Ballantrae to the Rescue," an incident in a tale which he began about

the obscure adventures of Prince Charles in 1749-1750. "Ballantrae to

the Rescue"--the sound was promising, but I do not know who was to be

obliged by the Master.

After the list of chapters was completed, Mr. Osbourne used to write the

first draft, "to break the ground," and then each wrote and rewrote, an

indefinite number of times. The style, the general effect produced, are

the style and the effect of Stevenson. "He liked the comradeship." More

care was taken than on a novel of which I and another were greatly

guilty. My partner represented Mr. Nicholas Wogan as rubbing his hands

after a bullet at Fontenoy (as history and I made quite clear) had

deprived Mr. Wogan of one of his arms. There is no such error in the

"Iliad," despite the unnumbered multitude of collaborators detected by

the Higher Criticism.

In June, 1888, Stevenson sailed out on the Pacific in search of health,

and followed the shining shadow through the isles and seas till he made

his last home at Samoa. It was a three years' cruise among "summer isles

of Eden." Perhaps no book of Stevenson's is less popular than his

narrative of storm and calm, of beachcombers and brown Polynesian

princes. The scenery is too exotic for the general taste. The joy and

sorrow of Stevenson was to find a society "in much the same

convulsionary and transitional state" as the Highlands and Islands after

1745. He was always haunted, and in popularity retarded, by History. He

wanted to know about details of savage custom and of superstitious

belief, a taste very far from being universal even in the most highly

cultivated circles, where Folklore is a name of fear. He found among the

natives such fatal Polynesian fairy ladies as they of Glenfinlas, on

whom Scott wrote the ballad. He found a medicine-man who hypnotized him

from behind his back, which nobody at home had been able to do before

his face. He exchanged stories with the clansmen--Scots for Polynesian;

they were much the same in character and incident. He had found, in

Polynesia, the way out of our own present. He met a Polynesian Queen--a

Mary Stuart or a Helen of Troy grown old. "She had been passed from

chief to chief; she had been fought for and taken in war"; a "Queen of

Cannibals, tattooed from head to foot." Now she had reached the Elysian

plain and a windless age, living in religion, as it were: "she passes

all her days with the sisters."

She was not a white woman: none of these people, so courteous and kind,

were white, were up-to-date. In London and New York amateurs did not

want to be told about them in Stevenson's "Letters from the South

Seas." Stevenson "collected songs and legends": fortunately he also

worked at "The Master of Ballantrae," in spite of frequent illnesses,

and many perils of the sea. "The Master of Ballantrae" was finished at

Honolulu; the closing chapters are the work of a weary pen.

He had made tryst with an evil genius that was essential to the

conception of the book, and with a hideous tale of fraternal hatred,

told by a constitutional coward. Everything is under the shadow of

thunder and lit by lightning. A glimpse of Allan Breck, and the

babblings of the Chevalier Bourke, are the only relief. But the life is

as clearly seen as life in Stevenson's books always is, for example when

the guinea is thrown through the stained window pane, or the old

serving-man holds the candle to light the duel of brothers who are born

foes; or as in the final scenes of desperate wanderings in the company

of murderers through Canadian snows. But the book, as Sir Henry Yule

said, is "as grim as the road to Lucknow"--as it was intended to be.

A fresh cruise, in the following year, bettered his health, and brought

him the anecdote of a mystery of the sea which was the germ of "The

Wrecker." He saw Samoa, and bought land there--Vailima--the last and

best of his resting-places; and here he was joined, in 1891, by his

intrepid mother. He was now a lord of land, a householder in his

unpretentious Abbotsford, and "a great chief" among the natives,

distracted as they were by a king _de facto_, and a king over the water,

with the sonorous names of Malietoa and Mataafa. Samoan politics, the

strifes of Germany, England, and the States, were labyrinthine: their

chronicle is written in his "Footnote to History." My conjectures as to

the romantic side of his dealings with the rightful king are vague and

need not be recorded. "You can be in a new conspiracy every day," said

an Irishman with zest, but conspiracies are better things in fiction

than in real life; and Stevenson had no personal ambitions, and, withal,

as much common sense as Shelley displayed in certain late events of his

life. He turned to the half-finished "Wrecker" and completed it.

When the story began to appear in "Scribner's Magazine" it seemed full

of vivacity and promise. The opening scenes in the Pacific were like

Paradise, as the author said, to dwellers in Brixton, or other purlieus

of London. The financial school at which Loudon Dodd was educated in

Stock Exchange flutters was rather less convincing than any dream of

Paradise, but none the less amusing. At home in Edinburgh, with the old

Scottish master of jerry-building and of "plinths," the atmosphere was

truly Scots, tea-coseys and all, while the reminiscences of Paris and

Fontainebleau, and the _grandeurs et miseres_ of "the young

Americo-Parisienne sculptor" were perfectly fresh to the world, though

some of the anecdotes were known to Stevenson's intimates. Mr. James

Pinkerton is a laudable creation, with his loyalty, his innocence, his

total ignorance and complete lack of taste, and his scampers too near

the wind of commercial probity. The spirit of hustle incarnate in a man

otherwise so innocent, the ideals caught from heaven knows what American

works for the young, and the inspired patriotism, the blundering

enthusiastic affection, make the early Pinkerton a study as original as

it is entertaining.

The sale by auction of the wreck, which, by arrangement, is to be

Pinkerton's prey, the mysterious opposition of the other bidder, so

determined to win an object apparently so worthless, is no less

thrilling than the sale of the fur coat in Boisgobey's "Crime de

l'Opera." But the reader knows why the fur coat is so much desired,

whereas I remember being driven so wild by curiosity about the value of

the wreck that I wrote to Louis, desiring to learn the secret. He would

not divulge it, and when, after the voyage to the island and the

excitement of knocking the wreck to pieces were over--when the secret

came out, it was neither pleasant nor probable. That a mild British

amateur of water-colour drawing should have taken part in a massacre of

men, shot painfully with cheap revolvers, was an example of "the

possible improbable," and much more of a tax on belief than the

transformation of Dr. Jekyll. When I mildly urged this criticism, I

learned, by return of post, from a correspondent usually as dilatory as

Wordsworth, that I was a stay-at-home person ignorant of the world, and

of life as it is lived by full-blooded men on the high seas. That was

very true, but the amateur in water-colour was also a mild kind of good

being. "What would I have done with the crew who were such compromising

witnesses, and were butchered?" I would have marooned them.

"The Beach of Falesa" is a revelation of unfamiliar life and character,

and one is attached to the little brown heroine. There was to have been

"a supernatural element," better, probably, than the device of the

AEolian harps hung in the thicket. "I have got the smell and the look of

the thing a good deal," he said, and he had got the style of his rough

English narrator, who was, as he told the missionary, "what you call a

sinner, what I call a sweep," but repented in time.

A period of many projects followed; one, "The Young Chevalier," had a

germ in "The Letter of Henry Goring" (1749-1750), with which I brought

him acquainted, not knowing then that it was merely a romance by the

prolific Eliza Heywood. It was in this tale that the Master of

Ballantrae was to come to the rescue, and I think that a Scottish

assassin (who lurks obscure in real history) and Mandrin, the famed

French robber, were to appear, but only a chapter is published among

other fragments. As it stands, Prince Charles's eyes are alternately

blue and brown; brown was their actual colour--they were like

Stevenson's own.

Fortunately, the "Chevalier" was deserted for the continuation of

"Kidnapped," a sequel which is as good as, or, thanks to the two

heroines, Catriona and Barbara Grant, is even better than, the original.

To think of it is to wish to take it from the shelf and read it again.

It is all excellent, from the scenes where Alan is hiding under a

haystack (suggested by an adventure of the Chevalier Johnstone after

Culloden), and the first meeting with that good daughter of Clan Alpine

and of James Mor, onwards.

Stevenson excited a good deal of odium among fiery Celts by his

scoundrel Master of Lovat. There is no reason, as far as I am aware, to

suppose that Simon was a scoundrel, but, as a figure in fiction, he is

very firmly drawn. The abortive duel of Balfour with the Highland

Ensign, who conceives high esteem of "Palfour," is in the author's best

manner, as are the days of prison in that "unco place, the Bass," and he

was justly proud of the wizard tale of Tod Lapraik. The bristling

demeanour of Alan Breck and James Mor (a very gallant but distinctly

unfortunate son of Rob Roy), seems a correct picture. Indeed, James Mor

was correctly divined, probably from letters of his published in Scott's

"Rob Roy." It does not appear that Stevenson ever saw a number of

James's letters in the character of a spy (a spy who appears to be

carefully bamboozling his employers), which exist in the Newcastle MSS.

in the British Museum. But the James of these letters is the James of

"Catriona." The scenes with the advocates of James of the Glens, at

Inveraray, read as if they had been recorded in shorthand, at the

moment. David himself is, of course, the Lowland prig he is meant to be,

but Catriona, at last, was a moving heroine, though Stevenson, justly,

preferred to her the beautiful Miss Grant, and entirely overcame the

difficulty of making us realise her beauty. The Princess, in "Prince

Otto," is a fair shadow, compared to Miss Grant, and Stevenson at last

convinced most readers that if he had omitted the interest of womanhood,

it was not from incompetence--though it may have been from diffidence.

At this time we used to receive letters from him not infrequently; he

sent me the "Luck of Apemama," which he sacrilegiously purchased from

its holder. This fetish, the palladium of the island, was in one point

remarkable--a very ordinary shell in a perfectly new box of native make.

Why it was thought "great medicine" and ignorantly worshipped, the

pale-face student of magic and religion could not understand. However,

it was the Luck of the island, and when it crossed the sea to Europe a

pestilence of measles fell on the native population. There was no

manifest connection of cause and effect.

Stevenson's letters to me were merely such notes as he might have

written had we both been living within the four-mile radius; usually

notes about books which he needed, always brightened with a quip and

some original application of slang. Occasionally there were rhymes. One

was about a lady:

"Who beckled, beckled, beckled gaily."

Another had the refrain:

"The dibs that take the islands

Are the dollars of Peru."

One long and lively piece was on the Achaean hero of a fantastic romance

by Mr. Rider Haggard and myself: the Ithacan, the Stormer of the City.

Stevenson exclaimed:

"Ye wily auld blackguard,

How far ye hae staggered,

Frae Homer to Haggard

And Lang."

How variously excellent he was as a letter-writer the readers of his

correspondence know, and how vast, considering his labours and his

health, that correspondence is! Often it is freakish, often it is

serious, but except in some epistles of the period of his

apprenticeship, it is never written as if he anticipated the publisher

and the editor. Good examples are his letters to a reviewer, who,

criticizing him without knowing him, wrote as if he were either an

insensible athletic optimist, or a sufferer who was a _poseur_. "The

fact is, consciously or not, you doubt my honesty.... _Any brave man may

make out_ a life which shall be happy for himself, and, by so being,

beneficent to those about him. And if he fail, why should I hear him

weeping?" Why, indeed? Think of Mr. Carlyle! "Did I groan loud, or did I

groan low, Wackford?" said Mr. Squeers. Mr. Carlyle groaned loud,

sometimes with fair reason. Stevenson did not groan at all. If he

posed, if his silence was a pose, it was heroic. But his intellectual

high spirits were almost invincible. If he had a pen in his hand, the

_follet_ of Moliere rode it. Mr. Thomas Emmett, that famous Yorkshire

cricketer, has spoken words of gold: "I was always happy as long as I

was bowling." Stevenson, I think, was almost always happy when he was

writing, when the instrument of his art was in his fingers.

Consider the deliberate and self-conscious glumness; the willful making

the worst of things (in themselves pretty bad, I admit), that mark the

novels of eminent moderns who thrive on their inexpensive pessimism, and

have a name as _Psychologues! Ohe, les Psychologues_! Does anyone

suppose that Stevenson could not have dipped his pencil in squalor and

gloom, and psychology, and "oppositions of science falsely so-called,"

as St. Paul, in the spirit of prophecy, remarks? "Ugliness is only the

prose of horror," he said. "It is when you are not able to write

'Macbeth' that you write 'Therese Raquin' ... In any case, and under any

fashion, the great man produces beauty, terror, and mirth, and the

little man produces----" We know what he produces, and though his books

may be praised as if the little man were a Sophocles up to date, he and

his works are a weariness to think upon. In them is neither beauty,

mirth, nor terror, except the terror of illimitable ennui.

None the less, I believe that the little men of woe are happy; are

enjoying themselves, while they are writing, while they are doing their

best to make the public comfortably miserable. If these authors were as

candid as Stevenson they would admit that they enjoy their "merry days

of desolation," and that the world is not such a bad place for them,

after all. But perhaps before this truth can be accepted and confessed

by these eminent practitioners in pessimism, a gleam of humour must

arise on their darkness--and that is past praying for. There is a burden

of a Scots song which, perhaps, may have sung itself in the ear of

Louis, when life was at its darkest:

_"And werena my heart licht I wad die!"_

Having finished "Catriona," at about the age that Scott had when he

wrote his first novel, "Waverley," Stevenson thought of "Weir of

Hermiston," ("I thought of Mr. Pickwick," says Dickens with admirable

simplicity), and fell to that work furiously, as was his wont when a

great theme dawned on him. But soon, as usual, came the cold fit; his

inspirations being intermittent for some untraced reason, physical or

psychological. Possibly he foresaw the practical difficulty of his

initial idea: that the Roman Father should sit on the bench of Scottish

Themis and try his own son on a capital charge. This would not have been

permitted to occur in Scotland, even when "the Fifteen" were first

constituted into a Court. If humane emotions did not forbid, it must

have been clear that no Scottish judge (they were not "kinless loons")

would have permitted his son to be found guilty. Conceivably this

damping circumstance occurred to Stevenson. He dropped, for a while, the

hanging judge, and began "St. Ives" as a short story. It was now that,

early in 1893, under an attack of hemorrhage, Stevenson dictated his

tale to his stepdaughter, on his fingers, in the gesture alphabet of the

dumb. Perhaps this feat is as marvelous as Scott's dictating "The Bride

of Lammermoor," _in tormentis_, to Will Laidlaw.

We see how his maladies hung on Stevenson's flank, even in Samoa, where

his health had so remarkably improved, and permitted to him unwonted

activities. After a visit to Sydney, he took up "The Ebb-Tide" in

collaboration with Mr. Osbourne, whose draft of the first chapters he

warmly applauded. It is not one of his central successes. His pencil was

dipped in moral gloom, but even to the odious Cockney scoundrel, Huish,

his Shakespearian tolerance accorded the virtue of indomitable courage.

He could not help filling the book full with his abundant vitality and

his keen observation of the islands and the beachcombers. The thing, to

use an obsolete piece of slang, is _vecu_. There were other projects,

many of them, which dawned rosily, and faded into the grey; and there

was the rich and copious correspondence dated from Vailima. His friends,

no doubt, hearing of his good health, now and then, hoped to see his

face again; the grouse on the hills of home were calling their eternal

_Come back! come back!_

Stevenson, who himself could live contentedly on so little, was the most

open-handed of men, the most liberal and cheerful of givers; and whether

to Samoans in distressful times, or to others who sought his aid, his

purse was never closed; while his hospitality was like Sir Walter's.

Probably, in his hour of greatest success, he never was among "the best

sellers." But any financial anxieties which may have beset him were

assuaged, and his heart was greatly held up, by the success of the

beautiful "Edinburgh Edition" of his works, conceived and carried out by

the energy of his friend of old Edinburgh days, Mr. Charles Baxter.

His latest work was "Weir of Hermiston"; the plenitude of his genius

shines in every page. He himself thought that this was his best work;

so far as we can judge by the considerable fragment that exists, he

was in the right. There is nothing immature, nothing here of the boy;

he is approaching, in his tale, a fateful point of passion and

disaster; his characters, especially the elder woman, the nurse, are

entirely human, with no touch of caprice; they all live their separate

lives in our memories. Then the end came. One moment of bewildered

consciousness--then unconsciousness and death. He had written to me,

some months before, a letter full of apprehensions of the fate of

Scott and Swift; whether warned by some monitory experience, or

whether he had merely chanced to be thinking of the two great men who

outlived themselves. To him death had come almost as a friend in the

fullness of his powers; there was no touch of weakness or decay, and

he was mourned like a king by his Samoans, by his family, by all who

had known him, and by many thousands who had never seen his face.

There was mourning at home in Scotland (where we hoped against hope

that the news was untrue), in England, in Europe, in America, in

Australia and the Isles. He who had been such "a friendly writer," who

had created for us so many friends in his characters, had made more

friends for himself, friends more and more various in age, race,

tastes, character, and temper, than any British writer, perhaps, since

Dickens. He was taken from us untimely; broken was our strong hope in

the future gifts of his genius, and there was a pain that does not

attend the peaceful passing, in the fullness of years and wisdom and

honour, of an immortal like Tennyson.

Any attempt by a contemporary to "place" Stevenson, to give him his

"class" in English literature, would be a folly. The future must judge

for itself, and, if we may estimate the taste of the future by that of

the present, the reading public will not often look behind the most

recent publications of its own day. But _les delicats_ will look back on

Stevenson as they now look back on Fielding, who, to my simple thinking,

remains unsurpassed as a novelist; and as they turn to Lamb and Hazlitt

as essayists. The poet is, of course, at his best immortal--time cannot

stale _Beowulf_, or the nameless lyrists of the fourteenth century, or

Chaucer, or Spenser, and so with the rest, _la mort n'y mord_. But it is

as a writer of prose that Stevenson must be remembered. If he is not the

master British essayist of the later nineteenth century, I really cannot

imagine who is to be preferred to him. His vivacity, vitality, his

original reflections on life, his personal and fascinating style, claim

for him the crown. Nobody, perhaps, places him beside Lamb, and he would

not have dreamed of being equaled in renown with Hazlitt, while he is,

I conceive, more generally sympathetic than Mr. Pater, whose place is

apart, whose province is entirely his own. When we think of Stevenson as

a novelist, there is this conspicuous drawback, that he never did write

a novel on characters and conditions in the mid-stream of the life that

was contemporary with himself. He does not compete, therefore, with

Thackeray and Dickens, Mr. Hardy and Mr. Meredith, but Scott is also no

competitor.

"St. Ronan's Well" is Scott's only novel that deals with precisely

contemporary life, and "St. Ronan's Well" is a kind of backwater; the

story of a remote contemporary watering-place, of local squireens, and

of a tragedy, mangled in deference to James Ballantyne. Scott did not

often care to trust himself out of the last echoes of "the pipes that

played for Charlie," and though his knowledge of contemporary life was

infinitely wider than Stevenson's, we see many good reasons for his

abstention from use of his knowledge. For example, it is obvious that he

could not attempt a romance of the War in the Peninsula, and of life in

London, let us say, while Wellington was holding Torres Vedras. Even

among Stevenson's abandoned projects, there is not, I think, one which

deals with English society in the 'eighties. His health and his fugitive

life imposed on him those limitations against which his taste did not

rebel, for his taste led him to the past, and to adventure in a present

not English, but exotic. He is not in the same field, so to speak, as

Richardson and Fielding, Dickens and Thackeray, Mr. Hardy and Mr.

Meredith; and their field, the great living world of their time, is what

the general reader wants the novelist to deal with as he best may.

Shakespeare, to be sure, wrote no drama on Elizabethan times in England;

we must go to Heywood and Ben Jonson for the drama of his contemporary

world. Many circumstances caused Stevenson, when at his best, to be a

historical novelist, and he is, since Scott and Thackeray, the best

historical novelist whom we have.

Add to all this his notable eminence in tales of shorter scope; in

essays, whether on life or on literature, so various and original, so

graceful and so strong; add the fantasies of his fables, and remember

that almost all he did is good--and we must, I think, give to Stevenson

a very high place in the literature of his century.

Of his verse I have hitherto said nothing, and I do not think that if he

had written verse alone, his place would have been highly distinguished.

His "Child's Garden of Verse" is a little masterpiece in a _genre_ of

his own invention. His verses in Scots are full of humour, and he had a

complete mastery of the old Northern English of the Lowlands. His more

serious poems often contain ideas and the expression of moods which he

handled better, I think, in his prose. Even the story of "Ticonderoga" I

would rather have received from him in prose than in his ballad measure.

Possibly I am prejudiced a little by his willfulness in giving to a

Cameron the part of the generous hero; true to his word, in spite of the

desire to avenge a brother, and of the thrice-repeated monition of the

dead. It is not that I grudge any glory to the children of Lochiel, a

clan, in General Wolfe's opinion, the bravest where all were brave, a

clan of constant and boundless loyalty. But in Stevenson's own note to

his poem, the Cameron "swears by his sword and Ben Cruachan," and

"Cruachan" is a slogan of the Campbells. The hero, as a matter of fact,

was a Campbell of Inverawe. "Between the name of _Cameron_ and that of

_Campbell_ the Muse will never hesitate," says Stevenson. One name means

"Wry mouth," the other "Crooked nose"; so far, the Muse has a poor

choice! But the tale is a tale of the Campbells, of Clan Diarmaid, and

the Muse must adhere to the historic truth.

This essay must not close on a difference of opinion concerning

historical events--a jarring note.

There are points enough in Stevenson's character and opinions which I

have not touched; such as his religious views. He never mentioned the

topic of religion in my hearing; it is to his printed words that the

reader must turn, and he cannot but perceive that Stevenson's was a

deeply religious nature. With his faith, whatever its tenets may have

been, was implicated his uneasily active conscience; his sense of duty.

This appears to have directed his life; and was practically the same

thing as his sense of honour. Honour, I conceive, is, in a phrase of

Aristotle's, duty "with a bloom on it."

Readers of his Letters, and of his Biography by his cousin, Mr. Balfour;

readers of his essays, and of his novels, must see that he was keenly

interested in cases of conscience; in the right course to steer in an

apparent conflict of duties. To say that his theory of the right course,

in a hypothetical instance, was always the same as my own would be to

abuse the confidence of the reader. As Preston-grange observes: "I would

never charge myself with Mr. David's conscience; and if you could cast

some part of it (as you went by) in a moss bog, you would find yourself

to ride much easier without it"; and _not_, perhaps, always in the wrong

direction. There is a case of conscience in "The Wrecker," something

about opium-smuggling, and the conscience of Mr. Loudon Dodd (a truly

Balfourian character), which I have studied, aided by other casuists,

for a summer's day. We never could agree as to what the case really was,

as to what was the moral issue.

Casuistry may not be my strong point. I have found myself between no

less authorities than a Chancellor of England and a learned Jesuit, both

of whom, I thought, would certainly accept my view of a very unusual

case of conduct. A certain cleric, in his ecclesiastical duties,

happened to overhear an automatically uttered remark by another person;

who never meant to speak or to be overheard. The cleric acted on this

information, with results distressing to a pair of true lovers. I

maintained that he did wrong. "There was no appeal," I said, "to the

umpire. Nobody in the field asked 'How's that?'" But the Chancellor and

the learned Jesuit backed the clergyman.

Now, I never knew for certain how "Mr. David's conscience" would decide,

but I think he would have been with me on this occasion, and with the

Rules of the Game.

There was a very pleasant trait in Stevenson's character which, perhaps,

does not display itself in most of his writings; his great affection for

children. In "A Child's Garden of Verse," delightful as it is, and not

to be read without "a great inclination to cry," the child is himself,

the child "that is gone." But, in an early letter, he writes: "Kids is

what is the matter with me ... Children are too good to be true." He had

a natural infatuation, so to say, for children as children, which many

men of the pen overcome with no apparent difficulty. He could not

overcome it; little boys and girls were his delight, and he was theirs.

At Molokai, the Leper Island, he played croquet with the little girls;

refusing to wear gloves, lest he should remind them of their condition.

Sensitive and weak in body as he was, Nelson was not more fearless. It

was equally characteristic of another quality of his, the open hand,

that he gave a grand piano to these leper children.

He says:

"But the nearest friends are the auldest friends,

And the grave's the place to seek them."

Among the nearest and the oldest friends of his I never was, but to few

friends, nearer and older, does my _desiderium_ go back so frequently;

simply because almost every day brings something newly learned or known,

which would have appealed most to his unequaled breadth of knowledge

and interest and sympathy.

ANDREW LANG.

AN INLAND VOYAGE

"Thus sang they in the English boat."

MARVELL.

_TO_

_SIR WALTER GRINDLAY SIMPSON, BART._

_My dear "Cigarette,"_

_It was enough that you should have shared so liberally in the rains and

portages of our voyage; that you should have had so hard a paddle to

recover the derelict "Arethusa" on the flooded Oise: and that you should

thenceforth have piloted a mere wreck of mankind to Origny

Sainte-Benoite and a supper so eagerly desired. It was perhaps more than

enough, as you once somewhat piteously complained, that I should have

set down all the strong language to you, and kept the appropriate

reflections for myself. I could not in decency expose you to share the

disgrace of another and more public shipwreck. But now that this voyage

of ours is going into a cheap edition, that peril, we shall hope, is at

an end, and I may put your name on the burgee._

_But I cannot pause till I have lamented the fate of our two ships. That,

sir, was not a fortunate day when we projected the possession of a canal

barge; it was not a fortunate day when we shared our daydream with the

most hopeful of daydreamers. For a while, indeed, the world looked

smilingly. The barge was procured and christened, and as the "Eleven

Thousand Virgins of Cologne," lay for some months, the admired of all

admirers, in a pleasant river and under the walls of an ancient town. M.

Mattras, the accomplished carpenter of Moret, had made her a centre of

emulous labour; and you will not have forgotten the amount of sweet

champagne consumed in the inn at the bridge end, to give zeal to the

workmen and speed to the work. On the financial aspect I would_ _not

willingly dwell. The "Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne" rotted in the

stream where she was beautified. She felt not the impulse of the breeze;

she was never harnessed to the patent track-horse. And when at length

she was sold, by the indignant carpenter of Moret, there were sold along

with her the "Arethusa" and the "Cigarette", she of cedar, she, as we

knew so keenly on a portage, of solid-hearted English oak. Now these

historic vessels fly the tricolour and are known by new and alien

names._

_R. L. S._

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

To equip so small a book with a preface is, I am half afraid, to sin

against proportion. But a preface is more than an author can resist, for

it is the reward of his labours. When the foundation-stone is laid, the

architect appears with his plans, and struts for an hour before the

public eye. So with the writer in his preface: he may have never a word

to say, but he must show himself for a moment in the portico, hat in

hand, and with an urbane demeanour.

It is best, in such circumstances, to represent a delicate shade of

manner between humility and superiority: as if the book had been written

by someone else, and you had merely run over it and inserted what was

good. But for my part I have not yet learned the trick to that

perfection; I am not yet able to dissemble the warmth of my sentiments

towards a reader; and if I meet him on the threshold, it is to invite

him in with country cordiality.

To say truth, I had no sooner finished reading this little book in

proof, than I was seized upon by a distressing apprehension. It occurred

to me that I might not only be the first to read these pages, but the

last as well; that I might have pioneered this very smiling tract of

country all in vain, and find not a soul to follow in my steps. The more

I thought, the more I disliked the notion; until the distaste grew into

a sort of panic terror, and I rushed into this Preface, which is no more

than an advertisement for readers.

What am I to say for my book? Caleb and Joshua brought back from

Palestine a formidable bunch of grapes; alas! my book produces naught so

nourishing; and for the matter of that, we live in an age when people

prefer a definition to any quantity of fruit.

I wonder, would a negative be found enticing? for, from the negative

point of view, I flatter myself this volume has a certain stamp.

Although it runs to considerably upwards of two hundred pages, it

contains not a single reference to the imbecility of God's universe, nor

so much as a single hint that I could have made a better one myself.--I

really do not know where my head can have been. I seem to have forgotten

all that makes it glorious to be man.--'Tis an omission that renders the

book philosophically unimportant; but I am in hopes the eccentricity may

please in frivolous circles.

To the friend who accompanied me I owe many thanks already, indeed I

wish I owed him nothing else; but at this moment I feel towards him an

almost exaggerated tenderness. He, at least, will become my reader:--if

it were only to follow his own travels alongside of mine.

R. L. S.

AN INLAND VOYAGE

ANTWERP TO BOOM

We made a great stir in Antwerp Docks. A stevedore and a lot of dock

porters took up the two canoes, and ran with them for the slip. A crowd

of children followed cheering. The _Cigarette_ went off in a splash and

a bubble of small breaking water. Next moment the _Arethusa_ was after

her. A steamer was coming down, men on the paddle-box shouted hoarse

warnings, the stevedore and his porters were bawling from the quay. But

in a stroke or two the canoes were away out in the middle of the

Scheldt, and all steamers, and stevedores, and other long-shore vanities

were left behind.

The sun shone brightly; the tide was making--four jolly miles an hour;

the wind blew steadily, with occasional squalls. For my part, I had

never been in a canoe under sail in my life; and my first experiment out

in the middle of this big river was not made without some trepidation.

What would happen when the wind first caught my little canvas? I suppose

it was almost as trying a venture into the regions of the unknown as to

publish a first book, or to marry. But my doubts were not of long

duration; and in five minutes you will not be surprised to learn that I

had tied my sheet.

I own I was a little struck by this circumstance myself; of course, in

company with the rest of my fellow-men, I had always tied the sheet in a

sailing-boat; but in so little and crank a concern as a canoe, and with

these charging squalls, I was not prepared to find myself follow the

same principle; and it inspired me with some contemptuous views of our

regard for life. It is certainly easier to smoke with the sheet

fastened; but I had never before weighed a comfortable pipe of tobacco

against an obvious risk, and gravely elected for the comfortable pipe.

It is a commonplace, that we cannot answer for ourselves before we have

been tried. But it is not so common a reflection, and surely more

consoling, that we usually find ourselves a great deal braver and better

than we thought. I believe this is every one's experience: but an

apprehension that they may belie themselves in the future prevents

mankind from trumpeting this cheerful sentiment abroad. I wish

sincerely, for it would have saved me much trouble, there had been some

one to put me in a good heart about life when I was younger; to tell me

how dangers are most portentous on a distant sight; and how the good in

a man's spirit will not suffer itself to be overlaid, and rarely or

never deserts him in the hour of need. But we are all for tootling on

the sentimental flute in literature; and not a man among us will go to

the head of the march to sound the heady drums.

It was agreeable upon the river. A barge or two went past laden with

hay. Reeds and willows bordered the stream; and cattle and grey

venerable horses came and hung their mild heads over the embankment.

Here and there was a pleasant village among trees, with a noisy

shipping-yard; here and there a villa in a lawn. The wind served us well

up the Scheldt and thereafter up the Rupel, and we were running pretty

free when we began to sight the brickyards of Boom, lying for a long way

on the right bank of the river. The left bank was still green and

pastoral, with alleys of trees along the embankment, and here and there

a flight of steps to serve a ferry, where perhaps there sat a woman with

her elbows on her knees, or an old gentleman with a staff and silver

spectacles. But Boom and its brickyards grew smokier and shabbier with

every minute; until a great church with a clock, and a wooden bridge

over the river, indicated the central quarters of the town.

Boom is not a nice place, and is only remarkable for one thing: that the

majority of the inhabitants have a private opinion that they can speak

English, which is not justified by fact. This gave a kind of haziness to

our intercourse. As for the Hotel de la Navigation, I think it is the

worst feature of the place. It boasts of a sanded parlour, with a bar at

one end, looking on the street; and another sanded parlour, darker and

colder, with an empty bird-cage and a tricolor subscription box by way

of sole adornment, where we made shift to dine in the company of three

uncommunicative engineer apprentices and a silent bagman. The food, as

usual in Belgium, was of a nondescript occasional character; indeed, I

have never been able to detect anything in the nature of a meal among

this pleasing people; they seem to peck and trifle with viands all day

long in an amateur spirit: tentatively French, truly German, and somehow

falling between the two.

The empty bird-cage, swept and garnished, and with no trace of the old

piping favourite, save where two wires had been pushed apart to hold its

lump of sugar, carried with it a sort of graveyard cheer. The engineer

apprentices would have nothing to say to us, nor indeed to the bagman;

but talked low and sparingly to one another, or raked us in the gaslight

with a gleam of spectacles. For though handsome lads, they were all (in

the Scots phrase) barnacled.

There was an English maid in the hotel, who had been long enough out of

England to pick up all sorts of funny foreign idioms, and all sorts of

curious foreign ways, which need not here be specified. She spoke to us

very fluently in her jargon, asked us information as to the manners of

the present day in England, and obligingly corrected us when we

attempted to answer. But as we were dealing with a woman, perhaps our

information was not so much thrown away as it appeared. The sex likes to

pick up knowledge and yet preserve its superiority. It is good policy,

and almost necessary in the circumstances. If a man finds a woman admire

him, were it only for his acquaintance with geography, he will begin at

once to build upon the admiration. It is only by unintermittent snubbing

that the pretty ones can keep us in our place. Men, as Miss Howe or Miss

Harlowe would have said, "are such _encroachers_." For my part, I am

body and soul with the women; and after a well-married couple, there is

nothing so beautiful in the world as the myth of the divine huntress. It

is no use for a man to take to the woods; we know him; St. Anthony tried

the same thing long ago, and had a pitiful time of it by all accounts.

But there is this about some women, which overtops the best gymnosophist

among men, that they suffice to themselves, and can walk in a high and

cold zone without the countenance of any trousered being. I declare,

although the reverse of a professed ascetic, I am more obliged to women

for this ideal than I should be to the majority of them, or indeed to

any but one, for a spontaneous kiss. There is nothing so encouraging as

the spectacle of self-sufficiency. And when I think of the slim and

lovely maidens, running the woods all night to the note of Diana's horn;

moving among the old oaks, as fancy-free as they; things of the forest

and the starlight, not touched by the commotion of man's hot and turbid

life--although there are plenty other ideals that I should prefer--I

find my heart beat at the thought of this one. 'Tis to fail in life, but

to fail with what a grace! That is not lost which is not regretted. And

where--here slips out the male--where would be much of the glory of

inspiring love, if there were no contempt to overcome?

ON THE WILLEBROEK CANAL

Next morning, when we set forth on the Willebroek Canal, the rain began

heavy and chill. The water of the canal stood at about the drinking

temperature of tea; and under this cold aspersion the surface was

covered with steam. The exhilaration of departure, and the easy motion

of the boats under each stroke of the paddles, supported us through this

misfortune while it lasted; and when the cloud passed and the sun came

out again, our spirits went up above the range of stay-at-home humours.

A good breeze rustled and shivered in the rows of trees that bordered

the canal. The leaves flickered in and out of the light in tumultuous

masses. It seemed sailing weather to eye and ear; but down between the

banks, the wind reached us only in faint and desultory puffs. There was

hardly enough to steer by. Progress was intermittent and unsatisfactory.

A jocular person, of marine antecedents, hailed us from the tow-path

with a "_C'est vite, mais c'est long_."

The canal was busy enough. Every now and then we met or overtook a long

string of boats, with great green tillers; high sterns with a window on

either side of the rudder, and perhaps a jug or a flower-pot in one of

the windows; a dinghy following behind; a woman busied about the day's

dinner, and a handful of children. These barges were all tied one behind

the other with tow ropes, to the number of twenty-five or thirty; and

the line was headed and kept in motion by a steamer of strange

construction. It had neither paddle-wheel nor screw; but by some gear

not rightly comprehensible to the unmechanical mind, it fetched up over

its bow a small bright chain which lay along the bottom of the canal,

and paying it out again over the stern, dragged itself forward, link by

link, with its whole retinue of loaded skows. Until one had found out

the key to the enigma, there was something solemn and uncomfortable in

the progress of one of these trains, as it moved gently along the water

with nothing to mark its advance but an eddy alongside dying away into

the wake.

Of all the creatures of commercial enterprise, a canal barge is by far

the most delightful to consider. It may spread its sails, and then you

see it sailing high above the tree-tops and the windmill, sailing on the

aqueduct, sailing through the green corn-lands: the most picturesque of

things amphibious. Or the horse plods along at a foot-pace, as if there

were no such thing as business in the world; and the man dreaming at the

tiller sees the same spire on the horizon all day long. It is a mystery

how things ever get to their destination at this rate; and to see the

barges waiting their turn at a lock affords a fine lesson of how easily

the world may be taken. There should be many contented spirits on board,

for such a life is both to travel and to stay at home.

The chimney smokes for dinner as you go along; the banks of the canal

slowly unroll their scenery to contemplative eyes; the barge floats by

great forests and through great cities with their public buildings and

their lamps at night; and for the barge, in his floating home,

"travelling abed," it is merely as if he were listening to another man's

story or turning the leaves of a picture-book in which he had no

concern. He may take his afternoon walk in some foreign country on the

banks of the canal, and then come home to dinner at his own fireside.

There is not enough exercise in such a life for any high measure of

health; but a high measure of health is only necessary for unhealthy

people. The slug of a fellow, who is never ill nor well, has a quiet

time of it in life, and dies all the easier.

I am sure I would rather be a barge than occupy any position under

heaven that required attendance at an office. There are few callings, I

should say, where a man gives up less of his liberty in return for

regular meals. The barge is on shipboard--he is master in his own

ship--he can land whenever he will--he can never be kept beating off a

lee-shore a whole frosty night when the sheets are as hard as iron; and,

so far as I can make out, time stands as nearly still with him as is

compatible with the return of bed-time or the dinner-hour. It is not

easy to see why a barge should ever die.

Half-way between Willebroek and Villevorde, in a beautiful reach of

canal like a squire's avenue, we went ashore to lunch. There were two

eggs, a junk of bread, and a bottle of wine on board the _Arethusa_; and

two eggs and an Etna cooking apparatus on board the _Cigarette_. The

master of the latter boat smashed one of the eggs in the course of

disembarkation; but observing pleasantly that it might still be cooked

_a la papier_, he dropped it into the Etna, in its covering of Flemish

newspaper. We landed in a blink of fine weather; but we had not been two

minutes ashore before the wind freshened into half a gale, and the rain

began to patter on our shoulders. We sat as close about the Etna as we

could. The spirits burned with great ostentation; the grass caught flame

every minute or two, and had to be trodden out; and before long, there

were several burnt fingers of the party. But the solid quantity of

cookery accomplished was out of proportion with so much display; and

when we desisted, after two applications of the fire, the sound egg was

little more than loo-warm; and as for _a la papier_, it was a cold and

sordid _fricassee_ of printer's ink and broken egg-shell. We made shift

to roast the other two, by putting them close to the burning spirits;

and that with better success. And then we uncorked the bottle of wine,

and sat down in a ditch with our canoe aprons over our knees. It rained

smartly. Discomfort, when it is honestly uncomfortable and makes no

nauseous pretensions to the contrary, is a vastly humorous business; and

people well steeped and stupefied in the open air are in a good vein for

laughter. From this point of view, even egg _a la papier_ offered by way

of food may pass muster as a sort of accessory to the fun. But this

manner of jest, although it may be taken in good part, does not invite

repetition; and from that time forward, the Etna voyaged like a

gentleman in the locker of the _Cigarette_.

It is almost unnecessary to mention that when lunch was over and we got

aboard again and made sail, the wind promptly died away. The rest of the

journey to Villevorde, we still spread our canvas to the unfavouring

air; and with now and then a puff, and now and then a spell of paddling,

drifted along from lock to lock, between the orderly trees.

It was a fine, green, fat landscape; or rather a mere green water-lane,

going on from village to village. Things had a settled look, as in

places long lived in. Crop-headed children spat upon us from the bridges

as we went below, with a true conservative feeling. But even more

conservative were the fishermen, intent upon their floats, who let us go

by without one glance. They perched upon sterlings and buttresses and

along the slope of the embankment, gently occupied. They were

indifferent, like pieces of dead nature. They did not move any more than

if they had been fishing in an old Dutch print. The leaves fluttered,

the water lapped, but they continued in one stay like so many churches

established by law. You might have trepanned every one of their innocent

heads, and found no more than so much coiled fishing-line below their

skulls. I do not care for your stalwart fellows in india-rubber

stockings breasting up mountain torrents with a salmon rod; but I do

dearly love the class of man who plies his unfruitful art, for ever and

a day, by still and depopulated waters.

At the last lock, just beyond Villevorde, there was a lock-mistress who

spoke French comprehensibly, and told us we were still a couple of

leagues from Brussels. At the same place the rain began again. It fell

in straight, parallel lines; and the surface of the canal was thrown up

into an infinity of little crystal fountains. There were no beds to be

had in the neighbourhood. Nothing for it but to lay the sails aside and

address ourselves to steady paddling in the rain.

Beautiful country houses, with clocks and long lines of shuttered

windows, and fine old trees standing in groves and avenues, gave a rich

and sombre aspect in the rain and the deepening dusk to the shores of

the canal. I seem to have seen something of the same effect in

engravings: opulent landscapes, deserted and overhung with the passage

of storm. And throughout we had the escort of a hooded cart, which

trotted shabbily along the tow-path, and kept at an almost uniform

distance in our wake.

THE ROYAL SPORT NAUTIQUE

The rain took off near Laeken. But the sun was already down; the air was

chill; and we had scarcely a dry stitch between the pair of us. Nay, now

we found ourselves near the end of the Allee Verte, and on the very

threshold of Brussels, we were confronted by a serious difficulty. The

shores were closely lined by canal boats waiting their turn at the lock.

Nowhere was there any convenient landing-place; nowhere so much as a

stable-yard to leave the canoes in for the night. We scrambled ashore

and entered an _estaminet_ where some sorry fellows were drinking with

the landlord. The landlord was pretty round with us; he knew of no

coach-house or stable-yard, nothing of the sort; and seeing we had come

with no mind to drink, he did not conceal his impatience to be rid of

us. One of the sorry fellows came to the rescue. Somewhere in the corner

of the basin there was a slip, he informed us, and something else

besides, not very clearly defined by him, but hopefully construed by his

hearers.

Sure enough there was the slip in the corner of the basin, and at the

top of it two nice-looking lads in boating clothes. The _Arethusa_

addressed himself to these. One of them said there would be no

difficulty about a night's lodging for our boats; and the other, taking

a cigarette from his lips, inquired if they were made by Searle and Son.

The name was quite an introduction. Half a dozen other young men came

out of a boat-house bearing the superscription ROYAL SPORT NAUTIQUE, and

joined in the talk. They were all very polite, voluble, and

enthusiastic; and their discourse was interlarded with English boating

terms, and the names of English boat-builders and English clubs. I do

not know, to my shame, any spot in my native land where I should have

been so warmly received by the same number of people. We were English

boating-men, and the Belgian boating-men fell upon our necks. I wonder

if French Huguenots were as cordially greeted by English Protestants

when they came across the Channel out of great tribulation. But, after

all, what religion knits people so closely as a common sport?

The canoes were carried into the boat-house; they were washed down for

us by the Club servants, the sails were hung out to dry, and everything

made as snug and tidy as a picture. And in the meanwhile we were led

upstairs by our new-found brethren, for so more than one of them stated

the relationship, and made free of their lavatory. This one lent us

soap, that one a towel, a third and fourth helped us to undo our bags.

And all the time such questions, such assurances of respect and

sympathy! I declare I never knew what glory was before.

"Yes, yes; the _Royal Sport Nautique_ is the oldest club in Belgium."

"We number two hundred."

"We"--this is not a substantive speech, but an abstract of many

speeches, the impression left upon my mind after a great deal of talk;

and very youthful, pleasant, natural, and patriotic it seems to me to

be--"We have gained all races, except those where we were cheated by the

French."

"You must leave all your wet things to be dried."

"O! _entre freres!_ In any boat-house in England we should find the

same." (I cordially hope they might.)

"_En Angleterre, vous employez des sliding-seats, n'est-ce pas?_"

"We are all employed in commerce during the day; but in the evening,

_voyez-vous, nous sommes serieux_."

These were the words. They were all employed over the frivolous

mercantile concerns of Belgium during the day; but in the evening they

found some hours for the serious concerns of life. I may have a wrong

idea of wisdom, but I think that was a very wise remark. People

connected with literature and philosophy are busy all their days in

getting rid of second-hand notions and false standards. It is their

profession, in the sweat of their brows, by dogged thinking, to recover

their old fresh view of life, and distinguish what they really and

originally like, from what they have only learned to tolerate perforce.

And these Royal Nautical Sportsmen had the distinction still quite

legible in their hearts. They had still those clean perceptions of what

is nice and nasty, what is interesting and what is dull, which envious

old gentlemen refer to as illusions. The nightmare illusion of middle

age, the bear's hug of custom gradually squeezing the life out of a

man's soul, had not yet begun for these happy-starred young Belgians.

They still knew that the interest they took in their business was a

trifling affair compared to their spontaneous, long-suffering affection

for nautical sports. To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying

Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept

your soul alive. Such a man may be generous; he may be honest in

something more than the commercial sense; he may love his friends with

an elective, personal sympathy, and not accept them as an adjunct of the

station to which he has been called. He may be a man, in short, acting

on his own instincts, keeping in his own shape that God made him in; and

not a mere crank in the social engine-house, welded on principles that

he does not understand, and for purposes that he does not care for.

For will any one dare to tell me that business is more entertaining than

fooling among boats? He must have never seen a boat, or never seen an

office, who says so. And for certain the one is a great deal better for

the health. There should be nothing so much a man's business as his

amusements. Nothing but money-grubbing can be put forward to the

contrary; no one but

Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell

From Heaven,

durst risk a word in answer. It is but a lying cant that would represent

the merchant and the banker as people disinterestedly toiling for

mankind, and then most useful when they are most absorbed in their

transactions; for the man is more important than his services. And when

my Royal Nautical Sportsman shall have so far fallen from his hopeful

youth that he cannot pluck up an enthusiasm over anything but his

ledger, I venture to doubt whether he will be near so nice a fellow, and

whether he would welcome, with so good a grace, a couple of drenched

Englishmen paddling into Brussels in the dusk.

When we had changed our wet clothes and drunk a glass of pale ale to the

Club's prosperity, one of their number escorted us to an hotel. He would

not join us at our dinner, but he had no objection to a glass of wine.

Enthusiasm is very wearing; and I begin to understand why prophets were

unpopular in Judea, where they were best known. For three stricken

hours did this excellent young man sit beside us to dilate on boats and

boat-races; and before he left, he was kind enough to order our bedroom

candles.

We endeavoured now and again to change the subject; but the diversion

did not last a moment: the Royal Nautical Sportsman bridled, shied,

answered the question, and then breasted once more into the swelling

tide of his subject. I call it his subject; but I think it was he who

was subjected. The _Arethusa_, who holds all racing as a creature of the

devil, found himself in a pitiful dilemma. He durst not own his

ignorance, for the honour of Old England, and spoke away about English

clubs and English oarsmen whose fame had never before come to his ears.

Several times, and, once above all, on the question of sliding-seats,

he was within an ace of exposure. As for the _Cigarette_, who has rowed

races in the heat of his blood, but now disowns these slips of his

wanton youth, his case was still more desperate; for the Royal Nautical

proposed that he should take an oar in one of their eights on the

morrow, to compare the English with the Belgian stroke. I could see my

friend perspiring in his chair whenever that particular topic came up.

And there was yet another proposal which had the same effect on both of

us. It appeared that the champion canoeist of Europe (as well as most

other champions) was a Royal Nautical Sportsman. And if we would only

wait until the Sunday, this infernal paddler would be so condescending

as to accompany us on our next stage. Neither of us had the least desire

to drive the coursers of the sun against Apollo.

When the young man was gone, we countermanded our candles, and ordered

some brandy and water. The great billows had gone over our head. The

Royal Nautical Sportsmen were as nice young fellows as a man would wish

to see, but they were a trifle too young and a thought too nautical for

us. We began to see that we were old and cynical; we liked ease and the

agreeable rambling of the human mind about this and the other subject;

we did not want to disgrace our native land by messing an eight, or

toiling pitifully in the wake of the champion canoeist. In short, we had

recourse to flight. It seemed ungrateful, but we tried to make that good

on a card loaded with sincere compliments. And indeed it was no time for

scruples; we seemed to feel the hot breath of the champion on our

necks.

AT MAUBEUGE

Partly from the terror we had of our good friends the Royal Nauticals,

partly from the fact that there were no fewer than fifty-five locks

between Brussels and Charleroi, we concluded that we should travel by

train across the frontier, boats and all. Fifty-five locks in a day's

journey was pretty well tantamount to trudging the whole distance on

foot, with the canoes upon our shoulders, an object of astonishment to

the trees on the canal side, and of honest derision to all

right-thinking children.

To pass the frontier even in a train is a difficult matter for the

_Arethusa_. He is somehow or other a marked man for the official eye.

Wherever he journeys there are the officers gathered together. Treaties

are solemnly signed, foreign ministers, ambassadors, and consuls sit

throned in state from China to Peru, and the Union Jack flutters on all

the winds of heaven. Under these safeguards, portly clergymen,

schoolmistresses, gentlemen in grey tweed suits, and all the ruck and

rabble of British touristry pour unhindered, "Murray" in hand, over the

railways of the Continent, and yet the slim person of the _Arethusa_ is

taken in the meshes, while these great fish go on their way rejoicing.

If he travels without a passport, he is cast, without any figure about

the matter, into noisome dungeons: if his papers are in order, he is

suffered to go his way indeed, but not until he has been humiliated by a

general incredulity. He is a born British subject, yet he has never

succeeded in persuading a single official of his nationality. He

flatters himself he is indifferent honest; yet he is rarely taken for

anything better than a spy, and there is no absurd and disreputable

means of livelihood but has been attributed to him in some heat of

official or popular distrust....

For the life of me I cannot understand it. I, too, have been knolled to

church, and sat at good men's feasts; but I bear no mark of it. I am as

strange as a Jack Indian to their official spectacles. I might come from

any part of the globe, it seems, except from where I do. My ancestors

have laboured in vain, and the glorious Constitution cannot protect me

in my walks abroad. It is a great thing, believe me, to present a good

normal type of the nation you belong to.

Nobody else was asked for his papers on the way to Maubeuge; but I was,

and although I clung to my rights, I had to choose at last between

accepting the humiliation and being left behind by the train. I was

sorry to give way; but I wanted to get to Maubeuge.

Maubeuge is a fortified town, with a very good inn, the _Grand Cerf_. It

seemed to be inhabited principally by soldiers and bagmen; at least,

these were all that we saw, except the hotel servants. We had to stay

there some time, for the canoes were in no hurry to follow us, and at

last stuck hopelessly in the custom-house until we went back to liberate

them. There was nothing to do, nothing to see. We had good meals, which

was a great matter; but that was all.

The _Cigarette_ was nearly taken up upon a charge of drawing the

fortifications: a feat of which he was hopelessly incapable. And

besides, as I suppose each belligerent nation has a plan of the other's

fortified places already, these precautions are of the nature of

shutting the stable door after the steed is away. But I have no doubt

they help to keep up a good spirit at home. It is a great thing if you

can persuade people that they are somehow or other partakers in a

mystery. It makes them feel bigger. Even the Freemasons, who have been

shown up to satiety, preserve a kind of pride; and not a grocer among

them, however honest, harmless, and empty-headed he may feel himself to

be at bottom, but comes home from one of their _coenacula_ with a

portentous significance for himself.

It is an odd thing, how happily two people, if there are two, can live

in a place where they have no acquaintance. I think the spectacle of a

whole life in which you have no part paralysis personal desire. You are

content to become a mere spectator. The baker stands in his door; the

colonel with his three medals goes by to the _cafe_ at night; the troops

drum and trumpet and man the ramparts, as bold as so many lions. It

would task language to say how placidly you behold all this. In a place

where you have taken some root, you are provoked out of your

indifference; you have a hand in the game; your friends are fighting

with the army. But in a strange town, not small enough to grow too soon

familiar, nor so large as to have laid itself out for travellers, you

stand so far apart from the business that you positively forget it would

be possible to go nearer; you have so little human interest around you,

that you do not remember yourself to be a man. Perhaps, in a very short

time, you would be one no longer. Gymnosophists go into a wood, with all

nature seething around them, with romance on every side; it would be

much more to the purpose if they took up their abode in a dull country

town, where they should see just so much of humanity as to keep them

from desiring more, and only the stale externals of man's life. These

externals are as dead to us as so many formalities, and speak a dead

language in our eyes and ears. They have no more meaning than an oath or

a salutation. We are so much accustomed to see married couples going to

church of a Sunday that we have clean forgotten what they represent; and

novelists are driven to rehabilitate adultery, no less, when they wish

to show us what a beautiful thing it is for a man and a woman to live

for each other.

One person in Maubeuge, however, showed me something more than his

outside. That was the driver of the hotel omnibus: a mean enough looking

little man, as well as I can remember; but with a spark of something

human in his soul. He had heard of our little journey, and came to me at

once in envious sympathy. How he longed to travel! he told me. How he

longed to be somewhere else, and see the round world before he went into

the grave! "Here I am," said he. "I drive to the station. Well. And then

I drive back again to the hotel. And so on every day, and all the week

round. My God, is that life?" I could not say I thought it was--for him.

He pressed me to tell him where I had been, and where I hoped to go; and

as he listened, I declare the fellow sighed. Might not this have been a

brave African traveller, or gone to the Indies after Drake? But it is an

evil age for the gypsily inclined among men. He who can sit squarest on

a three-legged stool, he it is who has the wealth and glory.

I wonder if my friend is still driving the omnibus for the _Grand Cerf_?

Not very likely, I believe; for I think he was on the eve of mutiny when

we passed through, and perhaps our passage determined him for good.

Better a thousand times that he should be a tramp, and mend pots and

pans by the wayside, and sleep under trees, and see the dawn and the

sunset every day above a new horizon. I think I hear you say that it is

a respectable position to drive an omnibus? Very well. What right has

he, who likes it not, to keep those who would like it dearly out of this

respectable position? Suppose a dish were not to my taste, and you told

me that it was a favourite amongst the rest of the company, what should

I conclude from that? Not to finish the dish against my stomach, I

suppose.

Respectability is a very good thing in its way, but it does not rise

superior to all considerations. I would not for a moment venture to hint

that it was a matter of taste; but I think I will go as far as this:

that if a position is admittedly unkind, uncomfortable, unnecessary, and

superfluously useless, although it were as respectable as the Church of

England, the sooner a man is out of it, the better for himself, and all

concerned.

ON THE SAMBRE CANALISED

TO QUARTES

About three in the afternoon the whole establishment of the _Grand Cerf_

accompanied us to the water's edge. The man of the omnibus was there

with haggard eyes. Poor cage-bird! Do I not remember the time when I

myself haunted the station, to watch train after train carry its

complement of freemen into the night, and read the names of distant

places on the time-bills with indescribable longings?

We were not clear of the fortifications before the rain began. The wind

was contrary, and blew in furious gusts; nor were the aspects of nature

any more clement than the doings of the sky. For we passed through a

stretch of blighted country, sparsely covered with brush, but handsomely

enough diversified with factory chimneys. We landed in a soiled meadow

among some pollards, and there smoked a pipe in a flaw of fair weather.

But the wind blew so hard, we could get little else to smoke. There were

no natural objects in the neighbourhood, but some sordid workshops. A

group of children headed by a tall girl stood and watched us from a

little distance all the time we stayed. I heartily wonder what they

thought of us.

At Hautmont, the lock was almost impassable; the landing-place being

steep and high, and the launch at a long distance. Near a dozen grimy

workmen lent us a hand. They refused any reward; and, what is much

better, refused it handsomely, without conveying any sense of insult.

"It is a way we have in our countryside," said they. And a very

becoming way it is. In Scotland, where also you will get services for

nothing, the good people reject your money as if you had been trying to

corrupt a voter. When people take the trouble to do dignified acts, it

is worth while to take a little more, and allow the dignity to be common

to all concerned. But in our brave Saxon countries, where we plod

threescore years and ten in the mud, and the wind keeps singing in our

ears from birth to burial, we do our good and bad with a high hand, and

almost offensively; and make even our alms a witness-bearing and an act

of war against the wrong.

After Hautmont, the sun came forth again and the wind went down; and a

little paddling took us beyond the ironworks and through a delectable

land. The river wound among low hills, so that sometimes the sun was at

our backs, and sometimes it stood right ahead, and the river before us

was one sheet of intolerable glory. On either hand, meadows and orchards

bordered, with a margin of sedge and water flowers, upon the river. The

hedges were of great height, woven about the trunks of hedgerow elms;

and the fields, as they were often very small, looked like a series of

bowers along the stream. There was never any prospect; sometimes a

hill-top with its trees would look over the nearest hedgerow, just to

make a middle distance for the sky; but that was all. The heaven was

bare of clouds. The atmosphere, after the rain, was of enchanting

purity. The river doubled among the hillocks, a shining strip of mirror

glass; and the dip of the paddles set the flowers shaking along the

brink.

In the meadows wandered black and white cattle fantastically marked. One

beast, with a white head and the rest of the body glossy black, came to

the edge to drink, and stood gravely twitching his ears at me as I went

by, like some sort of preposterous clergyman in a play. A moment after I

heard a loud plunge, and, turning my head, saw the clergyman struggling

to shore. The bank had given way under his feet.

Besides the cattle, we saw no living things except a few birds and a

great many fishermen. These sat along the edges of the meadows,

sometimes with one rod, sometimes with as many as half a score. They

seemed stupefied with contentment; and when we induced them to exchange

a few words with us about the weather, their voices sounded quiet and

far away. There was a strange diversity of opinion among them as to the

kind of fish for which they set their lures; although they were all

agreed in this, that the river was abundantly supplied. Where it was

plain that no two of them had ever caught the same kind of fish, we

could not help suspecting that perhaps not any one of them had ever

caught a fish at all. I hope, since the afternoon was so lovely, that

they were one and all rewarded; and that a silver booty went home in

every basket for the pot. Some of my friends would cry shame on me for

this; but I prefer a man, were he only an angler, to the bravest pair of

gills in all God's waters. I do not affect fishes unless when cooked in

sauce; whereas an angler is an important piece of river scenery, and

hence deserves some recognition among canoeists. He can always tell you

where you are after a mild fashion; and his quiet presence serves to

accentuate the solitude and stillness, and remind you of the glittering

citizens below your boat.

The Sambre turned so industriously to and fro among his little hills,

that it was past six before we drew near the lock at Quartes. There were

some children on the tow-path, with whom the _Cigarette_ fell into a

chaffing talk as they ran along beside us. It was in vain that I warned

him. In vain I told him, in English, that boys were the most dangerous

creatures; and if once you began with them, it was safe to end in a

shower of stones. For my own part, whenever anything was addressed to

me, I smiled gently and shook my head as though I were an inoffensive

person inadequately acquainted with French. For indeed I have had such

experience at home, that I would sooner meet many wild animals than a

troop of healthy urchins.

But I was doing injustice to these peaceable young Hainaulters. When the

_Cigarette_ went off to make inquiries, I got out upon the bank to smoke

a pipe and superintend the boats, and became at once the centre of much

amiable curiosity. The children had been joined by this time by a young

woman and a mild lad who had lost an arm; and this gave me more

security. When I let slip my first word or so in French, a little girl

nodded her head with a comical grown-up air. "Ah, you see," she said,

"he understands well enough now; he was just making believe." And the

little group laughed together very good-naturedly.

They were much impressed when they heard we came from England; and the

little girl proffered the information that England was an island "and a

far way from here--_bien loin d'ici_."

"Ay, you may say that,--a far way from here," said the lad with one arm.

I was as nearly home-sick as ever I was in my life; they seemed to make

it such an incalculable distance to the place where I first saw the day.

They admired the canoes very much. And I observed one piece of delicacy

in these children, which is worthy of record. They had been deafening us

for the last hundred yards with petitions for a sail; ay, and they

deafened us to the same tune next morning when we came to start; but

then, when the canoes were lying empty, there was no word of any such

petition. Delicacy? or perhaps a bit of fear for the water in so crank a

vessel? I hate cynicism a great deal worse than I do the devil; unless

perhaps the two were the same thing! And yet 'tis a good tonic; the cold

tub and bath-towel of the sentiments; and positively necessary to life

in cases of advanced sensibility.

From the boats they turned to my costume. They could not make enough of

my red sash; and my knife filled them with awe.

"They make them like that in England," said the boy with one arm. I was

glad he did not know how badly we make them in England nowadays. "They

are for people who go away to sea," he added, "and to defend one's life

against great fish."

I felt I was becoming a more and more romantic figure to the little

group at every word. And so I suppose I was. Even my pipe, although it

was an ordinary French clay, pretty well "trousered," as they call it,

would have a rarity in their eyes, as a thing coming from so far away.

And if my feathers were not very fine in themselves, they were all from

over seas. One thing in my outfit, however, tickled them out of all

politeness; and that was the bemired condition of my canvas shoes. I

suppose they were sure the mud at any rate was a home product. The

little girl (who was the genius of the party) displayed her own sabots

in competition; and I wish you could have seen how gracefully and

merrily she did it.

The young woman's milk-can, a great amphora of hammered brass, stood

some way off upon the sward. I was glad of an opportunity to divert

public attention from myself, and return some of the compliments I had

received. So I admired it cordially both for form and colour, telling

them, and very truly, that it was as beautiful as gold. They were not

surprised. The things were plainly the boast of the countryside. And the

children expatiated on the costliness of these amphorae, which sell

sometimes as high as thirty francs apiece; told me how they were carried

on donkeys, one on either side of the saddle, a brave caparison in

themselves; and how they were to be seen all over the district, and at

the larger farms in great number and of great size.

PONT-SUR-SAMBRE

WE ARE PEDLARS

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 nowadays 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

civilization: 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 alehouse; 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 a 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.

PONT-SUR-SAMBRE

THE TRAVELLING MERCHANT

Like the lackeys in Moliere's farce, when the true nobleman broke in on

their high life below stairs, we were destined to be confronted with a

real pedlar. To make the lesson still more poignant for fallen gentlemen

like us, he was a pedlar of infinitely more consideration than the sort

of scurvy fellows we were taken for: like a lion among mice, or a ship

of war bearing down upon two cock-boats. Indeed, he did not deserve the

name of pedlar at all: he was a travelling merchant.

I suppose it was about half-past eight when this worthy, Monsieur Hector

Gilliard of Maubeuge, turned up at the alehouse door in a tilt cart

drawn by a donkey, and cried cheerily on the inhabitants. He was a lean,

nervous flibbertigibbet of a man, with something the look of an actor,

and something the look of a horse-jockey. He had evidently prospered

without any of the favours of education; for he adhered with stern

simplicity to the masculine gender, and in the course of the evening

passed off some fancy futures in a very florid style of architecture.

With him came his wife, a comely young woman with her hair tied in a

yellow kerchief, and their son, a little fellow of four, in a blouse and

military _kepi_. It was notable that the child was many degrees better

dressed than either of the parents. We were informed he was already at a

boarding-school; but the holidays having just commenced, he was off to

spend them with his parents on a cruise. An enchanting holiday

occupation, was it not, to travel all day with father and mother in the

tilt cart full of countless treasures; the green country rattling by on

either side, and the children in all the villages contemplating him with

envy and wonder? It is better fun, during the holidays, to be the son of

a travelling merchant than son and heir to the greatest cotton-spinner

in creation. And as for being a reigning prince--indeed I never saw one

if it was not Master Gilliard!

While M. Hector and the son of the house were putting up the donkey, and

getting all the valuables under lock and key, the landlady warmed up the

remains of our beefsteak, and fried the cold potatoes in slices, and

Madame Gilliard set herself to waken the boy, who had come far that day,

and was peevish and dazzled by the light. He was no sooner awake than he

began to prepare himself for supper by eating galette, unripe pears, and

cold potatoes--with, so far as I could judge, positive benefit to his

appetite.

The landlady, fired with motherly emulation, awoke her own little girl;

and the two children were confronted. Master Gilliard looked at her for

a moment, very much as a dog looks at his own reflection in a mirror

before he turns away. He was at that time absorbed in the galette. His

mother seemed crestfallen that he should display so little inclination

towards the other sex; and expressed her disappointment with some

candour and a very proper reference to the influence of years.

Sure enough a time will come when he will pay more attention to the

girls, and think a great deal less of his mother: let us hope she will

like it as well as she seemed to fancy. But it is odd enough: the very

women who profess most contempt for mankind as a sex, seem to find even

its ugliest particulars rather lively and high-minded in their own sons.

The little girl looked longer and with more interest, probably because

she was in her own house, while he was a traveller and accustomed to

strange sights. And besides there was no galette in the case with her.

All the time of supper, there was nothing spoken of but my young lord.

The two parents were both absurdly fond of their child. Monsieur kept

insisting on his sagacity: how he knew all the children at school by

name; and when this utterly failed on trial, how he was cautious and

exact to a strange degree, and, if asked anything, he would sit and

think--and think, and if he did not know it, "my faith, he wouldn't tell

you at all--_ma foi, il ne vous le dira pas_": which is certainly a very

high degree of caution. At intervals, M. Hector would appeal to his

wife, with his mouth full of beefsteak, as to the little fellow's age at

such or such a time when he had said or done something memorable; and I

noticed that Madame usually pooh-poohed these inquiries. She herself was

not boastful in her vein, but she never had her fill of caressing the

child; and she seemed to take a gentle pleasure in recalling all that

was fortunate in his little existence. No schoolboy could have talked

more of the holidays which were just beginning and less of the black

school-time which must inevitably follow after. She showed, with a pride

perhaps partly mercantile in origin, his pockets preposterously swollen

with tops and whistles and string. When she called at a house in the way

of business, it appeared he kept her company; and whenever a sale was

made, received a sou out of the profit. Indeed they spoiled him vastly,

these two good people. But they had an eye to his manners for all that,

and reproved him for some little faults in breeding, which occurred from

time to time during supper.

On the whole, I was not much hurt at being taken for a pedlar. I might

think that I ate with greater delicacy, or that my mistakes in French

belonged to a different order; but it was plain that these distinctions

would be thrown away upon the landlady and the two labourers. In all

essential things we and the Gilliards cut very much the same figure in

the alehouse kitchen. M. Hector was more at home, indeed, and took a

higher tone with the world; but that was explicable on the ground of

his driving a donkey-cart, while we poor bodies tramped afoot. I daresay

the rest of the company thought us dying with envy, though in no ill

sense, to be as far up in the profession as the new arrival.

And of one thing I am sure: that every one thawed and became more

humanized and conversible as soon as these innocent people appeared upon

the scene. I would not very readily trust the travelling merchant with

any extravagant sum of money; but I am sure his heart was in the right

place. In this mixed world, if you can find one or two sensible places

in a man--above all, if you should find a whole family living together

on such pleasant terms,--you may surely be satisfied, and take the rest

for granted; or, what is a great deal better, boldly make up your mind

that you can do perfectly well without the rest, and that ten thousand

bad traits cannot make a single good one any the less good.

It was getting late. M. Hector lit a stable lantern and went off to his

cart for some arrangements; and my young gentleman proceeded to divest

himself of the better part of his raiment, and play gymnastics on his

mother's lap, and thence on to the floor, with accompaniment of

laughter.

"Are you going to sleep alone?" asked the servant lass.

"There's little fear of that," says Master Gilliard.

"You sleep alone at school," objected his mother. "Come, come, you must

be a man."

But he protested that school was a different matter from the holidays;

that there were dormitories at school; and silenced the discussion with

kisses: his mother smiling, no one better pleased than she.

There certainly was, as he phrased it, very little fear that he should

sleep alone; for there was but one bed for the trio. We, on our part,

had firmly protested against one man's accommodation for two; and we had

a double-bedded pen in the loft of the house, furnished, beside the

beds, with exactly three hat-pegs and one table. There was not so much

as a glass of water. But the window would open, by good fortune.

Some time before I fell asleep the loft was full of the sound of mighty

snoring: the Gilliards, and the labourers, and the people of the inn,

all at it, I suppose, with one consent. The young moon outside shone

very clearly over Pont-sur-Sambre, and down upon the alehouse where all

we pedlars were abed.

ON THE SAMBRE CANALISED

TO LANDRECIES

In the morning, when we came downstairs, the landlady pointed out to us

two pails of water behind the street-door. "_Voila de l'eau pour vous

debarbouiller_," says she. And so there we made a shift to wash

ourselves, while Madame Gilliard brushed the family boots on the outer

doorstep, and M. Hector, whistling cheerily, arranged some small goods

for the day's campaign in a portable chest of drawers, which formed a

part of his baggage. Meanwhile the child was letting off Waterloo

crackers all over the floor.

I wonder, by-the-bye, what they call Waterloo crackers in France;

perhaps Austerlitz crackers. There is a great deal in the point of view.

Do you remember the Frenchman who, travelling by way of Southampton, was

put down in Waterloo Station, and had to drive across Waterloo Bridge?

He had a mind to go home again, it seems.

Pont itself is on the river, but whereas it is ten minutes' walk from

Quartes by dry land, it is six weary kilometres by water. We left our

bags at the inn, and walked to our canoes through the wet orchards

unencumbered. Some of the children were there to see us off, but we were

no longer the mysterious beings of the night before. A departure is much

less romantic than an unexplained arrival in the golden evening.

Although we might be greatly taken at a ghost's first appearance, we

should behold him vanish with comparative equanimity.

The good folk of the inn at Pont, when we called there for the bags,

were overcome with marveling. At sight of these two dainty little

boats, with a fluttering Union Jack on each, and all the varnish shining

from the sponge, they began to perceive that they had entertained angels

unawares. The landlady stood upon the bridge, probably lamenting she had

charged so little; the son ran to and fro, and called out the neighbours

to enjoy the sight; and we paddled away from quite a crowd of rapt

observers. These gentlemen pedlars, indeed! Now you see their quality

too late.

The whole day was showery, with occasional drenching plumps. We were

soaked to the skin, then partially dried in the sun, then soaked once

more. But there were some calm intervals, and one notably, when we were

skirting the forest of Mormal, a sinister name to the ear, but a place

most gratifying to sight and smell. It looked solemn along the

riverside, drooping its boughs into the water, and piling them up aloft

into a wall of leaves. What is a forest but a city of nature's own, full

of hardy and innocuous living things, where there is nothing dead and

nothing made with the hands, but the citizens themselves are the houses

and public monuments? There is nothing so much alive, and yet so quiet,

as a woodland; and a pair of people, swinging past in canoes, feel very

small and bustling by comparison.

And surely of all smells in the world, the smell of many trees is the

sweetest and most fortifying. The sea has a rude, pistolling sort of

odour, that takes you in the nostrils like snuff, and carries with it a

fine sentiment of open water and tall ships; but the smell of a forest,

which comes nearest to this in tonic quality, surpasses it by many

degrees in the quality of softness. Again, the smell of the sea has

little variety, but the smell of a forest is infinitely changeful; it

varies with the hour of the day, not in strength merely, but in

character; and the different sorts of trees, as you go from one zone of

the wood to another, seem to live among different kinds of atmosphere.

Usually the resin of the fir predominates. But some woods are more

coquettish in their habits; and the breath of the forest of Mormal, as

it came aboard upon us that showery afternoon, was perfumed with nothing

less delicate than sweetbrier.

I wish our way had always lain among woods. Trees are the most civil

society. An old oak that has been growing where he stands since before

the Reformation, taller than many spires, more stately than the greater

part of mountains, and yet a living thing, liable to sicknesses and

death, like you and me: is not that in itself a speaking lesson in

history? But acres on acres full of such patriarchs contiguously rooted,

their green tops billowing in the wind, their stalwart younglings

pushing up about their knees: a whole forest, healthy and beautiful,

giving colour to the light, giving perfume to the air: what is this but

the most imposing piece in nature's repertory? Heine wished to lie like

Merlin under the oaks of Broceliande. I should not be satisfied with one

tree; but if the wood grew together like a banyan grove, I would be

buried under the tap-root of the whole; my parts should circulate from

oak to oak; and my consciousness should be diffused abroad in all the

forest, and give a common heart to that assembly of green spires, so

that it also might rejoice in its own loveliness and dignity. I think I

feel a thousand squirrels leaping from bough to bough in my vast

mausoleum; and the birds and the winds merrily coursing over its uneven,

leafy surface.

Alas! the forest of Mormal is only a little bit of a wood, and it was

but for a little way that we skirted by its boundaries. And the rest of

the time the rain kept coming in squirts and the wind in squalls, until

one's heart grew weary of such fitful, scolding weather. It was odd how

the showers began when we had to carry the boats over a lock, and must

expose our legs. They always did. This is a sort of thing that readily

begets a personal feeling against nature. There seems no reason why the

shower should not come five minutes before or five minutes after,

unless you suppose an intention to affront you. The _Cigarette_ had a

mackintosh which put him more or less above these contrarieties. But I

had to bear the brunt uncovered. I began to remember that nature was a

woman. My companion, in a rosier temper, listened with great

satisfaction to my Jeremiads, and ironically concurred. He instanced, as

a cognate matter, the action of the tides, "which," said he, "was

altogether designed for the confusion of canoeists, except in so far as

it was calculated to minister to a barren vanity on the part of the

moon."

At the last lock, some little way out of Landrecies, I refused to go any

farther; and sat in a drift of rain by the side of the bank to have a

reviving pipe. A vivacious old man, whom I take to have been the devil,

drew near and questioned me about our journey. In the fullness of my

heart I laid bare our plans before him. He said it was the silliest

enterprise that ever he heard of. Why, did I not know, he asked me, that

it was nothing but locks, locks, locks, the whole way? not to mention

that, at this season of the year, we should find the Oise quite dry?

"Get into a train, my little young man," said he, "and go you away home

to your parents." I was so astounded at the man's malice that I could

only stare at him in silence. A tree would never have spoken to me like

this. At last I got out with some words. We had come from Antwerp

already, I told him, which was a good long way; and we should do the

rest in spite of him. Yes, I said, if there were no other reason, I

would do it now, just because he had dared to say we could not. The

pleasant old gentleman looked at me sneeringly, made an allusion to my

canoe, and marched off, waggling his head.

I was still inwardly fuming, when up came a pair of young fellows, who

imagined I was the _Cigarette's_ servant, on a comparison, I suppose, of

my bare jersey with the other's mackintosh, and asked me many questions

about my place and my master's character. I said he was a good enough

fellow, but had this absurd voyage on the head. "O no, no," said one,

"you must not say that; it is not absurd; it is very courageous of him."

I believe these were a couple of angels sent to give me heart again. It

was truly fortifying to reproduce all the old man's insinuations, as if

they were original to me in my character of a malcontent footman, and

have them brushed away like so many flies by these admirable young men.

When I recounted this affair to the _Cigarette_, "They must have a

curious idea of how English servants behave," says he, dryly, "for you

treated me like a brute beast at the lock."

I was a good deal mortified; but my temper had suffered, it is a fact.

AT LANDRECIES

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 _cafe_ 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 _cafe_. 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 _reveilles_, 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 great-coat you will

see a comrade stumble and fall.

Not long after the drums had passed the _cafe_ 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 _cafe_, 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

nightcaps 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.

SAMBRE AND OISE CANAL

CANAL BOATS

Next day we made a late start in the rain. The Judge politely escorted

us to the end of the lock under an umbrella. We had now brought

ourselves to a pitch of humility in the matter of weather not often

attained except in the Scottish Highlands. A rag of blue sky or a

glimpse of sunshine set our hearts singing; and when the rain was not

heavy, we counted the day almost fair.

Long lines of barges lay one after another along the canal, many of them

looking mighty spruce and ship-shape in their jerkin of Archangel tar

picked out with white and green. Some carried gay iron railings, and

quite a parterre of flower-pots. Children played on the decks, as

heedless of the rain as if they had been brought up on Loch Carron side;

men fished over the gunwale, some of them under umbrellas; women did

their washing; and every barge boasted its mongrel cur by way of

watch-dog. Each one barked furiously at the canoes, running alongside

until he had got to the end of his own ship, and so passing on the word

to the dog aboard the next. We must have seen something like a hundred

of these embarkations in the course of that day's paddle, ranged one

after another like the houses in a street; and from not one of them were

we disappointed of this accompaniment. It was like visiting a menagerie,

the _Cigarette_ remarked.

These little cities by the canal side had a very odd effect upon the

mind. They seemed, with their flower-pots and smoking chimneys, their

washings and dinners, a rooted piece of nature in the scene; and yet if

only the canal below were to open, one junk after another would hoist

sail or harness horses and swim away into all parts of France; and the

impromptu hamlet would separate, house by house, to the four winds. The

children who played together to-day by the Sambre and Oise Canal, each

at his own father's threshold, when and where might they next meet?

For some time past the subject of barges had occupied a great deal of

our talk, and we had projected an old age on the canals of Europe. It

was to be the most leisurely of progresses, now on a swift river at the

tail of a steam-boat, now waiting horses for days together on some

inconsiderable junction. We should be seen pottering on deck in all the

dignity of years, our white beards falling into our laps. We were ever

to be busied among paint-pots; so that there should be no white fresher,

and no green more emerald than ours, in all the navy of the canals.

There should be books in the cabin, and tobacco-jars, and some old

Burgundy as red as a November sunset and as odorous as a violet in

April. There should be a flageolet, whence the _Cigarette_, with cunning

touch, should draw melting music under the stars; or perhaps, laying

that aside, upraise his voice--somewhat thinner than of yore, and with

here and there a quaver, or call it a natural grace-note--in rich and

solemn psalmody.

All this, simmering in my mind, set me wishing to go aboard one of these

ideal houses of lounging, I had plenty to choose from, as I coasted one

after another, and the dogs bayed at me for a vagrant. At last I saw a

nice old man and his wife looking at me with some interest, so I gave

them good-day and pulled up alongside. I began with a remark upon their

dog, which had somewhat the look of a pointer; thence I slid into a

compliment on Madame's flowers, and thence into a word in praise of

their way of life.

If you ventured on such an experiment in England you would get a slap in

the face at once. The life would be shown to be a vile one, not without

a side shot at your better fortune. Now, what I like so much in France

is the clear unflinching recognition by everybody of his own luck. They

all know on which side their bread is buttered, and take a pleasure in

showing it to others, which is surely the better part of religion. And

they scorn to make a poor mouth over their poverty, which I take to be

the better part of manliness. I have heard a woman, in quite a better

position at home, with a good bit of money in hand, refer to her own

child with a horrid whine as "a poor man's child." I would not say such

a thing to the Duke of Westminster. And the French are full of this

spirit of independence. Perhaps it is the result of republican

institutions, as they call them. Much more likely it is because there

are so few people really poor that the whiners are not enough to keep

each other in countenance.

The people on the barge were delighted to hear that I admired their

state. They understood perfectly well, they told me, how Monsieur envied

them. Without doubt Monsieur was rich; and in that case he might make a

canal boat as pretty as a villa--_joli comme un chateau_. And with that

they invited me on board their own water villa. They apologized for

their cabin; they had not been rich enough to make it as it ought to be.

"The fire should have been here, at this side," explained the husband.

"Then one might have a writing-table in the middle--books--and"

(comprehensively) "all. It would be quite coquettish--_ca serait

tout-a-fait coquet_." And he looked about him as though the improvements

were already made. It was plainly not the first time that he had thus

beautified his cabin in imagination; and when next he makes a hit, I

should expect to see the writing-table in the middle.

Madame had three birds in a cage. They were no great thing, she

explained. Fine birds were so dear. They had sought to get a

_Hollandais_ last winter in Rouen (Rouen? thought I; and is this whole

mansion, with its dogs and birds and smoking chimneys, so far a

traveller as that? and as homely an object among the cliffs and orchards

of the Seine as on the green plains of Sambre?)--they had sought to get

a _Hollandais_ last winter in Rouen; but these cost fifteen francs

apiece--picture it--fifteen francs!

"_Pour un tout petit oiseau_--For quite a little bird," added the

husband.

As I continued to admire, the apologetics died away, and the good people

began to brag of their barge, and their happy condition in life, as if

they had been Emperor and Empress of the Indies. It was, in the Scots

phrase, a good hearing, and put me in good humour with the world. If

people knew what an inspiriting thing it is to hear a man boasting, so

long as he boasts of what he really has, I believe they would do it more

freely and with a better grace.

They began to ask about our voyage. You should have seen how they

sympathized. They seemed half ready to give up their barge and follow

us. But these _canaletti_ are only gypsies semi-domesticated. The

semi-domestication came out in rather a pretty form. Suddenly Madame's

brow darkened. "_Cependant_," she began, and then stopped; and then

began again by asking me if I were single.

"Yes," said I.

"And your friend who went by just now?"

He also was unmarried.

O then--all was well. She could not have wives left alone at home; but

since there were no wives in the question, we were doing the best we

could.

"To see about one in the world," said the husband, "_il n'y a que

ca_--there is nothing else worth while. A man, look you, who sticks in

his own village like a bear," he went on, "--very well, he sees

nothing. And then death is the end of all. And he has seen nothing."

Madame reminded her husband of an Englishman who had come up this canal

in a steamer.

"Perhaps Mr. Moens in the _Ytene_," I suggested.

"That's it," assented the husband. "He had his wife and family with him,

and servants. He came ashore at all the locks and asked the name of the

villages, whether from boatmen or lock-keepers; and then he wrote, wrote

them down. Oh, he wrote enormously! I suppose it was a wager."

A wager was a common enough explanation for our own exploits, but it

seemed an original reason for taking notes.

THE OISE IN FLOOD

Before nine next morning the two canoes were installed on a light

country cart at Etreux: and we were soon following them along the side

of a pleasant valley full of hop-gardens and poplars. Agreeable villages

lay here and there on the slope of the hill; notably, Tupigny, with the

hop-poles hanging their garlands in the very street, and the houses

clustered with grapes. There was a faint enthusiasm on our passage;

weavers put their heads to the windows; children cried out in ecstasy at

sight of the two "boaties"--_barquettes_; and bloused pedestrians, who

were acquainted with our charioteer, jested with him on the nature of

his freight.

We had a shower or two, but light and flying. The air was clean and

sweet among all these green fields and green things growing. There was

not a touch of autumn in the weather. And when, at Vadencourt, we

launched from a little lawn opposite a mill, the sun broke forth and set

all the leaves shining in the valley of the Oise.

The river was swollen with the long rains. From Vadencourt all the way

to Origny, it ran with ever-quickening speed, taking fresh heart at each

mile, and racing as though it already smelt the sea. The water was

yellow and turbulent, swung with an angry eddy among half-submerged

willows, and made an angry clatter along stony shores. The course kept

turning and turning in a narrow and well-timbered valley. Now the river

would approach the side, and run griding along the chalky base of the

hill, and show us a few open colza-fields among the trees. Now it would

skirt the garden-walls of houses, where we might catch a glimpse through

a doorway, and see a priest pacing in the chequered sunlight. Again,

the foliage closed so thickly in front that there seemed to be no issue;

only a thicket of willows, overtopped by elms and poplars, under which

the river ran flush and fleet, and where a kingfisher flew past like a

piece of the blue sky. On these different manifestations the sun poured

its clear and catholic looks. The shadows lay as solid on the swift

surface of the stream as on the stable meadows. The light sparkled

golden in the dancing poplar leaves, and brought the hills in communion

with our eyes. And all the while the river never stopped running or took

breath; and the reeds along the whole valley stood shivering from top to

toe.

There should be some myth (but if there is, I know it not) founded on

the shivering of the reeds. There are not many things in nature more

striking to man's eye. It is such an eloquent pantomime of terror; and

to see such a number of terrified creatures taking sanctuary in every

nook along the shore is enough to infect a silly human with alarm.

Perhaps they are only a-cold, and no wonder, standing waist-deep in the

stream. Or perhaps they have never got accustomed to the speed and fury

of the river's flux, or the miracle of its continuous body. Pan once

played upon their forefathers; and so, by the hands of his river, he

still plays upon these later generations down all the valley of the

Oise; and plays the same air, both sweet and shrill, to tell us of the

beauty and the terror of the world.

The canoe was like a leaf in the current. It took it up and shook it,

and carried it masterfully away, like a Centaur carrying off a nymph. To

keep some command on our direction required hard and diligent plying of

the paddle. The river was in such a hurry for the sea! Every drop of

water ran in a panic, like as many people in a frightened crowd. But

what crowd was ever so numerous, or so single-minded? All the objects of

sight went by at a dance measure; the eyesight raced with the racing

river; the exigencies of every moment kept the pegs screwed so tight

that our being quivered like a well-tuned instrument, and the blood

shook oft its lethargy, and trotted through all the highways and byways

of the veins and arteries, and in and out of the heart, as if

circulation were but a holiday journey, and not the daily moil of

threescore years and ten. The reeds might nod their heads in warning,

and with tremulous gestures tell how the river was as cruel as it was

strong and cold, and how death lurked in the eddy underneath the

willows. But the reeds had to stand where they were, and those who stand

still are always timid advisers. As for us, we could have shouted aloud.

If this lively and beautiful river were, indeed, a thing of death's

contrivance, the old ashen rogue had famously outwitted himself with us.

I was living three to the minute. I was scoring points against him every

stroke of my paddle, every turn of the stream, I have rarely had better

profit of my life.

For I think we may look upon our little private war with death somewhat

in this light. If a man knows he will sooner or later be robbed upon a

journey, he will have a bottle of the best in every inn, and look upon

all his extravagances as so much gained upon the thieves. And, above

all, where instead of simply spending, he makes a profitable investment

for some of his money, when it will be out of risk of loss. So every bit

of brisk living, and, above all, when it is healthful, is just so much

gained upon the wholesale filcher, death. We shall have the less in our

pockets, the more in our stomach, when he cries stand and deliver. A

swift stream is a favourite artifice of his, and one that brings him in

a comfortable thing per annum; but when he and I come to settle our

accounts, I shall whistle in his face for these hours upon the upper

Oise.

Towards afternoon we got fairly drunken with the sunshine and the

exhilaration of the pace. We could no longer contain ourselves and our

content. The canoes were too small for us; we must be out and stretch

ourselves on shore. And so in a green meadow we bestowed our limbs on

the grass, and smoked deifying tobacco and proclaimed the world

excellent. It was the last good hour of the day, and I dwell upon it

with extreme complacency.

On one side of the valley, high up on the chalky summit of the hill, a

ploughman with his team appeared and disappeared at regular intervals.

At each revelation he stood still for a few seconds against the sky: for

all the world (as the _Cigarette_ declared) like a toy Burns who should

have just ploughed up the Mountain Daisy. He was the only living thing

within view, unless we are to count the river.

On the other side of the valley a group of red roofs and a belfry showed

among the foliage. Thence some inspired bell-ringer made the afternoon

musical on a chime of bells. There was something very sweet and taking

in the air he played; and we thought we had never heard bells speak so

intelligibly or sing so melodiously as these. It must have been to some

such measure that the spinners and the young maids sang "Come away,

Death," in the Shakespearian Illyria. There is so often a threatening

note, something blatant and metallic, in the voice of bells, that I

believe we have fully more pain than pleasure from hearing them; but

these, as they sounded abroad, now high, now low, now with a plaintive

cadence that caught the ear like the burthen of a popular song, were

always moderate and tunable, and seemed to fall in with the spirit of

still, rustic places, like the noise of a waterfall or the babble of a

rookery in spring. I could have asked the bell-ringer for his blessing,

good, sedate old man, who swung the rope so gently to the time of his

meditations. I could have blessed the priest or the heritors, or whoever

may be concerned with such affairs in France, who had left these sweet

old bells to gladden the afternoon, and not held meetings, and made

collections, and had their names repeatedly printed in the local paper,

to rig up a peal of brand-new, brazen, Birmingham-hearted substitutes,

who should bombard their sides to the provocation of a brand-new

bell-ringer, and fill the echoes of the valley with terror and riot.

At last the bells ceased, and with their note the sun withdrew. The

piece was at an end; shadow and silence possessed the valley of the

Oise. We took to the paddle with glad hearts, like people who have sat

out a noble performance and returned to work. The river was more

dangerous here; it ran swifter, the eddies were more sudden and violent.

All the way down we had had our fill of difficulties. Sometimes it was a

weir which could be shot, sometimes one so shallow and full of stakes

that we must withdraw the boats from the water and carry them round. But

the chief sort of obstacle was a consequence of the late high winds.

Every two or three hundred yards a tree had fallen across the river, and

usually involved more than another in its fall. Often there was free

water at the end, and we could steer round the leafy promontory and hear

the water sucking and bubbling among the twigs. Often, again, when the

tree reached from bank to bank, there was room by lying close to shoot

through underneath, canoe and all. Sometimes it was necessary to get out

upon the trunk itself and pull the boats across; and sometimes, when the

stream was too impetuous for this, there was nothing for it but to land

and "carry over." This made a fine series of accidents in the day's

career, and kept us aware of ourselves.

Shortly after our re-embarkation, while I was leading by a long way, and

still full of a noble, exulting spirit in honour of the sun, the swift

pace, and the church bells, the river made one of its leonine pounces

round a corner, and I was aware of another fallen tree within a

stone-cast. I had my back-board down in a trice, and aimed for a place

where the trunk seemed high enough above the water, and the branches

not too thick to let me slip below. When a man has just vowed eternal

brotherhood with the universe, he is not in a temper to take great

determinations coolly, and this, which might have been a very important

determination for me, had not been taken under a happy star. The tree

caught me about the chest, and while I was yet struggling to make less

of myself and get through, the river took the matter out of my hands,

and bereaved me of my boat. The _Arethusa_ swung round broadside on,

leaned over, ejected so much of me as still remained on board, and, thus

disencumbered, whipped under the tree, righted, and went merrily away

down stream.

I do not know how long it was before I scrambled on to the tree to which

I was left clinging, but it was longer than I cared about. My thoughts

were of a grave and almost sombre character, but I still clung to my

paddle. The stream ran away with my heels as fast as I could pull up my

shoulders, and I seemed, by the weight, to have all the water of the

Oise in my trousers-pockets. You can never know, till you try it, what a

dead pull a river makes against a man. Death himself had me by the

heels, for this was his last ambuscado, and he must now join personally

in the fray. And still I held to my paddle. At last I dragged myself on

to my stomach on the trunk, and lay there a breathless sop, with a

mingled sense of humour and injustice. A poor figure I must have

presented to Burns upon the hill-top with his team. But there was the

paddle in my hand. On my tomb, if ever I have one, I mean to get these

words inscribed: "He clung to his paddle."

The _Cigarette_ had gone past a while before; for, as I might have

observed, if I had been a little less pleased with the universe at the

moment, there was a clear way round the tree-top at the farther side. He

had offered his services to haul me out, but as I was then already on my

elbows I had declined and sent him down stream after the truant

_Arethusa_. The stream was too rapid for a man to mount with one canoe,

let alone two, upon his hands. So I crawled along the trunk to shore,

and proceeded down the meadows by the riverside. I was so cold that my

heart was sore. I had now an idea of my own why the reeds so bitterly

shivered. I could have given any of them a lesson. The _Cigarette_

remarked facetiously that he thought I was "taking exercise" as I drew

near, until he made out for certain that I was only twittering with

cold. I had a rub down with a towel, and donned a dry suit from the

india-rubber bag. But I was not my own man again for the rest of the

voyage. I had a queasy sense that I wore my last dry clothes upon my

body. The struggle had tired me; and perhaps, whether I knew it or not,

I was a little dashed in spirit. The devouring element in the universe

had leaped out against me, in this green valley quickened by a running

stream. The bells were all very pretty in their way, but I had heard

some of the hollow notes of Pan's music. Would the wicked river drag me

down by the heels, indeed? and look so beautiful all the time? Nature's

good-humour was only skin-deep after all.

There was still a long way to go by the winding course of the stream,

and darkness had fallen, and a late bell was ringing in Origny

Sainte-Benoite, when we arrived.

ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOITE

A BY-DAY

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 someone 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 Francais," 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 sniveling over their disasters. Already Paul Deroulede 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 Deroulede 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 I 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 St. 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 though 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-Benoite by the river.

ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOITE

THE COMPANY AT TABLE

Although we came late for dinner, the company at table treated us to

sparkling wine. "That is how we are in France," said one. "Those who sit

down with us are our friends." And the rest applauded.

They were three altogether, and an odd trio to pass the Sunday with.

Two of them were guests like ourselves, both men of the north. One

ruddy, and of a full habit of body, with copious black hair and beard,

the intrepid hunter of France, who thought nothing so small, not even a

lark or a minnow, but he might vindicate his prowess by its capture. For

such a great, healthy man, his hair flourishing like Samson's, his

arteries running buckets of red blood, to boast of these infinitesimal

exploits, produced a feeling of disproportion in the world, as when a

steam-hammer is set to cracking nuts. The other was a quiet, subdued

person, blond and lymphatic and sad, with something the look of a Dane:

"_Tristes tetes de Danois!_" as Gaston Lafenestre used to say.

I must not let that name go by without a word for the best of all good

fellows now gone down into the dust. We shall never again see Gaston in

his forest costume--he was Gaston with all the world, in affection, not

in disrespect--nor hear him wake the echoes of Fontainebleau with the

woodland horn. Never again shall his kind smile put peace among all

races of artistic men, and make the Englishman at home in France. Never

more shall the sheep, who were not more innocent at heart than he, sit

all unconsciously for his industrious pencil. He died too early, at the

very moment when he was beginning to put forth fresh sprouts, and

blossom into something worthy of himself; and yet none who knew him will

think he lived in vain. I never knew a man so little, for whom yet I had

so much affection; and I find it a good test of others, how much they

had learned to understand and value him. His was indeed a good influence

in life while he was still among us; he had a fresh laugh, it did you

good to see him; and however sad he may have been at heart, he always

bore a bold and cheerful countenance, and took fortune's worst as it

were the showers of spring. But now his mother sits alone by the side of

Fontainebleau woods, where he gathered mushrooms in his hardy and

penurious youth.

Many of his pictures found their way across the Channel: besides those

which were stolen, when a dastardly Yankee left him alone in London with

two English pence, and perhaps twice as many words of English. If any

one who reads these lines should have a scene of sheep, in the manner of

Jacques, with this fine creature's signature, let him tell himself that

one of the kindest and bravest of men has lent a hand to decorate his

lodging. There may be better pictures in the National Gallery; but not a

painter among the generations had a better heart. Precious in the sight

of the Lord of humanity, the Psalms tell us, is the death of his saints.

It had need to be precious; for it is very costly, when by the stroke, a

mother is left desolate, and the peace-maker, and _peace-looker_, of a

whole society is laid in the ground with Caesar and the Twelve Apostles.

There is something lacking among the oaks of Fontainebleau; and when the

dessert comes in at Barbizon, people look to the door for a figure that

is gone.

The third of our companions at Origny was no less a person than the

landlady's husband: not properly the landlord, since he worked himself

in a factory during the day, and came to his own house at evening as a

guest: a man worn to skin and bone by perpetual excitement, with baldish

head, sharp features, and swift, shining eyes. On Saturday, describing

some paltry adventure at a duck-hunt, he broke a plate into a score of

fragments. Whenever he made a remark, he would look all round the table

with his chin raised, and a spark of green light in either eye, seeking

approval. His wife appeared now and again in the doorway of the room,

where she was superintending dinner, with a "Henri, you forget

yourself," or a "Henri, you can surely talk without making such a

noise." Indeed, that was what the honest fellow could not do. On the

most trifling matter his eyes kindled, his fist visited the table, and

his voice rolled abroad in changeful thunder. I never saw such a petard

of a man; I think the devil was in him. He had two favourite

expressions--"it is logical," or illogical, as the case might be; and

this other, thrown out with a certain bravado, as a man might unfurl a

banner, at the beginning of many a long and sonorous story: "I am a

proletarian, you see." Indeed, we saw it very well. God forbid that ever

I should find him handling a gun in Paris streets! That will not be a

good moment for the general public.

I thought his two phrases very much represented the good and evil of his

class, and to some extent of his country. It is a strong thing to say

what one is, and not be ashamed of it; even although it be in doubtful

taste to repeat the statement too often in one evening. I should not

admire it in a duke, of course; but as times go, the trait is honourable

in a workman. On the other hand, it is not at all a strong thing to put

one's reliance upon logic; and our own logic particularly, for it is

generally wrong. We never know where we are to end, if once we begin

following words or doctors. There is an upright stock in a man's own

heart, that is trustier than any syllogism; and the eyes, and the

sympathies and appetites, know a thing or two that have never yet been

stated in controversy. Reasons are as plentiful as blackberries; and,

like fisticuffs, they serve impartially with all sides. Doctrines do not

stand or fall by their proofs, and are only logical in so far as they

are cleverly put. An able controversialist no more than an able general

demonstrates the justice of his cause. But France is all gone wandering

after one or two big words; it will take some time before they can be

satisfied that they are no more than words, however big; and when once

that is done, they will perhaps find logic less diverting.

The conversation opened with details of the day's shooting. When all the

sportsmen of a village shoot over the village territory _pro indiviso_,

it is plain that many questions of etiquette and priority must arise.

"Here now," cried the landlord, brandishing a plate, "here is a field of

beet-root. Well. Here am I then. I advance, do I not? _Eh bien!

sacristi_," and the statement, waxing louder, rolls off into a

reverberation of oaths, the speaker glaring about for sympathy, and

everybody nodding his head to him in the name of peace.

The ruddy Northman told some tales of his own prowess in keeping order:

notably one of a Marquis.

"Marquis," I said, "if you take another step I fire upon you. You have

committed a dirtiness, Marquis."

Whereupon, it appeared, the Marquis touched his cap and withdrew.

The landlord applauded noisily. "It was well done," he said. "He did all

that he could. He admitted he was wrong." And then oath upon oath. He

was no marquis-lover either, but he had a sense of justice in him, this

proletarian host of ours.

From the matter of hunting, the talk veered into a general comparison of

Paris and the country. The proletarian beat the table like a drum in

praise of Paris. "What is Paris? Paris is the cream of France. There are

no Parisians: it is you and I and everybody who are Parisians. A man has

eighty chances per cent to get on in the world in Paris." And he drew

a vivid sketch of the workman in a den no bigger than a dog-hutch,

making articles that were to go all over the world. "_Eh bien, quoi,

c'est magnifique, ca!_" cried he.

The sad Northman interfered in praise of a peasant's life; he thought

Paris bad for men and women; "centralization," said he----

But the landlord was at his throat in a moment. It was all logical, he

showed him, and all magnificent. "What a spectacle! What a glance for an

eye!" And the dishes reeled upon the table under a cannonade of blows.

Seeking to make peace, I threw in a word in praise of the liberty of

opinion in France. I could hardly have shot more amiss. There was an

instant silence, and a great wagging of significant heads. They did not

fancy the subject, it was plain; but they gave me to understand that the

sad Northman was a martyr on account of his views. "Ask him a bit," said

they. "Just ask him."

"Yes, sir," said he, in his quiet way, answering me, although I had not

spoken, "I am afraid there is less liberty of opinion in France than you

may imagine." And with that he dropped his eyes, and seemed to consider

the subject at an end.

Our curiosity was mightily excited at this. How, or why, or when, was

this lymphatic bagman martyred? We concluded at once it was on some

religious question, and brushed up our memories of the Inquisition,

which were principally drawn from Poe's horrid story, and the sermon in

"Tristram Shandy," I believe.

On the morrow we had an opportunity of going further into the question;

for when we rose very early to avoid a sympathizing deputation at our

departure, we found the hero up before us. He was breaking his fast on

white wine and raw onions, in order to keep up the character of martyr,

I conclude. We had a long conversation, and made out what we wanted in

spite of his reserve. But here was a truly curious circumstance. It

seems possible for two Scotsmen and a Frenchman to discuss during a

long half-hour, and each nationality have a different idea in view

throughout. It was not till the very end that we discovered his heresy

had been political, or that he suspected our mistake. The terms and

spirit in which he spoke of his political beliefs were, in our eyes,

suited to religious beliefs. And _vice versa_.

Nothing could be more characteristic of the two countries. Politics are

the religion of France; as Nanty Ewart would have said, "A d----d bad

religion"; while we, at home, keep most of our bitterness for little

differences about a hymn-book, or a Hebrew word which perhaps neither of

the parties can translate. And perhaps the misconception is typical of

many others that may never be cleared up: not only between people of

different race, but between those of different sex.

As for our friend's martyrdom, he was a Communist, or perhaps only a

Communard, which is a very different thing; and had lost one or more

situations in consequence. I think he had also been rejected in

marriage; but perhaps he had a sentimental way of considering business

which deceived me. He was a mild, gentle creature, anyway; and I hope he

has got a better situation, and married a more suitable wife since

then.

DOWN THE OISE

TO MOY

Carnival notoriously cheated us at first. Finding us easy in our ways,

he regretted having let us oil so cheaply; and taking me aside, told me

a cock-and-bull story with the moral of another five francs for the

narrator. The thing was palpably absurd; but I paid up, and at once

dropped all friendliness of manner, and kept him in his place as an

inferior with freezing British dignity. He saw in a moment that he had

gone too far, and killed a willing horse; his face fell; I am sure he

would have refunded if he could only have thought of a decent pretext.

He wished me to drink with him, but I would none of his drinks. He grew

pathetically tender in his professions; but I walked beside him in

silence or answered him in stately courtesies; and when we got to the

landing-place, passed the word in English slang to the _Cigarette_.

In spite of the false scent we had thrown out the day before, there must

have been fifty people about the bridge. We were as pleasant as we could

be with all but Carnival. We said good-bye, shaking hands with the old

gentleman who knew the river and the young gentleman who had a

smattering of English; but never a word for Carnival. Poor Carnival!

here was a humiliation. He who had been so much identified with the

canoes, who had given orders in our name, who had shown off the boats

and even the boatmen like a private exhibition of his own, to be now so

publicly shamed by the lions of his caravan! I never saw anybody look

more crestfallen than he. He hung in the background, coming timidly

forward ever and again as he thought he saw some symptom of a relenting

humour, and falling hurriedly back when he encountered a cold stare. Let

us hope it will be a lesson to him.

I would not have mentioned Carnival's peccadillo had not the thing been

so uncommon in France. This, for instance, was the only case of

dishonesty or even sharp practice in our whole voyage. We talk very much

about our honesty in England. It is a good rule to be on your guard

wherever you hear great professions about a very little piece of virtue.

If the English could only hear how they are spoken of abroad they might

confine themselves for a while to remedying the fact; and perhaps even

when that was done, give us fewer of their airs.

The young ladies, the graces of Origny, were not present at our start,

but when we got round to the second bridge, behold, it was black with

sightseers! We were loudly cheered, and for a good way below young lads

and lasses ran along the bank, still cheering. What with current and

paddling, we were flashing along like swallows. It was no joke to keep

up with us upon the woody shore. But the girls picked up their skirts as

if they were sure they had good ankles, and followed until their breath

was out. The last to weary were the three graces and a couple of

companions; and just as they too had had enough, the foremost of the

three leaped upon a tree-stump and kissed her hand to the canoeists. Not

Diana herself, although this was more of a Venus after all, could have

done a graceful thing more gracefully. "Come back again!" she cried; and

all the others echoed her; and the hills about Origny repeated the

words, "Come back." But the river had us round an angle in a twinkling,

and we were alone with the green trees and running water.

Come back? There is no coming back, young ladies, on the impetuous

stream of life.

"The merchant bows unto the seaman's star,

The ploughman from the sun his season takes."

And we must all set our pocket-watches by the clock of fate. There is a

headlong, forthright tide, that bears away man with his fancies like a

straw, and runs fast in time and space. It is full of curves like this,

your winding river of the Oise; and lingers and returns in pleasant

pastorals; and yet, rightly thought upon, never returns at all. For

though it should revisit the same acre of meadow in the same hour, it

will have made an ample sweep between-whiles; many little streams will

have fallen in; many exhalations risen towards the sun; and even

although it were the same acre, it will no more be the same river of

Oise. And thus, O graces of Origny, although the wandering fortune of my

life should carry me back again to where you await death's whistle by

the river, that will not be the old I who walks the street; and those

wives and mothers, say, will those be you?

There was never any mistake about the Oise, as a matter of fact. In

these upper reaches it was still in a prodigious hurry for the sea. It

ran so fast and merrily, through all the windings of its channel, that I

strained my thumb, fighting with the rapids, and had to paddle all the

rest of the way with one hand turned up. Sometimes it had to serve

mills; and being still a little river, ran very dry and shallow in the

meanwhile. We had to put our legs out of the boat, and shove ourselves

off the sand of the bottom with our feet. And still it went on its way

singing among the poplars, and making a green valley in the world. After

a good woman, and a good book, and tobacco, there is nothing so

agreeable on earth as a river. I forgave it its attempt on my life;

which was after all one part owing to the unruly winds of heaven that

had blown down the tree, one part to my own mismanagement, and only a

third part to the river itself, and that not out of malice, but from its

great preoccupation over its business of getting to the sea. A difficult

business, too; for the detours it had to make are not to be counted. The

geographers seem to have given up the attempt; for I found no map

represent the infinite contortion of its course. A fact will say more

than any of them. After we had been some hours, three if I mistake not,

flitting by the trees at this smooth, break-neck gallop, when we came

upon a hamlet and asked where we were, we had got no farther than four

kilometres (say two miles and a half) from Origny. If it were not for

the honour of the thing (in the Scots saying), we might almost as well

have been standing still.

We lunched on a meadow inside a parallelogram of poplars. The leaves

danced and prattled in the wind all round about us. The river hurried on

meanwhile, and seemed to chide at our delay. Little we cared. The river

knew where it was going; not so we: the less our hurry, where we found

good quarters and a pleasant theatre for a pipe. At that hour,

stockbrokers were shouting in Paris Bourse for two or three per cent;

but we minded them as little as the sliding stream, and sacrificed a

hecatomb of minutes to the gods of tobacco and digestion. Hurry is the

resource of the faithless. Where a man can trust his own heart, and

those of his friends, to-morrow is as good as to-day. And if he die in

the meanwhile, why then, there he dies, and the question is solved.

We had to take to the canal in the course of the afternoon; because,

where it crossed the river, there was, not a bridge, but a siphon. If it

had not been for an excited fellow on the bank, we should have paddled

right into the siphon, and thenceforward not paddled any more. We met a

man, a gentleman, on the tow-path, who was much interested in our

cruise. And I was witness to a strange seizure of lying suffered by the

_Cigarette:_ who, because his knife came from Norway, narrated all sorts

of adventures in that country, where he has never been. He was quite

feverish at the end, and pleaded demoniacal possession.

Moy (pronounce Moy) was a pleasant little village, gathered round a

chateau in a moat. The air was perfumed with hemp from neighbouring

fields. At the Golden Sheep we found excellent entertainment. German

shells from the siege of La Fere, Nuernberg figures, gold-fish in a bowl,

and all manner of knick-knacks, embellished the public room. The

landlady was a stout, plain, short-sighted, motherly body, with

something not far short of a genius for cookery. She had a guess of her

excellence herself. After every dish was sent in, she would come and

look on at the dinner for a while, with puckered, blinking eyes. "_C'est

bon, n'est-ce pas?_" she would say; and when she had received a proper

answer, she disappeared into the kitchen. That common French dish,

partridge and cabbages, became a new thing in my eyes at the Golden

Sheep; and many subsequent dinners have bitterly disappointed me in

consequence. Sweet was our rest in the Golden Sheep at Moy.

LA FERE OF CURSED MEMORY

We lingered in Moy a good part of the day, for we were fond of being

philosophical, and scorned long journeys and early starts on principle.

The place, moreover, invited to repose. People in elaborate shooting

costumes sallied from the chateau with guns and game-bags; and this was

a pleasure in itself, to remain behind while these elegant

pleasure-seekers took the first of the morning. In this way, all the

world may be an aristocrat, and play the duke among marquises, and the

reigning monarch among dukes, if he will only outvie them in

tranquility. An imperturbable demeanour comes from perfect patience.

Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune or

misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a

thunderstorm.

We made a very short day of it to La Fere; but the dusk was falling, and

a small rain had begun before we stowed the boats. La Fere is a

fortified town in a plain, and has two belts of rampart. Between the

first and the second extends a region of waste land and cultivated

patches. Here and there along the wayside were posters forbidding

trespass in the name of military engineering. At last, a second gateway

admitted us to the town itself. Lighted windows looked gladsome, whiffs

of comfortable cookery came abroad upon the air. The town was full of

the military reserve, out for the French Autumn Manoeuvres, and the

reservists walked speedily and wore their formidable great-coats. It was

a fine night to be within doors over dinner, and hear the rain upon the

windows.

The _Cigarette_ and I could not sufficiently congratulate each other on

the prospect, for we had been told there was a capital inn at La Fere.

Such a dinner as we were going to eat! such beds as we were to sleep

in!--and all the while the rain raining on houseless folk over all the

poplared countryside! It made our mouths water. The inn bore the name of

some woodland animal, stag, or hart, or hind, I forget which. But I

shall never forget how spacious and how eminently habitable it looked as

we drew near. The carriage entry was lighted up, not by intention, but

from the mere superfluity of fire and candle in the house. A rattle of

many dishes came to our ears; we sighted a great field of tablecloth;

the kitchen glowed like a forge and smelt like a garden of things to

eat.

Into this, the inmost shrine and physiological heart of a hostelry, with

all its furnaces in action, and all its dressers charged with viands,

you are now to suppose us making our triumphal entry, a pair of damp

rag-and-bone men, each with a limp india-rubber bag upon his arm. I do

not believe I have a sound view of that kitchen; I saw it through a sort

of glory: but it seemed to me crowded with the snowy caps of cookmen,

who all turned round from their saucepans and looked at us with

surprise. There was no doubt about the landlady, however: there she was,

heading her army, a flushed, angry woman, full of affairs. Her I asked

politely--too politely, thinks the _Cigarette_--if we could have beds:

she surveying us coldly from head to foot.

"You will find beds in the suburb," she remarked. "We are too busy for

the like of you."

If we could make an entrance, change our clothes, and order a bottle of

wine, I felt sure we could put things right; so said I: "If we cannot

sleep, we may at least dine,"--and was for depositing my bag.

What a terrible convulsion of nature was that which followed in the

landlady's face! She made a run at us, and stamped her foot.

"Out with you--out of the door!" she screeched. "_Sortez! sortez! sortez

par la porte!_"

I do not know how it happened, but next moment we were out in the rain

and darkness, and I was cursing before the carriage entry like a

disappointed mendicant. Where were the boating men of Belgium? where the

Judge and his good wines? and where the graces of Origny? Black, black

was the night after the firelit kitchen; but what was that to the

blackness in our heart? This was not the first time that I have been

refused a lodging. Often and often have I planned what I should do if

such a misadventure happened to me again. And nothing is easier to plan.

But to put in execution, with the heart boiling at the indignity? Try

it; try it only once; and tell me what you did.

It is all very fine to talk about tramps and morality. Six hours of

police surveillance (such as I have had), or one brutal rejection from

an inn-door, change your views upon the subject like a course of

lectures. As long as you keep in the upper regions, with all the world

bowing to you as you go, social arrangements have a very handsome air;

but once get under the wheels, and you wish society were at the devil. I

will give most respectable men a fortnight of such a life, and then I

will offer them twopence for what remains of their morality.

For my part, when I was turned out of the Stag, or the Hind, or whatever

it was, I would have set the temple of Diana on fire if it had been

handy. There was no crime complete enough to express my disapproval of

human institutions. As for the _Cigarette_, I never knew a man so

altered. "We have been taken for pedlars again," said he. "Good God,

what it must be to be a pedlar in reality!" He particularized a

complaint for every joint in the landlady's body. Timon was a

philanthropist alongside of him. And then, when he was at the top of his

maledictory bent, he would suddenly break away and begin whimperingly to

commiserate the poor. "I hope to God," he said,--and I trust the prayer

was answered,--"that I shall never be uncivil to a pedlar." Was this the

imperturbable _Cigarette_? This, this was he. O change beyond report,

thought, or belief!

Meantime the heaven wept upon our heads; and the windows grew brighter

as the night increased in darkness. We trudged in and out of La Fere

streets; we saw shops, and private houses where people were copiously

dining; we saw stables where carters' nags had plenty of fodder and

clean straw; we saw no end of reservists, who were very sorry for

themselves this wet night, I doubt not, and yearned for their country

homes; but had they not each man his place in La Fere barracks? And we,

what had we?

There seemed to be no other inn in the whole town. People gave us

directions, which we followed as best we could, generally with the

effect of bringing us out again upon the scene of our disgrace. We were

very sad people indeed by the time we had gone all over La Fere; and the

_Cigarette_ had already made up his mind to lie under a poplar and sup

off a loaf of bread. But right at the other end, the house next the

town-gate was full of light and bustle. "_Bazin, aubergiste, loge a

pied_," was the sign. "_A la Croix de Malte_." There were we received.

The room was full of noisy reservists drinking and smoking; and we were

very glad indeed when the drums and bugles began to go about the

streets, and one and all had to snatch shakoes and be off for the

barracks.

Bazin was a tall man, running to fat: soft-spoken, with a delicate,

gentle face. We asked him to share our wine; but he excused himself,

having pledged reservists all day long. This was a very different type

of the workman-innkeeper from the bawling disputatious fellow at Origny.

He also loved Paris, where he had worked as a decorative painter in his

youth. There were such opportunities for self-instruction there, he

said. And if any one has read Zola's description of the workman's

marriage-party visiting the Louvre, they would do well to have heard

Bazin by way of antidote. He had delighted in the museums in his youth.

"One sees there little miracles of work," he said; "that is what makes a

good workman; it kindles a spark." We asked him how he managed in La

Fere. "I am married," he said, "and I have my pretty children. But

frankly, it is no life at all. From morning to night I pledge a pack of

good enough fellows who know nothing."

It faired as the night went on, and the moon came out of the clouds. We

sat in front of the door, talking softly with Bazin. At the guardhouse

opposite, the guard was being for ever turned out, as trains of field

artillery kept clanking in out of the night, or patrols of horsemen

trotted by in their cloaks. Madame Bazin came out after a while; she was

tired with her day's work, I suppose; and she nestled up to her husband

and laid her head upon his breast. He had his arm about her, and kept

gently patting her on the shoulder. I think Bazin was right, and he was

really married. Of how few people can the same be said!

Little did the Bazins know how much they served us. We were charged for

candles, for food and drink, and for the beds we slept in. But there was

nothing in the bill for the husband's pleasant talk; nor for the pretty

spectacle of their married life. And there was yet another item

uncharged. For these people's politeness really set us up again in our

own esteem. We had a thirst for consideration; the sense of insult was

still hot in our spirits; and civil usage seemed to restore us to our

position in the world.

How little we pay our way in life! Although we have our purses

continually in our hand, the better part of service goes still

unrewarded. But I like to fancy that a grateful spirit gives as good as

it gets. Perhaps the Bazins knew how much I liked them? perhaps they

also were healed of some slights by the thanks that I gave them in my

manner?

DOWN THE OISE

THROUGH THE GOLDEN VALLEY

Below La Fere the river runs through a piece of open pastoral country;

green, opulent, loved by breeders; called the Golden Valley. In wide

sweeps, and with a swift and equable gallop, the ceaseless stream of

water visits and makes green the fields. Kine, and horses, and little

humorous donkeys, browse together in the meadows, and come down in

troops to the riverside to drink. They make a strange feature in the

landscape; above all when they are startled, and you see them galloping

to and fro with their incongruous forms and faces. It gives a feeling as

of great, unfenced pampas, and the herds of wandering nations. There

were hills in the distance upon either hand; and on one side, the river

sometimes bordered on the wooded spurs of Coucy and St. Gobain.

The artillery were practicing at La Fere, and soon the cannon of heaven

joined in that loud play. Two continents of cloud met and exchanged

salvos overhead; while all round the horizon we could see sunshine and

clear air upon the hills. What with the guns and the thunder, the herds

were all frightened in the Golden Valley. We could see them tossing

their heads, and running to and fro in timorous indecision; and when

they had made up their minds, and the donkey followed the horse, and the

cow was after the donkey, we could hear their hooves thundering abroad

over the meadows. It had a martial sound, like cavalry charges. And

altogether, as far as the ears are concerned, we had a very rousing

battle-piece performed for our amusement.

At last the guns and the thunder dropped off; the sun shone on the wet

meadows; the air was scented with the breath of rejoicing trees and

grass; and the river kept unweariedly carrying us on at its best pace.

There was a manufacturing district about Chauny, and after that the

banks grew so high that they hid the adjacent country, and we could see

nothing but clay sides, and one willow after another. Only, here and

there, we passed by a village or a ferry, and some wondering child upon

the bank would stare after us until we turned the corner. I daresay we

continued to paddle in that child's dreams for many a night after.

Sun and shower alternated like day and night, making the hours longer by

their variety. When the showers were heavy, I could feel each drop

striking through my jersey to my warm skin; and the accumulation of

small shocks put me nearly beside myself. I decided I should buy a

mackintosh at Noyon. It is nothing to get wet; but the misery of these

individual pricks of cold all over my body at the same instant of time

made me flail the water with my paddle like a madman. The _Cigarette_

was greatly amused by these ebullitions. It gave him something else to

look at besides clay banks and willows.

All the time, the river stole away like a thief in straight places, or

swung round corners with an eddy; the willows nodded, and were

undermined all day long; the clay banks tumbled in; the Oise, which had

been so many centuries making the Golden Valley, seemed to have changed

its fancy, and to be bent upon undoing its performance. What a number of

things a river does, by simply following Gravity in the innocence of its

heart!

NOYON CATHEDRAL

Noyon stands about a mile from the river, in a little plain surrounded

by wooded hills, and entirely covers an eminence with its tile roofs,

surmounted by a long, straight-backed cathedral with two stiff towers.

As we got into the town, the tile roofs seemed to tumble uphill one upon

another, in the oddest disorder; but for all their scrambling, they did

not attain above the knees of the cathedral, which stood, upright and

solemn, over all. As the streets drew near to this presiding genius,

through the market-place under the Hotel de Ville, they grew emptier and

more composed. Blank walls and shuttered windows were turned to the

great edifice, and grass grew on the white causeway. "Put off thy shoes

from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground."

The Hotel du Nord, nevertheless, lights its secular tapers within a

stone-cast of the church; and we had the superb east-end before our eyes

all morning from the window of our bedroom. I have seldom looked on the

east-end of a church with more complete sympathy. As it flanges out in

three wide terraces and settles down broadly on the earth, it looks like

the poop of some great old battle-ship. Hollow-backed buttresses carry

vases, which figure for the stern lanterns. There is a roll in the

ground, and the towers just appear above the pitch of the roof, as

though the good ship were bowing lazily over an Atlantic swell. At any

moment it might be a hundred feet away from you, climbing the next

billow. At any moment a window might open, and some old admiral thrust

forth a cocked hat, and proceed to take an observation. The old

admirals sail the sea no longer; the old ships of battle are all broken

up, and live only in pictures; but this, that was a church before ever

they were thought upon, is still a church, and makes as brave an

appearance by the Oise. The cathedral and the river are probably the two

oldest things for miles around; and certainly they have both a grand old

age.

The Sacristan took us to the top of one of the towers, and showed us the

five bells hanging in their loft. From above, the town was a tessellated

pavement of roofs and gardens; the old line of rampart was plainly

traceable; and the Sacristan pointed out to us, far across the plain, in

a bit of gleaming sky between two clouds, the towers of Chateau Coucy.

I find I never weary of great churches. It is my favourite kind of

mountain scenery. Mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made

a cathedral: a thing as single and specious as a statue to the first

glance, and yet, on examination, as lively and interesting as a forest

in detail. The height of spires cannot be taken by trigonometry; they

measure absurdly short, but how tall they are to the admiring eye! And

where we have so many elegant proportions, growing one out of the other,

and all together into one, it seems as if proportion transcended itself,

and became something different and more imposing. I could never fathom

how a man dares to lift up his voice to preach in a cathedral. What is

he to say that will not be an anti-climax? For though I have heard a

considerable variety of sermons, I never yet heard one that was so

expressive as a cathedral. 'Tis the best preacher itself, and preaches

day and night; not only telling you of man's art and aspirations in the

past, but convicting your own soul of ardent sympathies; or rather, like

all good preachers, it sets you preaching to yourself;--and every man is

his own doctor of divinity in the last resort.

As I sat outside of the hotel in the course of the afternoon, the sweet

groaning thunder of the organ floated out of the church like a summons.

I was not averse, liking the theatre so well, to sit out an act or two

of the play, but I could never rightly make out the nature of the

service I beheld. Four or five priests and as many choristers were

singing _Miserere_ before the high altar when I went in. There was no

congregation but a few old women on chairs and old men kneeling on the

pavement. After a while a long train of young girls, walking two and

two, each with a lighted taper in her hand, and all dressed in black

with a white veil, came from behind the altar, and began to descend the

nave; the four first carrying a Virgin and child upon a table. The

priests and choristers arose from their knees and followed after,

singing "Ave Mary" as they went. In this order they made the circuit of

the cathedral, passing twice before me where I leaned against a pillar.

The priest who seemed of most consequence was a strange, down-looking

old man. He kept mumbling prayers with his lips; but as he looked upon

me darkling, it did not seem as if prayer were uppermost in his heart.

Two others, who bore the burthen of the chant, were stout, brutal,

military-looking men of forty, with bold, over-fed eyes; they sang with

some lustiness, and trolled forth "Ave Mary" like a garrison catch. The

little girls were timid and grave. As they footed slowly up the aisle,

each one took a moment's glance at the Englishman; and the big nun who

played marshal fairly stared him out of countenance. As for the

choristers, from first to last they misbehaved as only boys can

misbehave; and cruelly marred the performance with their antics.

I understood a great deal of the spirit of what went on. Indeed it would

be difficult not to understand the _Miserere_, which I take to be the

composition of an atheist. If it ever be a good thing to take such

despondency to heart, the _Miserere_ is the right music, and a cathedral

a fit scene. So far I am at one with the Catholics:--an odd name for

them, after all? But why, in God's name, these holiday choristers? why

these priests who steal wandering looks about the congregation while

they feign to be at prayer? why this fat nun, who rudely arranges her

procession and shakes delinquent virgins by the elbow? why this

spitting, and snuffing, and forgetting of keys, and the thousand and one

little misadventures that disturb a frame of mind laboriously edified

with chants and organings? In any playhouse reverend fathers may see

what can be done with a little art, and how, to move high sentiments, it

is necessary to drill the supernumeraries and have every stool in its

proper place.

One other circumstance distressed me. I could bear a _Miserere_ myself,

having had a good deal of open-air exercise of late; but I wished the

old people somewhere else. It was neither the right sort of music nor

the right sort of divinity for men and women who have come through most

accidents by this time, and probably have an opinion of their own upon

the tragic element in life. A person up in years can generally do his

own _Miserere_ for himself; although I notice that such an one often

prefers _Jubilate Deo_ for his ordinary singing. On the whole, the most

religious exercise for the aged is probably to recall their own

experience; so many friends dead, so many hopes disappointed, so many

slips and stumbles, and withal so many bright days and smiling

providences; there is surely the matter of a very eloquent sermon in all

this.

On the whole, I was greatly solemnized. In the little pictorial map of

our whole Inland Voyage, which my fancy still preserves, and sometimes

unrolls for the amusement of odd moments, Noyon cathedral figures on a

most preposterous scale, and must be nearly as large as a department. I

can still see the faces of the priests as if they were at my elbow, and

hear _Ave Maria, ora pro nobis_, sounding through the church. All Noyon

is blotted out for me by these superior memories; and I do not care to

say more about the place. It was but a stack of brown roofs at the

best, where I believe people live very reputably in a quiet way; but the

shadow of the church falls upon it when the sun is low, and the five

bells are heard in all quarters, telling that the organ has begun. If

ever I join the Church of Rome, I shall stipulate to be Bishop of Noyon

on the Oise.

DOWN THE OISE

TO COMPIEGNE

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 Fere; we forecast other La Feres 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 Fere put us talking of the

reservists.

"Reservery," said he, "seems a pretty mean way to spend one's 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 Conde 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 Compiegne 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.

AT COMPIEGNE

We put up at a big, bustling hotel in Compiegne, where nobody observed

our presence.

Reservery and general _militarismus_ (as the Germans call it) were

rampant. A camp of conical white tents without the town looked like a

leaf out of a picture Bible; sword-belts decorated the walls of the

_cafes_, and the streets kept sounding all day long with military music.

It was not possible to be an Englishman and avoid a feeling of elation;

for the men who followed the drums were small, and walked shabbily. Each

man inclined at his own angle, and jolted to his own convenience, as he

went. There was nothing of the superb gait with which a regiment of tall

Highlanders moves behind its music, solemn and inevitable, like a

natural phenomenon. Who that has seen it can forget the drum-major

pacing in front, the drummers' tiger-skins, the pipers' swinging plaids,

the strange elastic rhythm of the whole regiment footing it in time--and

the bang of the drum, when the brasses cease, and the shrill pipes take

up the martial story in their place?

A girl, at school in France, began to describe one of our regiments on

parade to her French schoolmates, and as she went on, she told me, the

recollection grew so vivid, she became so proud to be the countrywoman

of such soldiers, and so sorry to be in another country, that her voice

failed her and she burst into tears. I have never forgotten that girl;

and I think she very nearly deserves a statue. To call her a young lady,

with all its niminy associations, would be to offer her an insult. She

may rest assured of one thing: although she never should marry a heroic

general, never see any great or immediate result of her life, she will

not have lived in vain for her native land.

But though French soldiers show to ill advantage on parade, on the march

they are gay, alert, and willing like a troop of fox-hunters. I remember

once seeing a company pass through the forest of Fontainebleau, on the

Chailly road, between the Bas Breau and the Reine Blanche. One fellow

walked a little before the rest, and sang a loud, audacious marching

song. The rest bestirred their feet, and even swung their muskets in

time. A young officer on horseback had hard ado to keep his countenance

at the words. You never saw anything so cheerful and spontaneous as

their gait; schoolboys do not look more eagerly at hare and hounds; and

you would have thought it impossible to tire such willing marchers.

My great delight in Compiegne was the town-hall. I doted upon the

town-hall. It is a monument of Gothic insecurity, all turreted, and

gargoyled, and slashed, and bedizened with half a score of architectural

fancies. Some of the niches are gilt and painted; and in a great square

panel in the centre, in black relief on a gilt ground, Louis XII. rides

upon a pacing horse, with hand on hip and head thrown back. There is

royal arrogance in every line of him; the stirruped foot projects

insolently from the frame; the eye is hard and proud; the very horse

seems to be treading with gratification over prostrate serfs, and to

have the breath of the trumpet in his nostrils. So rides for ever, on

the front of the town-hall, the good king Louis XII., the father of his

people.

Over the king's head, in the tall centre turret, appears the dial of a

clock; and high above that, three little mechanical figures, each one

with a hammer in his hand, whose business it is to chime out the hours

and halves and quarters for the burgesses of Compiegne. The centre

figure has a gilt breast-plate; the two others wear gilt trunk-hose;

and they all three have elegant, flapping hats like cavaliers. As the

quarter approaches, they turn their heads and look knowingly one to the

other; and then, _kling_ go the three hammers on three little bells

below. The hour follows, deep and sonorous, from the interior of the

tower; and the gilded gentlemen rest from their labours with

contentment.

I had a great deal of healthy pleasure from their manoeuvres, and took

good care to miss as few performances as possible; and I found that even

the _Cigarette_, while he pretended to despise my enthusiasm, was more

or less a devotee himself. There is something highly absurd in the

exposition of such toys to the outrages of winter on a housetop. They

would be more in keeping in a glass case before a Nuernberg clock. Above

all, at night, when the children are abed, and even grown people are

snoring under quilts, does it not seem impertinent to leave these

ginger-bread figures winking and tinkling to the stars and the rolling

moon? The gargoyles may fitly enough twist their ape-like heads; fitly

enough may the potentate bestride his charger, like a centurion in an

old German print of the _Via Dolorosa_; but the toys should be put away

in a box among some cotton, until the sun rises, and the children are

abroad again to be amused.

In Compiegne post-office a great packet of letters awaited us; and the

authorities were, for this occasion only, so polite as to hand them over

upon application.

In some ways, our journey may be said to end with this letter-bag at

Compiegne. The spell was broken. We had partly come home from that

moment.

No one should have any correspondence on a journey; it is bad enough to

have to write, but the receipt of letters is the death of all holiday

feeling.

"Out of my country and myself I go." I wish to take a dive among new

conditions for a while, as into another element. I have nothing to do

with my friends or my affections for the time; when I came away, I left

my heart at home in a desk, or sent it forward with my portmanteau to

await me at my destination. After my journey is over, I shall not fail

to read your admirable letters with the attention they deserve. But I

have paid all this money, look you, and paddled all these strokes, for

no other purpose than to be abroad; and yet you keep me at home with

your perpetual communications. You tug the string, and I feel that I am

a tethered bird. You pursue me all over Europe with the little vexations

that I came away to avoid. There is no discharge in the war of life, I

am well aware; but shall there not be so much as a week's furlough?

We were up by six, the day we were to leave. They had taken so little

note of us that I hardly thought they would have condescended on a bill.

But they did, with some smart particulars too, and we paid in a

civilized manner to an uninterested clerk, and went out of that hotel,

with the india-rubber bags, unremarked. No one cared to know about us.

It is not possible to rise before a village; but Compiegne was so grown

a town, that it took its ease in the morning, and we were up and away

while it was still in dressing-gown and slippers. The streets were left

to people washing doorsteps; nobody was in full dress but the cavaliers

upon the town-hall; they were all washed with dew, spruce in their

gilding, and full of intelligence and a sense of professional

responsibility. _Kling_ went they on the bells for the half-past six as

we went by. I took it kindly of them to make me this parting compliment;

they never were in better form, not even at noon upon a Sunday.

There was no one to see us off but the early washerwomen--early and

late--who were already beating the linen in their floating lavatory on

the river. They were very merry and matutinal in their ways; plunged

their arms boldly in, and seemed not to feel the shock. It would be

dispiriting to me, this early beginning and first cold dabble of a most

dispiriting day's work. But I believe they would have been as unwilling

to change days with us as we could be to change with them. They crowded

to the door to watch us paddle away into the thin sunny mists upon the

river; and shouted heartily alter us till we were through the bridge.

CHANGED TIMES

There is a sense in which those mists never rose from off our journey;

and from that time forth they lie very densely in my note-book. As long

as the Oise was a small rural river, it took us near by people's doors,

and we could hold a conversation with natives in the riparian fields.

But now that it had grown so wide, the life along shore passed us by at

a distance. It was the same difference as between a great public highway

and a country by-path that wanders in and out of cottage gardens. We now

lay in towns, where nobody troubled us with questions; we had floated

into civilized life, where people pass without salutation. In sparsely

inhabited places, we make all we can of each encounter; but when it

comes to a city, we keep to ourselves, and never speak unless we have

trodden on a man's toes. In these waters we were no longer strange

birds, and nobody supposed we had travelled farther than from the last

town. I remember, when we came into L'Isle Adam, for instance, how we

met dozens of pleasure-boats outing it for the afternoon, and there was

nothing to distinguish the true voyager from the amateur, except,

perhaps, the filthy condition of my sail. The company in one boat

actually thought they recognized me for a neighbour. Was there ever

anything more wounding? All the romance had come down to that. Now, on

the upper Oise, where nothing sailed as a general thing but fish, a pair

of canoeists could not be thus vulgarly explained away; we were strange

and picturesque intruders; and out of people's wonder sprang a sort of

light and passing intimacy all along our route. There is nothing but

tit-for-tat in this world, though sometimes it be a little difficult to

trace: for the scores are older than we ourselves, and there has never

yet been a settling-day since things were. You get entertainment pretty

much in proportion as you give. As long as we were a sort of odd

wanderers, to be stared at and followed like a quack doctor or a

caravan, we had no want of amusement in return; but as soon as we sank

into commonplace ourselves, all whom we met were similarly disenchanted.

And here is one reason of a dozen, why the world is dull to dull

persons.

In our earlier adventures there was generally something to do, and that

quickened us. Even the showers of rain had a revivifying effect, and

shook up the brain from torpor. But now, when the river no longer ran in

a proper sense, only glided seaward with an even, out-right, but

imperceptible speed, and when the sky smiled upon us day after day

without variety, we began to slip into that golden doze of the mind

which follows upon much exercise in the open air. I have stupefied

myself in this way more than once; indeed, I dearly love the feeling;

but I never had it to the same degree as when paddling down the Oise. It

was the apotheosis of stupidity.

We ceased reading entirely. Sometimes when I found a new paper, I took a

particular pleasure in reading a single number of the current novel; but

I never could bear more than three installments; and even the second was

a disappointment. As soon as the tale became in any way perspicuous, it

lost all merit in my eyes; only a single scene, or, as is the way with

these _feuilletons_, half a scene, without antecedent or consequence,

like a piece of a dream, had the knack of fixing my interest. The less I

saw of the novel, the better I liked it: a pregnant reflection. But for

the most part, as I said, we neither of us read anything in the world,

and employed the very little while we were awake between bed and dinner

in poring upon maps. I have always been fond of maps, and can voyage in

an atlas with the greatest enjoyment. The names of places are

singularly inviting; the contour of coasts and rivers is enthralling to

the eye; and to hit, in a map, upon some place you have heard of before

makes history a new possession. But we thumbed our charts on these

evenings with the blankest unconcern. We cared not a fraction for this

place or that. We stared at the sheet as children listen to their

rattle; and read the names of towns or villages to forget them again at

once. We had no romance in the matter; there was nobody so fancy-free.

If you had taken the maps away while we were studying them most

intently, it is a fair bet whether we might not have continued to study

the table with the same delight.

About one thing we were mightily taken up, and that was eating. I think

I made a god of my belly. I remember dwelling in imagination upon this

or that dish till my mouth watered; and long before we got in for the

night my appetite was a clamant, instant annoyance. Sometimes we paddled

alongside for a while, and whetted each other with gastronomical fancies

as we went. Cake and sherry, a homely refection, but not within reach

upon the Oise, trotted through my head for many a mile; and once, as we

were approaching Verberie, the _Cigarette_ brought my heart into my

mouth by the suggestion of oyster patties and Sauterne.

I suppose none of us recognise the great part that is played in life by

eating and drinking. The appetite is so imperious that we can stomach

the least interesting viands, and pass off a dinner-hour thankfully

enough on bread and water; just as there are men who must read

something, if it were only "Bradshaw's Guide." But there is a romance

about the matter after all. Probably the table has more devotees than

love; and I am sure that food is much more generally entertaining than

scenery. Do you give in, as Walt Whitman would say, that you are any the

less immortal for that? The true materialism is to be ashamed of what we

are. To detect the flavour of aean olive is no less a piece of human

perfection than to find beauty in the colours of the sunset.

Canoeing was easy work. To dip the paddle at the proper inclination, now

right, now left; to keep the head down stream; to empty the little pool

that gathered in the lap of the apron; to screw up the eyes against the

glittering sparkles of sun upon the water; or now and again to pass

below the whistling tow-rope of the _Deo Gratias_ of Conde, or the _Four

Sons of Aymon_--there was not much art in that; certain silly muscles

managed it between sleep and waking; and meanwhile the brain had a whole

holiday, and went to sleep. We took in, at a glance, the larger features

of the scene; and beheld, with half an eye, bloused fishers and dabbling

washerwomen on the bank. Now and again we might be half-wakened by some

church spire, by a leaping fish, or by a trail of river grass that clung

about the paddle and had to be plucked off and thrown away. But these

luminous intervals were only partially luminous. A little more of us was

called into action, but never the whole. The central bureau of nerves,

what in some moods we call Ourselves, enjoyed its holiday without

disturbance, like a Government office. The great wheels of intelligence

turned idly in the head, like fly-wheels, grinding no grist. I have gone

on for half an hour at a time, counting my strokes and forgetting the

hundreds. I flatter myself the beasts that perish could not underbid

that, as a low form of consciousness. And what a pleasure it was! What a

hearty, tolerant temper did it bring about! There is nothing captious

about a man who has attained to this, the one possible apotheosis in

life, the Apotheosis of Stupidity; and he begins to feel dignified and

longaevous like a tree.

There was one odd piece of practical metaphysics which accompanied what

I may call the depth, if I must not call it the intensity, of my

abstraction. What philosophers call _me_ and _not-me_, _ego_ and _non

ego_, preoccupied me whether I would or no. There was less _me_ and

more _not-me_ than I was accustomed to expect. I looked on upon somebody

else, who managed the paddling; I was aware of somebody else's feet

against the stretcher; my own body seemed to have no more intimate

relation to me than the canoe, or the river, or the river banks. Nor

this alone: something inside my mind, a part of my brain, a province of

my proper being, had thrown off allegiance and set up for itself, or

perhaps for the somebody else who did the paddling. I had dwindled into

quite a little thing in a corner of myself. I was isolated in my own

skull. Thoughts presented themselves unbidden; they were not my

thoughts, they were plainly some one else's; and I considered them like

a part of the landscape. I take it, in short, that I was about as near

Nirvana as would be convenient in practical life; and if this be so, I

make the Buddhists my sincere compliments; 'tis an agreeable state, not

very consistent with mental brilliancy, not exactly profitable in a

money point of view, but very calm, golden, and incurious, and one that

sets a man superior to alarms. It may be best figured by supposing

yourself to get dead drunk, and yet keep sober to enjoy it. I have a

notion that open-air labourers must spend a large portion of their days

in this ecstatic stupor, which explains their high composure and

endurance. A pity to go to the expense of laudanum, when here is a

better paradise for nothing!

This frame of mind was the great exploit of our voyage, take it all in

all. It was the farthest piece of travel accomplished. Indeed, it lies

so far from beaten paths of language, that I despair of getting the

reader into sympathy with the smiling, complacent idiocy of my

condition; when ideas came and went like motes in a sunbeam; when trees

and church spires along the bank surged up, from time to time into my

notice, like solid objects through a rolling cloudland; when the

rhythmical swish of boat and paddle in the water became a cradle-song to

lull my thoughts asleep; when a piece of mud on the deck was sometimes

an intolerable eyesore, and sometimes quite a companion for me, and the

object of pleased consideration;--and all the time, with the river

running and the shores changing upon either hand, I kept counting my

strokes and forgetting the hundreds, the happiest animal in France.

DOWN THE OISE

CHURCH INTERIORS

We made our first stage below Compiegne to Pont Sainte Maxence. I was

abroad a little after six the next morning. The air was biting, and

smelt of frost. In an open place a score of women wrangled together over

the day's market; and the noise of their negotiation sounded thin and

querulous like that of sparrows on a winter's morning. The rare

passengers blew into their hands, and shuffled in their wooden shoes to

set the blood agog. The streets were full of icy shadow, although the

chimneys were smoking overhead in golden sunshine. If you wake early

enough at this season of the year, you may get up in December to break

your fast in June.

I found my way to the church; for there is always something to see about

a church, whether living worshipers or dead men's tombs; you find there

the deadliest earnest, and the hollowest deceit; and even where it is

not a piece of history, it will be certain to leak out some contemporary

gossip. It was scarcely so cold in the church as it was without, but it

looked colder. The white nave was positively arctic to the eye; and the

tawdriness of a continental altar looked more forlorn than usual in the

solitude and the bleak air. Two priests sat in the chancel, reading and

waiting penitents; and out in the nave, one very old woman was engaged

in her devotions. It was a wonder how she was able to pass her beads

when healthy young people were breathing in their palms and slapping

their chest; but though this concerned me, I was yet more dispirited by

the nature of her exercises. She went from chair to chair, from altar

to altar, circumnavigating the church. To each shrine she dedicated an

equal number of beads and an equal length of time. Like a prudent

capitalist with a somewhat cynical view of the commercial prospect, she

desired to place her supplications in a great variety of heavenly

securities. She would risk nothing on the credit of any single

intercessor. Out of the whole company of saints and angels, not one but

was to suppose himself her champion-elect against the Great Assize! I

could only think of it as a dull, transparent jugglery, based upon

unconscious unbelief.

She was as dead an old woman as ever I saw; no more than bone and

parchment, curiously put together. Her eyes, with which she interrogated

mine, were vacant of sense. It depends on what you call seeing, whether

you might not call her blind. Perhaps she had known love: perhaps borne

children, suckled them and given them pet names. But now that was all

gone by, and had left her neither happier nor wiser; and the best she

could do with her mornings was to come up here into the cold church and

juggle for a slice of heaven. It was not without a gulp that I escaped

into the streets and the keen morning air. Morning? why, how tired of it

she would be before night! and if she did not sleep, how then? It is

fortunate that not many of us are brought up publicly to justify our

lives at the bar of threescore years and ten; fortunate that such a

number are knocked opportunely on the head in what they call the flower

of their years, and go away to suffer for their follies in private

somewhere else. Otherwise, between sick children and discontented old

folk, we might be put out of all conceit of life.

I had need of all my cerebral hygiene during that day's paddle: the old

devotee stuck in my throat sorely. But I was soon in the seventh heaven

of stupidity; and knew nothing but that somebody was paddling a canoe,

while I was counting his strokes, and forgetting the hundreds. I used

sometimes to be afraid I should remember the hundreds; which would have

made a toil of a pleasure; but the terror was chimerical, they went out

of my mind by enchantment, and I knew no more than the man in the moon

about my only occupation.

At Creil, where we stopped to lunch, we left the canoes in another

floating lavatory, which, as it was high noon, was packed with

washerwomen, red-handed and loud-voiced; and they and their broad jokes

are about all I remember of the place. I could look up my history-books,

if you were very anxious, and tell you a date or two; for it figured

rather largely in the English wars. But I prefer to mention a girls'

boarding-school, which had an interest for us because it was a girls'

boarding-school, and because we imagined we had rather an interest for

it. At least--there were the girls about the garden; and here were we on

the river; and there was more than one handkerchief waved as we went by.

It caused quite a stir in my heart; and yet how we should have wearied

and despised each other, these girls and I, if we had been introduced at

a croquet party! But this is a fashion I love: to kiss the hand or wave

a handkerchief to people I shall never see again, to play with

possibility, and knock in a peg for fancy to hang upon. It gives the

traveller a jog, reminds him that he is not a traveller everywhere, and

that his journey is no more than a siesta by the way on the real march

of life.

The church at Creil was a nondescript place in the inside, splashed with

gaudy lights from the windows, and picked out with medallions of the

Dolorous Way. But there was one oddity, in the way of an _ex voto_,

which pleased me hugely: a faithful model of a canal boat, swung from

the vault, with a written aspiration that God should conduct the _Saint

Nicolas_ of Creil to a good haven. The thing was neatly executed, and

would have made the delight of a party of boys on the waterside. But

what tickled me was the gravity of the peril to be conjured. You might

hang up the model of a sea-going ship, and welcome: one that is to

plough a furrow round the world, and visit the tropic or the frosty

poles, runs dangers that are well worth a candle and a mass. But the

_Saint Nicolas_ of Creil, which was to be tugged for some ten years by

patient draught-horses, in a weedy canal, with the poplars chattering

overhead, and the skipper whistling at the tiller; which was to do all

its errands in green inland places, and never get out of sight of a

village belfry in all its cruising; why, you would have thought if

anything could be done without the intervention of Providence, it would

be that! But perhaps the skipper was a humorist: or perhaps a prophet,

reminding people of the seriousness of life by this preposterous token.

At Creil, as at Noyon, Saint Joseph seemed a favourite saint on the

score of punctuality. Day and hour can be specified; and grateful people

do not fail to specify them on a votive tablet, when prayers have been

punctually and neatly answered. Whenever time is a consideration, Saint

Joseph is the proper intermediary. I took a sort of pleasure in

observing the vogue he had in France, for the good man plays a very

small part in my religion at home. Yet I could not help fearing that,

where the Saint is so much commended for exactitude, he will be expected

to be very grateful for his tablet.

This is foolishness to us Protestants; and not of great importance

anyway. Whether people's gratitude for the good gifts that come to them

be wisely conceived or dutifully expressed is a secondary matter after

all, so long as they feel gratitude. The true ignorance is when a man

does not know that he has received a good gift, or begins to imagine

that he has got it for himself. The self-made man is the funniest

wind-bag after all! There is a marked difference between decreeing light

in chaos, and lighting the gas in a metropolitan back-parlour with a box

of patent matches; and do what we will, there is always something made

to our hand, if it were only our fingers.

But there was something worse than foolishness placarded in Creil

Church. The Association of the Living Rosary (of which I had never

previously heard) is responsible for that. This Association was founded,

according to the printed advertisement, by a brief of Pope Gregory

Sixteenth, on the 17th of January, 1832: according to a coloured

bas-relief, it seems to have been founded, sometime or other, by the

Virgin giving one rosary to Saint Dominic, and the Infant Saviour giving

another to Saint Catharine of Siena. Pope Gregory is not so imposing,

but he is nearer hand. I could not distinctly make out whether the

Association was entirely devotional, or had an eye to good works; at

least it is highly organized: the names of fourteen matrons and misses

were filled in for each week of the month as associates, with one other,

generally a married woman, at the top for _zelatrice:_ the leader of the

band. Indulgences, plenary and partial, follow on the performance of the

duties of the Association. "The partial indulgences are attached to the

recitation of the rosary." On "the recitation of the required

_dizaine_," a partial indulgence promptly follows. When people serve the

kingdom of heaven with a pass-book in their hands, I should always be

afraid lest they should carry the same commercial spirit into their

dealings with their fellow-men, which would make a sad and sordid

business of this life.

There is one more article, however, of happier import. "All these

indulgences," it appeared, "are applicable to souls in purgatory." For

God's sake, ye ladies of Creil, apply them all to the souls in purgatory

without delay! Burns would take no hire for his last songs, preferring

to serve his country out of unmixed love. Suppose you were to imitate

the exciseman, mesdames, and even if the souls in purgatory were not

greatly bettered, some souls in Creil upon the Oise would find

themselves none the worse either here or hereafter.

I cannot help wondering, as I transcribe these notes, whether a

Protestant born and bred is in a fit state to understand these signs,

and do them what justice they deserve; and I cannot help answering that

he is not. They cannot look so merely ugly and mean to the faithful as

they do to me. I see that as clearly as a proposition in Euclid. For

these believers are neither weak nor wicked. They can put up their

tablet commending Saint Joseph for his despatch, as if he were still a

village carpenter; they can "recite the required _dizaine_," and

metaphorically pocket the indulgence, as if they had done a job for

Heaven; and then they can go out and look down unabashed upon this

wonderful river flowing by, and up without confusion at the pin-point

stars, which are themselves great worlds full of flowing rivers greater

than the Oise. I see it as plainly, I say, as a proposition in Euclid,

that my Protestant mind has missed the point, and that there goes with

these deformities some higher and more religious spirit than I dream.

I wonder if other people would make the same allowances for me! Like the

ladies of Creil, having recited my rosary of toleration, I look for my

indulgence on the spot.

PRECY AND THE MARIONNETTES

We made Precy about sundown. The plain is rich with tufts of poplar. In

a wide, luminous curve, the Oise lay under the hillside. A faint mist

began to rise and confound the different distances together. There was

not a sound audible but that of the sheep-bells in some meadows by the

river, and the creaking of a cart down the long road that descends the

hill. The villas in their gardens, the shops along the street, all

seemed to have been deserted the day before, and I felt inclined to walk

discreetly as one feels in a silent forest. All of a sudden we came

round a corner, and there, in a little green round the church, was a

bevy of girls in Parisian costumes playing croquet. Their laughter, and

the hollow sound of ball and mallet, made a cheery stir in the

neighbourhood; and the look of these slim figures, all corseted and

ribboned, produced an answerable disturbance in our hearts. We were

within sniff of Paris, it seemed. And here were females of our own

species playing croquet, just as if Precy had been a place in real life,

instead of a stage in the fairyland of travel. For, to be frank, the

peasant woman is scarcely to be counted as a woman at all, and after

having passed by such a succession of people in petticoats digging and

hoeing and making dinner, this company of coquettes under arms made

quite a surprising feature in the landscape, and convinced us at once of

being fallible males.

The inn at Precy is the worst inn in France. Not even in Scotland have I

found worse fare. It was kept by a brother and sister, neither of whom

was out of their teens. The sister, so to speak, prepared a meal for us,

and the brother, who had been tippling, came in and brought with him a

tipsy butcher, to entertain us as we ate. We found pieces of loo-warm

pork among the salad, and pieces of unknown yielding substance in the

_ragout_. The butcher entertained us with pictures of Parisian life,

with which he professed himself well acquainted; the brother sitting the

while on the edge of the billiard table, toppling precariously, and

sucking the stump of a cigar. In the midst of these diversions, bang

went a drum past the house, and a hoarse voice began issuing a

proclamation. It was a man with marionnettes announcing a performance

for that evening.

He had set up his caravan and lighted his candles on another part of the

girls' croquet-green, under one of those open sheds which are so common

in France to shelter markets; and he and his wife, by the time we

strolled up there, were trying to keep order with the audience.

It was the most absurd contention. The show-people had set out a certain

number of benches, and all who sat upon them were to pay a couple of

sous for the accommodation. They were always quite full--a bumper

house--as long as nothing was going forward; but let the show-woman

appear with an eye to a collection, and at the first rattle of her

tambourine the audience slipped off the seats, and stood round on the

outside with their hands in their pockets. It certainly would have tried

an angel's temper. The showman roared from the proscenium; he had been

all over France, and nowhere, nowhere, "not even on the borders of

Germany," had he met with such misconduct. Such thieves and rogues and

rascals, as he called them! And every now and again the wife issued on

another round, and added her shrill quota to the tirade. I remarked

here, as elsewhere, how far more copious is the female mind in the

material of insult. The audience laughed in high good-humour over the

man's declamations, but they bridled and cried aloud under the woman's

pungent sallies. She picked out the sore points. She had the honour of

the village at her mercy. Voices answered her angrily out of the crowd,

and received a smarting retort for their trouble. A couple of old ladies

beside me, who had duly paid for their seats, waxed very red and

indignant, and discoursed to each other audibly about the impudence of

these mountebanks; but as soon as the show-woman caught a whisper of

this, she was down upon them with a swoop: if mesdames could persuade

their neighbours to act with common honesty, the mountebanks, she

assured them, would be polite enough: mesdames had probably had their

bowl of soup, and perhaps a glass of wine that evening; the mountebanks

also had a taste for soup, and did not choose to have their little

earnings stolen from them before their eyes. Once, things came as far as

a brief personal encounter between the showman and some lads, in which

the former went down as readily as one of his own marionnettes to a peal

of jeering laughter.

I was a good deal astonished at this scene, because I am pretty well

acquainted with the ways of French strollers, more or less artistic; and

have always found them singularly pleasing. Any stroller must be dear to

the right-thinking heart; if it were only as a living protest against

offices and the mercantile spirit, and as something to remind us that

life is not by necessity the kind of thing we generally make it. Even a

German band, if you see it leaving town in the early morning for a

campaign in country places, among trees and meadows, has a romantic

flavour for the imagination. There is nobody, under thirty, so dead but

his heart will stir a little at sight of a gypsies' camp. "We are not

cotton-spinners all"--or, at least, not all through. There is some life

in humanity yet: and youth will now and again find a brave word to say

in dispraise of riches, and throw up a situation to go strolling with a

knapsack.

An Englishman has always special facilities for intercourse with French

gymnasts; for England is the natural home of gymnasts. This or that

fellow, in his tights and spangles, is sure to know a word or two of

English, to have drunk English _aff-'n'-aff_, and perhaps performed in

an English music-hall. He is a countryman of mine by profession. He

leaps, like the Belgian boating men, to the notion that I must be an

athlete myself.

But the gymnast is not my favourite; he has little or no tincture of the

artist in his composition; his soul is small and pedestrian, for the

most part, since his profession makes no call upon it, and does not

accustom him to high ideas. But if a man is only so much of an actor

that he can stumble through a farce, he is made free of a new order of

thoughts. He has something else to think about beside the money-box. He

has a pride of his own, and, what is of far more importance, he has an

aim before him that he can never quite attain. He has gone upon a

pilgrimage that will last him his life long, because there is no end to

it short of perfection. He will better upon himself a little day by day;

or even if he has given up the attempt, he will always remember that

once upon a time he had conceived this high ideal, that once upon a time

he had fallen in love with a star. "'Tis better to have loved and lost."

Although the moon should have nothing to say to Endymion, although he

should settle down with Audrey and feed pigs, do you not think he would

move with a better grace, and cherish higher thoughts to the end? The

lout he meets at church never had a fancy above Audrey's snood; but

there is a reminiscence in Endymion's heart that, like a spice, keeps it

fresh and haughty.

To be even one of the outskirters of art leaves a fine stamp on a man's

countenance. I remember once dining with a party in the inn at Chateau

Landon. Most of them were unmistakable bagmen; others well-to-do

peasantry; but there was one young fellow in a blouse, whose face stood

out from among the rest surprisingly. It looked more finished; more of

the spirit looked out through it; it had a living, expressive air, and

you could see that his eyes took things in. My companion and I wondered

greatly who and what he could be. It was fair-time in Chateau Landon,

and when we went along to the booths we had our question answered; for

there was our friend busily fiddling for the peasants to caper to. He

was a wandering violinist.

A troop of strollers once came to the inn where I was staying, in the

Department of Seine et Marne. There was a father and mother; two

daughters, brazen, blowsy hussies, who sang and acted, without an idea

of how to set about either; and a dark young man, like a tutor, a

recalcitrant house-painter, who sang and acted not amiss. The mother was

the genius of the party, so far as genius can be spoken of with regard

to such a pack of incompetent humbugs; and her husband could not find

words to express his admiration for her comic countryman. "You should

see my old woman," said he, and nodded his beery countenance. One night

they performed in the stable-yard, with flaring lamps--a wretched

exhibition, coldly looked upon by a village audience. Next night, as

soon as the lamps were lighted, there came a plump of rain, and they had

to sweep away their baggage as fast as possible, and make off to the

barn where they harboured, cold, wet, and supperless. In the morning, a

dear friend of mine, who has as warm a heart for strollers as I have

myself, made a little collection, and sent it by my hands to comfort

them for their disappointment. I gave it to the father; he thanked me

cordially, and we drank a cup together in the kitchen, talking of roads,

and audiences, and hard times.

When I was going, up got my old stroller, and off with his hat. "I am

afraid," said he, "that Monsieur will think me altogether a beggar; but

I have another demand to make upon him." I began to hate him on the

spot. "We play again to-night," he went on. "Of course, I shall refuse

to accept any more money from Monsieur and his friends, who have been

already so liberal. But our programme of to-night is something truly

creditable; and I cling to the idea that Monsieur will honour us with

his presence." And then, with a shrug and a smile: "Monsieur

understands--the vanity of an artist!" Save the mark! The vanity of an

artist! That is the kind of thing that reconciles me to life: a ragged,

tippling, incompetent old rogue, with the manners of a gentleman, and

the vanity of an artist, to keep up his self-respect!

But the man after my own heart is M. de Vauversin. It is nearly two

years since I saw him first, and indeed I hope I may see him often

again. Here is his first programme, as I found it on the

breakfast-table, and have kept it ever since as a relic of bright

days:--

_"Mesdames et Messieurs,_

_"Mademoiselle Ferrario et M. de Vauversin auront l'honneur de

chanter ce soir les morceaux suivants.

"Mademoiselle Ferrario chantera--Mignon--Oiseaux

legers--France--Des Francais dorment la--Le chateau bleu--Ou

voulez-vous aller?

"M. de Vauversin--Madame Fountaine et M. Robinet--Les plongeurs a

cheval--Le mari mecontent--Tais-toi, gamin--Mon voisin

l'original--Heureux comme ca--Comme on est trompe."_

They made a stage at one end of the _salle-a-manger_. And what a sight

it was to see M. de Vauversin, with a cigarette in his mouth, twanging a

guitar, and following Mademoiselle Ferrario's eyes with the obedient,

kindly look of a dog! The entertainment wound up with a tombola, or

auction of lottery tickets: an admirable amusement, with all the

excitement of gambling, and no hope of gain to make you ashamed of your

eagerness; for there all is loss; you make haste to be out of pocket; it

is a competition who shall lose most money for the benefit of M. de

Vauversin and Mademoiselle Ferrario.

M. de Vauversin is a small man, with a great head of black hair, a

vivacious and engaging air, and a smile that would be delightful if he

had better teeth. He was once an actor in the Chatelet; but he

contracted a nervous affection from the heat and glare of the

footlights, which unfitted him for the stage. At this crisis

Mademoiselle Ferrario, otherwise Mademoiselle Rita of the Alcazar,

agreed to share his wandering fortunes. "I could never forget the

generosity of that lady," said he. He wears trousers so tight that it

has long been a problem to all who knew him how he manages to get in and

out of them. He sketches a little in water-colours; he writes verses; he

is the most patient of fishermen, and spent long days at the bottom of

the inn-garden fruitlessly dabbling a line in the clear river.

You should hear him recounting his experiences over a bottle of wine;

such a pleasant vein of talk as he has, with a ready smile at his own

mishaps, and every now and then a sudden gravity, like a man who should

hear the surf roar while he was telling the perils of the deep. For it

was no longer ago than last night, perhaps, that the receipts only

amounted to a franc and a half, to cover three francs of railway fare

and two of board and lodging. The Maire, a man worth a million of money,

sat in the front seat, repeatedly applauding Mlle. Ferrario, and yet

gave no more than three _sous_ the whole evening. Local authorities look

with such an evil eye upon the strolling artist. Alas! I know it well,

who have been myself taken for one, and pitilessly incarcerated on the

strength of the misapprehension. Once M. de Vauversin visited a

commissary of police for permission to sing. The commissary, who was

smoking at his ease, politely doffed his hat upon the singer's entrance.

"Mr. Commissary," he began, "I am an artist." And on went the

commissary's hat again. No courtesy for the companions of Apollo! "They

are as degraded as that," said M. de Vauversin, with a sweep of his

cigarette.

But what pleased me most was one outbreak of his, when we had been

talking all the evening of the rubs, indignities, and pinchings of his

wandering life. Someone said, it would be better to have a million of

money down, and Mlle. Ferrario admitted that she would prefer that

mightily. "_Eh bien, moi non_;--not I," cried De Vauversin, striking the

table with his hand. "If anyone is a failure in the world, is it not I?

I had an art, in which I have done things well--as well as some--better

perhaps than others; and now it is closed against me. I must go about

the country gathering coppers and singing nonsense. Do you think I

regret my life? Do you think I would rather be a fat burgess, like a

calf? Not I! I have had moments when I have been applauded on the

boards: I think nothing of that; but I have known in my own mind

sometimes, when I had not a clap from the whole house, that I had found

a true intonation, or an exact and speaking gesture; and then,

messieurs, I have known what pleasure was, what it was to do a thing

well, what it was to be an artist. And to know what art is, is to have

an interest for ever, such as no burgess can find in his petty concerns.

_Tenez, messieurs, je vais vous le dire_--it is like a religion."

Such, making some allowance for the tricks of memory and the

inaccuracies of translation, was the profession of faith of M. de

Vauversin. I have given him his own name, lest any other wanderer should

come across him, with his guitar and cigarette, and Mademoiselle

Ferrario; for should not all the world delight to honour this

unfortunate and loyal follower of the Muses? May Apollo send him rhymes

hitherto undreamed of; may the river be no longer scanty of her silver

fishes to his lure; may the cold not pinch him on long winter rides, nor

the village jack-in-office affront him with unseemly manners; and may he

never miss Mademoiselle Ferrario from his side, to follow with his

dutiful eyes and accompany on the guitar!

The marionnettes made a very dismal entertainment. They performed a

piece, called _Pyramus and Thisbe_, in five mortal acts, and all written

in Alexandrines fully as long as the performers. One marionnette was the

king; another the wicked counselor; a third, credited with exceptional

beauty, represented Thisbe; and then there were guards, and obdurate

fathers, and walking gentlemen. Nothing particular took place during the

two or three acts that I sat out; but you will be pleased to learn that

the unities were properly respected, and the whole piece, with one

exception, moved in harmony with classical rules. That exception was the

comic countryman, a lean marionnette in wooden shoes, who spoke in prose

and in a broad _patois_ much appreciated by the audience. He took

unconstitutional liberties with the person of his sovereign; kicked his

fellow-marionnettes in the mouth with his wooden shoes, and whenever

none of the versifying suitors were about, made love to Thisbe on his

own account in comic prose.

This fellow's evolutions, and the little prologue, in which the showman

made a humorous eulogium of his troop, praising their indifference to

applause and hisses, and their single devotion to their art, were the

only circumstances in the whole affair that you could fancy would so

much as raise a smile. But the villagers of Precy seemed delighted.

Indeed, so long as a thing is an exhibition, and you pay to see it, it

is nearly certain to amuse. If we were charged so much a head for

sunsets, or if God sent round a drum before the hawthorns came in

flower, what a work should we not make about their beauty! But these

things, like good companions, stupid people early cease to observe; and

the Abstract Bagman tittups past in his spring gig, and is positively

not aware of the flowers along the lane, or the scenery of the weather

overhead.

BACK TO THE WORLD

Of the next two days' sail little remains in my mind, and nothing

whatever in my note-book. The river streamed on steadily through

pleasant riverside landscapes. Washerwomen in blue dresses, fishers in

blue blouses, diversified the green banks; and the relation of the two

colours was like that of the flower and the leaf in the forget-me-not. A

symphony in forget-me-not; I think Theophile Gautier might thus have

characterized that two days' panorama. The sky was blue and cloudless,

and the sliding surface of the river held up, in smooth places, a mirror

to the heaven and the shores. The washerwomen hailed us laughingly, and

the noise of trees and water made an accompaniment to our dozing

thoughts, as we fleeted down the stream.

The great volume, the indefatigable purpose of the river, held the mind

in chain. It seemed now so sure of its end, so strong and easy in its

gait, like a grown man full of determination. The surf was roaring for

it on the sands of Havre.

For my own part, slipping along this moving thoroughfare in my

fiddle-case of a canoe, I also was beginning to grow aweary for my

ocean. To the civilized man, there must come, sooner or later, a desire

for civilization. I was weary of dipping the paddle; I was weary of

living on the skirts of life; I wished to be in the thick of it once

more; I wished to get to work; I wished to meet people who understood my

own speech, and could meet with me on equal terms, as a man and no

longer as a curiosity.

And so a letter at Pontoise decided us, and we drew up our keels for the

last time out of that river of Oise that had faithfully piloted them,

through rain and sunshine, for so long. For so many miles had this fleet

and footless beast of burthen charioted our fortunes, that we turned our

back upon it with a sense of separation. We had made a long detour out

of the world, but now we were back in the familiar places, where life

itself makes all the running, and we are carried to meet adventure

without a stroke of the paddle. Now we were to return, like the voyager

in the play, and see what rearrangements fortune had perfected the while

in our surroundings; what surprises stood ready made for us at home; and

whither and how far the world had voyaged in our absence. You may paddle

all day long; but it is when you come back at nightfall, and look in at

the familiar room, that you find Love or Death awaiting you beside the

stove; and the most beautiful adventures are not those we go to seek.

EPILOGUE

The country where they journeyed, that green, breezy valley of the

Loing, is one very attractive to cheerful and solitary people. The

weather was superb; all night it thundered and lightened, and the rain

fell in sheets; by day, the heavens were cloudless, the sun fervent, the

air vigorous and pure. They walked separate; the _Cigarette_ plodding

behind with some philosophy, the lean _Arethusa_ posting on ahead. Thus

each enjoyed his own reflections by the way; each had perhaps time to

tire of them before he met his comrade at the designated inn; and the

pleasures of society and solitude combined to fill the day. The

_Arethusa_ carried in his knapsack the works of Charles of Orleans, and

employed some of the hours of travel in the concoction of English

roundels. In this path he must thus have preceded Mr. Lang, Mr. Dobson,

Mr. Henley, and all contemporary roundeleers; but, for good reasons, he

will be the last to publish the result. The _Cigarette_ walked burthened

with a volume of Michelet. And both these books, it will be seen, played

a part in the subsequent adventure.

The _Arethusa_ was unwisely dressed. He is no precisian in attire; but

by all accounts he was never so ill-inspired as on that tramp; having

set forth, indeed, upon a moment's notice, from the most unfashionable

spot in Europe, Barbizon. On his head he wore a smoking-cap of Indian

work, the gold lace pitifully frayed and tarnished. A flannel shirt of

an agreeable dark hue, which the satirical called black; a light tweed

coat made by a good English tailor; ready-made cheap linen trousers and

leathern gaiters completed his array. In person, he is exceptionally

lean; and his face is not, like those of happier mortals, a certificate.

For years he could not pass a frontier, or visit a bank, without

suspicion; the police everywhere, but in his native city, looked askance

upon him; and (although I am sure it will not be credited) he is

actually denied admittance to the casino of Monte Carlo. If you will

imagine him dressed as above, stooping under his knapsack, walking

nearly five miles an hour with the folds of the ready-made trousers

fluttering about his spindle shanks, and still looking eagerly round him

as if in terror of pursuit--the figure, when realized, is far from

reassuring. When Villon journeyed (perhaps by the same pleasant valley)

to his exile at Roussillon, I wonder if he had not something of the same

appearance. Something of the same preoccupation he had beyond a doubt,

for he too must have tinkered verses as he walked, with more success

than his successor. And if he had anything like the same inspiring

weather, the same nights of uproar, men in armour rolling and resounding

down the stairs of heaven, the rain hissing on the village streets, the

wild bull's-eye of the storm flashing all night long into the bare

inn-chamber--the same sweet return of day, the same unfathomable blue of

noon, the same high-coloured, halcyon eves--and above all, if he had

anything like as good a comrade, anything like as keen a relish for what

he saw, and what he ate, and the rivers that he bathed in, and the

rubbish that he wrote, I would exchange estates to-day with the poor

exile, and count myself a gainer.

But there was another point of similarity between the two journeys, for

which the _Arethusa_ was to pay dear: both were gone upon in days of

incomplete security. It was not long after the Franco-Prussian war.

Swiftly as men forget, that countryside was still alive with tales of

uhlans and outlying sentries, and hairbreadth 'scapes from the

ignominious cord, and pleasant momentary friendships between invader and

invaded. A year, at the most two years, later you might have tramped

all that country over and not heard one anecdote. And a year or two

later, you would--if you were a rather ill-looking young man in

nondescript array--have gone your rounds in greater safety; for along

with more interesting matter, the Prussian spy would have somewhat faded

from men's imaginations.

For all that, our voyager had got beyond Chateau Renard before he was

conscious of arousing wonder. On the road between that place and

Chatillon-sur-Loing, however, he encountered a rural postman; they fell

together in talk, and spoke of a variety of subjects; but through one

and all, the postman was still visibly preoccupied, and his eyes were

faithful to the _Arethusa's_ knapsack. At last, with mysterious

roguishness, he inquired what it contained, and on being answered, shook

his head with kindly incredulity. "_Non_," said he, "_non, vous avez des

portraits_." And then with a languishing appeal, "_Voyons_, show me the

portraits!" It was some little time before the _Arethusa_, with a shout

of laughter, recognized his drift. By portraits he meant indecent

photographs; and in the _Arethusa_, an austere and rising author, he

thought to have identified a pornographic _colporteur_. When

country-folk in France have made up their minds as to a person's

calling, argument is fruitless. Along all the rest of the way, the

postman piped and fluted meltingly to get a sight of the collection; now

he would upbraid, now he would reason--"_Voyons_, I will tell nobody";

then he tried corruption, and insisted on paying for a glass of wine;

and at last, when their ways separated--"_Non_," said he, "_ce n'est pas

bien de votre part. O non, ce n'est pas bien_." And shaking his head

with quite a sentimental sense of injury, he departed unrefreshed.

On certain little difficulties encountered by the _Arethusa_ at

Chatillon-sur-Loing, I have not space to dwell; another Chatillon, of

grislier memory, looms too near at hand. But the next day, in a certain

hamlet called La Jussiere, he stopped to drink a glass of syrup in a

very poor, bare drinking-shop. The hostess, a comely woman, suckling a

child, examined the traveller with kindly and pitying eyes. "You are not

of this Department?" she asked. The _Arethusa_ told her he was English.

"Ah!" she said, surprised. "We have no English. We have many Italians,

however, and they do very well; they do not complain of the people of

hereabouts. An Englishman may do very well also; it will be something

new." Here was a dark saying, over which the _Arethusa_ pondered as he

drank his grenadine; but when he rose and asked what was to pay, the

light came upon him in a flash. "_O, pour vous_," replied the landlady,

"a halfpenny!" _Pour vous_? By heaven, she took him for a beggar! He

paid his halfpenny, feeling that it were ungracious to correct her. But

when he was forth again upon the road, he became vexed in spirit. The

conscience is no gentleman, he is a rabbinical fellow; and his

conscience told him he had stolen the syrup.

That night the travellers slept in Gien; the next day they passed the

river and set forth (severally, as their custom was) on a short stage

through the green plain upon the Berry side, to Chatillon-sur-Loire. It

was the first day of the shooting; and the air rang with the report of

fire-arms and the admiring cries of sportsmen. Overhead the birds were

in consternation, wheeling in clouds, settling and re-arising. And yet

with all this bustle on either hand, the road itself lay solitary. The

_Arethusa_ smoked a pipe beside a milestone, and I remember he laid down

very exactly all he was to do at Chatillon: how he was to enjoy a cold

plunge, to change his shirt, and to await the _Cigarette's_ arrival, in

sublime inaction, by the margin of the Loire. Fired by these ideas, he

pushed the more rapidly forward, and came, early in the afternoon, and

in a breathing heat, to the entering-in of that ill-fated town. Childe

Roland to the dark tower came.

A polite gendarme threw his shadow on the path.

"_Monsieur est voyageur_?" he asked.

And the _Arethusa_, strong in his innocence, forgetful of his vile

attire, replied--I had almost said with gaiety: "So it would appear."

"His papers are in order?" said the gendarme. And when the _Arethusa_,

with a slight change of voice, admitted he had none, he was informed

(politely enough) that he must appear before the Commissary.

The Commissary sat at a table in his bedroom, stripped to the shirt and

trousers, but still copiously perspiring; and when he turned upon the

prisoner a large meaningless countenance, that was (like Bardolph's)

"all whelks and bubuckles," the dullest might have been prepared for

grief. Here was a stupid man, sleepy with the heat and fretful at the

interruption, whom neither appeal nor argument could reach.

_The Commissary:_ "You have no papers?"

_The Arethusa:_ "Not here."

_The Commissary:_ "Why?"

_The Arethusa:_ "I have left them behind in my valise."

_The Commissary:_ "You know, however, that it is forbidden to circulate

without papers?"

_The Arethusa:_ "Pardon me: I am convinced of the contrary. I am here on

my rights as an English subject by international treaty."

_The Commissary (with scorn):_ "You call yourself an Englishman?"

_The Arethusa:_ "I do."

_The Commissary:_ "Humph.--What is your trade?"

_The Arethusa:_ "I am a Scottish Advocate."

_The Commissary (with singular annoyance):_ "A Scottish Advocate! Do

you then pretend to support yourself by that in this Department?"

The _Arethusa_ modestly disclaimed the pretension. The Commissary had

scored a point.

_The Commissary:_ "Why, then, do you travel?"

_The Arethusa:_ "I travel for pleasure."

_The Commissary (pointing to the knapsack, and with sublime

incredulity):_ "_Avec ca? Voyez-vous, je suis un homme intelligent!_"

(With that? Look here, I am a person of intelligence!)

The culprit remaining silent under this home-thrust, the Commissary

relished his triumph for a while, and then demanded (like the postman,

but with what different expectations!) to see the contents of the

knapsack. And here the _Arethusa_, not yet sufficiently awake to his

position, fell into a grave mistake. There was little or no furniture in

the room except the Commissary's chair and table; and to facilitate

matters, the _Arethusa_ (with all the innocence on earth) leant the

knapsack on a corner of the bed. The Commissary fairly bounded from his

seat; his face and neck flushed past purple, almost into blue; and he

screamed to lay the desecrating object on the floor.

The knapsack proved to contain a change of shirts, of shoes, of socks,

and of linen trousers, a small dressing-case, a piece of soap in one of

the shoes, two volumes of the _Collection Jannet_ lettered "Poesies de

Charles d'Orleans," a map, and a version-book containing divers notes in

prose and the remarkable English roundels of the voyager, still to this

day unpublished: the Commissary of Chatillon is the only living man who

has clapped an eye on these artistic trifles. He turned the assortment

over with a contumelious finger; it was plain from his daintiness that

he regarded the _Arethusa_ and all his belongings as the very temple of

infection. Still there was nothing suspicious about the map, nothing

really criminal except the roundels; as for Charles of Orleans, to the

ignorant mind of the prisoner, he seemed as good as a certificate; and

it was supposed the farce was nearly over.

The inquisitor resumed his seat.

_The Commissary (after a pause):_ "_Eh bien, je vais_ _vous dire ce que

vous etes. Vous etes allemand el vous venez chanter a la foire._" (Well,

then, I will tell you what you are. You are a German, and have come to

sing at the fair.)

_The Arethusa:_ "Would you like to hear me sing? I believe I could

convince you of the contrary."

_The Commissary:_ "_Pas de plaisanterie, monsieur_!"

_The Arethusa:_ "Well, sir, oblige me at least by looking at this book.

Here, I open it with my eyes shut. Read one of these songs--read this

one--and tell me, you who are a man of intelligence, if it would be

possible to sing it at a fair?"

_The Commissary (critically):_ "_Mais oui. Tres bien._"

_The Arethusa:_ "_Comment, monsieur!_ What! But do you not observe it is

antique? It is difficult to understand, even for you and me; but for the

audience at a fair, it would be meaningless."

_The Commissary (taking a pen):_ "_Enfin, il faut en finir._ What is

your name?"

_The Arethusa (speaking with the swallowing vivacity of the English):_

"Robert-Louis-Stev'ns'n."

_The Commissary (aghast):_ "_He! Quoi?_"

_The Arethusa (perceiving and improving his advantage):_

"Rob'rt-Lou's-Stev'ns'n."

_The Commissary (after several conflicts with his pen):_ "_Eh bien, il

faut se passer du nom. Ca ne s'ecrit pas._" (Well, we must do without

the name: it is unspellable.)

The above is a rough summary of this momentous conversation, in which I

have been chiefly careful to preserve the plums of the Commissary; but

the remainder of the scene, perhaps because of his rising anger, has

left but little definite in the memory of the _Arethusa_. The Commissary

was not, I think, a practiced literary man; no sooner, at least, had he

taken pen in hand and embarked on the composition of the

_proces-verbal_, than he became distinctly more uncivil, and began to

show a predilection for that simplest of all forms of repartee: "You

lie." Several times the _Arethusa_ let it pass, and then suddenly

flared up, refused to accept more insults or to answer further

questions, defied the Commissary to do his worst, and promised him, if

he did, that he should bitterly repent it. Perhaps if he had worn this

proud front from the first, instead of beginning with a sense of

entertainment and then going on to argue, the thing might have turned

otherwise; for even at this eleventh hour the Commissary was visibly

staggered. But it was too late; he had been challenged; the

_proces-verbal_ was begun; and he again squared his elbows over his

writing, and the _Arethusa_ was led forth a prisoner.

A step or two down the hot road stood the gendarmerie. Thither was our

unfortunate conducted, and there he was bidden to empty forth the

contents of his pockets. A handkerchief, a pen, a pencil, a pipe and

tobacco, matches, and some ten francs of change: that was all. Not a

file, not a cipher, not a scrap of writing whether to identify or to

condemn. The very gendarme was appalled before such destitution.

"I regret," he said, "that I arrested you, for I see that you are no

_voyou_." And he promised him every indulgence.

The _Arethusa_, thus encouraged, asked for his pipe. That he was told

was impossible, but if he chewed, he might have some tobacco. He did not

chew, however, and asked instead to have his handkerchief.

"_Non_," said the gendarme. "_Nous avons eu des histoires de gens qui se

sont pendus._" (No, we have had histories of people who hanged

themselves.)

"What!" cried the _Arethusa_. "And is it for that you refuse me my

handkerchief? But see how much more easily I could hang myself in my

trousers!"

The man was struck by the novelty of the idea, but he stuck to his

colours, and only continued to repeat vague offers of service.

"At least," said the _Arethusa_, "be sure that you arrest my comrade; he

will follow me ere long on the same road, and you can tell him by the

sack upon his shoulders."

This promised, the prisoner was led round into the back court of the

building, a cellar door was opened, he was motioned down the stair, and

bolts grated and chains clanged behind his descending person.

The philosophic and still more the imaginative mind is apt to suppose

itself prepared for any mortal accident. Prison, among other ills, was

one that had been often faced by the undaunted _Arethusa_. Even as he

went down the stairs, he was telling himself that here was a famous

occasion for a roundel, and that like the committed linnets of the

tuneful cavalier, he too would make his prison musical. I will tell the

truth at once: the roundel was never written, or it should be printed in

this place, to raise a smile. Two reasons interfered: the first moral,

the second physical.

It is one of the curiosities of human nature, that although all men are

liars, they can none of them bear to be told so of themselves. To get

and take the lie with equanimity is a stretch beyond the stoic; and the

_Arethusa_, who had been surfeited upon that insult, was blazing

inwardly with a white heat of smothered wrath. But the physical had also

its part. The cellar in which he was confined was some feet underground,

and it was only lighted by an unglazed, narrow aperture high up in the

wall, and smothered in the leaves of a green vine. The walls were of

naked masonry, the floor of bare earth; by way of furniture there was an

earthenware basin, a water-jug, and a wooden bedstead with a blue-grey

cloak for bedding. To be taken from the hot air of a summer's afternoon,

the reverberation of the road and the stir of rapid exercise, and

plunged into the gloom and damp of this receptacle for vagabonds, struck

an instant chill upon the _Arethusa's_ blood. Now see in how small a

matter a hardship may consist: the floor was exceedingly uneven under

foot, with the very spade-marks, I suppose, of the labourers who dug the

foundations of the barrack; and what with the poor twilight and the

irregular surface, walking was impossible. The caged author resisted

for a good while, but the chill of the place struck deeper and deeper;

and at length, with such reluctance as you may fancy, he was driven to

climb upon the bed and wrap himself in the public covering. There, then,

he lay upon the verge of shivering, plunged in semi-darkness, wound in a

garment whose touch he dreaded like the plague, and (in a spirit far

removed from resignation) telling the roll of the insults he had just

received. These are not circumstances favourable to the muse.

Meantime (to look at the upper surface where the sun was still shining

and the guns of sportsmen were still noisy through the tufted plain) the

_Cigarette_ was drawing near at his more philosophic pace. In those days

of liberty and health he was the constant partner of the _Arethusa_, and

had ample opportunity to share in that gentleman's disfavour with the

police. Many a bitter bowl had he partaken of with that disastrous

comrade. He was himself a man born to float easily through life, his

face and manner artfully recommending him to all. There was but one

suspicious circumstance he could not carry off, and that was his

companion. He will not readily forget the Commissary in what is

ironically called the free town of Frankfort-on-the-Main; nor the

Franco-Belgian frontier; nor the inn at La Fere; last, but not least, he

is pretty certain to remember Chatillon-sur-Loire.

At the town entry, the gendarme culled him like a wayside flower; and a

moment later two persons in a high state of surprise were confronted in

the Commissary's office. For if the _Cigarette_ was surprised to be

arrested, the Commissary was no less taken aback by the appearance and

appointments of his captive. Here was a man about whom there could be no

mistake: a man of an unquestionable and unassailable manner, in

apple-pie order, dressed not with neatness merely but elegance, ready

with his passport at a word, and well supplied with money: a man the

Commissary would have doffed his hat to on chance upon the highway; and

this _beau cavalier_ unblushingly claimed the _Arethusa_ for his

comrade! The conclusion of the interview was foregone; of its humours I

remember only one. "Baronet?" demanded the magistrate, glancing up from

the passport. "_Alors, monsieur, vous etes le fils d'un baron?_" And

when the _Cigarette_ (his one mistake throughout the interview) denied

the soft impeachment, "_Alors_," from the Commissary, "_ce n'est pas

voire passeport!_" But these were ineffectual thunders; he never dreamed

of laying hands upon the _Cigarette_; presently he fell into a mood of

unrestrained admiration, gloating over the contents of the knapsack,

commending our friend's tailor. Ah! what an honoured guest was the

Commissary entertaining! What suitable clothes he wore for the warm

weather! What beautiful maps, what an attractive work of history he

carried in his knapsack! You are to understand there was now but one

point of difference between them: what was to be done with the

_Arethusa_? the _Cigarette_ demanding his release, the Commissary still

claiming him as the dungeon's own. Now it chanced that the _Cigarette_

had passed some years of his life in Egypt, where he had made

acquaintance with two very bad things, cholera morbus and pashas; and in

the eye of the Commissary, as he fingered the volume of Michelet, it

seemed to our traveller there was something Turkish. I pass over this

lightly; it is highly possible there was some misunderstanding, highly

possible that the Commissary (charmed with his visitor) supposed the

attraction to be mutual, and took for an act of growing friendship what

the _Cigarette_ himself regarded as a bribe. And at any rate, was there

ever a bribe more singular than an odd volume of Michelet's history! The

work was promised him for the morrow, before our departure; and

presently after, either because he had his price, or to show that he was

not the man to be behind in friendly offices, "_Eh bien_," he said, "_je

suppose qu'il faut lacher votre camarade_." And he tore up that feast of

humour, the unfinished _proces-verbal_. Ah, if he had only torn up

instead the _Arethusa's_ roundels! There are many works burnt at

Alexandria, there are many treasured in the British Museum, that I could

better spare than the _proces-verbal_ of Chatillon. Poor bubuckled

Commissary! I begin to be sorry that he never had his Michelet:

perceiving in him fine human traits, a broad-based stupidity, a gusto in

his magisterial functions, a taste for letters, a ready admiration for

the admirable. And if he did not admire the _Arethusa_, he was not alone

in that.

To the imprisoned one, shivering under the public covering, there came

suddenly a noise of bolts and chains. He sprang to his feet, ready to

welcome a companion in calamity; and instead of that, the door was flung

wide, the friendly gendarme appeared above in the strong daylight, and

with a magnificent gesture (being probably a student of the

drama)--"_Vous etes libre_!" he said. None too soon for the _Arethusa_.

I doubt if he had been half an hour imprisoned; but by the watch in a

man's brain (which was the only watch he carried) he should have been

eight times longer; and he passed forth with ecstasy up the cellar

stairs into the healing warmth of the afternoon sun; and the breath of

the earth came as sweet as a cow's into his nostril; and he heard again

(and could have laughed for pleasure) the concord of delicate noises

that we call the hum of life.

And here it might be thought that my history ended; but not so, this was

an act-drop and not the curtain. Upon what followed in front of the

barrack, since there was a lady in the case, I scruple to expatiate. The

wife of the Marechal-des-logis was a handsome woman, and yet the

_Arethusa_ was not sorry to be gone from her society. Something of her

image, cool as a peach on that hot afternoon, still lingers in his

memory: yet more of her conversation. "You have there a very fine

parlour," said the poor gentleman. "Ah!" said Madame la Marechale

(des-logis), "you are very well acquainted with such parlours!" And you

should have seen with what a hard and scornful eye she measured the

vagabond before her! I do not think he ever hated the Commissary; but

before that interview was at an end, he hated Madame la Marechale. His

passion (as I am led to understand by one who was present) stood

confessed in a burning eye, a pale cheek, and a trembling utterance;

Madame, meanwhile tasting the joys of the matador, goading him with

barbed words and staring him coldly down.

It was certainly good to be away from this lady, and better still to sit

down to an excellent dinner in the inn. Here, too, the despised

travellers scraped acquaintance with their next neighbour, a gentleman

of these parts, returned from the day's sport, who had the good taste to

find pleasure in their society. The dinner at an end, the gentleman

proposed the acquaintance should be ripened in the _cafe_.

The _cafe_ was crowded with sportsmen conclamantly explaining to each

other and the world the smallness of their bags. About the centre of the

room the _Cigarette_ and the _Arethusa_ sat with their new acquaintance;

a trio very well pleased, for the travellers (after their late

experience) were greedy of consideration, and their sportsman rejoiced

in a pair of patient listeners. Suddenly the glass door flew open with a

crash; the Marechal-des-logis appeared in the interval, gorgeously

belted and befrogged, entered with salutation, strode up the room with a

clang of spurs and weapons, and disappeared through a door at the far

end. Close at his heels followed the _Arethusa's_ gendarme of the

afternoon, imitating, with a nice shade of difference, the imperial

bearing of his chief; only, as he passed, he struck lightly with his

open hand on the shoulder of his late captive, and with that ringing,

dramatic utterance of which he had the secret--"_Suivez!_" said he.

The arrest of the members, the oath of the Tennis Court, the signing of

the Declaration of Independence, Mark Antony's oration, all the brave

scenes of history, I conceive as having been not unlike that evening in

the _cafe_ at Chatillon. Terror breathed upon the assembly. A moment

later, when the _Arethusa_ had followed his recaptors into the farther

part of the house, the _Cigarette_ found himself alone with his coffee

in a ring of empty chairs and tables, all the lusty sportsmen huddled

into corners, all their clamorous voices hushed in whispering, all their

eyes shooting at him furtively as at a leper.

And the _Arethusa_? Well, he had a long, sometimes a trying, interview

in the back kitchen. The Marechal-des-logis, who was a very handsome

man, and I believe both intelligent and honest, had no clear opinion on

the case. He thought the Commissary had done wrong, but he did not wish

to get his subordinates into trouble; and he proposed this, that, and

the other, to all of which the _Arethusa_ (with a growing sense of his

position) demurred.

"In short," suggested the _Arethusa_, "you want to wash your hands of

further responsibility? Well, then, let me go to Paris."

The Marechal-des-logis looked at his watch.

"You may leave," said he, "by the ten o'clock train for Paris."

And at noon the next day the travellers were telling their misadventure

in the dining-room at Siron's.

TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY

IN THE CEVENNES

_My dear Sidney Colvin,_

_The journey which this little book is to describe was very agreeable and

fortunate for me. After an uncouth beginning, I had the best of luck to

the end. But we are all travellers in what John Bunyan calls the

wilderness of this world--all, too, travellers with a donkey; and the

best that we find in our travels is an honest friend. He is a fortunate

voyager who finds many. We travel, indeed, to find them. They are the

end and the reward of life. They keep us worthy of ourselves; and when

we are alone, we are only nearer to the absent.

Every book is, in an intimate sense, a circular letter to the friends of

him who writes it. They alone take his meaning; they find private

messages, assurances of love, and expressions of gratitude, dropped for

them in every corner. The public is but a generous patron who defrays

the postage. Yet though the letter is directed to all, we have an old

and kindly custom of addressing it on the outside to one. Of what shall

a man be proud, if he is not proud of his friends? And so, my dear

Sidney Colvin, it is with pride that I sign myself

Affectionately yours,

R. L. S._

VELAY

_Many are the mighty things, and naught

is more mighty than man.... He

masters by his devices the tenant of the

fields._

SOPHOCLES.

_Who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass?_

JOB.

TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY

THE DONKEY, THE PACK, AND THE PACK-SADDLE

In a little place called Le Monastier, in a pleasant highland valley

fifteen miles from Le Puy, I spent about a month of fine days. Monastier

is notable for the making of lace, for drunkenness, for freedom of

language, and for unparalleled political dissension. There are adherents

of each of the four French parties--Legitimists, Orleanists,

Imperialists, and Republicans--in this little mountain-town; and they

all hate, loathe, decry, and calumniate each other. Except for business

purposes, or to give each other the lie in a tavern brawl, they have

laid aside even the civility of speech. 'Tis a mere mountain Poland. In

the midst of this Babylon I found myself a rallying-point; every one was

anxious to be kind and helpful to the stranger. This was not merely from

the natural hospitality of mountain people, nor even from the surprise

with which I was regarded as a man living of his own free will in Le

Monastier, when he might just as well have lived anywhere else in this

big world; it arose a good deal from my projected excursion southward

through the Cevennes. A traveller of my sort was a thing hitherto

unheard-of in that district. I was looked upon with contempt, like a man

who should project a journey to the moon, but yet with a respectful

interest, like one setting forth for the inclement Pole. All were ready

to help in my preparations; a crowd of sympathizers supported me at the

critical moment of a bargain; not a step was taken but was heralded by

glasses round and celebrated by a dinner or a breakfast.

It was already hard upon October before I was ready to set forth, and at

the high altitudes over which my road lay there was no Indian summer to

be looked for. I was determined, if not to camp out, at least to have

the means of camping out in my possession; for there is nothing more

harassing to an easy mind than the necessity of reaching shelter by

dusk, and the hospitality of a village inn is not always to be reckoned

sure by those who trudge on foot. A tent, above all, for a solitary

traveller, is troublesome to pitch and troublesome to strike again; and

even on the march it forms a conspicuous feature in your baggage. A

sleeping-sack, on the other hand, is always ready--you have only to get

into it; it serves a double purpose--a bed by night, a portmanteau by

day; and it does not advertise your intention of camping out to every

curious passer-by. This is a huge point. If a camp is not secret, it is

but a troubled resting-place; you become a public character; the

convivial rustic visits your bedside after an early supper; and you must

sleep with one eye open, and be up before the day. I decided on a

sleeping-sack; and after repeated visits to Le Puy, and a deal of high

living for myself and my advisers, a sleeping-sack was designed,

constructed, and triumphantly brought home.

This child of my invention was nearly six feet square, exclusive of two

triangular flaps to serve as a pillow by night and as the top and bottom

of the sack by day. I call it "the sack," but it was never a sack by

more than courtesy: only a sort of long roll or sausage, green

waterproof cart-cloth without and blue sheep's fur within. It was

commodious as a valise, warm and dry for a bed. There was luxurious

turning room for one; and at a pinch the thing might serve for two. I

could bury myself in it up to the neck; for my head I trusted to a fur

cap, with a hood to fold down over my ears, and a band to pass under my

nose like a respirator; and in case of heavy rain I proposed to make

myself a little tent, or tentlet, with my waterproof coat, three stones,

and a bent branch.

It will readily be conceived that I could not carry this huge package on

my own, merely human, shoulders. It remained to choose a beast of

burden. Now, a horse is a fine lady among animals--flighty, timid,

delicate in eating, of tender health; he is too valuable and too restive

to be left alone, so that you are chained to your brute as to a fellow

galley-slave; a dangerous road puts him out of his wits; in short, he's

an uncertain and exacting ally, and adds thirty-fold to the troubles of

the voyager. What I required was something cheap and small and hardy,

and of a stolid and peaceful temper; and all these requisites pointed to

a donkey.

There dwelt an old man in Monastier, of rather unsound intellect

according to some, much followed by street-boys, and known to fame as

Father Adam. Father Adam had a cart, and to draw the cart a diminutive

she-ass, not much bigger than a dog, the colour of a mouse, with a

kindly eye and a determined under-jaw. There was something neat and

high-bred, a quakerish elegance, about the rogue that hit my fancy on

the spot. Our first interview was in Monastier market-place. To prove

her good temper, one child after another was set upon her back to ride,

and one after another went head over heels into the air; until a want of

confidence began to reign in youthful bosoms, and the experiment was

discontinued from a dearth of subjects. I was already backed by a

deputation of my friends; but as if this were not enough, all the buyers

and sellers came round and helped me in the bargain; and the ass and I

and Father Adam were the centre of a hubbub for near half an hour. At

length she passed into my service for the consideration of sixty-five

francs and a glass of brandy. The sack had already cost eighty francs

and two glasses of beer; so that Modestine, as I instantly baptized her,

was upon all accounts the cheaper article. Indeed, that was as it

should be; for she was only an appurtenance of my mattress, or

self-acting bedstead on four castors.

I had a last interview with Father Adam in a billiard-room at the

witching hour of dawn, when I administered the brandy. He professed

himself greatly touched by the separation, and declared he had often

bought white bread for the donkey when he had been content with black

bread for himself; but this, according to the best authorities, must

have been a flight of fancy. He had a name in the village for brutally

misusing the ass; yet it is certain that he shed a tear, and the tear

made a clean mark down one cheek.

By the advice of a fallacious local saddler, a leather pad was made for

me with rings to fasten on my bundle; and I thoughtfully completed my

kit and arranged my toilette. By way of armoury and utensils, I took a

revolver, a little spirit-lamp and pan, a lantern and some halfpenny

candles, a jack-knife and a large leather flask. The main cargo

consisted of two entire changes of warm clothing--besides my travelling

wear of country velveteen, pilot-coat, and knitted spencer--some books,

and my railway-rug, which, being also in the form of a bag, made me a

double castle for cold nights. The permanent larder was represented by

cakes of chocolate and tins of Bologna sausage. All this, except what I

carried about my person, was easily stowed into the sheepskin bag; and

by good fortune I threw in my empty knapsack, rather for convenience of

carriage than from any thought that I should want it on my journey. For

more immediate needs I took a leg of cold mutton, a bottle of

Beaujolais, an empty bottle to carry milk, an egg-beater, and a

considerable quantity of black bread and white, like Father Adam, for

myself and donkey, only in my scheme of things the destinations were

reversed.

Monastrians, of all shades of thought in politics, had agreed in

threatening me with many ludicrous misadventures, and with sudden death

in many surprising forms. Cold, wolves, robbers, above all the

nocturnal practical joker, were daily and eloquently forced on my

attention. Yet in these vaticinations, the true, patent danger was left

out. Like Christian, it was from my pack I suffered by the way. Before

telling my own mishaps, let me, in two words, relate the lesson of my

experience. If the pack is well strapped at the ends, and hung at full

length--not doubled, for your life--across the pack-saddle, the

traveller is safe. The saddle will certainly not fit, such is the

imperfection of our transitory life; it will assuredly topple and tend

to overset; but there are stones on every roadside, and a man soon

learns the art of correcting any tendency to overbalance with a

well-adjusted stone.

On the day of my departure I was up a little after five; by six, we

began to load the donkey; and ten minutes after my hopes were in the

dust. The pad would not stay on Modestine's back for half a moment. I

returned it to its maker, with whom I had so contumelious a passage that

the street outside was crowded from wall to wall with gossips looking on

and listening. The pad changed hands with much vivacity; perhaps it

would be more descriptive to say that we threw it at each other's heads;

and, at any rate, we were very warm and unfriendly, and spoke with a

deal of freedom.

I had a common donkey pack-saddle--a _barde_, as they call it--fitted

upon Modestine; and once more loaded her with my effects. The doubled

sack, my pilot-coat (for it was warm, and I was to walk in my

waistcoat), a great bar of black bread, and an open basket containing

the white bread, the mutton, and the bottles, were all corded together

in a very elaborate system of knots, and I looked on the result with

fatuous content. In such a monstrous deck-cargo, all poised above the

donkey's shoulders, with nothing below to balance, on a brand-new

pack-saddle that had not yet been worn to fit the animal, and fastened

with brand-new girths that might be expected to stretch and slacken by

the way, even a very careless traveller should have seen disaster

brewing. That elaborate system of knots, again, was the work of too many

sympathizers to be very artfully designed. It is true they tightened the

cords with a will; as many as three at a time would have a foot against

Modestine's quarters, and be hauling with clenched teeth; but I learned

afterwards that one thoughtful person, without any exercise of force,

can make a more solid job than half a dozen heated and enthusiastic

grooms. I was then but a novice; even after the misadventure of the pad

nothing could disturb my security, and I went forth from the stable-door

as an ox goeth to the slaughter.

THE GREEN DONKEY-DRIVER

The bell of Monastier was just striking nine as I got quit of these

preliminary troubles and descended the hill through the common. As long

as I was within sight of the windows, a secret shame and the fear of

some laughable defeat withheld me from tampering with Modestine. She

tripped along upon her four small hoofs with a sober daintiness of gait;

from time to time she shook her ears or her tail; and she looked so

small under the bundle that my mind misgave me. We got across the ford

without difficulty--there was no doubt about the matter, she was

docility itself--and once on the other bank, where the road begins to

mount through pine woods, I took in my right hand the unhallowed staff,

and with a quaking spirit applied it to the donkey. Modestine brisked up

her pace for perhaps three steps, and then relapsed into her former

minuet. Another application had the same effect, and so with the third.

I am worthy the name of an Englishman, and it goes against my conscience

to lay my hand rudely on a female. I desisted, and looked her all over

from head to foot; the poor brute's knees were trembling and her

breathing was distressed; it was plain that she could go no faster on a

hill. God forbid, thought I, that I should brutalize this innocent

creature; let her go at her own pace, and let me patiently follow.

What that pace was there is no word mean enough to describe; it was

something as much slower than a walk as a walk is slower than a run; it

kept me hanging on each foot for an incredible length of time; in five

minutes it exhausted the spirit and set up a fever in all the muscles of

the leg. And yet I had to keep close at hand and measure my advance

exactly upon hers; for if I dropped a few yards into the rear, or went

on a few yards ahead, Modestine came instantly to a halt and began to

browse. The thought that this was to last from here to Alais nearly

broke my heart. Of all conceivable journeys this promised to be the most

tedious. I tried to tell myself it was a lovely day; I tried to charm my

foreboding spirit with tobacco; but I had a vision ever present to me of

the long, long roads, up hill and down dale, and a pair of figures ever

infinitesimally moving, foot by foot, a yard to the minute, and, like

things enchanted in a nightmare, approaching no nearer to the goal.

In the meantime there came up behind us a tall peasant, perhaps forty

years of age, of an ironical snuffy countenance, and arrayed in the

green tail-coat of the country. He overtook us hand over hand, and

stopped to consider our pitiful advance.

"Your donkey," says he, "is very old?"

I told him, I believed not.

Then, he supposed, we had come far.

I told him, we had but newly left Monastier.

"_Et vous marchez comme ca!_" cried he; and, throwing back his head, he

laughed long and heartily. I watched him, half prepared to feel

offended, until he had satisfied his mirth; and then, "You must have no

pity on these animals," said he; and, plucking a switch out of a

thicket, he began to lace Modestine about the stern-works, uttering a

cry. The rogue pricked up her ears and broke into a good round pace,

which she kept up without flagging, and without exhibiting the least

symptom of distress, as long as the peasant kept beside us. Her former

panting and shaking had been, I regret to say, a piece of comedy.

My _deus ex machina_, before he left me, supplied some excellent, if

inhumane, advice; presented me with the switch, which he declared she

would feel more tenderly than my cane; and finally taught me the true

cry or masonic word of donkey-drivers, "Proot!" All the time, he

regarded me with a comical, incredulous air, which was embarrassing to

confront; and smiled over my donkey-driving, as I might have smiled over

his orthography, or his green tail-coat. But it was not my turn for the

moment.

I was proud of my new lore, and thought I had learned the art to

perfection. And certainly Modestine did wonders for the rest of the

forenoon, and I had a breathing space to look about me. It was Sabbath;

the mountain-fields were all vacant in the sunshine; and as we came down

through St. Martin de Frugeres, the church was crowded to the door,

there were people kneeling without upon the steps, and the sound of the

priest's chanting came forth out of the dim interior. It gave me a home

feeling on the spot; for I am a countryman of the Sabbath, so to speak,

and all Sabbath observances, like a Scottish accent, strike in me mixed

feelings, grateful and the reverse. It is only a traveller, hurrying by

like a person from another planet, who can rightly enjoy the peace and

beauty of the great ascetic feast. The sight of the resting country does

his spirit good. There is something better than music in the wide,

unusual silence; and it disposes him to amiable thoughts, like the sound

of a little river or the warmth of sunlight.

In this pleasant humour I came down the hill to where Goudet stands in a

green end of a valley, with Chateau Beaufort opposite upon a rocky

steep, and the stream, as clear as crystal, lying in a deep pool between

them. Above and below, you may hear it wimpling over the stones, an

amiable stripling of a river, which it seems absurd to call the Loire.

On all sides, Goudet is shut in by mountains; rocky footpaths,

practicable at best for donkeys, join it to the outer world of France;

and the men and women drink and swear, in their green corner, or look up

at the snow-clad peaks in winter from the threshold of their homes, in

an isolation, you would think, like that of Homer's Cyclops. But it is

not so; the postman reaches Goudet with the letter-bag; the aspiring

youth of Goudet are within a day's walk of the railway at Le Puy; and

here in the inn you may find an engraved portrait of the host's nephew,

Regis Senac, "Professor of Fencing and Champion of the two Americas," a

distinction gained by him, along with the sum of five hundred dollars,

at Tammany Hall, New York, on the 10th April 1876.

I hurried over my midday meal, and was early forth again. But, alas, as

we climbed the interminable hill upon the other side, "Proot!" seemed to

have lost its virtue. I prooted like a lion, I prooted mellifluously

like a sucking-dove; but Modestine would be neither softened nor

intimidated. She held doggedly to her pace; nothing but a blow would

move her, and that only for a second. I must follow at her heels,

incessantly belabouring. A moment's pause in this ignoble toil, and she

relapsed into her own private gait. I think I never heard of any one in

as mean a situation. I must reach the lake of Bouchet, where I meant to

camp, before sundown, and, to have even a hope of this, I must instantly

maltreat this uncomplaining animal. The sound of my own blows sickened

me. Once, when I looked at her, she had a faint resemblance to a lady of

my acquaintance who formerly loaded me with kindness; and this increased

my horror of my cruelty.

To make matters worse, we encountered another donkey, ranging at will

upon the roadside; and this other donkey chanced to be a gentleman. He

and Modestine met nickering for joy, and I had to separate the pair and

beat down their young romance with a renewed and feverish bastinado. If

the other donkey had had the heart of a male under his hide, he would

have fallen upon me tooth and hoof; and this was a kind of

consolation--he was plainly unworthy of Modestine's affection. But the

incident saddened me, as did everything that spoke of my donkey's sex.

It was blazing hot up the valley, windless, with vehement sun upon my

shoulders; and I had to labour so consistently with my stick that the

sweat ran into my eyes. Every five minutes, too, the pack, the basket,

and the pilot-coat would take an ugly slew to one side or the other; and

I had to stop Modestine, just when I had got her to a tolerable pace of

about two miles an hour, to tug, push, shoulder, and readjust the load.

And at last, in the village of Ussel, saddle and all, the whole

hypothec, turned round and grovelled in the dust below the donkey's

belly. She, none better pleased, incontinently drew up and seemed to

smile, and a party of one man, two women, and two children came up, and,

standing round me in a half circle, encouraged her by their example.

I had the devil's own trouble to get the thing righted; and the instant

I had done so, without hesitation, it toppled and fell down upon the

other side. Judge if I was hot! And yet not a hand was offered to assist

me. The man, indeed, told me I ought to have a package of a different

shape. I suggested, if he knew nothing better to the point in my

predicament, he might hold his tongue. And the good-natured dog agreed

with me smilingly. It was the most despicable fix. I must plainly

content myself with the pack for Modestine, and take the following items

for my own share of the portage: a cane, a quart flask, a pilot-jacket

heavily weighted in the pockets, two pounds of black bread, and an open

basket full of meats and bottles. I believe I may say I am not devoid of

greatness of soul; for I did not recoil from this infamous burden. I

disposed it, Heaven knows how, so as to be mildly portable, and then

proceeded to steer Modestine through the village. She tried, as was

indeed her invariable habit, to enter every house and every courtyard in

the whole length; and, encumbered as I was, without a hand to help

myself, no words can render an idea of my difficulties. A priest, with

six or seven others, was examining a church in process of repair, and he

and his acolytes laughed loudly as they saw my plight. I remembered

having laughed myself when I had seen good men struggling with adversity

in the person of a jackass, and the recollection filled me with

penitence. That was in my old light days, before this trouble came upon

me. God knows at least that I shall never laugh again, thought I. But

oh, what a cruel thing is a farce to those engaged in it!

A little out of the village, Modestine, filled with the demon, set her

heart upon a by-road, and positively refused to leave it. I dropped all

my bundles, and, I am ashamed to say, struck the poor sinner twice

across the face. It was pitiful to see her lift her head with shut eyes,

as if waiting for another blow. I came very near crying, but I did a

wiser thing than that, and sat squarely down by the roadside to consider

my situation under the cheerful influence of tobacco and a nip of

brandy. Modestine, in the meanwhile, munched some black bread with a

contrite hypocritical air. It was plain that I must make a sacrifice to

the gods of shipwreck. I threw away the empty bottle destined to carry

milk; I threw away my own white bread, and, disdaining to act by general

average, kept the black bread for Modestine; lastly, I threw away the

cold leg of mutton and the egg-whisk, although this last was dear to my

heart. Thus I found room for everything in the basket, and even stowed

the boating-coat on the top. By means of an end of cord I slung it under

one arm, and although the cord cut my shoulder, and the jacket hung

almost to the ground, it was with a heart greatly lightened that I set

forth again.

I I had now an arm free to thrash Modestine, and cruelly I chastised

her. If I were to reach the lake-side before dark she must bestir her

little shanks to some tune. Already the sun had gone down into a

windy-looking mist; and although there were still a few streaks of gold

far off to the east on the hills and the black fir-woods, all was cold

and grey about our onward path. An infinity of little country by-roads

led hither and thither among the fields. It was the most pointless

labyrinth. I could see my destination overhead, or rather the peak that

dominates it, but choose as I pleased, the roads always ended by turning

away from it, and sneaking back towards the valley, or northward along

the margin of the hills. The failing light, the waning colour, the

naked, unhomely, stony country through which I was travelling, threw me

into some despondency. I promise you, the stick was not idle; I think

every decent step that Modestine took must have cost me at least two

emphatic blows. There was not another sound in the neighbourhood but

that of my unwearying bastinado.

Suddenly, in the midst of my toils, the load once more bit the dust,

and, as by enchantment, all the cords were simultaneously loosened, and

the road scattered with my dear possessions. The packing was to begin

again from the beginning; and as I had to invent a new and better

system, I do not doubt but I lost half an hour. It began to be dusk in

earnest as I reached a wilderness of turf and stones. It had the air of

being a road which should lead everywhere at the same time; and I was

falling into something not unlike despair when I saw two figures

stalking towards me over the stones. They walked one behind the other

like tramps, but their pace was remarkable. The son led the way, a tall,

ill-made, sombre, Scottish-looking man; the mother followed, all in her

Sunday's best, with an elegantly embroidered ribbon to her cap, and a

new felt hat atop, and proffering, as she strode along with kilted

petticoats, a string of obscene and blasphemous oaths.

I hailed the son, and asked him my direction. He pointed loosely west

and north-west, muttered an inaudible comment, and, without slackening

his pace for an instant, stalked on, as he was going, right athwart my

path. The mother followed without so much as raising her head. I shouted

and shouted after them, but they continued to scale the hillside, and

turned a deaf ear to my outcries. At last, leaving Modestine by herself,

I was constrained to run after them, hailing the while. They stopped as

I drew near, the mother still cursing; and I could see she was a

handsome, motherly, respectable-looking woman. The son once more

answered me roughly and inaudibly, and was for setting out again. But

this time I simply collared the mother, who was nearest me, and,

apologizing for my violence, declared that I could not let them go until

they had put me on my road. They were neither of them offended--rather

mollified than otherwise; told me I had only to follow them; and then

the mother asked me what I wanted by the lake at such an hour. I

replied, in the Scottish manner, by inquiring if she had far to go

herself. She told me, with another oath, that she had an hour and a

half's road before her. And then, without salutation, the pair strode

forward again up the hillside in the gathering dusk.

I returned for Modestine, pushed her briskly forward, and, after a sharp

ascent of twenty minutes, reached the edge of a plateau. The view,

looking back on my day's journey, was both wild and sad. Mount Mezenc

and the peaks beyond St. Julien stood out in trenchant gloom against a

cold glitter in the east; and the intervening field of hills had fallen

together into one broad wash of shadow, except here and there the

outline of a wooded sugar-loaf in black, here and there a white,

irregular patch to represent a cultivated farm, and here and there a

blot where the Loire, the Gazeille, or the Laussonne wandered in a

gorge.

Soon we were on a high-road, and surprise seized on my mind as I beheld

a village of some magnitude close at hand; for I had been told that the

neighbourhood of the lake was uninhabited except by trout. The road

smoked in the twilight with children driving home cattle from the

fields; and a pair of mounted stride-legged women, hat and cap and all,

dashed past me at a hammering trot from the canton where they had been

to church and market. I asked one of the children where I was. At

Bouchet St. Nicholas, he told me. Thither, about a mile south of my

destination, and on the other side of a respectable summit, had these

confused roads and treacherous peasantry conducted me. My shoulder was

cut, so that it hurt sharply; my arm ached like tooth-ache from

perpetual beating; I gave up the lake and my design to camp, and asked

for the _auberge_.

I HAVE A GOAD

The _auberge_ of Bouchet St. Nicholas was among the least pretentious I

have ever visited; but I saw many more of the like upon my journey.

Indeed, it was typical of these French highlands. Imagine a cottage of

two stories, with a bench before the door; the stable and kitchen in a

suite, so that Modestine and I could hear each other dining; furniture

of the plainest, earthen floors, a single bed-chamber for travellers,

and that without any convenience but beds. In the kitchen cooking and

eating go forward side by side, and the family sleep at night. Any one

who has a fancy to wash must do so in public at the common table. The

food is sometimes spare; hard fish and omelette have been my portion

more than once; the wine is of the smallest, the brandy abominable to

man; and the visit of a fat sow, grouting under the table and rubbing

against your legs, is no impossible accompaniment to dinner.

But the people of the inn, in nine cases out of ten, show themselves

friendly and considerate. As soon as you cross the doors you cease to be

a stranger; and although these peasantry are rude and forbidding on the

highway, they show a tincture of kind breeding when you share their

hearth. At Bouchet, for instance, I uncorked my bottle of Beaujolais,

and asked the host to join me. He would take but little.

"I am an amateur of such wine, do you see?" he said, "and I am capable

of leaving you not enough."

In these hedge-inns the traveller is expected to eat with his own knife;

unless he ask, no other will be supplied: with a glass, a whang of

bread, and an iron fork, the table is completely laid. My knife was

cordially admired by the landlord of Bouchet, and the spring filled him

with wonder.

"I should never have guessed that," he said. "I would bet," he added,

weighing it in his hand, "that this cost you not less than five francs."

When I told him it had cost me twenty, his jaw dropped.

He was a mild, handsome, sensible, friendly old man, astonishingly

ignorant. His wife, who was not so pleasant in her manners, knew how to

read, although I do not suppose she ever did so. She had a share of

brains, and spoke with a cutting emphasis, like one who ruled the roast.

"My man knows nothing," she said, with an angry nod; "he is like the

beasts."

And the old gentleman signified acquiescence with his head. There was no

contempt on her part, and no shame on his; the facts were accepted

loyally, and no more about the matter.

I was tightly cross-examined about my journey; and the lady understood

in a moment, and sketched out what I should put into my book when I got

home. "Whether people harvest or not in such or such a place; if there

were forests; studies of manners; what, for example, I and the master of

the house say to you; the beauties of Nature, and all that." And she

interrogated me with a look.

"It is just that," said I.

"You see," she added to her husband, "I understood that."

They were both much interested by the story of my misadventures.

"In the morning," said the husband, "I will make you something better

than your cane. Such a beast as that feels nothing; it is in the

proverb--_dur comme un ane_; you might beat her insensible with a

cudgel, and yet you would arrive nowhere."

Something better! I little knew what he was offering.

The sleeping-room was furnished with two beds. I had one; and I will own

I was a little abashed to find a young man and his wife and child in the

act of mounting into the other. This was my first experience of the

sort; and if I am always to feel equally silly and extraneous, I pray

God it be my last as well. I kept my eyes to myself, and know nothing of

the woman except that she had beautiful arms, and seemed no whit

embarrassed by my appearance. As a matter of fact, the situation was

more trying to me than to the pair. A pair keep each other in

countenance; it is the single gentleman who has to blush. But I could

not help attributing my sentiments to the husband, and sought to

conciliate his tolerance with a cup of brandy from my flask. He told me

that he was a cooper of Alais travelling to St. Etienne in search of

work, and that in his spare moments he followed the fatal calling of a

maker of matches. Me he readily enough divined to be a brandy merchant.

I was up first in the morning (Monday, September 23rd), and hastened my

toilette guiltily, so as to leave a clear field for madam, the cooper's

wife. I drank a bowl of milk, and set off to explore the neighbourhood

of Bouchet. It was perishing cold, a grey, windy, wintry morning; misty

clouds flew fast and low; the wind piped over the naked platform; and

the only speck of colour was away behind Mount Mezenc and the eastern

hills, where the sky still wore the orange of the dawn.

It was five in the morning, and four thousand feet above the sea; and I

had to bury my hands in my pockets and trot. People were trooping out to

the labours of the field by twos and threes, and all turned round to

stare upon the stranger. I had seen them coming back last night, I saw

them going afield again; and there was the life of Bouchet in a

nutshell.

When I came back to the inn for a bit of breakfast, the landlady was in

the kitchen combing out her daughter's hair; and I made her my

compliments upon its beauty.

"Oh, no," said the mother; "it is not so beautiful as it ought to be.

Look, it is too fine."

Thus does a wise peasantry console itself under adverse physical

circumstances, and, by a startling democratic process, the defects of

the majority decide the type of beauty.

"And where," said I, "is monsieur?"

"The master of the house is upstairs," she answered, "making you a

goad."

Blessed be the man who invented goads! Blessed the innkeeper of Bouchet

St. Nicholas, who introduced me to their use! This plain wand, with an

eighth of an inch of pin, was indeed a sceptre when he put it in my

hands. Thenceforward Modestine was my slave. A prick, and she passed the

most inviting stable-door. A prick, and she broke forth into a gallant

little trotlet that devoured the miles. It was not a remarkable speed,

when all was said; and we took four hours to cover ten miles at the best

of it. But what a heavenly change since yesterday! No more wielding of

the ugly cudgel; no more flailing with an aching arm; no more broadsword

exercise, but a discreet and gentlemanly fence. And what although now

and then a drop of blood should appear on Modestine's mouse-coloured

wedge-like rump? I should have preferred it otherwise, indeed; but

yesterday's exploits had purged my heart of all humanity. The perverse

little devil, since she would not be taken with kindness, must even go

with pricking.

It was bleak and bitter cold, and, except a cavalcade of stride-legged

ladies and a pair of post-runners, the road was dead solitary all the

way to Pradelles. I scarce remember an incident but one. A handsome foal

with a bell about his neck came charging up to us upon a stretch of

common, sniffed the air martially as one about to do great deeds, and,

suddenly thinking otherwise in his green young heart, put about and

galloped off as he had come, the bell tinkling in the wind. For a long

while afterwards I saw his noble attitude as he drew up, and heard the

note of his bell; and when I struck the high-road, the song of the

telegraph-wires seemed to continue the same music.

Pradelles stands on a hillside, high above the Allier, surrounded by

rich meadows. They were cutting aftermath on all sides, which gave the

neighbourhood, this gusty autumn morning, an untimely smell of hay. On

the opposite bank of the Allier the land kept mounting for miles to the

horizon: a tanned and sallow autumn landscape, with black blots of

fir-wood and white roads wandering through the hills. Over all this the

clouds shed a uniform and purplish shadow, sad and somewhat menacing,

exaggerating height and distance, and throwing into still higher relief

the twisted ribbons of the highway. It was a cheerless prospect, but one

stimulating to a traveller. For I was now upon the limit of Velay, and

all that I beheld lay in another county--wild Gevaudan, mountainous,

uncultivated, and but recently disforested from terror of the wolves.

Wolves, alas! like bandits, seem to flee the traveler's advance, and

you may trudge through all our comfortable Europe and not meet with an

adventure worth the name. But here, if anywhere, a man was on the

frontiers of hope. For this was the land of the ever-memorable BEAST,

the Napoleon Bonaparte of wolves. What a career was his! He lived ten

months at free quarters in Gevaudan and Vivarais; he ate women and

children and "shepherdesses celebrated for their beauty"; he pursued

armed horsemen; he has been seen at broad noonday chasing a post-chaise

and outrider along the king's high-road, and chaise and outrider fleeing

before him at the gallop. He was placarded like a political offender,

and ten thousand francs were offered for his head. And yet, when he was

shot and sent to Versailles, behold! a common wolf, and even small for

that. "Though I could reach from pole to pole," sang Alexander Pope; the

Little Corporal shook Europe; and if all wolves had been as this wolf

they would have changed the history of man. M. Elie Berthet has made him

the hero of a novel, which I have read, and do not wish to read again.

I hurried over my lunch, and was proof against the landlady's desire

that I should visit our Lady of Pradelles, "who performed many miracles,

although she was of wood," and before three-quarters of an hour I was

goading Modestine down the deep descent that leads to Langogne on the

Allier. On both sides of the road, in big dusty fields, farmers were

preparing for next spring. Every fifty yards a yoke of great-necked

stolid oxen were patiently haling at the plough. I saw one of these mild

formidable servants of the glebe, who took a sudden interest in

Modestine and me. The furrow down which he was journeying lay at an

angle to the road, and his head was solidly fixed to the yoke like those

of caryatides below a ponderous cornice; but he screwed round his big

honest eyes and followed us with a ruminating look, until his master

bade him turn the plough and proceed to reascend the field. From all

these furrowing ploughshares, from the feet of oxen, from a labourer

here and there who was breaking the dry clods with a hoe, the wind

carried away a thin dust like so much smoke. It was a fine, busy,

breathing, rustic landscape; and as I continued to descend, the

highlands of Gevaudan kept mounting in front of me against the sky.

I had crossed the Loire the day before; now I was to cross the Allier;

so near are these two confluents in their youth. Just at the bridge of

Langogne, as the long-promised rain was beginning to fall, a lassie of

some seven or eight addressed me in the sacramental phrase, "_D'ou

'st-ce-que vous venez?_" She did it with so high an air that she set me

laughing, and this cut her to the quick. She was evidently one who

reckoned on respect, and stood looking after me in silent dudgeon, as I

crossed the bridge and entered the county of Gevaudan.

UPPER GEVAUDAN

_The way also here was very wearisome

through dirt and slabbiness; nor was

there on all this ground so much as one

inn or victualling-house wherein to

refresh the feebler sort._

PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.

A CAMP IN THE DARK

The next day (Tuesday, September 24th) it was two o'clock in the

afternoon before I got my journal written up and my knapsack repaired,

for I was determined to carry my knapsack in the future, and have no

more ado with baskets; and half an hour afterwards I set out for Le

Cheylard l'Eveque, a place on the borders of the forest of Mercoire. A

man, I was told, should walk there in an hour and a half; and I thought

it scarce too ambitious to suppose that a man encumbered with a donkey

might cover the same distance in four hours.

All the way up the long hill from Langogne it rained and hailed

alternately; the wind kept freshening steadily, although slowly;

plentiful hurrying clouds--some, dragging veils of straight rain-shower,

others massed and luminous as though promising snow--careered out of the

north and followed me along my way. I was soon out of the cultivated

basin of the Allier, and away from the ploughing oxen and such-like

sights of the country. Moor, heathery marsh, tracts of rock and pines,

woods of birch all jewelled with the autumn yellow, here and there a few

naked cottages and bleak fields,--these were the characters of the

country. Hill and valley followed valley and hill; the little green and

stony cattle-tracks wandered in and out of one another, split into three

or four, died away in marshy hollows, and began again sporadically on

hillsides or at the borders of a wood.

There was no direct road to Cheylard, and it was no easy affair to make

a passage in this uneven country and through this intermittent labyrinth

of tracks. It must have been about four when I struck Sagnerousse, and

went on my way rejoicing in a sure point of departure. Two hours

afterwards, the dusk rapidly falling, in a lull of the wind, I issued

from a fir-wood where I had long been wandering, and found, not the

looked-for village, but another marish bottom among rough-and-tumble

hills. For some time past I had heard the ringing of cattle-bells ahead;

and now, as I came out of the skirts of the wood, I saw near upon a

dozen cows, and perhaps as many more black figures, which I conjectured

to be children, although the mist had almost unrecognisably exaggerated

their forms. These were all silently following each other round and

round in a circle, now taking hands, now breaking up with chains and

reverences. A dance of children appeals to very innocent and lively

thoughts; but, at nightfall on the marshes, the thing was eerie and

fantastic to behold. Even I, who am well enough read in Herbert Spencer,

felt a sort of silence fall for an instant on my mind. The next, I was

pricking Modestine forward, and guiding her like an unruly ship through

the open. In a path, she went doggedly ahead of her own accord, as

before a fair wind; but once on the turf or among heather, and the brute

became demented. The tendency of lost travellers to go round in a circle

was developed in her to the degree of passion, and it took all the

steering I had in me to keep even a decently straight course through a

single field.

While I was thus desperately tacking through the bog, children and

cattle began to disperse, until only a pair of girls remained behind.

From these I sought direction on my path. The peasantry in general were

but little disposed to counsel a wayfarer. One old devil simply retired

into his house, and barricaded the door on my approach; and I might beat

and shout myself hoarse, he turned a deaf ear. Another, having given me

a direction which, as I found afterwards, I had misunderstood,

complacently watched me going wrong without adding a sign. He did not

care a stalk of parsley if I wandered all night upon the hills! As for

these two girls, they were a pair of impudent sly sluts, with not a

thought but mischief. One put out her tongue at me, the other bade me

follow the cows, and they both giggled and joggled each other's elbows.

The Beast of Gevaudan ate about a hundred children of this district; I

began to think of him with sympathy.

Leaving the girls, I pushed on through the bog, and got into another

wood and upon a well-marked road. It grew darker and darker. Modestine,

suddenly beginning to smell mischief, bettered the pace of her own

accord, and from that time forward gave me no trouble. It was the first

sign of intelligence I had occasion to remark in her. At the same time,

the wind freshened into half a gale, and another heavy discharge of rain

came flying up out of the north. At the other side of the wood I sighted

some red windows in the dusk. This was the hamlet of Fouzilhic; three

houses on a hillside, near a wood of birches. Here I found a delightful

old man, who came a little way with me in the rain to put me safely on

the road for Cheylard. He would hear of no reward, but shook his hands

above his head almost as if in menace, and refused volubly and shrilly

in unmitigated _patois_.

All seemed right at last. My thoughts began to turn upon dinner and a

fireside, and my heart was agreeably softened in my bosom. Alas, and I

was on the brink of new and greater miseries! Suddenly, at a single

swoop, the night fell. I have been abroad in many a black night, but

never in a blacker. A glimmer of rocks, a glimmer of the track where it

was well beaten, a certain fleecy density, or night within night, for a

tree--this was all that I could discriminate. The sky was simply

darkness overhead; even the flying clouds pursued their way invisibly to

human eyesight. I could not distinguish my hand at arm's-length from the

track, nor my goad, at the same distance, from the meadows or the sky.

Soon the road that I was following split, after the fashion of the

country, into three or four in a piece of rocky meadow. Since Modestine

had shown such a fancy for beaten roads, I tried her instinct in this

predicament. But the instinct of an ass is what might be expected from

the name; in half a minute she was clambering round and round among some

boulders, as lost a donkey as you would wish to see. I should have

camped long before had I been properly provided; but as this was to be

so short a stage, I had brought no wine, no bread for myself, and little

over a pound for my lady friend. Add to this, that I and Modestine were

both handsomely wetted by the showers. But now, if I could have found

some water, I should have camped at once in spite of all. Water,

however, being entirely absent, except in the form of rain, I determined

to return to Fouzilhic, and ask a guide a little farther on my way--"a

little farther lend thy guiding hand."

The thing was easy to decide, hard to accomplish. In this sensible

roaring blackness I was sure of nothing but the direction of the wind.

To this I set my face; the road had disappeared, and I went across

country, now in marshy opens, now baffled by walls unscalable to

Modestine, until I came once more in sight of some red windows. This

time they were differently disposed. It was not Fouzilhic, but

Fouzilhac, a hamlet little distant from the other in space, but worlds

away in the spirit of its inhabitants. I tied Modestine to a gate, and

groped forward, stumbling among rocks, plunging mid-leg in bog, until I

gained the entrance of the village. In the first lighted house there was

a woman who would not open to me. She could do nothing, she cried to me

through the door, being alone and lame; but if I would apply at the next

house there was a man who could help me if he had a mind.

They came to the next door in force, a man, two women, and a girl, and

brought a pair of lanterns to examine the wayfarer. The man was not

ill-looking, but had a shifty smile. He leaned against the doorpost,

and heard me state my case. All I asked was a guide as far as Cheylard.

"_C'est que, voyez-vous, il fait noir_," said he.

I told him that was just my reason for requiring help.

"I understand that," said he, looking uncomfortable; "_mais--c'est--de

la peine_."

I was willing to pay, I said. He shook his head. I rose as high as ten

francs; but he continued to shake his head. "Name your own price then,"

said I.

"_Ce n'est pas ca_," he said at length, and with evident difficulty;

"but I am not going to cross the door--_mais je ne sortirai pas de la

porte_."

I grew a little warm, and asked him what he proposed that I should do.

"Where are you going beyond Cheylard?" he asked by way of answer.

"That is no affair of yours," I returned, for I was not going to indulge

his bestial curiosity; "it changes nothing in my present predicament."

"_C'est vrai, ca_," he acknowledged, with a laugh; "_oui, c'est vrai. Et

d'ou venez-vous?_"

A better man than I might have felt nettled.

"Oh," said I, "I am not going to answer any of your questions, so you

may spare yourself the trouble of putting them. I am late enough

already; I want help. If you will not guide me yourself, at least help

me to find some one else who will."

"Hold on," he cried suddenly. "Was it not you who passed in the meadow

while it was still day?"

"Yes, yes," said the girl, whom I had not hitherto recognized; "it was

monsieur; I told him to follow the cow."

"As for you, mademoiselle," said I, "you are a _farceuse_."

"And," added the man, "what the devil have you done to be still here?"

What the devil, indeed! But there I was. "The great thing," said I, "is

to make an end of it," and once more proposed that he should help me to

find a guide.

"_C'est que_," he said again, "_c'est que_--_il fait noir_."

"Very well," said I; "take one of your lanterns."

"No," he cried, drawing a thought backward, and again entrenching

himself behind one of his former phrases; "I will not cross the door."

I looked at him. I saw unaffected terror struggling on his face with

unaffected shame; he was smiling pitifully and wetting his lip with his

tongue, like a detected schoolboy. I drew a brief picture of my state,

and asked him what I was to do.

"I don't know," he said; "I will not cross the door."

Here was the Beast of Gevaudan, and no mistake.

"Sir," said I, with my most commanding manners, "you are a coward."

And with that I turned my back upon the family party, who hastened to

retire within their fortifications; and the famous door was closed

again, but not till I had overheard the sound of laughter. _Filia

barbara pater barbarior._ Let me say it in the plural: the Beasts of

Gevaudan.

The lanterns had somewhat dazzled me, and I ploughed distressfully among

stones and rubbish-heaps. All the other houses in the village were both

dark and silent; and though I knocked at here and there a door, my

knocking was unanswered. It was a bad business; I gave up Fouzilhac with

my curses. The rain had stopped, and the wind, which still kept rising,

began to dry my coat and trousers. "Very well," thought I, "water or no

water, I must camp." But the first thing was to return to Modestine. I

am pretty sure I was twenty minutes groping for my lady in the dark; and

if it had not been for the unkindly services of the bog, into which I

once more stumbled, I might have still been groping for her at the dawn.

My next business was to gain the shelter of a wood, for the wind was

cold as well as boisterous. How, in this well-wooded district, I should

have been so long in finding one, is another of the insoluble mysteries

of this day's adventures; but I will take my oath that I put near an

hour to the discovery.

At last black trees began to show upon my left, and, suddenly crossing

the road, made a cave of unmitigated blackness right in front. I call it

a cave without exaggeration; to pass below that arch of leaves was like

entering a dungeon. I felt about until my hand encountered a stout

branch, and to this I tied Modestine, a haggard, drenched, desponding

donkey. Then I lowered my pack, laid it along the wall on the margin of

the road, and unbuckled the straps. I knew well enough where the lantern

was, but where were the candles? I groped and groped among the tumbled

articles, and, while I was thus groping, suddenly I touched the

spirit-lamp. Salvation! This would serve my turn as well. The wind

roared unwearyingly among the trees; I could hear the boughs tossing and

the leaves churning through half a mile of forest; yet the scene of my

encampment was not only as black as the pit, but admirably sheltered. At

the second match the wick caught flame. The light was both livid and

shifting; but it cut me off from the universe, and doubled the darkness

of the surrounding night.

I tied Modestine more conveniently for herself, and broke up half the

black bread for her supper, reserving the other half against the

morning. Then I gathered what I should want within reach, took off my

wet boots and gaiters, which I wrapped in my waterproof, arranged my

knapsack for a pillow under the flap of my sleeping-bag, insinuated my

limbs into the interior, and buckled myself in like a _bambino_. I

opened a tin of Bologna sausage, and broke a cake of chocolate, and that

was all I had to eat. It may sound offensive, but I ate them together,

bite by bite, by way of bread and meat. All I had to wash down this

revolting mixture was neat brandy: a revolting beverage in itself. But

I was rare and hungry; ate well, and smoked one of the best cigarettes

in my experience. Then I put a stone in my straw hat, pulled the flap of

my fur cap over my neck and eyes, put my revolver ready to my hand, and

snuggled well down among the sheepskins.

I questioned at first if I were sleepy, for I felt my heart beating

faster than usual, as if with an agreeable excitement to which my mind

remained a stranger. But as soon as my eyelids touched, that subtle glue

leaped between them, and they would no more come separate. The wind

among the trees was my lullaby. Sometimes it sounded for minutes

together with a steady, even rush, not rising nor abating; and again it

would swell and burst like a great crashing breaker, and the trees would

patter me all over with big drops from the rain of the afternoon. Night

after night, in my own bedroom in the country, I have given ear to this

perturbing concert of the wind among the woods, but whether it was a

difference in the trees, or the lie of the ground, or because I was

myself outside and in the midst of it, the fact remains that the wind

sang to a different tune among these woods of Gevaudan. I hearkened and

hearkened; and meanwhile sleep took gradual possession of my body and

subdued my thoughts and senses; but still my last waking effort was to

listen and distinguish, and my last conscious state was one of wonder at

the foreign clamour in my ears.

Twice in the course of the dark hours--once when a stone galled me

underneath the sack, and again when the poor patient Modestine, growing

angry, pawed and stamped upon the road--I was recalled for a brief while

to consciousness, and saw a star or two overhead, and the lace-like edge

of the foliage against the sky. When I awoke for the third time

(Wednesday, September 25th), the world was flooded with a blue light,

the mother of the dawn. I saw the leaves labouring in the wind and the

ribbon of the road; and, on turning my head, there was Modestine tied

to a beech, and standing half across the path in an attitude of

inimitable patience. I closed my eyes again, and set to thinking over

the experience of the night. I was surprised to find how easy and

pleasant it had been, even in this tempestuous weather. The stone which

annoyed me would not have been there had I not been forced to camp

blindfold in the opaque night; and I had felt no other inconvenience

except when my feet encountered the lantern or the second volume of

Peyrat's "Pastors of the Desert" among the mixed contents of my

sleeping-bag; nay, more, I had felt not a touch of cold, and awakened

with unusually lightsome and clear sensations.

With that I shook myself, got once more into my boots and gaiters, and,

breaking up the rest of the bread for Modestine, strolled about to see

in what part of the world I had awakened. Ulysses, left on Ithaca, and

with a mind unsettled by the goddess, was not more pleasantly astray. I

have been after an adventure all my life, a pure dispassionate

adventure, such as befell early and heroic voyagers; and thus to be

found by morning in a random woodside nook in Gevaudan--not knowing

north from south, as strange to my surroundings as the first man upon

the earth, an inland castaway--was to find a fraction of my daydreams

realized. I was on the skirts of a little wood of birch, sprinkled with

a few beeches; behind, it adjoined another wood of fir; and in front, it

broke up and went down in open order into a shallow and meadowy dale.

All around there were bare hill-tops, some near, some far away, as the

perspective closed or opened, but none apparently much higher than the

rest. The wind huddled the trees. The golden specks of autumn in the

birches tossed shiveringly. Overhead the sky was full of strings and

shreds of vapour, flying, vanishing, reappearing, and turning about an

axis like tumblers, as the wind hounded them through heaven. It was wild

weather and famishing cold. I ate some chocolate, swallowed a mouthful

of brandy, and smoked a cigarette before the cold should have time to

disable my fingers. And by the time I had got all this done, and had

made my pack and bound it on the pack-saddle, the day was tiptoe on the

threshold of the east. We had not gone many steps along the lane, before

the sun, still invisible to me, sent a glow of gold over some cloud

mountains that lay ranged along the eastern sky.

The wind had us on the stern, and hurried us bitingly forward. I

buttoned myself into my coat, and walked on in a pleasant frame of mind

with all men, when suddenly, at a corner, there was Fouzilhic once more

in front of me. Nor only that, but there was the old gentleman who had

escorted me so far the night before, running out of his house at sight

of me, with hands upraised in horror.

"My poor boy!" he cried, "what does this mean?"

I told him what had happened. He beat his old hands like clappers in a

mill, to think how lightly he had let me go; but when he heard of the

man of Fouzilhac, anger and depression seized upon his mind.

"This time, at least," said he, "there shall be no mistake."

And he limped along, for he was very rheumatic, for about half a mile,

and until I was almost within sight of Cheylard, the destination I had

hunted for so long.

CHEYLARD AND LUC

Candidly, it seemed little worthy of all this searching. A few broken

ends of village, with no particular street, but a succession of open

places heaped with logs and fagots; a couple of tilted crosses, a shrine

to Our Lady of all Graces on the summit of a little hill; and all this,

upon a rattling highland river, in the corner of a naked valley. What

went ye out for to see? thought I to myself. But the place had a life of

its own. I found a board commemorating the liberalities of Cheylard for

the past year, hung up, like a banner, in the diminutive and tottering

church. In 1877, it appeared, the inhabitants subscribed forty-eight

francs ten centimes for the "Work of the Propagation of the Faith." Some

of this, I could not help hoping, would be applied to my native land.

Cheylard scrapes together halfpence for the darkened souls in Edinburgh,

while Balquhidder and Dunrossness bemoan the ignorance of Rome. Thus, to

the high entertainment of the angels, do we pelt each other with

evangelists, like schoolboys bickering in the snow.

The inn was again singularly unpretentious. The whole furniture of a not

ill-to-do family was in the kitchen: the beds, the cradle, the clothes,

the plate-rack, the meal-chest, and the photograph of the parish priest.

There were five children, one of whom was set to its morning prayers at

the stair-foot soon after my arrival, and a sixth would ere long be

forthcoming. I was kindly received by these good folk. They were much

interested in my misadventure. The wood in which I had slept belonged to

them; the man of Fouzilhac they thought a monster of iniquity, and

counseled me warmly to summon him at law--"because I might have died."

The good wife was horror-stricken to see me drink over a pint of

uncreamed milk.

"You will do yourself an evil," she said. "Permit me to boil it for

you."

After I had begun the morning on this delightful liquor, she having an

infinity of things to arrange, I was permitted, nay requested, to make a

bowl of chocolate for myself. My boots and gaiters were hung up to dry,

and, seeing me trying to write my journal on my knee, the eldest

daughter let down a hinged table in the chimney-corner for my

convenience. Here I wrote, drank my chocolate, and finally ate an

omelette before I left. The table was thick with dust; for, as they

explained, it was not used except in winter weather. I had a clear look

up the vent, through brown agglomerations of soot and blue vapour, to

the sky; and whenever a handful of twigs was thrown on to the fire, my

legs were scorched by the blaze.

The husband had begun life as a muleteer, and when I came to charge

Modestine showed himself full of the prudence of his art. "You will have

to change this package," said he; "it ought to be in two parts, and then

you might have double the weight."

I explained that I wanted no more weight; and for no donkey hitherto

created would I cut my sleeping-bag in two.

"It fatigues her, however," said the innkeeper; "it fatigues her greatly

on the march. Look."

Alas, there were her two forelegs no better than raw beef on the inside,

and blood was running from under her tail. They told me when I started,

and I was ready to believe it, that before a few days I should come to

love Modestine like a dog. Three days had passed, we had shared some

misadventures, and my heart was still as cold as a potato towards my

beast of burden. She was pretty enough to look at; but then she had

given proof of dead stupidity, redeemed indeed by patience, but

aggravated by flashes of sorry and ill-judged light-heartedness. And I

own this new discovery seemed another point against her. What the devil

was the good of a she-ass if she could not carry a sleeping-bag and a

few necessaries? I saw the end of the fable rapidly approaching, when I

should have to carry Modestine. AEsop was the man to know the world! I

assure you I set out with heavy thoughts upon my short day's march.

It was not only heavy thoughts about Modestine that weighted me upon the

way; it was a leaden business altogether. For first, the wind blew so

rudely that I had to hold on the pack with one hand from Cheylard to

Luc; and second, my road lay through one of the most beggarly countries

in the world. It was like the worst of the Scottish Highlands, only

worse; cold, naked, and ignoble, scant of wood, scant of heather, scant

of life. A road and some fences broke the unvarying waste, and the line

of the road was marked by upright pillars, to serve in time of snow.

Why any one should desire to visit either Luc or Cheylard is more than

my much-inventing spirit can suppose. For my part, I travel not to go

anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to

move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come

down off this feather-bed of civilization, and find the globe granite

underfoot and strewn with cutting flints. Alas, as we get up in life,

and are more preoccupied with our affairs, even a holiday is a thing

that must be worked for. To hold a pack upon a pack-saddle against a

gale out of the freezing north is no high industry, but it is one that

serves to occupy and compose the mind. And when the present is so

exacting, who can annoy himself about the future?

I came out at length above the Allier. A more unsightly prospect at this

season of the year it would be hard to fancy. Shelving hills rose round

it on all sides, here dabbled with wood and fields, there rising to

peaks alternately naked and hairy with pines. The colour throughout was

black or ashen, and came to a point in the ruins of the castle of Luc,

which pricked up impudently from below my feet, carrying on a pinnacle a

tall white statue of Our Lady, which, I heard with interest, weighed

fifty quintals, and was to be dedicated on the 6th of October. Through

this sorry landscape trickled the Allier and a tributary of nearly equal

size, which came down to join it through a broad nude valley in

Vivarais. The weather had somewhat lightened, and the clouds massed in

squadron; but the fierce wind still hunted them through heaven, and cast

great ungainly splashes of shadow and sunlight over the scene.

Luc itself was a straggling double file of houses wedged between hill

and river. It had no beauty, nor was there any notable feature, save the

old castle overhead with its fifty quintals of brand-new Madonna. But

the inn was clean and large. The kitchen, with its two box-beds hung

with clean check curtains, with its wide stone chimney, its

chimney-shelf four yards long and garnished with lanterns and religious

statuettes, its array of chests and pair of ticking clocks, was the very

model of what a kitchen ought to be; a melodrama kitchen, suitable for

bandits or noblemen in disguise. Nor was the scene disgraced by the

landlady, a handsome, silent, dark old woman, clothed and hooded in

black like a nun. Even the public bedroom had a character of its own,

with the long deal tables and benches, where fifty might have dined, set

out as for a harvest-home, and the three box-beds along the wall. In one

of these, lying on straw and covered with a pair of table-napkins, did I

do penance all night long in goose-flesh and chattering teeth, and sigh,

from time to time as I awakened, for my sheepskin sack and the lee of

some great wood.

OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS

_I behold

The House, the Brotherhood austere--

And what am I, that I am here?_

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

FATHER APOLLONARIS

Next morning (Thursday, 26th September) I took the road in a new order.

The sack was no longer doubled, but hung at full length across the

saddle, a green sausage six feet long with a tuft of blue wool hanging

out of either end. It was more picturesque, it spared the donkey, and,

as I began to see, it would ensure stability, blow high, blow low. But

it was not without a pang that I had so decided. For although I had

purchased a new cord, and made all as fast as I was able, I was yet

jealously uneasy lest the flaps should tumble out and scatter my effects

along the line of march.

My way lay up the bald valley of the river, along the march of Vivarais

and Gevaudan. The hills of Gevaudan on the right were a little more

naked, if anything, than those of Vivarais upon the left, and the former

had a monopoly of a low dotty underwood that grew thickly in the gorges

and died out in solitary burrs upon the shoulders and the summits. Black

bricks of fir-wood were plastered here and there upon both sides, and

here and there were cultivated fields. A railway ran beside the river;

the only bit of railway in Gevaudan, although there are many proposals

afoot and surveys being made, and even, as they tell me, a station

standing ready built in Mende. A year or two hence and this may be

another world. The desert is beleaguered. Now may some Languedocian

Wordsworth turn the sonnet into _patois:_ "Mountains and vales and

floods, heard YE that whistle?"

At a place called La Bastide I was directed to leave the river, and

follow a road that mounted on the left among the hills of Vivarais, the

modern Ardeche; for I was now come within a little way of my strange

destination, the Trappist monastery of Our Lady of the Snows. The sun

came out as I left the shelter of a pine-wood, and I beheld suddenly a

fine wild landscape to the south. High rocky hills, as blue as sapphire,

closed the view, and between these lay ridge upon ridge, heathery,

craggy, the sun glittering on veins of rock, the underwood clambering in

the hollows, as rude as God made them at the first. There was not a sign

of man's hand in all the prospect; and indeed not a trace of his

passage, save where generation after generation had walked in twisted

footpaths, in and out among the beeches, and up and down upon the

channeled slopes. The mists, which had hitherto beset me, were now

broken into clouds, and fled swiftly and shone brightly in the sun. I

drew a long breath. It was grateful to come, after so long, upon a scene

of some attraction for the human heart. I own I like definite form in

what my eyes are to rest upon; and if landscapes were sold, like the

sheets of characters of my boyhood, one penny plain and twopence

coloured, I should go the length of twopence every day of my life.

But if things had grown better to the south, it was still desolate and

inclement near at hand. A spidery cross on every hill-top marked the

neighbourhood of a religious house; and a quarter of a mile beyond, the

outlook southward opening out and growing bolder with every step, a

white statue of the Virgin at the corner of a young plantation directed

the traveller to Our Lady of the Snows. Here, then, I struck leftward,

and pursued my way, driving my secular donkey before me, and creaking in

my secular boots and gaiters, towards the asylum of silence.

I had not gone very far ere the wind brought to me the clanging of a

bell, and somehow, I can scarce tell why, my heart sank within me at the

sound. I have rarely approached anything with more unaffected terror

than the monastery of Our Lady of the Snows. This it is to have had a

Protestant education. And suddenly, on turning a corner, fear took hold

on me from head to foot--slavish, superstitious fear; and though I did

not stop in my advance, yet I went on slowly, like a man who should have

passed a bourne unnoticed, and strayed into the country of the dead. For

there, upon the narrow new-made road, between the stripling pines, was a

mediaeval friar, fighting with a barrowful of turfs. Every Sunday of my

childhood I used to study the Hermits of Marco Sadeler--enchanting

prints, full of wood and field and mediaeval landscapes, as large as a

county, for the imagination to go a-travelling in; and here, sure

enough, was one of Marco Sadeler's heroes. He was robed in white like

any spectre, and the hood falling back, in the instancy of his

contention with the barrow, disclosed a pate as bald and yellow as a

skull. He might have been buried any time these thousand years, and all

the lively parts of him resolved into earth and broken up with the

farmer's harrow.

I was troubled besides in my mind as to etiquette. Durst I address a

person who was under a vow of silence? Clearly not. But drawing near, I

doffed my cap to him with a far-away superstitious reverence. He nodded

back, and cheerfully addressed me. Was I going to the monastery? Who was

I? An Englishman? Ah, an Irishman, then?

"No," I said, "a Scotsman."

A Scotsman? Ah, he had never seen a Scotsman before. And he looked me

all over, his good, honest, brawny countenance shining with interest, as

a boy might look upon a lion or an alligator. From him I learned with

disgust that I could not be received at Our Lady of the Snows; I might

get a meal, perhaps, but that was all. And then, as our talk ran on, and

it turned out that I was not a pedlar, but a literary man, who drew

landscapes and was going to write a book, he changed his manner of

thinking as to my reception (for I fear they respect persons even in a

Trappist monastery), and told me I must be sure to ask for the Father

Prior, and state my case to him in full. On second thoughts he

determined to go down with me himself; he thought he could manage for me

better. Might he say that I was a geographer?

No; I thought, in the interests of truth, he positively might not.

"Very well, then" (with disappointment), "an author."

It appeared he had been in a seminary with six young Irishmen, all

priests, long since, who had received newspapers and kept him informed

of the state of ecclesiastical affairs in England. And he asked me

eagerly after Dr. Pusey, for whose conversion the good man had continued

ever since to pray night and morning.

"I thought he was very near the truth," he said; "and he will reach it

yet; there is so much virtue in prayer."

He must be a stiff, ungodly Protestant who can take anything but

pleasure in this kind and hopeful story. While he was thus near the

subject, the good father asked me if I were a Christian; and when he

found I was not, or not after his way, he glossed it over with great

good-will.

The road which we were following, and which this stalwart father had

made with his own two hands within the space of a year, came to a

corner, and showed us some white buildings a little farther on beyond

the wood. At the same time, the bell once more sounded abroad. We were

hard upon the monastery. Father Apollinaris (for that was my companion's

name) stopped me.

"I must not speak to you down there," he said. "Ask for the Brother

Porter, and all will be well. But try to see me as you go out again

through the wood, where I may speak to you. I am charmed to have made

your acquaintance."

And then suddenly raising his arms, flapping his fingers, and crying out

twice, "I must not speak! I must not speak!" he ran away in front of me,

and disappeared into the monastery door.

I own this somewhat ghastly eccentricity went a good way to revive my

terrors. But where one was so good and simple, why should not all be

alike? I took heart of grace, and went forward to the gate as fast as

Modestine, who seemed to have a disaffection for monasteries, would

permit. It was the first door, in my acquaintance of her, which she had

not shown an indecent haste to enter. I summoned the place in form,

though with a quaking heart. Father Michael, the Father Hospitaller, and

a pair of brown-robed brothers came to the gate and spoke with me a

while. I think my sack was the great attraction; it had already beguiled

the heart of poor Apollinaris, who had charged me on my life to show it

to the Father Prior. But whether it was my address, or the sack, or the

idea speedily published among that part of the brotherhood who attend on

strangers that I was not a pedlar after all, I found no difficulty as to

my reception. Modestine was led away by a layman to the stables, and I

and my pack were received into Our Lady of the Snows.

THE MONKS

Father Michael, a pleasant, fresh-faced, smiling man, perhaps of

thirty-five, took me to the pantry, and gave me a glass of liqueur to

stay me until dinner. We had some talk, or rather I should say he

listened to my prattle indulgently enough, but with an abstracted air,

like a spirit with a thing of clay. And truly, when I remember that I

descanted principally on my appetite, and that it must have been by that

time more than eighteen hours since Father Michael had so much as broken

bread, I can well understand that he would find an earthly savour in my

conversation. But his manner, though superior, was exquisitely gracious;

and I find I have a lurking curiosity as to Father Michael's past.

The whet administered, I was left alone for a little in the monastery

garden. This is no more than the main court, laid out in sandy paths and

beds of parti-coloured dahlias, and with a fountain and a black statue

of the Virgin in the centre. The buildings stand around it four-square,

bleak, as yet unseasoned by the years and weather, and with no other

features than a belfry and a pair of slated gables. Brothers in white,

brothers in brown, passed silently along the sanded alleys; and when I

first came out, three hooded monks were kneeling on the terrace at their

prayers. A naked hill commands the monastery upon one side, and the wood

commands it on the other. It lies exposed to wind; the snow falls off

and on from October to May, and sometimes lies six weeks on end; but if

they stood in Eden with a climate like heaven's, the buildings

themselves would offer the same wintry and cheerless aspect; and for my

part, on this wild September day, before I was called to dinner, I felt

chilly in and out.

When I had eaten well and heartily, Brother Ambrose, a hearty

conversible Frenchman (for all those who wait on strangers have the

liberty to speak), led me to a little room in that part of the building

which is set apart for _MM. les retraitants_. It was clean and

whitewashed, and furnished with strict necessaries, a crucifix, a bust

of the late Pope, the "Imitation" in French, a book of religious

meditations, and the "Life of Elizabeth Seton"--evangelist, it would

appear, of North America and of New England in particular. As far as my

experience goes, there is a fair field for some more evangelisation in

these quarters; but think of Cotton Mather! I should like to give him a

reading of this little work in heaven, where I hope he dwells; but

perhaps he knows all that already, and much more; and perhaps he and

Mrs. Seton are the dearest friends, and gladly unite their voices in the

everlasting psalm. Over the table, to conclude the inventory of the

room, hung a set of regulations for _MM. les retraitants:_ what services

they should attend, when they were to tell their beads or meditate, and

when they were to rise and go to rest. At the foot was a notable N. B.:

"_Le temps libre est employe a l'examen de conscience, a la confession,

a faire de bonnes resolutions,"_ etc. To make good resolutions, indeed!

You might talk as fruitfully of making the hair grow on your head.

I had scarce explored my niche when Brother Ambrose returned. An English

boarder, it appeared, would like to speak with me. I professed my

willingness, and the friar ushered in a fresh, young, little Irishman of

fifty, a deacon of the Church, arrayed in strict canonicals, and wearing

on his head what, in default of knowledge, I can only call the

ecclesiastical shako. He had lived seven years in retreat at a convent

of nuns in Belgium, and now five at Our Lady of the Snows; he never saw

an English newspaper; he spoke French imperfectly, and had he spoken it

like a native, there was not much chance of conversation where he dwelt.

With this, he was a man eminently sociable, greedy of news, and

simple-minded like a child. If I was pleased to have a guide about the

monastery, he was no less delighted to see an English face and hear an

English tongue.

He showed me his own room, where he passed his time among breviaries,

Hebrew Bibles, and the Waverley Novels. Thence he led me to the

cloisters, into the chapter-house, through the vestry, where the

brothers' gowns and broad straw hats were hanging up, each with his

religious name upon a board--names full of legendary suavity and

interest, such as Basil, Hilarion, Raphael, or Pacifique; into the

library, where were all the works of Veuillot and Chateaubriand, and the

"Odes et Ballades," if you please, and even Moliere, to say nothing of

innumerable fathers and a great variety of local and general historians.

Thence my good Irishman took me round the workshops, where brothers bake

bread, and make cart-wheels, and take photographs; where one

superintends a collection of curiosities, and another a gallery of

rabbits. For in a Trappist monastery each monk has an occupation of his

own choice, apart from his religious duties and the general labours of

the house. Each must sing in the choir, if he has a voice and ear, and

join in the haymaking if he has a hand to stir; but in his private

hours, although he must be occupied, he may be occupied on what he

likes. Thus I was told that one brother was engaged with literature;

while Father Apollinaris busies himself in making roads, and the Abbot

employs himself in binding books. It is not so long since this Abbot was

consecrated, by the way; and on that occasion, by a special grace, his

mother was permitted to enter the chapel and witness the ceremony of

consecration. A proud day for her to have a son a mitred abbot; it makes

you glad to think they let her in.

In all these journeyings to and fro, many silent fathers and brethren

fell in our way. Usually they paid no more regard to our passage than if

we had been a cloud; but sometimes the good deacon had a permission to

ask of them, and it was granted by a peculiar movement of the hands,

almost like that of a dog's paws in swimming, or refused by the usual

negative signs, and in either case with lowered eyelids and a certain

air of contrition, as of a man who was steering very close to evil.

The monks, by special grace of their Abbot, were still taking two meals

a day; but it was already time for their grand fast, which begins

somewhere in September and lasts till Easter, and during which they eat

but once in the twenty-four hours, and that at two in the afternoon,

twelve hours after they have begun the toil and vigil of the day. Their

meals are scanty, but even of these they eat sparingly; and though each

is allowed a small carafe of wine, many refrain from this indulgence.

Without doubt, the most of mankind grossly over-eat themselves; our

meals serve not only for support, but as a hearty and natural diversion

from the labour of life. Yet, though excess may be hurtful, I should

have thought this Trappist regimen defective. And I am astonished, as I

look back, at the freshness of face and cheerfulness of manner of all

whom I beheld. A happier nor a healthier company I should scarce suppose

that I have ever seen. As a matter of fact, on this bleak upland, and

with the incessant occupation of the monks, life is of an uncertain

tenure, and death no infrequent visitor, at Our Lady of the Snows. This,

at least, was what was told me. But if they die easily, they must live

healthily in the meantime, for they seemed all firm of flesh and high in

colour; and the only morbid sign that I could observe, an unusual

brilliancy of eye, was one that served rather to increase the general

impression of vivacity and strength.

Those with whom I spoke were singularly sweet-tempered, with what I can

only call a holy cheerfulness in air and conversation. There is a note,

in the direction to visitors, telling them not to be offended at the

curt speech of those who wait upon them, since it is proper to monks to

speak little. The note might have been spared; to a man the hospitallers

were all brimming with innocent talk, and, in my experience of the

monastery, it was easier to begin than to break off a conversation. With

the exception of Father Michael, who was a man of the world, they showed

themselves full of kind and healthy interest in all sorts of

subjects--in politics, in voyages, in my sleeping-sack--and not without

a certain pleasure in the sound of their own voices.

As for those who are restricted to silence, I can only wonder how they

bear their solemn and cheerless isolation. And yet, apart from any view

of mortification, I can see a certain policy, not only in the exclusion

of women, but in this vow of silence. I have had some experience of lay

phalansteries, of an artistic, not to say a bacchanalian, character; and

seen more than one association easily formed and yet more easily

dispersed. With a Cistercian rule, perhaps they might have lasted

longer. In the neighbourhood of women it is but a touch-and-go

association that can be formed among defenceless men; the stronger

electricity is sure to triumph; the dreams of boyhood, the schemes of

youth, are abandoned after an interview of ten minutes, and the arts and

sciences, and professional male jollity, deserted at once for two sweet

eyes and a caressing accent. And next after this, the tongue is the

great divider.

I am almost ashamed to pursue this worldly criticism of a religious

rule; but there is yet another point in which the Trappist order appeals

to me as a model of wisdom. By two in the morning the clapper goes upon

the bell, and so on, hour by hour, and sometimes quarter by quarter,

till eight, the hour of rest; so infinitesimally is the day divided

among different occupations. The man who keeps rabbits, for example,

hurries from his hutches to the chapel, the chapter-room, or the

refectory, all day long: every hour he has an office to sing, a duty to

perform; from two, when he rises in the dark, till eight, when he

returns to receive the comfortable gift of sleep, he is upon his feet

and occupied with manifold and changing business. I know many persons,

worth several thousands in the year, who are not so fortunate in the

disposal of their lives. Into how many houses would not the note of the

monastery bell, dividing the day into manageable portions, bring peace

of mind and healthful activity of body! We speak of hardships, but the

true hardship is to be a dull fool, and permitted to mismanage life in

our own dull and foolish manner.

From this point of view, we may perhaps better understand the monk's

existence. A long novitiate and every proof of constancy of mind and

strength of body is required before admission to the order; but I could

not find that many were discouraged. In the photographer's studio, which

figures so strangely among the outbuildings, my eye was attracted by the

portrait of a young fellow in the uniform of a private of foot. This was

one of the novices, who came of the age for service, and marched and

drilled and mounted guard for the proper time among the garrison of

Algiers. Here was a man who had surely seen both sides of life before

deciding; yet as soon as he was set free from service he returned to

finish his novitiate.

This austere rule entitles a man to heaven as by right. When the

Trappist sickens, he quits not his habit; he lies in the bed of death as

he has prayed and laboured in his frugal and silent existence; and when

the Liberator comes, at the very moment, even before they have carried

him in his robe to lie his little last in the chapel among continual

chantings, joy-bells break forth, as if for a marriage, from the slated

belfry, and proclaim throughout the neighbourhood that another soul has

gone to God.

At night, under the conduct of my kind Irishman, I took my place in the

gallery to hear compline and _Salve Regina_, with which the Cistercians

bring every day to a conclusion. There were none of those circumstances

which strike the Protestant as childish or as tawdry in the public

offices of Rome. A stern simplicity, heightened by the romance of the

surroundings, spoke directly to the heart. I recall the whitewashed

chapel, the hooded figures in the choir, the lights alternately occluded

and revealed, the strong manly singing, the silence that ensued, the

sight of cowled heads bowed in prayer, and then the clear trenchant

beating of the bell breaking in to show that the last office was over

and the hour of sleep had come; and when I remember, I am not surprised

that I made my escape into the court with somewhat whirling fancies, and

stood like a man bewildered in the windy, starry night.

But I was weary; and when I had quieted my spirits with Elizabeth

Seton's memoirs--a dull work--the cold and the raving of the wind among

the pines (for my room was on that side of the monastery which adjoins

the woods) disposed me readily to slumber. I was awakened at black

midnight, as it seemed, though it was really two in the morning, by the

first stroke upon the bell. All the brothers were then hurrying to the

chapel; the dead in life, at this untimely hour, were already beginning

the uncomforted labours of their day. The dead in life--there was a

chill reflection. And the words of a French song came back into my

memory, telling of the best of our mixed existence:

"Que t'as de belles filles,

Girofle!

Girofla!

Que t'as de belles filles,

_L'Amour les comptera!_"

And I blessed God that I was free to wander, free to hope, and free to

love.

THE BOARDERS

But there was another side to my residence at Our Lady of the Snows. At

this late season there were not many boarders; and yet I was not alone

in the public part of the monastery. This itself is hard by the gate,

with a small dining-room on the ground floor and a whole corridor of

cells similar to mine upstairs. I have stupidly forgotten the board for

a regular _retraitant_; but it was somewhere between three and five

francs a day, and I think most probably the first. Chance visitors like

myself might give what they chose as a free-will offering, but nothing

was demanded. I may mention that when I was going away Father Michael

refused twenty francs as excessive. I explained the reasoning which led

me to offer him so much; but even then, from a curious point of honour,

he would not accept it with his own hand. "I have no right to refuse for

the monastery," he explained, "but I should prefer if you would give it

to one of the brothers."

I had dined alone, because I arrived late; but at supper I found two

other guests. One was a country parish priest, who had walked over that

morning from the seat of his cure near Mende to enjoy four days of

solitude and prayer. He was a grenadier in person, with the hale colour

and circular wrinkles of a peasant; and as he complained much of how he

had been impeded by his skirts upon the march, I have a vivid fancy

portrait of him, striding along, upright, big-boned, with kilted

cassock, through the bleak hills of Gevaudan. The other was a short,

grizzling, thick-set man, from forty-five to fifty, dressed in tweed

with a knitted spencer, and the red ribbon of a decoration in his

button-hole. This last was a hard person to classify. He was an old

soldier, who had seen service and risen to the rank of commandant; and

he retained some of the brisk decisive manners of the camp. On the other

hand, as soon as his resignation was accepted, he had come to Our Lady

of the Snows as a boarder, and, after a brief experience of its ways,

had decided to remain as a novice. Already the new life was beginning to

modify his appearance; already he had acquired somewhat of the quiet and

smiling air of the brethren; and he was as yet neither an officer nor a

Trappist, but partook of the character of each. And certainly here was a

man in an interesting nick of life. Out of the noise of cannon and

trumpets, he was in the act of passing into this still country bordering

on the grave, where men sleep nightly in their grave-clothes, and, like

phantoms, communicate by signs.

At supper we talked politics. I make it my business, when I am in

France, to preach political good-will and moderation, and to dwell on

the example of Poland, much as some alarmists in England dwell on the

example of Carthage. The priest and the commandant assured me of their

sympathy with all I said, and made a heavy sighing over the bitterness

of contemporary feeling.

"Why, you cannot say anything to a man with which he does not absolutely

agree," said I, "but he flies up at you in a temper."

They both declared that such a state of things was antichristian.

While we were thus agreeing, what should my tongue stumble upon but a

word in praise of Gambetta's moderation? The old soldier's countenance

was instantly suffused with blood; with the palms of his hands he beat

the table like a naughty child.

"_Comment, monsieur?_" he shouted. "_Comment?_ Gambetta moderate? Will

you dare to justify these words?"

But the priest had not forgotten the tenor of our talk. And suddenly, in

the height of his fury, the old soldier found a warning look directed on

his face; the absurdity of his behaviour was brought home to him in a

flash; and the storm came to an abrupt end, without another word.

It was only in the morning, over our coffee (Friday, September 27th),

that this couple found out I was a heretic. I suppose I had misled them

by some admiring expressions as to the monastic life around us; and it

was only by a point-blank question that the truth came out. I had been

tolerantly used both by simple Father Apollinaris and astute Father

Michael; and the good Irish deacon, when he heard of my religious

weakness, had only patted me upon the shoulder and said, "You must be a

Catholic and come to heaven." But I was now among a different sect of

orthodox. These two men were bitter and upright and narrow, like the

worst of Scotsmen, and indeed, upon my heart, I fancy they were worse.

The priest snorted aloud like a battle-horse.

"_Et vous pretendez mourir dans cette espece de croyance?_" he demanded;

and there is no type used by mortal printers large enough to qualify his

accent.

I humbly indicated that I had no design of changing.

But he could not away with such a monstrous attitude. "No, no," he

cried; "you must change. You have come here, God has led you here, and

you must embrace the opportunity."

I made a slip in policy; I appealed to the family affections, though I

was speaking to a priest and a soldier, two classes of men

circumstantially divorced from the kind and homely ties of life.

"Your father and mother?" cried the priest. "Very well; you will convert

them in their turn when you go home."

I think I see my father's face! I would rather tackle the Gaetulian lion

in his den than embark on such an enterprise against the family

theologian.

But now the hunt was up; priest and soldier were in full cry for my

conversion; and the Work of the Propagation of the Faith, for which the

people of Cheylard subscribed forty-eight francs ten centimes during

1877, was being gallantly pursued against myself. It was an odd but most

effective proselytizing. They never sought to convince me in argument,

where I might have attempted some defence; but took it for granted that

I was both ashamed and terrified at my position, and urged me solely on

the point of time. Now, they said, when God had led me to Our Lady of

the Snows, now was the appointed hour.

"Do not be withheld by false shame," observed the priest, for my

encouragement.

For one who feels very similarly to all sects of religion, and who has

never been able, even for a moment, to weigh seriously the merit of this

or that creed on the eternal side of things, however much he may see to

praise or blame upon the secular and temporal side, the situation thus

created was both unfair and painful. I committed my second fault in

tact, and tried to plead that it was all the same thing in the end, and

we were all drawing near by different sides to the same kind and

undiscriminating Friend and Father. That, as it seems to lay spirits,

would be the only gospel worthy of the name. But different men think

differently; and this revolutionary aspiration brought down the priest

with all the terrors of the law. He launched into harrowing details of

hell. The damned, he said--on the authority of a little book which he

had read not a week before, and which, to add conviction to conviction,

he had fully intended to bring along with him in his pocket--were to

occupy the same attitude through all eternity in the midst of dismal

tortures. And as he thus expatiated, he grew in nobility of aspect with

his enthusiasm.

As a result the pair concluded that I should seek out the Prior, since

the Abbot was from home, and lay my case immediately before him.

"_C'est mon conseil comme ancien militaire_," observed the commandant;

"_et celui de monsieur comme pretre_."

"_Oui_," added the _cure_, sententiously nodding; "_comme ancien

militaire_--_et comme pretre_."

At this moment, whilst I was somewhat embarrassed how to answer, in came

one of the monks, a little brown fellow, as lively as a grig, and with

an Italian accent, who threw himself at once into the contention, but in

a milder and more persuasive vein, as befitted one of these pleasant

brethren. Look at _him_, he said. The rule was very hard; he would have

dearly liked to stay in his own country, Italy--it was well known how

beautiful it was, the beautiful Italy; but then there were no Trappists

in Italy; and he had a soul to save; and here he was.

I am afraid I must be at bottom, what a cheerful Indian critic has

dubbed me, "a faddling hedonist," for this description of the brother's

motives gave me somewhat of a shock. I should have preferred to think he

had chosen the life for its own sake, and not for ulterior purposes; and

this shows how profoundly I was out of sympathy with these good

Trappists, even when I was doing my best to sympathize. But to the cure

the argument seemed decisive.

"Hear that!" he cried. "And I have seen a marquis here, a marquis, a

marquis"--he repeated the holy word three times over--"and other persons

high in society; and generals. And here, at your side, is this

gentleman, who has been so many years in armies--decorated, an old

warrior. And here he is, ready to dedicate himself to God."

I was by this time so thoroughly embarrassed that I pled cold feet, and

made my escape from the apartment. It was a furious windy morning, with

a sky much cleared, and long and potent intervals of sunshine; and I

wandered until dinner in the wild country towards the east, sorely

staggered and beaten upon by the gale, but rewarded with some striking

views.

At dinner the Work of the Propagation of the Faith was recommenced, and

on this occasion still more distastefully to me. The priest asked me

many questions as to the contemptible faith of my fathers, and received

my replies with a kind of ecclesiastical titter.

"Your sect," he said once; "for I think you will admit it would be doing

it too much honour to call it a religion."

"As you please, monsieur," said I. "_La parole est a vous."_

At length I grew annoyed beyond endurance; and although he was on his

own ground, and, what is more to the purpose, an old man, and so holding

a claim upon my toleration, I could not avoid a protest against this

uncivil usage. He was sadly discountenanced.

"I assure you," he said, "I have no inclination to laugh in my heart. I

have no other feeling but interest in your soul."

And there ended my conversion. Honest man! he was no dangerous deceiver;

but a country parson, full of zeal and faith. Long may he tread Gevaudan

with his kilted skirts--a man strong to walk and strong to comfort his

parishioners in death! I daresay he would beat bravely through a

snowstorm where his duty called him; and it is not always the most

faithful believer who makes the cunningest apostle.

UPPER GEVAUDAN

_(Continued)_

_The bed was made, the room was fit,

By punctual eve the stars were lit;

The air was still, the water ran;

No need there was for maid or man,

When we put up, my ass and I,

At God's green caravanserai._

OLD PLAY.

ACROSS THE GOULET

The wind fell during dinner, and the sky remained clear; so it was under

better auspices that I loaded Modestine before the monastery gate. My

Irish friend accompanied me so far on the way. As we came through the

wood, there was Pere Apollinaire hauling his barrow; and he too quitted

his labours to go with me for perhaps a hundred yards, holding my hand

between both of his in front of him. I parted first from one and then

from the other with unfeigned regret, but yet with the glee of the

traveller who shakes off the dust of one stage before hurrying forth

upon another. Then Modestine and I mounted the course of the Allier,

which here led us back into Gevaudan towards its sources in the forest

of Mercoire. It was but an inconsiderable burn before we left its

guidance. Thence, over a hill, our way lay through a naked plateau,

until we reached Chasserades at sundown.

The company in the inn kitchen that night were all men employed in

survey for one of the projected railways. They were intelligent and

conversible, and we decided the future of France over hot wine, until

the state of the clock frightened us to rest. There were four beds in

the little upstairs room; and we slept six. But I had a bed to myself,

and persuaded them to leave the window open.

"_He, bourgeois; il est cinq heures!_" was the cry that wakened me in

the morning (Saturday, September 28th). The room was full of a

transparent darkness, which dimly showed me the other three beds and the

five different nightcaps on the pillows. But out of the window the dawn

was growing ruddy in a long belt over the hill-tops, and day was about

to flood the plateau. The hour was inspiriting; and there seemed a

promise of calm weather, which was perfectly fulfilled. I was soon

under way with Modestine. The road lay for a while over the plateau, and

then descended through a precipitous village into the valley of the

Chassezac. This stream ran among green meadows, well hidden from the

world by its steep banks; the broom was in flower, and here and there

was a hamlet sending up its smoke.

At last the path crossed the Chassezac upon a bridge, and, forsaking

this deep hollow, set itself to cross the mountain of La Goulet. It

wound up through Lestampes by upland fields and woods of beech and

birch, and with every corner brought me into an acquaintance with some

new interest. Even in the gully of the Chassezac my ear had been struck

by a noise like that of a great bass bell ringing at the distance of

many miles; but this, as I continued to mount and draw nearer to it,

seemed to change in character, and I found at length that it came from

some one leading flocks afield to the note of a rural horn. The narrow

street of Lestampes stood full of sheep, from wall to wall--black sheep

and white, bleating with one accord like the birds in spring, and each

one accompanying himself upon the sheep-bell round his neck. It made a

pathetic concert, all in treble. A little higher, and I passed a pair of

men in a tree with pruning-hooks, and one of them was singing the music

of a _bourree_. Still further, and when I was already threading the

birches, the crowing of cocks came cheerfully up to my ears, and along

with that the voice of a flute discoursing a deliberate and plaintive

air from one of the upland villages. I pictured to myself some grizzled,

apple-cheeked, country schoolmaster fluting in his bit of a garden in

the clear autumn sunshine. All these beautiful and interesting sounds

filled my heart with an unwonted expectation; and it appeared to me

that, once past this range which I was mounting, I should descend into

the garden of the world. Nor was I deceived, for I was now done with

rains and winds and a bleak country. The first part of my journey ended

here; and this was like an induction of sweet sounds into the other and

more beautiful.

There are other degrees of _feyness_, as of punishment, besides the

capital; and I was now led by my good spirits into an adventure which I

relate in the interest of future donkey-drivers. The road zigzagged so

widely on the hillside, that I chose a short cut by map and compass, and

struck through the dwarf woods to catch the road again upon a higher

level. It was my one serious conflict with Modestine. She would none of

my short cut; she turned in my face; she backed, she reared; she, whom I

had hitherto imagined to be dumb, actually brayed with a loud hoarse

flourish, like a cock crowing for the dawn. I plied the goad with one

hand; with the other, so steep was the ascent, I had to hold on the

pack-saddle. Half a dozen times she was nearly over backwards on the top

of me; half a dozen times, from sheer weariness of spirit, I was nearly

giving it up, and leading her down again to follow the road. But I took

the thing as a wager, and fought it through. I was surprised, as I went

on my way again, by what appeared to be chill rain-drops falling on my

hand, and more than once looked up in wonder at the cloudless sky. But

it was only sweat which came dropping from my brow.

Over the summit of the Goulet there was no marked road--only upright

stones posted from space to space to guide the drovers. The turf

underfoot was springy and well scented. I had no company but a lark or

two, and met but one bullock-cart between Lestampes and Bleymard. In

front of me I saw a shallow valley, and beyond that the range of the

Lozere, sparsely wooded and well enough modeled in the flanks, but

straight and dull in outline. There was scarce a sign of culture; only

about Bleymard, the white high-road from Villefort to Mende traversed a

range of meadows, set with spiry poplars, and sounding from side to side

with the bells of flocks and herds.

A NIGHT AMONG THE PINES

From Bleymard after dinner, although it was already late, I set out to

scale a portion of the Lozere. An ill-marked stony drove-road guided me

forward; and I met nearly half a dozen bullock-carts descending from the

woods, each laden with a whole pine-tree for the winter's firing. At the

top of the woods, which do not climb very high upon this cold ridge, I

struck leftward by a path among the pines, until I hit on a dell of

green turf, where a streamlet made a little spout over some stones to

serve me for a water-tap. "In a more sacred or sequestered bower ... nor

nymph nor faunus haunted." The trees were not old, but they grew thickly

round the glade: there was no outlook, except north-eastward upon

distant hill-tops, or straight upward to the sky; and the encampment

felt secure and private like a room. By the time I had made my

arrangements and fed Modestine, the day was already beginning to

decline. I buckled myself to the knees into my sack and made a hearty

meal; and as soon as the sun went down I pulled my cap over my eyes and

fell asleep.

Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof: but in the open world it

passes lightly, with its stars and dews and perfumes, and the hours are

marked by changes in the face of Nature. What seems a kind of temporal

death to people choked between walls and curtains, is only a light and

living slumber to the man who sleeps afield. All night long he can hear

Nature breathing deeply and freely; even as she takes her rest, she

turns and smiles; and there is one stirring hour unknown to those who

dwell in houses, when a wakeful influence goes abroad over the sleeping

hemisphere, and all the outdoor world are on their feet. It is then that

the cock first crows, not this time to announce the dawn, but like a

cheerful watchman speeding the course of night. Cattle awake on the

meadows; sheep break their fast on dewy hillsides, and change to a new

lair among the ferns; and houseless men, who have lain down with the

fowls, open their dim eyes and behold the beauty of the night.

At what inaudible summons, at what gentle touch of Nature, are all these

sleepers thus recalled in the same hour to life? Do the stars rain down

an influence, or do we share some thrill of mother earth below our

resting bodies? Even shepherds and old country-folk, who are the deepest

read in these arcana, have not a guess as to the means or purpose of

this nightly resurrection. Towards two in the morning they declare the

thing takes place, and neither know nor inquire further. And at least it

is a pleasant incident. We are disturbed in our slumber, only, like the

luxurious Montaigne, "that we may the better and more sensibly relish

it." We have a moment to look up on the stars. And there is a special

pleasure for some minds in the reflection that we share the impulse with

all outdoor creatures in our neighbourhood, that we have escaped out of

the Bastille of civilization, and are become, for the time being, a mere

kindly animal and a sheep of Nature's flock.

When that hour came to me among the pines, I wakened thirsty. My tin was

standing by me half full of water. I emptied it at a draught; and

feeling broad awake after this internal cold aspersion, sat upright to

make a cigarette. The stars were clear, coloured, and jewel-like, but

not frosty. A faint silvery vapour stood for the Milky Way. All around

me the black fir-points stood upright and stock-still. By the whiteness

of the pack-saddle, I could see Modestine walking round and round at the

length of her tether; I could hear her steadily munching at the sward;

but there was not another sound, save the indescribable quiet talk of

the runnel over the stones. I lay lazily smoking and studying the colour

of the sky, as we call the void of space, from where it showed a reddish

grey behind the pines to where it showed a glossy blue-black between the

stars. As if to be more like a pedlar, I wear a silver ring. This I

could see faintly shining as I raised or lowered the cigarette; and at

each whiff the inside of my hand was illuminated, and became for a

second the highest light in the landscape.

A faint wind, more like a moving coolness than a stream of air, passed

down the glade from time to time; so that even in my great chamber the

air was being renewed all night long. I thought with horror of the inn

at Chasserades and the congregated nightcaps; with horror of the

nocturnal prowesses of clerks and students, of hot theatres and

pass-keys and close rooms. I have not often enjoyed a more serene

possession of myself, nor felt more independent of material aids. The

outer world, from which we cower into our houses, seemed after all a

gentle habitable place; and night after night a man's bed, it seemed,

was laid and waiting for him in the fields, where God keeps an open

house. I thought I had rediscovered one of those truths which are

revealed to savages and hid from political economists; at the least, I

had discovered a new pleasure for myself. And yet even while I was

exulting in my solitude I became aware of a strange lack. I wished a

companion to lie near me in the starlight, silent and not moving, but

ever within touch. For there is a fellowship more quiet even than

solitude, and which rightly understood, is solitude made perfect. And to

live out of doors with the woman a man loves is of all lives the most

complete and free.

As I thus lay, between content and longing, a faint noise stole towards

me through the pines. I thought, at first, it was the crowing of cocks

or the barking of dogs at some very distant farm; but steadily and

gradually it took articulate shape in my ears, until I became aware

that a passenger was going by upon the high-road in the valley, and

singing loudly as he went. There was more of good-will than grace in his

performance; but he trolled with ample lungs; and the sound of his voice

took hold upon the hillside and set the air shaking in the leafy glens.

I have heard people passing by night in sleeping cities; some of them

sang; one, I remember, played loudly on the bagpipes. I have heard the

rattle of a cart or carriage spring up suddenly after hours of

stillness, and pass, for some minutes, within the range of my hearing as

I lay abed. There is a romance about all who are abroad in the black

hours, and with something of a thrill we try to guess their business.

But here the romance was double: first, this glad passenger, lit

internally with wine, who sent up his voice in music through the night;

and then I, on the other hand, buckled into my sack, and smoking alone

in the pine-woods between four and five thousand feet towards the stars.

When I awoke again (Sunday, 29th September), many of the stars had

disappeared; only the stronger companions of the night still burned

visibly overhead; and away towards the east I saw a faint haze of light

upon the horizon, such as had been the Milky Way when I was last awake.

Day was at hand. I lit my lantern, and by its glow-worm light put on my

boots and gaiters; then I broke up some bread for Modestine, filled my

can at the water-tap, and lit my spirit-lamp to boil myself some

chocolate. The blue darkness lay long in the glade where I had so

sweetly slumbered; but soon there was a broad streak of orange melting

into gold along the mountain-tops of Vivarais. A solemn glee possessed

my mind at this gradual and lovely coming in of day. I heard the runnel

with delight; I looked round me for something beautiful and unexpected;

but the still black pine-trees, the hollow glade, the munching ass,

remained unchanged in figure. Nothing had altered but the light, and

that, indeed, shed over all a spirit of life and of breathing peace, and

moved me to a strange exhilaration.

I drank my water-chocolate, which was hot if it was not rich, and

strolled here and there, and up and down about the glade. While I was

thus delaying, a gush of steady wind, as long as a heavy sigh, poured

direct out of the quarter of the morning. It was cold, and set me

sneezing. The trees near at hand tossed their black plumes in its

passage; and I could see the thin distant spires of pine along the edge

of the hill rock slightly to and fro against the golden east. Ten

minutes later, the sunlight spread at a gallop along the hillside,

scattering shadows and sparkles, and the day had come completely.

I hastened to prepare my pack, and tackle the steep ascent that lay

before me; but I had something on my mind. It was only a fancy; yet a

fancy will sometimes be importunate. I had been most hospitably received

and punctually served in my green caravanserai. The room was airy, the

water excellent, and the dawn had called me to a moment. I say nothing

of the tapestries or the inimitable ceiling, nor yet of the view which I

commanded from the windows; but I felt I was in some one's debt for all

this liberal entertainment. And so it pleased me, in a half-laughing

way, to leave pieces of money on the turf as I went along, until I had

left enough for my night's lodging. I trust they did not fall to some

rich and churlish drover.

THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS

_We travelled in the print of olden wars;

Yet all the land was green;

And love we found, and peace,

Where fire and war had been.

They pass and smile, the children of the sword--

No more the sword they wield;

And O, how deep the corn

Along the battlefield!_

W. P. BANNATYNE.

ACROSS THE LOZERE

The track that I had followed in the evening soon died out, and I

continued to follow over a bald turf ascent a row of stone pillars, such

as had conducted me across the Goulet. It was already warm. I tied my

jacket on the pack, and walked in my knitted waistcoat. Modestine

herself was in high spirits, and broke of her own accord, for the first

time in my experience, into a jolting trot that sent the oats swashing

in the pocket of my coat. The view, back upon the northern Gevaudan,

extended with every step; scarce a tree, scarce a house, appeared upon

the fields of wild hill that ran north, east, and west, all blue and

gold in the haze and sunlight of the morning. A multitude of little

birds kept sweeping and twittering about my path; they perched on the

stone pillars, they pecked and strutted on the turf, and I saw them

circle in volleys in the blue air, and show, from time to time,

translucent flickering wings between the sun and me.

Almost from the first moment of my march, a faint large noise, like a

distant surf, had filled my ears. Sometimes I was tempted to think it

the voice of a neighbouring waterfall, and sometimes a subjective result

of the utter stillness of the hill. But as I continued to advance, the

noise increased, and became like the hissing of an enormous tea urn, and

at the same time breaths of cool air began to reach me from the

direction of the summit. At length I understood. It was blowing stiffly

from the south upon the other slope of the Lozere, and every step that I

took I was drawing nearer to the wind.

Although it had been long desired, it was quite unexpectedly at last

that my eyes rose above the summit. A step that seemed no way more

decisive than many other steps that had preceded it--and, "like stout

Cortez when, with eagle eyes, he stared at the Pacific," I took

possession, in my own name, of a new quarter of the world. For behold,

instead of the gross turf rampart I had been mounting for so long, a

view into the hazy air of heaven, and a land of intricate blue hills

below my feet.

The Lozere lies nearly east and west, cutting Gevaudan into two unequal

parts; its highest point, this Pic de Finiels, on which I was then

standing, rises upwards of five thousand six hundred feet above the sea,

and in clear weather commands a view over all lower Languedoc to the

Mediterranean Sea. I have spoken with people who either pretended or

believed that they had seen, from the Pic de Finiels, white ships

sailing by Montpellier and Cette. Behind was the upland northern country

through which my way had lain, peopled by a dull race, without wood,

without much grandeur of hill-form, and famous in the past for little

besides wolves. But in front of me, half veiled in sunny haze, lay a new

Gevaudan, rich, picturesque, illustrious for stirring events. Speaking

largely, I was in the Cevennes at Monastier, and during all my journey;

but there is a strict and local sense in which only this confused and

shaggy country at my feet has any title to the name, and in this sense

the peasantry employ the word. These are the Cevennes with an emphasis:

the Cevennes of the Cevennes. In that undecipherable labyrinth of hills,

a war of bandits, a war of wild beasts, raged for two years between the

Grand Monarch with all his troops and marshals on the one hand, and a

few thousand Protestant mountaineers upon the other. A hundred and

eighty years ago, the Camisards held a station even on the Lozere, where

I stood; they had an organization, arsenals, a military and religious

hierarchy; their affairs were "the discourse of every coffee-house" in

London; England sent fleets in their support; their leaders prophesied

and murdered; with colours and drums, and the singing of old French

Psalms, their bands sometimes affronted daylight, marched before walled

cities, and dispersed the generals of the king; and sometimes at night,

or in masquerade, possessed themselves of strong castles, and avenged

treachery upon their allies and cruelty upon their foes. There, a

hundred and eighty years ago, was the chivalrous Roland, "Count and Lord

Roland, generalissimo of the Protestants in France," grave, silent,

imperious, pock-marked ex-dragoon, whom a lady followed in his

wanderings out of love. There was Cavalier, a baker's apprentice with a

genius for war, elected brigadier of Camisards at seventeen, to die at

fifty-five the English Governor of Jersey. There again was Castanet, a

partisan leader in a voluminous peruke and with a taste for

controversial divinity. Strange generals, who moved apart to take

counsel with the God of Hosts, and fled or offered battle, set sentinels

or slept in an unguarded camp, as the Spirit whispered to their hearts!

And there, to follow these and other leaders, was the rank and file of

prophets and disciples, bold, patient, indefatigable, hardy to run upon

the mountains, cheering their rough life with psalms, eager to fight,

eager to pray, listening devoutly to the oracles of brain-sick children,

and mystically putting a grain of wheat among the pewter balls with

which they charged their muskets.

I had travelled hitherto through a dull district, and in the track of

nothing more notable than the child-eating Beast of Gevaudan, the

Napoleon Bonaparte of wolves. But now I was to go down into the scene of

a romantic chapter--or, better, a romantic footnote--in the history of

the world. What was left of all this bygone dust and heroism? I was told

that Protestantism still survived in this head seat of Protestant

resistance; so much the priest himself had told me in the monastery

parlour. But I had yet to learn if it were a bare survival, or a lively

and generous tradition. Again, if in the northern Cevennes the people

are narrow in religious judgments, and more filled with zeal than

charity, what was I to look for in this land of persecution and

reprisal--in a land where the tyranny of the Church produced the

Camisard rebellion, and the terror of the Camisards threw the Catholic

peasantry into legalized revolt upon the other side, so that Camisard

and Florentin skulked for each other's lives among the mountains?

Just on the brow of the hill, where I paused to look before me, the

series of stone pillars came abruptly to an end; and only a little

below, a sort of track appeared and began to go down a break-neck slope,

turning like a corkscrew as it went. It led into a valley between

falling hills, stubbly with rocks like a reaped field of corn, and

floored farther down with green meadows. I followed the track with

precipitation; the steepness of the slope, the continual agile turning

of the line of the descent, and the old unwearied hope of finding

something new in a new country, all conspired to lend me wings. Yet a

little lower and a stream began, collecting itself together out of many

fountains, and soon making a glad noise among the hills. Sometimes it

would cross the track in a bit of waterfall, with a pool, in which

Modestine refreshed her feet.

The whole descent is like a dream to me, so rapidly was it accomplished.

I had scarcely left the summit ere the valley had closed round my path,

and the sun beat upon me, walking in a stagnant lowland atmosphere. The

track became a road, and went up and down in easy undulations. I passed

cabin after cabin, but all seemed deserted; and I saw not a human

creature, nor heard any sound except that of the stream. I was, however,

in a different country from the day before. The stony skeleton of the

world was here vigorously displayed to sun and air. The slopes were

steep and changeful. Oak-trees clung along the hills, well grown,

wealthy in leaf, and touched by the autumn with strong and luminous

colours. Here and there another stream would fall in from the right or

the left, down a gorge of snow-white and tumultuary boulders. The river

in the bottom (for it was rapidly growing a river, collecting on all

hands as it trotted on its way) here foamed a while in desperate rapids,

and there lay in pools of the most enchanting sea-green shot with watery

browns. As far as I have gone, I have never seen a river of so changeful

and delicate a hue; crystal was not more clear, the meadows were not by

half so green; and at every pool I saw I felt a thrill of longing to be

out of these hot, dusty, and material garments, and bathe my naked body

in the mountain air and water. All the time as I went on I never forgot

it was the Sabbath; the stillness was a perpetual reminder; and I heard

in spirit the church-bells clamouring all over Europe, and the psalms of

a thousand churches.

At length a human sound struck upon my ear--a cry strangely modulated

between pathos and derision; and looking across the valley, I saw a

little urchin sitting in a meadow, with his hands about his knees, and

dwarfed to almost comical smallness by the distance. But the rogue had

picked me out as I went down the road, from oak wood on to oak wood,

driving Modestine; and he made me the compliments of the new country in

this tremulous high-pitched salutation. And as all noises are lovely and

natural at a sufficient distance, this also, coming through so much

clean hill air and crossing all the green valley, sounded pleasant to my

ear, and seemed a thing rustic, like the oaks or the river.

A little after, the stream that I was following fell into the Tarn at

Pont de Montvert of bloody memory.

PONT DE MONTVERT

One of the first things I encountered in Pont de Montvert was, if I

remember rightly, the Protestant temple; but this was but the type of

other novelties. A subtle atmosphere distinguishes a town in England

from a town in France, or even in Scotland. At Carlisle you can see you

are in the one country; at Dumfries, thirty miles away, you are as sure

that you are in the other. I should find it difficult to tell in what

particulars Pont de Montvert differed from Monastier or Langogne, or

even Bleymard; but the difference existed, and spoke eloquently to the

eyes. The place, with its houses, its lanes, its glaring riverbed, wore

an indescribable air of the South.

All was Sunday bustle in the streets and in the public-houses, as all

had been Sabbath peace among the mountains. There must have been near a

score of us at dinner by eleven before noon; and after I had eaten and

drunken, and sat writing up my journal, I suppose as many more came

dropping in one after another, or by twos and threes. In crossing the

Lozere I had not only come among new natural features, but moved into

the territory of a different race. These people, as they hurriedly

despatched their viands in an intricate sword-play of knives, questioned

and answered me with a degree of intelligence which excelled all that I

had met, except among the railway folk at Chasserades. They had open

telling faces, and were lively both in speech and manner. They not only

entered thoroughly into the spirit of my little trip, but more than one

declared, if he were rich enough, he would like to set forth on such

another.

Even physically there was a pleasant change. I had not seen a pretty

woman since I left Monastier, and there but one. Now of the three who

sat down with me to dinner, one was certainly not beautiful--a poor

timid thing of forty, quite troubled at this roaring _table d'hote_,

whom I squired and helped to wine, and pledged and tried generally to

encourage, with quite a contrary effect; but the other two, both

married, were both more handsome than the average of women. And

Clarisse? What shall I say of Clarisse? She waited the table with a

heavy placable nonchalance, like a performing cow; her great grey eyes

were steeped in amorous languor; her features, although fleshy, were of

an original and accurate design; her mouth had a curl; her nostril spoke

of dainty pride; her cheek fell into strange and interesting lines. It

was a face capable of strong emotion, and, with training, it offered the

promise of delicate sentiment. It seemed pitiful to see so good a model

left to country admirers and a country way of thought. Beauty should at

least have touched society; then, in a moment, it throws off a weight

that lay upon it, it becomes conscious of itself, it puts on an

elegance, learns a gait and a carriage of the head, and, in a moment,

_patet dea_. Before I left I assured Clarisse of my hearty admiration.

She took it like milk, without embarrassment or wonder, merely looking

at me steadily with her great eyes; and I own the result upon myself was

some confusion. If Clarisse could read English, I should not dare to add

that her figure was unworthy of her face. Hers was a case for stays; but

that may perhaps grow better as she gets up in years.

Pont de Montvert, or Greenhill Bridge, as we might say at home, is a

place memorable in the story of the Camisards. It was here that the war

broke out; here that those southern Covenanters slew their Archbishop

Sharpe. The persecution on the one hand, the febrile enthusiasm on the

other, are almost equally difficult to understand in these quiet modern

days, and with our easy modern beliefs and disbeliefs. The Protestants

were one and all beside their right minds with zeal and sorrow. They

were all prophets and prophetesses. Children at the breast would exhort

their parents to good works. "A child of fifteen months at Quissac spoke

from its mother's arms, agitated and sobbing, distinctly and with a loud

voice." Marshal Villars has seen a town where all the women "seemed

possessed by the devil," and had trembling fits, and uttered prophecies

publicly upon the streets. A prophetess of Vivarais was hanged at

Montpellier because blood flowed from her eyes and nose, and she

declared that she was weeping tears of blood for the misfortunes of the

Protestants. And it was not only women and children. Stalwart dangerous

fellows, used to swing the sickle or to wield the forest axe, were

likewise shaken with strange paroxysms, and spoke oracles with sobs and

streaming tears. A persecution unsurpassed in violence had lasted near a

score of years, and this was the result upon the persecuted; hanging,

burning, breaking on the wheel, had been in vain; the dragoons had left

their hoofmarks over all the countryside; there were men rowing in the

galleys, and women pining in the prisons of the Church; and not a

thought was changed in the heart of any upright Protestant.

Now the head and forefront of the persecution--after Lamoignon de

Bavile--Francois de Langlade du Chayla (pronounce Cheila), Archpriest of

the Cevennes and Inspector of Missions in the same country, had a house

in which he sometimes dwelt in the town of Pont de Montvert. He was a

conscientious person, who seems to have been intended by nature for a

pirate, and now fifty-five, an age by which a man has learned all the

moderation of which he is capable. A missionary in his youth in China,

he there suffered martyrdom, was left for dead, and only succoured and

brought back to life by the charity of a pariah. We must suppose the

pariah devoid of second-sight, and not purposely malicious in this act.

Such an experience, it might be thought, would have cured a man of the

desire to persecute; but the human spirit is a thing strangely put

together; and, having been a Christian martyr, Du Chayla became a

Christian persecutor. The Work of the Propagation of the Faith went

roundly forward in his hands. His house in Pont de Montvert served him

as a prison. There he closed the hands of his prisoners upon live coal,

and plucked out the hairs of their beards, to convince them that they

were deceived in their opinions. And yet had not he himself tried and

proved the inefficacy of these carnal arguments among the Buddhists in

China?

Not only was life made intolerable in Languedoc, but flight was rigidly

forbidden. One Massip, a muleteer, and well acquainted with the

mountain-paths, had already guided several troops of fugitives in safety

to Geneva; and on him, with another convoy, consisting mostly of women

dressed as men, Du Chayla, in an evil hour for himself, laid his hands.

The Sunday following, there was a conventicle of Protestants in the

woods of Altefage upon Mount Bouges; where there stood up one

Seguier--Spirit Seguier, as his companions called him--a wool-carder,

tall, black-faced, and toothless, but a man full of prophecy. He

declared, in the name of God, that the time for submission had gone by,

and they must betake themselves to arms for the deliverance of their

brethren and the destruction of the priests.

The next night, 24th July 1702, a sound disturbed the Inspector of

Missions as he sat in his prison-house at Pont de Montvert: the voices

of many men upraised in psalmody drew nearer and nearer through the

town. It was ten at night; he had his court about him, priests,

soldiers, and servants, to the number of twelve or fifteen; and now

dreading the insolence of a conventicle below his very windows, he

ordered forth his soldiers to report. But the psalm-singers were already

at his door, fifty strong, led by the inspired Seguier, and breathing

death. To their summons, the archpriest made answer like a stout old

persecutor, and bade his garrison fire upon the mob. One Camisard (for,

according to some, it was in this night's work that they came by the

name) fell at this discharge: his comrades burst in the door with

hatchets and a beam of wood, overran the lower story of the house, set

free the prisoners, and finding one of them in the _vine_, a sort of

Scavenger's Daughter of the place and period, redoubled in fury against

Du Chayla, and sought by repeated assaults to carry the upper floors.

But he, on his side, had given absolution to his men, and they bravely

held the staircase.

"Children of God," cried the prophet, "hold your hands. Let us burn the

house, with the priest and the satellites of Baal."

The fire caught readily. Out of an upper window Du Chayla and his men

lowered themselves into the garden by means of knotted sheets; some

escaped across the river under the bullets of the insurgents; but the

archpriest himself fell, broke his thigh, and could only crawl into the

hedge. What were his reflections as this second martyrdom drew near? A

poor, brave, besotted, hateful man, who had done his duty resolutely

according to his light both in the Cevennes and China. He found at least

one telling word to say in his defence; for when the roof fell in and

the upbursting flames discovered his retreat, and they came and dragged

him to the public place of the town, raging and calling him damned--"If

I be damned," said he, "why should you also damn yourselves?"

Here was a good reason for the last; but in the course of his

inspectorship he had given many stronger which all told in a contrary

direction; and these he was now to hear. One by one, Seguier first, the

Camisards drew near and stabbed him. "This," they said, "is for my

father broken on the wheel. This for my brother in the galleys. That for

my mother or my sister imprisoned in your cursed convents." Each gave

his blow and his reason; and then all kneeled and sang psalms around the

body till the dawn. With the dawn, still singing, they defiled away

towards Frugeres, farther up the Tarn, to pursue the work of vengeance,

leaving Du Chayla's prison-house in ruins, and his body pierced with

two-and-fifty wounds upon the public place.

'Tis a wild night's work, with its accompaniment of psalms; and it seems

as if a psalm must always have a sound of threatening in that town upon

the Tarn. But the story does not end, even so far as concerns Pont de

Montvert, with the departure of the Camisards. The career of Seguier was

brief and bloody. Two more priests and a whole family at Ladeveze, from

the father to the servants, fell by his hand or by his orders; and yet

he was but a day or two at large, and restrained all the time by the

presence of the soldiery. Taken at length by a famous soldier of

fortune, Captain Poul, he appeared unmoved before his judges.

"Your name?" they asked.

"Pierre Seguier."

"Why are you called Spirit?"

"Because the Spirit of the Lord is with me."

"Your domicile?"

"Lately in the desert, and soon in heaven."

"Have you no remorse for your crimes?"

"I have committed none. _My soul is like a garden full of shelter and of

fountains._"

At Pont de Montvert, on the 12th of August, he had his right hand

stricken from his body, and was burned alive. And his soul was like a

garden? So perhaps was the soul of Du Chayla, the Christian martyr. And

perhaps if you could read in my soul, or I could read in yours, our own

composure might seem little less surprising.

Du Chayla's house still stands, with a new roof, beside one of the

bridges of the town; and if you are curious you may see the

terrace-garden into which he dropped.

IN THE VALLEY OF THE TARN

A new road leads from Pont de Montvert to Florac by the valley of the

Tarn; a smooth sandy ledge, it runs about half-way between the summit of

the cliffs and the river in the bottom of the valley; and I went in and

out, as I followed it, from bays of shadow into promontories of

afternoon sun. This was a pass like that of Killiecrankie; a deep

turning gully in the hills, with the Tarn making a wonderful hoarse

uproar far below, and craggy summits standing in the sunshine high

above. A thin fringe of ash trees ran about the hill-tops, like ivy on a

ruin; but, on the lower slopes, and far up every glen, the Spanish

chestnut trees stood each four-square to heaven under its tented

foliage. Some were planted, each on its own terrace no larger than a

bed; some, trusting in their roots, found strength to grow and prosper

and be straight and large upon the rapid slopes of the valley; others,

where there was a margin to the river, stood marshaled in a line and

mighty like cedars of Lebanon. Yet even where they grew most thickly

they were not to be thought of as a wood, but as a herd of stalwart

individuals; and the dome of each tree stood forth separate and large,

and as it were a little bill, from among the domes of its companions.

They gave forth a faint sweet perfume which pervaded the air of the

afternoon; autumn had put tints of gold and tarnish in the green; and

the sun so shone through and kindled the broad foliage, that each

chestnut was relieved against another, not in shadow, but in light. A

humble sketcher here laid down his pencil in despair.

I wish I could convey a notion of the growth of these noble trees; of

how they strike out boughs like the oak, and trail sprays of drooping

foliage like the willow; of how they stand on upright fluted columns

like the pillars of a church; or like the olive, from the most shattered

hole can put out smooth and youthful shoots, and begin a new life upon

the ruins of the old. Thus they partake of the nature of many different

trees; and even their prickly top-knots, seen near at hand against the

sky, have a certain palm-like air that impresses the imagination. But

their individuality, although compounded of so many elements, is but the

richer and the more original. And to look down upon a level filled with

these knolls of foliage, or to see a clan of old unconquerable chestnuts

cluster "like herded elephants" upon the spur of a mountain, is to rise

to higher thoughts of the powers that are in Nature.

Between Modestine's laggard humour and the beauty of the scene, we made

little progress all that afternoon; and at last finding the sun,

although still far from setting, was already beginning to desert the

narrow valley of the Tarn, I began to cast about for a place to camp in.

This was not easy to find; the terraces were too narrow, and the ground,

where it was unterraced, was usually too steep for a man to lie upon. I

should have slipped all night, and awakened towards morning with my feet

or my head in the river.

After perhaps a mile, I saw, some sixty feet above the road, a little

plateau large enough to hold my sack, and securely parapeted by the

trunk of an aged and enormous chestnut. Thither, with infinite trouble,

I goaded and kicked the reluctant Modestine, and there I hastened to

unload her. There was only room for myself upon the plateau, and I had

to go nearly as high again before I found so much as standing-room for

the ass. It was on a heap of rolling stones, on an artificial terrace,

certainly not five feet square in all. Here I tied her to a chestnut,

and having given her corn and bread and made a pile of chestnut-leaves,

of which I found her greedy, I descended once more to my own encampment.

The position was unpleasantly exposed. One or two carts went by upon the

road; and as long as daylight lasted I concealed myself, for all the

world like a hunted Camisard, behind my fortification of vast chestnut

trunk; for I was passionately afraid of discovery and the visit of

jocular persons in the night. Moreover, I saw that I must be early

awake; for these chestnut gardens had been the scene of industry no

further gone than on the day before. The slope was strewn with lopped

branches, and here and there a great package of leaves was propped

against a trunk; for even the leaves are serviceable, and the peasants

use them in winter by way of fodder for their animals. I picked a meal

in fear and trembling, half lying down to hide myself from the road; and

I daresay I was as much concerned as if I had been a scout from Joani's

band above upon the Lozere, or from Salomon's across the Tarn, in the

old times of psalm-singing and blood. Or indeed, perhaps more; for the

Camisards had a remarkable confidence in God; and a tale comes back into

my memory of how the Count of Gevaudan, riding with a party of dragoons

and a notary at his saddlebow to enforce the oath of fidelity in all the

country hamlets, entered a valley in the woods, and found Cavalier and

his men at dinner, gaily seated on the grass, and their hats crowned

with box-tree garlands, while fifteen women washed their linen in the

stream. Such was a field festival in 1703; at that date Antony Watteau

would be painting similar subjects.

This was a very different camp from that of the night before in the cool

and silent pine-woods. It was warm and even stifling in the valley. The

shrill song of frogs, like the tremolo note of a whistle with a pea in

it, rang up from the riverside before the sun was down. In the growing

dusk, faint rustlings began to run to and fro among the fallen leaves;

from time to time a faint chirping or cheeping noise would fall upon my

ear; and from time to time I thought I could see the movement of

something swift and indistinct between the chestnuts. A profusion of

large ants swarmed upon the ground; bats whisked by, and mosquitoes

droned overhead. The long boughs with their bunches of leaves hung

against the sky like garlands; and those immediately above and around me

had somewhat the air of a trellis which should have been wrecked and

half overthrown in a gale of wind.

Sleep for a long time fled my eyelids; and just as I was beginning to

feel quiet stealing over my limbs, and settling densely on my mind, a

noise at my head startled me broad awake again, and, I will frankly

confess it, brought my heart into my mouth. It was such a noise as a

person would make scratching loudly with a finger-nail; it came from

under the knapsack which served me for a pillow, and it was thrice

repeated before I had time to sit up and turn about. Nothing was to be

seen, nothing more was to be heard, but a few of these mysterious

rustlings far and near, and the ceaseless accompaniment of the river and

the frogs. I learned next day that the chestnut gardens are infested by

rats; rustling, chirping, and scraping were probably all due to these;

but the puzzle, for the moment, was insoluble, and I had to compose

myself for sleep as best I could, in wondering uncertainty about my

neighbours.

I was wakened in the grey of the morning (Monday, 30th September) by the

sound of footsteps not far off upon the stones, and, opening my eyes, I

beheld a peasant going by among the chestnuts by a footpath that I had

not hitherto observed. He turned his head neither to the right nor to

the left, and disappeared in a few strides among the foliage. Here was

an escape! But it was plainly more than time to be moving. The peasantry

were abroad; scarce less terrible to me in my nondescript position than

the soldiers of Captain Poul to an undaunted Camisard. I fed Modestine

with what haste I could; but as I was returning to my sack, I saw a man

and a boy come down the hillside in a direction crossing mine. They

unintelligibly hailed me, and I replied with inarticulate but cheerful

sounds, and hurried forward to get into my gaiters.

The pair, who seemed to be father and son, came slowly up to the

plateau, and stood close beside me for some time in silence. The bed was

open, and I saw with regret my revolver lying patently disclosed on the

blue wool. At last, after they had looked me all over, and the silence

had grown laughably embarrassing, the man demanded in what seemed

unfriendly tones:--

"You have slept here?"

"Yes," said I. "As you see."

"Why?" he asked.

"My faith," I answered lightly, "I was tired."

He next inquired where I was going, and what I had had for dinner; and

then, without the least transition, "_C'est bien,"_ he added, "come

along." And he and his son, without another word, turned oil to the next

chestnut-tree but one, which they set to pruning. The thing had passed

off more simply than I hoped. He was a grave, respectable man; and his

unfriendly voice did not imply that he thought he was speaking to a

criminal, but merely to an inferior.

I was soon on the road, nibbling a cake of chocolate and seriously

occupied with a case of conscience. Was I to pay for my night's lodging?

I had slept ill, the bed was full of fleas in the shape of ants, there

was no water in the room, the very dawn had neglected to call me in the

morning. I might have missed a train, had there been any in the

neighbourhood to catch. Clearly, I was dissatisfied with my

entertainment; and I decided I should not pay unless I met a beggar.

The valley looked even lovelier by morning; and soon the road descended

to the level of the river. Here, in a place where many straight and

prosperous chestnuts stood together, making an aisle upon a swarded

terrace, I made my morning toilette in the water of the Tarn. It was

marvelously clear, thrillingly cool; the soap-suds disappeared as if by

magic in the swift current, and the white boulders gave one a model for

cleanliness. To wash in one of God's rivers in the open air seems to me

a sort of cheerful solemnity or semi-pagan act of worship. To dabble

among dishes in a bedroom may perhaps make clean the body; but the

imagination takes no share in such a cleansing. I went on with a light

and peaceful heart, and sang psalms to the spiritual ear as I advanced.

Suddenly up came an old woman, who point-blank demanded alms.

"Good," thought I; "here comes the waiter with the bill."

And I paid for my night's lodging on the spot. Take it how you please,

but this was the first and the last beggar that I met with during all my

tour.

A step or two farther I was overtaken by an old man in a brown nightcap,

clear-eyed, weather-beaten, with a faint excited smile. A little girl

followed him, driving two sheep and a goat; but she kept in our wake,

while the old man walked beside me and talked about the morning and the

valley. It was not much past six; and for healthy people who have slept

enough that is an hour of expansion and of open and trustful talk.

"_Connaissez-vous le Seigneur?_" he said at length.

I asked him what Seigneur he meant; but he only repeated the question

with more emphasis and a look in his eyes denoting hope and interest.

"Ah," said I, pointing upwards, "I understand you now. Yes, I know Him;

He is the best of acquaintances."

The old man said he was delighted. "Hold," he added, striking his bosom;

"it makes me happy here." There were a few who knew the Lord in these

valleys, he went on to tell me; not many, but a few. "Many are called,"

he quoted, "and few chosen."

"My father," said I, "it is not easy to say who know the Lord; and it

is none of our business. Protestants and Catholics, and even those who

worship stones, may know Him and be known by Him; for He has made all."

I did not know I was so good a preacher.

The old man assured me he thought as I did, and repeated his expressions

of pleasure at meeting me. "We are so few," he said. "They call us

Moravians here; but down in the Department of Gard, where there are also

a good number, they are called Derbists, after an English pastor."

I began to understand that I was figuring, in questionable taste, as a

member of some sect to me unknown; but I was more pleased with the

pleasure of my companion than embarrassed by my own equivocal position.

Indeed, I can see no dishonesty in not avowing a difference; and

especially in these high matters, where we have all a sufficient

assurance that, whoever may be in the wrong, we ourselves are not

completely in the right. The truth is much talked about; but this old

man in a brown nightcap showed himself so simple, sweet and friendly,

that I am not unwilling to profess myself his convert. He was, as a

matter of fact, a Plymouth Brother. Of what that involves in the way of

doctrine I have no idea nor the time to inform myself; but I know right

well that we are all embarked upon a troublesome world, the children of

one Father, striving in many essential points to do and to become the

same. And although it was somewhat in a mistake that he shook hands with

me so often and showed himself so ready to receive my words, that was a

mistake of the truth-finding sort. For charity begins blindfold; and

only through a series of similar misapprehensions rises at length into a

settled principle of love and patience, and a firm belief in all our

fellow-men. If I deceived this good old man, in the like manner I would

willingly go on to deceive others. And if ever at length, out of our

separate and sad ways, we should all come together into one common

house, I have a hope, to which I cling dearly, that my mountain Plymouth

Brother will hasten to shake hands with me again.

Thus, talking like Christian and Faithful by the way, he and I came down

upon a hamlet by the Tarn. It was but a humble place, called La Vernede,

with less than a dozen houses, and a Protestant chapel on a knoll. Here

he dwelt; and here, at the inn, I ordered my breakfast. The inn was kept

by an agreeable young man, a stone-breaker on the road, and his sister, a

pretty and engaging girl. The village schoolmaster dropped in to speak

with the stranger. And these were all Protestants--a fact which pleased

me more than I should have expected; and, what pleased me still more,

they seemed all upright and simple people. The Plymouth Brother hung

round me with a sort of yearning interest, and returned at least thrice

to make sure I was enjoying my meal. His behaviour touched me deeply at

the time, and even now moves me in recollection. He feared to intrude,

but he would not willingly forego one moment of my society; and he

seemed never weary of shaking me by the hand.

When all the rest had drifted off to their day's work, I sat for near

half an hour with the young mistress of the house, who talked pleasantly

over her seam of the chestnut harvest, and the beauties of the Tarn, and

old family affections, broken up when young folk go from home, yet still

subsisting. Hers, I am sure, was a sweet nature, with a country

plainness and much delicacy underneath; and he who takes her to his

heart will doubtless be a fortunate young man.

The valley below La Vernede pleased me more and more as I went forward.

Now the hills approached from either hand, naked and crumbling, and

walled in the river between cliffs; and now the valley widened and

became green. The road led me past the old castle of Miral on a steep;

past a battlemented monastery, long since broken up and turned into a

church and parsonage; and past a cluster of black roofs, the village of

Cocures, sitting among vineyards and meadows and orchards thick with red

apples, and where, along the highway, they were knocking down walnuts

from the roadside trees, and gathering them in sacks and baskets. The

hills, however much the vale might open, were still tall and bare, with

cliffy battlements and here and there a pointed summit; and the Tarn

still rattled through the stones with a mountain noise. I had been led,

by bagmen of a picturesque turn of mind, to expect a horrific country

after the heart of Byron; but to my Scottish eyes it seemed smiling and

plentiful, as the weather still gave an impression of high summer to my

Scottish body; although the chestnuts were already picked out by the

autumn, and the poplars, that here began to mingle with them, had turned

into pale gold against the approach of winter.

There was something in this landscape, smiling although wild, that

explained to me the spirit of the Southern Covenanters. Those who took

to the hills for conscience' sake in Scotland had all gloomy and

bedevilled thoughts; for once that they received God's comfort they

would be twice engaged with Satan; but the Camisards had only bright and

supporting visions. They dealt much more in blood, both given and taken;

yet I find no obsession of the Evil One in their records. With a light

conscience, they pursued their life in these rough times and

circumstances. The soul of Seguier, let us not forget, was like a

garden. They knew they were on God's side, with a knowledge that has no

parallel among the Scots; for the Scots, although they might be certain

of the cause, could never rest confident of the person.

"We flew," says one old Camisard, "when we heard the sound of

psalm-singing, we flew as if with wings. We felt within us an animating

ardour, a transporting desire. The feeling cannot be expressed in words.

It is a thing that must have been experienced to be understood. However

weary we might be, we thought no more of our weariness, and grew light

so soon as the psalms fell upon our ears."

The valley of the Tarn and the people whom I met at La Vernede not only

explain to me this passage, but the twenty years of suffering which

those, who were so stiff and so bloody when once they betook themselves

to war, endured with the meekness of children and the constancy of

saints and peasants.

FLORAC

On a branch of the Tarn stands Florac, the seat of a sub-prefecture with

an old castle, an alley of planes, many quaint street-corners, and a

live fountain welling from the hill. It is notable, besides, for

handsome women, and as one of the two capitals, Alais being the other,

of the country of the Camisards.

The landlord of the inn took me, after I had eaten, to an adjoining

cafe, where I, or rather my journey, became the topic of the afternoon.

Every one had some suggestion for my guidance; and the sub-prefectorial

map was fetched from the sub-prefecture itself, and much thumbed among

coffee-cups and glasses of liqueur. Most of these kind advisers were

Protestant, though I observed that Protestant and Catholic intermingled

in a very easy manner; and it surprised me to see what a lively memory

still subsisted of the religious war. Among the hills of the south-west,

by Mauchline, Cumnock, or Carsphairn, in isolated farms or in the manse,

serious Presbyterian people still recall the days of the great

persecution, and the graves of local martyrs are still piously regarded.

But in towns and among the so-called better classes, I fear that these

old doings have become an idle tale. If you met a mixed company in the

King's Arms at Wigtown, it is not likely that the talk would run on

Covenanters. Nay, at Muirkirk of Glenluce, I found the beadle's wife had

not so much as heard of Prophet Peden. But these Cevenols were proud of

their ancestors in quite another sense; the war was their chosen topic;

its exploits were their own patent of nobility; and where a man or a

race has had but one adventure, and that heroic, we must expect and

pardon some prolixity of reference. They told me the country was still

full of legends hitherto uncollected; I heard from them about Cavalier's

descendants--not direct descendants, be it understood, but only cousins

or nephews--who were still prosperous people in the scene of the

boy-general's exploits; and one farmer had seen the bones of old

combatants dug up into the air of an afternoon in the nineteenth

century, in a field where the ancestors had fought, and the

great-grandchildren were peaceably ditching.

Later in the day one of the Protestant pastors was so good as to visit

me: a young man, intelligent and polite, with whom I passed an hour or

two in talk. Florac, he told me, is part Protestant, part Catholic; and

the difference in religion is usually doubled by a difference in

politics. You may judge of my surprise, coming as I did from such a

babbling purgatorial Poland of a place as Monastier, when I learned that

the population lived together on very quiet terms; and there was even an

exchange of hospitalities between households thus doubly separated.

Black Camisard and White Camisard, militiaman and Miquelet and dragoon,

Protestant prophet and Catholic cadet of the White Cross, they had all

been sabring and shooting, burning, pillaging, and murdering, their

hearts hot with indignant passion; and here, after a hundred and seventy

years, Protestant is still Protestant, Catholic still Catholic, in

mutual toleration and mild amity of life. But the race of man, like that

indomitable nature whence it sprang, has medicating virtues of its own;

the years and seasons bring various harvests; the sun returns after the

rain; and mankind outlives secular animosities, as a single man awakens

from the passions of a day. We judge our ancestors from a more divine

position; and the dust being a little laid with several centuries, we

can see both sides adorned with human virtues and fighting with a show

of right.

I have never thought it easy to be just, and find it daily even harder

than I thought. I own I met these Protestants with delight and a sense

of coming home. I was accustomed to speak their language, in another and

deeper sense of the word than that which distinguishes between French

and English; for the true Babel is a divergence upon morals. And hence I

could hold more free communication with the Protestants, and judge them

more justly, than the Catholics. Father Apollinaris may pair off with my

mountain Plymouth Brother as two guileless and devout old men; yet I ask

myself if I had as ready a feeling for the virtues of the Trappist; or,

had I been a Catholic, if I should have felt so warmly to the dissenter

of La Vernede. With the first I was on terms of mere forbearance; but

with the other, although only on a misunderstanding and by keeping on

selected points, it was still possible to hold converse and exchange

some honest thoughts. In this world of imperfection we gladly welcome

even partial intimacies. And if we find but one to whom we can speak out

of our heart freely, with whom we can walk in love and simplicity

without dissimulation, we have no ground of quarrel with the world or

God.

IN THE VALLEY OF THE MIMENTE

On Tuesday, 1st October, we left Florac late in the afternoon, a tired

donkey and tired donkey-driver. A little way up the Tarnon, a covered

bridge of wood introduced us into the valley of the Mimente. Steep rocky

red mountains overhung the stream; great oaks and chestnuts grew upon

the slopes or in stony terraces; here and there was a red field of

millet or a few apple trees studded with red apples; and the road passed

hard by two black hamlets, one with an old castle atop to please the

heart of the tourist.

It was difficult here again to find a spot fit for my encampment. Even

under the oaks and chestnuts the ground had not only a very rapid slope,

but was heaped with loose stones; and where there was no timber the

hills descended to the stream in a red precipice tufted with heather.

The sun had left the highest peak in front of me, and the valley was

full of the lowing sound of herdsmen's horns as they recalled the flocks

into the stable, when I spied a bight of meadow some way below the

roadway in an angle of the river. Thither I descended, and, tying

Modestine provisionally to a tree, proceeded to investigate the

neighbourhood. A grey pearly evening shadow filled the glen; objects at

a little distance grew indistinct and melted bafflingly into each other;

and the darkness was rising steadily like an exhalation. I approached a

great oak which grew in the meadow, hard by the river's brink; when to

my disgust the voices of children fell upon my ear, and I beheld a house

round the angle on the other bank. I had half a mind to pack and be gone

again, but the growing darkness moved me to remain. I had only to make

no noise until the night was fairly come, and trust to the dawn to call

me early in the morning. But it was hard to be annoyed by neighbours in

such a great hotel.

A hollow underneath the oak was my bed. Before I had fed Modestine and

arranged my sack, three stars were already brightly shining, and the

others were beginning dimly to appear. I slipped down to the river,

which looked very black among its rocks, to fill my can; and dined with

a good appetite in the dark, for I scrupled to light a lantern while so

near a house. The moon, which I had seen a pallid crescent all

afternoon, faintly illuminated the summit of the hills, but not a ray

fell into the bottom of the glen where I was lying. The oak rose before

me like a pillar of darkness; and overhead the heartsome stars were set

in the face of the night. No one knows the stars who has not slept, as

the French happily put it, _a la belle etoile_. He may know all their

names and distances and magnitudes, and yet be ignorant of what alone

concerns mankind,--their serene and gladsome influence on the mind. The

greater part of poetry is about the stars; and very justly, for they are

themselves the most classical of poets. These same far-away worlds,

sprinkled like tapers or shaken together like a diamond dust upon the

sky, had looked not otherwise to Roland or Cavalier, when, in the words

of the latter, they had "no other tent but the sky, and no other bed

than my mother earth."

All night a strong wind blew up the valley, and the acorns fell

pattering over me from the oak. Yet on this first night of October, the

air was as mild as May, and I slept with the fur thrown back.

I was much disturbed by the barking of a dog, an animal that I fear more

than any wolf. A dog is vastly braver, and is besides supported by the

sense of duty. If you kill a wolf, you meet with encouragement and

praise; but if you kill a dog, the sacred rights of property and the

domestic affections come clamouring round you for redress. At the end

of a fagging day, the sharp, cruel note of a dog's bark is in itself a

keen annoyance; and to a tramp like myself, he represents the sedentary

and respectable world in its most hostile form. There is something of

the clergyman or the lawyer about this engaging animal; and it he were

not amenable to stones, the boldest man would shrink from travelling

afoot. I respect dogs much in the domestic circle; but on the highway,

or sleeping afield, I both detest and fear them.

I was wakened next morning (Wednesday, October 2nd) by the same dog--for

I knew his bark--making a charge down the bank, and then, seeing me sit

up, retreating again with great alacrity. The stars were not yet quite

extinguished. The heaven was of that enchanting mild grey-blue of the

early morn. A still clear light began to fall, and the trees on the

hillside were outlined sharply against the sky. The wind had veered more

to the north, and no longer reached me in the glen; but as I was going

on with my preparations, it drove a white cloud very swiftly over the

hill-top; and looking up, I was surprised to see the cloud dyed with

gold. In these high regions of the air the sun was already shining as at

noon. If only the clouds travelled high enough, we should see the same

thing all night long. For it is always daylight in the fields of space.

As I began to go up the valley, a draught of wind came down it out of

the seat of the sunrise, although the clouds continued to run overhead

in an almost contrary direction. A few steps farther, and I saw a whole

hillside gilded with the sun; and still a little beyond, between two

peaks, a centre of dazzling brilliancy appeared floating in the sky, and

I was once more face to face with the big bonfire that occupies the

kernel of our system.

I met but one human being that forenoon, a dark military-looking

wayfarer, who carried a game-bag on a baldric; but he made a remark that

seems worthy of record. For when I asked him if he were Protestant or

Catholic--

"Oh," said he, "I make no shame of my religion. I am a Catholic."

He made no shame of it! The phrase is a piece of natural statistics; for

it is the language of one in a minority. I thought with a smile of

Bavile and his dragoons, and how you may ride rough-shod over a religion

for a century, and leave it only the more lively for the friction.

Ireland is still Catholic; the Cevennes still Protestant. It is not a

basketful of law-papers, nor the hoofs and pistol-butts of a regiment of

horse, that can change one tittle of a ploughman's thoughts. Outdoor

rustic people have not many ideas, but such as they have are hardy

plants, and thrive flourishingly in persecution. One who has grown a

long while in the sweat of laborious noons, and under the stars at

night, a frequenter of hills and forests, an old honest countryman, has,

in the end, a sense of communion with the powers of the universe, and

amicable relations towards his God. Like my mountain Plymouth Brother,

he knows the Lord. His religion does not repose upon a choice of logic;

it is the poetry of the man's experience, the philosophy of the history

of his life. God, like a great power, like a great shining sun, has

appeared to this simple fellow in the course of years, and become the

ground and essence of his least reflections; and you may change creeds

and dogma by authority, or proclaim a new religion with the sound of

trumpets, if you will; but here is a man who has his own thoughts, and

will stubbornly adhere to them in good and evil. He is a Catholic, a

Protestant, or a Plymouth Brother, in the same indefeasible sense that a

man is not a woman, or a woman not a man. For he could not vary from his

faith, unless he could eradicate all memory of the past, and, in a

strict and not a conventional meaning, change his mind.

THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY

I was now drawing near to Cassagnas, a cluster of black roofs upon the

hillside, in this wild valley, among chestnut gardens, and looked upon

in the clear air by many rocky peaks. The road along the Mimente is yet

new, nor have the mountaineers recovered their surprise when the first

cart arrived at Cassagnas. But although it lay thus apart from the

current of men's business, this hamlet had already made a figure in the

history of France. Hard by, in caverns of the mountain, was one of the

five arsenals of the Camisards; where they laid up clothes and corn and

arms against necessity, forged bayonets and sabres, and made themselves

gunpowder with willow charcoal and saltpetre boiled in kettles. To the

same caves, amid this multifarious industry, the sick and wounded were

brought up to heal; and there they were visited by the two surgeons,

Chabrier and Tavan, and secretly nursed by women of the neighbourhood.

Of the five legions into which the Camisards were divided, it was the

oldest and the most obscure that had its magazines by Cassagnas. This

was the band of Spirit Seguier; men who had joined their voices with his

in the 68th Psalm as they marched down by night on the archpriest of the

Cevennes. Seguier, promoted to heaven, was succeeded by Salomon Couderc,

whom Cavalier treats in his memoirs as chaplain-general to the whole

army of the Camisards. He was a prophet; a great reader of the heart,

who admitted people to the sacrament, or refused them, by "intentively

viewing every man" between the eyes; and had the most of the Scriptures

off by rote. And this was surely happy; since in a surprise in August

1703, he lost his mule, his portfolios, and his Bible. It is only

strange that they were not surprised more often and more effectually;

for this legion of Cassagnas was truly patriarchal in its theory of war,

and camped without sentries, leaving that duty to the angels of the God

for whom they fought. This is a token, not only of their faith, but of

the trackless country where they harboured. M. de Caladon, taking a

stroll one fine day, walked without warning into their midst, as he

might have walked into "a flock of sheep in a plain," and found some

asleep and some awake and psalm-singing. A traitor had need of no

recommendation to insinuate himself among their ranks, beyond "his

faculty of singing psalms"; and even the prophet Salomon "took him into

a particular friendship." Thus, among their intricate hills, the rustic

troop subsisted; and history can attribute few exploits to them but

sacraments and ecstasies.

People of this tough and simple stock will not, as I have just been

saying, prove variable in religion; nor will they get nearer to apostasy

than a mere external conformity like that of Naaman in the house of

Rimmon. When Louis XVI., in the words of the edict, "convinced by the

uselessness of a century of persecutions, and rather from necessity than

sympathy," granted at last a royal grace of toleration, Cassagnas was

still Protestant; and to a man, it is so to this day. There is, indeed,

one family that is not Protestant, but neither is it Catholic. It is

that of a Catholic _cure_ in revolt, who has taken to his bosom a

schoolmistress. And his conduct, it is worth noting, is disapproved by

the Protestant villagers.

"It is a bad idea for a man," said one, "to go back from his

engagements."

The villagers whom I saw seemed intelligent after a countrified fashion,

and were all plain and dignified in manner. As a Protestant myself, I

was well looked upon, and my acquaintance with history gained me

further respect. For we had something not unlike a religious

controversy at table, a gendarme and a merchant with whom I dined being

both strangers to the place, and Catholics. The young men of the house

stood round and supported me; and the whole discussion was tolerantly

conducted, and surprised a man brought up among the infinitesimal and

contentious differences of Scotland. The merchant, indeed, grew a little

warm, and was far less pleased than some others with my historical

acquirements. But the gendarme was mighty easy over it all.

"It's a bad idea for a man to change," said he; and the remark was

generally applauded.

That was not the opinion of the priest and soldier at Our Lady of the

Snows. But this is a different race; and perhaps the same

great-heartedness that upheld them to resist, now enables them to differ

in a kind spirit. For courage respects courage; but where a faith has

been trodden out, we may look for a mean and narrow population. The true

work of Bruce and Wallace was the union of the nations; not that they

should stand apart a while longer, skirmishing upon their borders; but

that, when the time came, they might unite with self-respect.

The merchant was much interested in my journey, and thought it dangerous

to sleep afield.

"There are the wolves," said he; "and then it is known you are an

Englishman. The English have always long purses, and it might very well

enter into some one's head to deal you an ill blow some night."

I told him I was not much afraid of such accidents; and at any rate

judged it unwise to dwell upon alarms or consider small perils in the

arrangement of life. Life itself, I submitted, was a far too risky

business as a whole to make each additional particular of danger worth

regard. "Something," said I, "might burst in your inside any day of the

week, and there would be an end of you, if you were locked in your room

with three turns of the key."

"_Cependant_," said he, "_coucher dehors_!"

"God," said I, "is everywhere."

"_Cependant, coucher dehors!_" he repeated, and his voice was eloquent

of terror.

He was the only person, in all my voyage, who saw anything hardy in so

simple a proceeding; although many considered it superfluous. Only one,

on the other hand, professed much delight in the idea; and that was my

Plymouth Brother, who cried out, when I told him I sometimes preferred

sleeping under the stars to a close and noisy alehouse, "Now I see that

you know the Lord!"

The merchant asked me for one of my cards as I was leaving, for he said

I should be something to talk of in the future, and desired me to make a

note of his request and reason; a desire with which I have thus

complied.

A little after two I struck across the Mimente, and took a rugged path

southward up a hillside covered with loose stones and tufts of heather.

At the top, as is the habit of the country, the path disappeared; and I

left my she-ass munching heather, and went forward alone to seek a road.

I was now on the separation of two vast watersheds; behind me all the

streams were bound for the Garonne and the Western Ocean; before me was

the basin of the Rhone. Hence, as from the Lozere, you can see in clear

weather the shining of the Gulf of Lyons; and perhaps from here the

soldiers of Salomon may have watched for the topsails of Sir Cloudesley

Shovel, and the long-promised aid from England. You may take this ridge

as lying in the heart of the country of the Camisards; four of the five

legions camped all round it and almost within view--Salomon and Joani to

the north, Castanet and Roland to the south; and when Julien had

finished his famous work, the devastation of the High Cevennes, which

lasted all through October and November, 1703, and during which four

hundred and sixty villages and hamlets were, with fire and pickaxe,

utterly subverted, a man standing on this eminence would have looked

forth upon a silent, smokeless, and dispeopled land. Time and man's

activity have now repaired these ruins; Cassagnas is once more roofed

and sending up domestic smoke; and in the chestnut gardens, in low and

leafy corners, many a prosperous farmer returns, when the day's work is

done, to his children and bright hearth. And still it was perhaps the

wildest view of all my journey. Peak upon peak, chain upon chain of

hills ran surging southward, channeled and sculptured by the winter

streams, feathered from head to foot with chestnuts, and here and there

breaking out into a coronal of cliffs. The sun, which was still far from

setting, sent a drift of misty gold across the hill-tops, but the

valleys were already plunged in a profound and quiet shadow.

A very old shepherd, hobbling on a pair of sticks, and wearing a black

cap of liberty, as if in honour of his nearness to the grave, directed

me to the road for St. Germain de Calberte. There was something solemn

in the isolation of this infirm and ancient creature. Where he dwelt,

how he got upon this high ridge, or how he proposed to get down again,

were more than I could fancy. Not far off upon my right was the famous

Plan de Font Morte, where Poul with his Armenian sabre slashed down the

Camisards of Seguier. This, methought, might be some Rip van Winkle of

the war, who had lost his comrades, fleeing before Poul, and wandered

ever since upon the mountains. It might be news to him that Cavalier had

surrendered, or Roland had fallen fighting with his back against an

olive. And while I was thus working on my fancy, I heard him hailing in

broken tones, and saw him waving me to come back with one of his two

sticks. I had already got some way past him; but, leaving Modestine once

more, retraced my steps.

Alas, it was a very commonplace affair. The old gentleman had forgot to

ask the pedlar what he sold, and wished to remedy this neglect.

I told him sternly, "Nothing."

"Nothing?" cried he.

I repeated "Nothing," and made off.

It's odd to think of, but perhaps I thus became as inexplicable to the

old man as he had been to me.

The road lay under chestnuts, and though I saw a hamlet or two below me

in the vale, and many lone houses of the chestnut farmers, it was a very

solitary march all afternoon; and the evening began early underneath the

trees. But I heard the voice of a woman singing some sad, old, endless

ballad not far off. It seemed to be about love and a _bel amoureux_, her

handsome sweetheart; and I wished I could have taken up the strain and

answered her, as I went on upon my invisible woodland way, weaving, like

Pippa in the poem, my own thoughts with hers. What could I have told

her? Little enough; and yet all the heart requires. How the world gives

and takes away, and brings sweethearts near only to separate them again

into distant and strange lands; but to love is the great amulet which

makes the world a garden; and "hope, which comes to all," outwears the

accidents of life, and reaches with tremulous hand beyond the grave and

death. Easy to say: yea, but also, by God's mercy, both easy and

grateful to believe!

We struck at last into a wide white high-road carpeted with noiseless

dust. The night had come; the moon had been shining for a long while

upon the opposite mountain; when on turning a corner my donkey and I

issued ourselves into her light. I had emptied out my brandy at Florac,

for I could bear the stuff no longer, and replaced it with some generous

and scented Volnay; and now I drank to the moon's sacred majesty upon

the road. It was but a couple of mouthfuls; yet I became thenceforth

unconscious of my limbs, and my blood flowed with luxury. Even Modestine

was inspired by this purified nocturnal sunshine, and bestirred her

little hoofs as to a livelier measure. The road wound and descended

swiftly among masses of chestnuts. Hot dust rose from our feet and

flowed away. Our two shadows--mine deformed with the knapsack, hers

comically bestridden by the pack--now lay before us clearly outlined on

the road, and now, as we turned a corner, went off into the ghostly

distance, and sailed along the mountain like clouds. From time to time a

warm wind rustled down the valley, and set all the chestnuts dangling

their bunches of foliage and fruit; the ear was filled with whispering

music, and the shadows danced in tune. And next moment the breeze had

gone by, and in all the valley nothing moved except our travelling feet.

On the opposite slope, the monstrous ribs and gullies of the mountain

were faintly designed in the moonshine; and high overhead, in some lone

house, there burned one lighted window, one square spark of red in the

huge field of sad nocturnal colouring.

At a certain point, as I went downward, turning many acute angles, the

moon disappeared behind the hill; and I pursued my way in great

darkness, until another turning shot me without preparation into St.

Germain de Calberte. The place was asleep and silent, and buried in

opaque night. Only from a single open door, some lamplight escaped upon

the road to show me that I was come among men's habitations. The two

last gossips of the evening, still talking by a garden wall, directed me

to the inn. The landlady was getting her chicks to bed; the fire was

already out, and had, not without grumbling, to be rekindled; half an

hour later, and I must have gone supperless to roost.

THE LAST DAY

When I awoke (Thursday, 2nd October), and, hearing a great flourishing

of cocks and chuckling of contented hens, betook me to the window of the

clean and comfortable room where I had slept the night, I looked forth

on a sunshiny morning in a deep vale of chestnut gardens. It was still

early, and the cockcrows, and the slanting lights, and the long shadows,

encouraged me to be out and look round me.

St. Germain de Calberte is a great parish nine leagues round about. At

the period of the wars, and immediately before the devastation, it was

inhabited by two hundred and seventy-five families, of which only nine

were Catholic; and it took the _cure_ seventeen September days to go

from house to house on horseback for a census. But the place itself,

although capital of a canton, is scarce larger than a hamlet. It lies

terraced across a steep slope in the midst of mighty chestnuts. The

Protestant chapel stands below upon a shoulder; in the midst of the town

is the quaint old Catholic church.

It was here that poor Du Chayla, the Christian martyr, kept his library

and held a court of missionaries; here he had built his tomb, thinking

to lie among a grateful population whom he had redeemed from error; and

hither on the morrow of his death they brought the body, pierced with

two-and-fifty wounds, to be interred. Clad in his priestly robes, he was

laid out in state in the church. The _cure_, taking his text from Second

Samuel, twentieth chapter and twelfth verse, "And Amasa wallowed in his

blood in the highway," preached a rousing sermon, and exhorted his

brethren to die each at his post, like their unhappy and illustrious

superior. In the midst of this eloquence there came a breeze that

Spirit Seguier was near at hand; and behold! all the assembly took to

their horses' heels, some east, some west, and the _cure_ himself as far

as Alais.

Strange was the position of this little Catholic metropolis, a

thimbleful of Rome, in such a wild and contrary neighbourhood. On the

one hand, the legion of Salomon overlooked it from Cassagnas; on the

other, it was cut off from assistance by the legion of Roland at Mialet.

The _cure_, Louvrelenil, although he took a panic at the arch-priest's

funeral, and so hurriedly decamped to Alais, stood well by his isolated

pulpit, and thence uttered fulminations against the crimes of the

Protestants. Salomon besieged the village for an hour and a half, but

was beaten back. The militiamen, on guard before the _cure's_ door,

could be heard, in the black hours, singing Protestant psalms and

holding friendly talk with the insurgents. And in the morning, although

not a shot had been fired, there would not be a round of powder in their

flasks. Where was it gone? All handed over to the Camisards for a

consideration. Untrusty guardians for an isolated priest!

That these continual stirs were once busy in St. Germain de Calberte,

the imagination with difficulty receives; all is now so quiet, the pulse

of human life now beats so low and still in this hamlet of the

mountains. Boys followed me a great way off, like a timid sort of

lion-hunters; and people turned round to have a second look, or came out

of their houses, as I went by. My passage was the first event, you would

have fancied, since the Camisards. There was nothing rude or forward in

this observation; it was but a pleased and wondering scrutiny, like that

of oxen or the human infant; yet it wearied my spirits, and soon drove

me from the street.

I took refuge on the terraces, which are here greenly carpeted with

sward, and tried to imitate with a pencil the inimitable attitudes of

the chestnuts as they bear up their canopy of leaves. Ever and again a

little wind went by, and the nuts dropped all around me, with a light

and dull sound, upon the sward. The noise was as of a thin fall of

great hailstones; but there went with it a cheerful human sentiment of

an approaching harvest and farmers rejoicing in their gains. Looking up,

I could see the brown nut peering through the husk, which was already

gaping; and between the stems the eye embraced an amphitheatre of hill,

sunlit and green with leaves.

I have not often enjoyed a place more deeply. I moved in an atmosphere

of pleasure, and felt light and quiet and content. But perhaps it was

not the place alone that so disposed my spirit. Perhaps some one was

thinking of me in another country; or perhaps some thought of my own had

come and gone unnoticed, and yet done me good. For some thoughts, which

sure would be the most beautiful, vanish before we can rightly scan

their features; as though a god, travelling by our green highways,

should but ope the door, give one smiling look into the house, and go

again for ever. Was it Apollo, or Mercury, or Love with folded wings?

Who shall say? But we go the lighter about our business, and feel peace

and pleasure in our hearts.

I dined with a pair of Catholics. They agreed in the condemnation of a

young man, a Catholic, who had married a Protestant girl and gone over

to the religion of his wife. A Protestant born they could understand and

respect: indeed, they seemed to be of the mind of an old Catholic woman,

who told me that same day there was no difference between the two sects,

save that "wrong was more wrong for the Catholic," who had more light

and guidance; but this of a man's desertion filled them with contempt.

"It's a bad idea for a man to change," said one.

It may have been accidental, but you see how this phrase pursued me; and

for myself, I believe it is the current philosophy in these parts. I

have some difficulty in imagining a better. It's not only a great flight

of confidence for a man to change his creed and go out of his family for

heaven's sake; but the odds are--nay, and the hope is--that, with all

this great transition in the eyes of man, he has not changed himself a

hairbreadth to the eyes of God. Honour to those who do so, for the

wrench is sore. But it argues something narrow, whether of strength or

weakness, whether of the prophet or the fool, in those who can take a

sufficient interest in such infinitesimal and human operations, or who

can quit a friendship for a doubtful process of the mind. And I think I

should not leave my old creed for another, changing only words for other

words; but by some brave reading, embrace it in spirit and truth, and

find wrong as wrong for me as for the best of other communions.

The phylloxera was in the neighbourhood; and instead of wine we drank at

dinner a more economical juice of the grape--La Parisienne, they call

it. It is made by putting the fruit whole into a cask with water; one by

one the berries ferment and burst; what is drunk during the day is

supplied at night in water; so, with ever another pitcher from the well,

and ever another grape exploding and giving out its strength, one cask

of Parisienne may last a family till spring. It is, as the reader will

anticipate, a feeble beverage, but very pleasant to the taste.

What with dinner and coffee, it was long past three before I left St.

Germain de Calberte. I went down beside the Gardon of Mialet, a great

glaring watercourse devoid of water, and through St. Etienne de Vallee

Francaise, or Val Francesque, as they used to call it; and towards

evening began to ascend the hill of St. Pierre. It was a long and steep

ascent. Behind me an empty carriage returning to St. Jean du Gard kept

hard upon my tracks, and near the summit overtook me. The driver, like

the rest of the world, was sure I was a pedlar; but, unlike others, he

was sure of what I had to sell. He had noticed the blue wool which hung

out of my pack at either end; and from this he had decided, beyond my

power to alter his decision, that I dealt in blue wool collars, such as

decorate the neck of the French draught-horse.

I had hurried to the topmost powers of Modestine, for I dearly desired

to see the view upon the other side before the day had faded. But it was

night when I reached the summit; the moon was riding high and clear; and

only a few grey streaks of twilight lingered in the west. A yawning

valley, gulfed in blackness, lay like a hole in created nature at my

feet; but the outline of the hills was sharp against the sky. There was

Mount Aigoal, the stronghold of Castanet. And Castanet, not only as an

active undertaking leader, deserves some mention among Camisards; for

there is a spray of rose among his laurel; and he showed how, even in a

public tragedy, love will have its way. In the high tide of war he

married, in his mountain citadel, a young and pretty lass called

Mariette. There were great rejoicings; and the bridegroom released

five-and-twenty prisoners in honour of the glad event. Seven months

afterwards, Mariette, the Princess of the Cevennes, as they called her

in derision, fell into the hands of the authorities, where it was like

to have gone hard with her. But Castanet was a man of execution, and

loved his wife. He fell on Valleraugue, and got a lady there for a

hostage; and for the first and last time in that war there was an

exchange of prisoners. Their daughter, pledge of some starry night upon

Mount Aigoal, has left descendants to this day.

Modestine and I--it was our last meal together--had a snack upon the top

of St. Pierre, I on a heap of stones, she standing by me in the

moonlight and decorously eating bread out of my hand. The poor brute

would eat more heartily in this manner; for she had a sort of affection

for me, which I was soon to betray.

It was a long descent upon St. Jean du Gard, and we met no one but a

carter, visible afar off by the glint of the moon on his extinguished

lantern.

Before ten o'clock we had got in and were at supper; fifteen miles and a

stiff hill in little beyond six hours!

FAREWELL, MODESTINE!

On examination, on the morning of October 3rd, Modestine was pronounced

unfit for travel. She would need at least two days' repose, according to

the ostler; but I was now eager to reach Alais for my letters; and,

being in a civilized country of stage-coaches, I determined to sell my

lady friend and be off by the diligence that afternoon. Our yesterday's

march, with the testimony of the driver who had pursued us up the long

hill of St. Pierre, spread a favourable notion of my donkey's

capabilities. Intending purchasers were aware of an unrivaled

opportunity. Before ten I had an offer of twenty-five francs; and before

noon, after a desperate engagement, I sold her, saddle and all, for

five-and-thirty. The pecuniary gain is not obvious, but I had bought

freedom into the bargain.

St. Jean du Gard is a large place, and largely Protestant. The maire, a

Protestant, asked me to help him in a small matter which is itself

characteristic of the country. The young women of the Cevennes profit by

the common religion and the difference of the language to go largely as

governesses into England; and here was one, a native of Mialet,

struggling with English circulars from two different agencies in London.

I gave what help I could; and volunteered some advice, which struck me

as being excellent.

One thing more I note. The phylloxera has ravaged the vineyards in this

neighbourhood; and in the early morning, under some chestnuts by the

river, I found a party of men working with a cider-press. I could not at

first make out what they were after, and asked one fellow to explain.

"Making cider," he said. "_Oui, c'est comme ca. Comme dans le nord!_"

There was a ring of sarcasm in his voice: the country was going to the

devil.

It was not until I was fairly seated by the driver, and rattling through

a rocky valley with dwarf olives, that I became aware of my bereavement.

I had lost Modestine. Up to that moment I had thought I hated her; but

now she was gone,

"And O!

The difference to me!"

For twelve days we had been fast companions; we had travelled upwards of

a hundred and twenty miles, crossed several respectable ridges, and

jogged along with our six legs by many a rocky and many a boggy by-road.

After the first day, although sometimes I was hurt and distant in

manner, I still kept my patience; and as for her, poor soul! she had

come to regard me as a god. She loved to eat out of my hand. She was

patient, elegant in form, the colour of an ideal mouse, and inimitably

small. Her faults were those of her race and sex; her virtues were her

own. Farewell, and if for ever--

Father Adam wept when he sold her to me; after I had sold her in my

turn, I was tempted to follow his example; and being alone with a

stage-driver and four or five agreeable young men, I did not hesitate to

yield to my emotion.

A MOUNTAIN TOWN IN FRANCE

A FRAGMENT

1879

_Originally intended to serve as the opening chapter of

"Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes"_

Le Monastier is the chief place of a hilly canton in Haute Loire, the

ancient Velay. As the name betokens, the town is of monastic origin; and

it still contains a towered bulk of monastery and a church of some

architectural pretensions, the seat of an archpriest and several vicars.

It stands on the side of a hill above the river Gazeille, about fifteen

miles from Le Puy, up a steep road where the wolves sometimes pursue the

diligence in winter. The road, which is bound for Vivarais, passes

through the town from end to end in a single narrow street; there you

may see the fountain where women fill their pitchers; there also some

old houses with carved doors and pediments and ornamental work in iron.

For Monastier, like Maybole in Ayrshire, was a sort of country capital,

where the local aristocracy had their town mansions for the winter; and

there is a certain baron still alive and, I am told, extremely penitent,

who found means to ruin himself by high living in this village on the

hills. He certainly has claims to be considered the most remarkable

spendthrift on record. How he set about it, in a place where there are

no luxuries for sale, and where the board at the best inn comes to

little more than a shilling a day, is a problem for the wise. His son,

ruined as the family was, went as far as Paris to sow his wild oats; and

so the cases of father and son mark an epoch in the history of

centralization in France. Not until the latter had got into the train

was the work of Richelieu complete.

It is a people of lace-makers. The women sit in the streets by groups of

five or six; and the noise of the bobbins is audible from one group to

another. Now and then you will hear one woman clattering off prayers for

the edification of the others at their work. They wear gaudy shawls,

white caps with a gay ribbon about the head, and sometimes a black felt

brigand hat above the cap; and so they give the street colour and

brightness and a foreign air. A while ago, when England largely supplied

herself from this district with the lace called _torchon_, it was not

unusual to earn five francs a day; and five francs in Monastier is worth

a pound in London. Now, from a change in the market, it takes a clever

and industrious workwoman to earn from three to four in the week, or

less than an eighth of what she made easily a few years ago. The tide of

prosperity came and went, as with our northern pitmen, and left nobody

the richer. The women bravely squandered their gains, kept the men in

idleness, and gave themselves up, as I was told, to sweethearting and a

merry life. From week's end to week's end it was one continuous gala in

Monastier; people spent the day in the wine-shops, and the drum or the

bagpipes led on the _bourrees_ up to ten at night. Now these dancing

days are over. "_Il n'y a plus de jeunesse,_" said Victor the garcon. I

hear of no great advance in what are thought the essentials of morality;

but the _bourree_, with its rambling, sweet, interminable music, and

alert and rustic figures, has fallen into disuse, and is mostly

remembered as a custom of the past. Only on the occasion of the fair

shall you hear a drum discreetly rattling in a wine-shop or perhaps one

of the company singing the measure while the others dance. I am sorry at

the change, and marvel once more at the complicated scheme of things

upon this earth, and how a turn of fashion in England can silence so

much mountain merriment in France. The lace-makers themselves have not

entirely forgiven our countrywomen; and I think they take a special

pleasure in the legend of the northern quarter of the town, called

L'Anglade, because there the English free-lances were arrested and

driven back by the potency of a little Virgin Mary on the wall.

From time to time a market is held, and the town has a season of

revival; cattle and pigs are stabled in the streets; and pickpockets

have been known to come all the way from Lyons for the occasion. Every

Sunday the country folk throng in with daylight to buy apples, to attend

mass, and to visit one of the wine-shops, of which there are no fewer

than fifty in this little town. Sunday wear for the men is a green

tail-coat of some coarse sort of drugget, and usually a complete suit to

match. I have never set eyes on such degrading raiment. Here it clings,

there bulges; and the human body, with its agreeable and lively lines,

is turned into a mockery and laughing-stock. Another piece of Sunday

business with the peasants is to take their ailments to the chemist for

advice. It is as much a matter for Sunday as church-going. I have seen a

woman who had been unable to speak since the Monday before, wheezing,

catching her breath, endlessly and painfully coughing; and yet she had

waited upwards of a hundred hours before coming to seek help, and had

the week been twice as long, she would have waited still. There was a

canonical day for consultation; such was the ancestral habit, to which a

respectable lady must study to conform.

Two conveyances go daily to Le Puy, but they rival each other in polite

concessions rather than in speed. Each will wait an hour or two hours

cheerfully while an old lady does her marketing or a gentleman finishes

the papers in a cafe. The _Courrier_(such is the name of one) should

leave Le Puy by two in the afternoon on the return voyage, and arrive at

Monastier in good time for a six o'clock dinner. But the driver dares

not disoblige his customers. He will postpone his departure again and

again, hour after hour; and I have known the sun to go down on his

delay. These purely personal favours, this consideration of men's

fancies, rather than the hands of a mechanical clock, as marking the

advance of the abstraction, time, makes a more humorous business of

stage-coaching than we are used to see it.

As far as the eye can reach, one swelling line of hill-top rises and

falls behind another; and if you climb an eminence, it is only to see

new and farther ranges behind these. Many little rivers run from all

sides in cliffy valleys; and one of them, a few miles from Monastier,

bears the great name of Loire. The mean level of the country is a little

more than three thousand feet above the sea, which makes the atmosphere

proportionally brisk and wholesome. There is little timber except pines,

and the greater part of the country lies in moorland pasture. The

country is wild and tumbled rather than commanding; an upland rather

than a mountain district; and the most striking as well as the most

agreeable scenery lies low beside the rivers. There, indeed, you will

find many corners that take the fancy; such as made the English noble

choose his grave by a Swiss streamlet, where Nature is at her freshest,

and looks as young as on the seventh morning. Such a place is the course

of the Gazeille, where it waters the common of Monastier and thence

downward till it joins the Loire; a place to hear birds singing; a place

for lovers to frequent. The name of the river was perhaps suggested by

the sound of its passage over the stones; for it is a great warbler, and

at night, after I was in bed in Monastier, I could hear it go singing

down the valley till I fell asleep.

On the whole, this is a Scottish landscape, although not so noble as the

best in Scotland; and by an odd coincidence the population is, in its

way, as Scottish as the country. They have abrupt, uncouth, Fifeshire

manners, and accost you, as if you were trespassing, with an "_Ou'st-ce

que vous allez?_" only translatable into the Lowland "Whau'r ye gaun?"

They keep the Scottish Sabbath. There is no labour done on that day but

to drive in and out the various pigs and sheep and cattle that make so

pleasant a tinkling in the meadows. The lace-makers have disappeared

from the street. Not to attend mass would involve social degradation;

and you may find people reading Sunday books, in particular a sort of

Catholic _Monthly Visitor_ on the doings of Our Lady of Lourdes. I

remember one Sunday, when I was walking in the country, that I fell on a

hamlet and found all the inhabitants, from the patriarch to the baby,

gathered in the shadow of a gable at prayer. One strapping lass stood

with her back to the wall and did the solo part, the rest chiming in

devoutly. Not far off, a lad lay flat on his face asleep among some

straw, to represent the worldly element.

Again, this people is eager to proselytize; and the postmaster's

daughter used to argue with me by the half-hour about my heresy, until

she grew quite flushed. I have heard the reverse process going on

between a Scots-woman and a French girl; and the arguments in the two

cases were identical. Each apostle based her claim on the superior

virtue and attainments of her clergy, and clinched the business with a

threat of hell-fire. "_Pas bong pretres ici_," said the Presbyterian,

"_bong pretres en Ecosse_." And the postmaster's daughter, taking up the

same weapon, plied me, so to speak, with the butt of it instead of the

bayonet. We are a hopeful race, it seems, and easily persuaded for our

good. One cheerful circumstance I note in these guerrilla missions, that

each side relies on hell, and Protestant and Catholic alike address

themselves to a supposed misgiving in their adversary's heart. And I

call it cheerful, for faith is a more supporting quality than

imagination.

Here, as in Scotland, many peasant families boast a son in holy orders.

And here also, the young men have a tendency to emigrate. It is

certainly not poverty that drives them to the great cities or across the

seas, for many peasant families, I was told, have a fortune of at least

40,000 francs. The lads go forth pricked with the spirit of adventure

and the desire to rise in life, and leave their homespun elders

grumbling and wondering over the event. Once, at a village called

Laussonne, I met one of these disappointed parents: a drake who had

fathered a wild swan and seen it take wing and disappear. The wild swan

in question was now an apothecary in Brazil. He had flown by way of

Bordeaux, and first landed in America, bare-headed and barefoot, and

with a single halfpenny in his pocket. And now he was an apothecary!

Such a wonderful thing is an adventurous life! I thought he might as

well have stayed at home; but you never can tell wherein a man's life

consists, nor in what he sets his pleasure: one to drink, another to

marry, a third to write scurrilous articles and be repeatedly caned in

public, and now this fourth, perhaps, to be an apothecary in Brazil. As

for his old father, he could conceive no reason for the lad's behaviour.

"I had always bread for him," he said; "he ran away to annoy me. He

loved to annoy me. He had no gratitude." But at heart he was swelling

with pride over his travelled offspring, and he produced a letter out of

his pocket, where, as he said, it was rotting, a mere lump of paper

rags, and waved it gloriously in the air. "This comes from America," he

cried, "six thousand leagues away!" And the wine-shop audience looked

upon it with a certain thrill.

I soon became a popular figure, and was known for miles in the country.

_Ou'st-ce que vous allez?_ was changed for me into _Quoi, vous rentrez

au Monastier ce soir?_ and in the town itself every urchin seemed to

know my name, although no living creature could pronounce it. There was

one particular group of lace-makers who brought out a chair for me

whenever I went by, and detained me from my walk to gossip. They were

filled with curiosity about England, its language, its religion, the

dress of the women, and were never weary of seeing the Queen's head on

English postage-stamps, or seeking for French words in English Journals.

The language, in particular, filled them with surprise.

"Do they speak _patois_ in England?" I was once asked; and when I told

them not, "Ah, then, French?" said they.

"No, no," I said, "not French."

"Then," they concluded, "they speak _patois_."

You must obviously either speak French or _patois_. Talk of the force of

logic--here it was in all its weakness. I gave up the point, but

proceeding to give illustrations of ray native jargon, I was met with a

new mortification. Of all _patois_ they declared that mine was the most

preposterous and the most jocose in sound. At each new word there was a

new explosion of laughter, and some of the younger ones were glad to

rise from their chairs and stamp about the street in ecstasy; and I

looked on upon their mirth in a faint and slightly disagreeable

bewilderment. "Bread," which sounds a commonplace, plain-sailing

monosyllable in England, was the word that most delighted these good

ladies of Monastier; it seemed to them frolicsome and racy, like a page

of Pickwick; and they all got it carefully by heart, as a stand-by, I

presume, for winter evenings. I have tried it since then with every sort

of accent and inflection, but I seem to lack the sense of humour.

They were of all ages: children at their first web of lace, a stripling

girl with a bashful but encouraging play of eyes, solid married women,

and grandmothers, some on the top of their age and some falling towards

decrepitude. One and all were pleasant and natural, ready to laugh and

ready with a certain quiet solemnity when that was called for by the

subject of our talk. Life, since the fall in wages, had begun to appear

to them with a more serious air. The stripling girl would sometimes

laugh at me in a provocative and not unadmiring manner, if I judge

aright; and one of the grandmothers, who was my great friend of the

party, gave me many a sharp word of judgment on my sketches, my heresy,

or even my arguments, and gave them with a wry mouth and a humorous

twinkle in her eye that were eminently Scottish. But the rest used me

with a certain reverence, as something come from afar and not entirely

human. Nothing would put them at their ease but the irresistible gaiety

of my native tongue. Between the old lady and myself I think there was a

real attachment. She was never weary of sitting to me for her portrait,

in her best cap and brigand hat, and with all her wrinkles tidily

composed, and though she never failed to repudiate the result, she would

always insist upon another trial. It was as good as a play to see her

sitting in judgment over the last. "No, no," she would say, "that is not

it. I am old, to be sure, but I am better-looking than that. We must try

again." When I was about to leave she bade me good-bye for this life in

a somewhat touching manner. We should not meet again, she said; it was a

long farewell, and she was sorry. But life is so full of crooks, old

lady, that who knows? I have said good-bye to people for greater

distances and times, and, please God, I mean to see them yet again.

One thing was notable about these women, from the youngest to the

oldest, and with hardly an exception. In spite of their piety, they

could twang off an oath with Sir Toby Belch in person. There was nothing

so high or so low, in heaven or earth or in the human body, but a woman

of this neighbourhood would whip out the name of it, fair and square, by

way of conversational adornment. My landlady, who was pretty and young,

dressed like a lady and avoided _patois_ like a weakness, commonly

addressed her child in the language of a drunken bully. And of all the

swearers that I ever heard, commend me to an old lady in Gondet, a

village of the Loire. I was making a sketch, and her curse was not yet

ended when I had finished it and took my departure. It is true she had

a right to be angry; for here was her son, a hulking fellow, visibly the

worse for drink before the day was well begun. But it was strange to

hear her unwearying flow of oaths and obscenities, endless like a river,

and now and then rising to a passionate shrillness, in the clear and

silent air of the morning. In city slums, the thing might have passed

unnoticed; but in a country valley, and from a plain and honest

countrywoman, this beastliness of speech surprised the ear.

The _Conductor_, as he is called, _of Roads and Bridges_ was my

principal companion. He was generally intelligent, and could have spoken

more or less falsetto on any of the trite topics; but it was his

specialty to have a generous taste in eating. This was what was most

indigenous in the man; it was here he was an artist; and I found in his

company what I had long suspected, that enthusiasm and special knowledge

are the great social qualities, and what they are about, whether white

sauce or Shakespeare's plays, an altogether secondary question.

I used to accompany the _Conductor_ on his professional rounds, and grew

to believe myself an expert in the business. I thought I could make an

entry in a stone-breaker's time-book, or order manure off the wayside

with any living engineer in France. Gondet was one of the places we

visited together; and Laussonne, where I met the apothecary's father,

was another. There, at Laussonne, George Sand spent a day while she was

gathering materials for the "Marquis de Villemer"; and I have spoken

with an old man, who was then a child running about the inn kitchen, and

who still remembers her with a sort of reverence. It appears that he

spoke French imperfectly; for this reason George Sand chose him for

companion, and whenever he let slip a broad and picturesque phrase in

_patois_, she would make him repeat it again and again till it was

graven in her memory. The word for a frog particularly pleased her

fancy; and it would be curious to know if she afterwards employed it in

her works. The peasants, who knew nothing of letters and had never so

much as heard of local colour, could not explain her chattering with

this backward child; and to them she seemed a very homely lady and far

from beautiful: the most famous man-killer of the age appealed so little

to Velaisian swine-herds!

On my first engineering excursion, which lay up by Crouzials towards

Mount Mezenc and the borders of Ardeche, I began an improving

acquaintance with the foreman road-mender. He was in great glee at

having me with him, passed me off among his subalterns as the

supervising engineer, and insisted on what he called "the gallantry" of

paying for my breakfast in a roadside wine-shop. On the whole, he was a

man of great weather-wisdom, some spirits, and a social temper. But I am

afraid he was superstitious. When he was nine years old, he had seen one

night a company of _bourgeois et dames qui faisaient la manege avec des

chaises_, and concluded that he was in the presence of a witches'

Sabbath. I suppose, but venture with timidity on the suggestion, that

this may have been a romantic and nocturnal picnic party. Again, coming

from Pradelles with his brother, they saw a great empty cart drawn by

six enormous horses before them on the road. The driver cried aloud and

filled the mountains with the cracking of his whip. He never seemed to

go faster than a walk, yet it was impossible to overtake him; and at

length, at the corner of a hill, the whole equipage disappeared bodily

into the night. At the time, people said it was the devil _qui s'amusait

a faire ca_.

I suggested there was nothing more likely, as he must have some

amusement.

The foreman said it was odd, but there was less of that sort of thing

than formerly. "_C'est difficile_," he added, "_a expliquer_."

When we were well up on the moors and the _Conductor_ was trying some

road-metal with the gauge--

"Hark!" said the foreman, "do you hear nothing?"

We listened, and the wind, which was blowing chilly out of the east,

brought a faint, tangled jangling to our ears.

"It is the flocks of Vivarais," said he.

For every summer, the flocks out of all Ardeche are brought up to

pasture on these grassy plateaux.

Here and there a little private flock was being tended by a girl, one

spinning with a distaff, another seated on a wall and intently making

lace. This last, when we addressed her, leaped up in a panic and put out

her arms, like a person swimming, to keep us at a distance, and it was

some seconds before we could persuade her of the honesty of our

intentions.

The _Conductor_ told me of another herdswoman from whom he had once

asked his road while he was yet new to the country, and who fled from

him, driving her beasts before her, until he had given up the

information in despair. A tale of old lawlessness may yet be read in

these uncouth timidities.

The winter in these uplands is a dangerous and melancholy time. Houses

are snowed up, and wayfarers lost in a flurry within hail of their own

fireside. No man ventures abroad without meat and a bottle of wine,

which he replenishes at every wine-shop; and even thus equipped he takes

the road with terror. All day the family sits about the fire in a foul

and airless hovel, and equally without work or diversion. The father may

carve a rude piece of furniture, but that is all that will be done until

the spring sets in again, and along with it the labours of the field. It

is not for nothing that you find a clock in the meanest of these

mountain habitations. A clock and an almanack, you would fancy, were

indispensable in such a life....

EDINBURGH

PICTURESQUE NOTES

EDINBURGH

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

The ancient and famous metropolis of the North sits overlooking a windy

estuary from the slope and summit of three hills. No situation could be

more commanding for the head city of a kingdom; none better chosen for

noble prospects. From her tall precipice and terraced gardens she looks

far and wide on the sea and broad champaigns. To the east you may catch

at sunset the spark of the May lighthouse, where the Firth expands into

the German Ocean; and away to the west, over all the carse of Stirling,

you can see the first snows upon Ben Ledi.

But Edinburgh pays cruelly for her high seat in one of the vilest

climates under heaven. She is liable to be beaten upon by all the winds

that blow, to be drenched with rain, to be buried in cold sea fogs out

of the east, and powdered with the snow as it comes flying southward

from the Highland hills. The weather is raw and boisterous in winter,

shifty and ungenial in summer, and a downright meteorological purgatory

in the spring. The delicate die early, and I, as a survivor, among bleak

winds and plumping rain, have been sometimes tempted to envy them their

fate. For all who love shelter and the blessings of the sun, who hate

dark weather and perpetual tilting against squalls, there could scarcely

be found a more unhomely and harassing place of residence. Many such

aspire angrily after that Somewhere else of the imagination, where all

troubles are supposed to end. They lean over the great bridge which

joins the New Town with the Old--that windiest spot, or high altar, in

this northern temple of the winds--and watch the trains smoking out from

under them and vanishing into the tunnel on a voyage to brighter skies.

Happy the passengers who shake off the dust of Edinburgh, and have heard

for the last time the cry of the east wind among her chimney-tops! And

yet the place establishes an interest in people's hearts; go where they

will, they find no city of the same distinction; go where they will,

they take a pride in their old home.

Venice, it has been said, differs from all other cities in the sentiment

which she inspires. The rest may have admirers; she only, a famous fair

one, counts lovers in her train. And indeed, even by her kindest

friends, Edinburgh is not considered in a similar sense. These like her

for many reasons, not any one of which is satisfactory in itself. They

like her whimsically, if you will, and somewhat as a virtuoso dotes upon

his cabinet. Her attraction is romantic in the narrowest meaning of the

term. Beautiful as she is, she is not so much beautiful as interesting.

She is pre-eminently Gothic, and all the more so since she has set

herself off with some Greek airs, and erected classic temples on her

crags. In a word, and above all, she is a curiosity. The Palace of

Holyrood has been left aside in the growth of Edinburgh, and stands grey

and silent in a workman's quarter, and among breweries and gas works. It

is a house of many memories. Great people of yore, kings and queens,