Before starting upon a long-thought-of voyage down the Dronne, I resolved
to make the canoe look as beautiful as possible, so that it might produce a
favourable impression upon the natives of the regions through which it was
going to pass. I had learnt from experience that when one can take the
edge off suspicion by giving one's self or one's belongings a respectable
appearance, that does not cost much, it is well to do it.
Therefore I sent the bare-footed Hélie, who always helped me when I had
any dirty work on hand, to buy some paint. Having first puttied up all the
cracks and crevices, we laid the paint on, and as the colour chosen was a
very pale green, the effect was anything but vulgar. When the boat was put
on the water again it looked like a floating willow-leaf of rather uncommon
size.
Now, between the river Isle, where I was, and the Dronne, where I wished
to be, there was an obstacle in the shape of some twelve miles of hilly
country. A light cart was accordingly hired to convey the canoe and
ourselves (I was accompanied on this adventure by an English boy named
Hugh, sixteen years old, and just let loose from school) to the point at
which I had decided to commence the voyage down-stream. We left at five in
the morning, when the sun was gilding the yellow tufts and the motionless
long leaves of the maize-field. When we were fairly off--the boat, in
which we were seated, stretching many feet in the rear of the very small
cart--the most anxious member of the party was the horse, for he had never
carried such a queer load as this before, and the novelty of the sensation
caused by the weight far behind completely upset his notions of propriety.
His conduct was especially strange while going up-hill, for then he would
stop short from time to time and make an effort to look round, as if
uncertain whether it was all a hideous dream, or whether he was really
growing out behind in the form of a crocodile.
The peasants whom we met on the road stood still and gazed with eyes and
mouths wide open until we were out of sight. They had never seen people
travelling in a boat before on dry land. When they heard we were English
all was explained: '_Ces diables d'Anglais sont capables de tout_.'
While crossing the country in this fashion we passed a spot on the highroad
where a man was getting ready to thresh his wheat. He had prepared the
place by spreading over it a layer of cow-dung, and levelling it with his
bare feet until it was quite smooth and hard. It is in this way that the
threshing-floors are usually made.
'You see that _type?_' said the young man who was driving, and who balanced
himself on the edge of a board.
'Yes.'
'Well, he owns more land than any other peasant about here, and is rich,
and yet, rather than turn a bit of his ground into a threshing-floor, he
brings his corn where you see him and threshes it upon the road.'
I said to myself that this man was not the first to discover that one
way to get on is to trespass as much as possible upon the rights of that
easy-going neighbour called the Public.
The hills between the two valleys were, for the most part, wooded with
natural forest, with a dense undergrowth of heather and gorse. As soon as
we began to descend towards the Dronne, the great southern broom, six or
eight feet high, was seen in splendid flower upon the roadside banks. We
found the Dronne at the village of Tocane St. Apre, and we launched the
boat below the mill about half a mile farther down-stream. Then, having
put on board a knapsack containing clothes, a valise filled chiefly with
provisions, several bottles of wine, one of rum (a safer spirit in France
than some others), and another of black coffee, made very strong, so that
it should last a long time, we took our first lunch in the boat, in the
cool shade of some old alders.
The wine had been already heated by the sun during the journey, but the
means of cooling it somewhat was near at hand. We hitched a couple of
bottles to the roots of the alders, with their necks just out of the water.
The young peasant who had driven us was invited to share our meal, and the
horse was left at the mill with a good feed of oats to comfort him and help
him to forget all the horrible suspicions that the boat had caused him. The
meal was simple enough, for we had brought no luxurious fare with us;
but the feeling of freedom and new adventure, the low song of the stream
running over the gravel in the shallows, the peace and beauty of the little
cove under the alders, made it more delightful than a sumptuous one with
other surroundings.
Everything went as smoothly as the deep water where the boat was chained,
until the spirit-lamp was lighted for warming the coffee. Then it was
discovered that the little saucepan had been forgotten. This was trying,
for when you have grown used to coffee after lunch you do not feel happy
without it, so long as there is a chance of getting it. It is exasperating
when you have the coffee ready made, but cannot warm it for want of a small
utensil. The peasant went to the mill to borrow a saucepan, and he brought
back one that was just what we wanted; at least, we thought so until the
coffee began to run out through a hole in the bottom. In vain we tried to
stop the leak with putty, which was brought in case the boat should spring
one; but after awhile it stopped itself--quite miraculously. Thus good
fortune came to our aid at the outset, and it looked like a fair omen of a
prosperous voyage.
We did not linger too long over this meal, for I had not come prepared to
pass the night either in the boat or on the grass, and I hoped to reach
Riberac in the evening. The bottles were put away in the locker, and what
was not eaten was returned to the valise. Then we parted company with the
young peasant, whose private opinion was that we should not go very far.
But he was mistaken; we went a long way, after encountering many serious
obstacles, as will be seen by-and-by.
The chain being pulled in, the boat glided off like the willow-leaf to
which I have already compared it. I sat on my piece of sliding board about
the middle, and Hugh sat on his piece of wood--which was the top of the
locker--in the stern. We both used long double-bladed paddles. In a few
seconds we were in the current, and in a few more were aground. Although
the canoe was flat-bottomed, it needed at least three inches of water to
float comfortably with us and the cargo. We were in a forest of reeds that
hid the outer world from us, and we had left the true current for another
that led us to the shallows. But this little difficulty was quickly
overcome, and I soon convinced myself that, notwithstanding the dearth of
water after the long drought, it was quite possible to descend the Dronne
from St. Apre in a boat such as mine.
Now, as there was no wager to make me hurry, and my main purpose in giving
myself all the trouble that lay before me was to see things, I put my
paddle down, and leaving Hugh to work off some of his youthful ardour for
navigation, I gave myself up for awhile to the spell of this most charming
stream. Its breadth and its depth were constantly changing, and in a truly
remarkable manner. Now it was scarcely wider than a brook might be, and was
nearly over-arched by its alders and willows; now it widened out and
sped in many a flashing runnel through a broad jungle of reeds where the
blistering rays of the sun beat down with tropical ardour; then it slept in
pools full of long green streamers that waved slowly like an Undine's hair.
Here and there all about stood the waxen flowers of sagittaria above the
barbed floating leaves, cool and darkly green. Close to the banks the tall
and delicately branching water-plantains, on which great grasshoppers
often hang their shed skins, were flecked with pale-pink blooms-flowers of
biscuit-porcelain on hair-like stems.
The splashing of a water-wheel roused me from my idle humour. We had
reached--much too quickly--our first mill-dam. It was a very primitive sort
of dam, formed of stakes and planks, but chiefly of brambles, dead wood
and reeds that had floated down and lodged there. Then began the tugging,
pushing, and lifting, to be continued at irregular intervals for several
days. The canoe was less than three feet wide in the middle, but it was
more than six yards long, and this length, although it secured steadiness
and greatly reduced the risk of capsizing in strong rapids or sinister
eddies, brought the weight up to about 170 lb., without reckoning the
baggage, which was turned out upon the grass or on the stones at each weir.
After passing the first obstacle, we floated into one of those long deep
pools which lend a peculiar charm to the Dronne. Usually covered in summer
with white or yellow lilies--seldom the two species together--these and
other plants that rejoice in the cool liquid depths show their scalloped
or feathery forms with perfect distinctness far below the surface of the
limpid water.
Here, O idle water-wanderer, let your boat glide with the scarcely moving
current, and gaze upon the leafy groves of the sub-aqueous wilderness lit
up by the rays of the sun, and watch the fish moving singly or in shoals
at various depths--the bearded barbel, the spotted trout, the shimmering
bream, and the bronzen tench. Watch, too, the speckled water-snakes gliding
upon the gravel or lurking like the ancient serpent in mimic gardens of
Eden. Mark all the varied life and wondrous beauty of nature there. Above
all, do not hurry, for little is seen by those who hasten on.
At a weir of sticks and stones forming a rather wide dam, overgrown by tall
hemp-agrimony now in flower, we met with our first difficulty. There was no
overflow to help us, for in this time of drought the mill-wheel needed all
the stream to turn it; so the boat had to be lifted over the stakes and
stones. Into the water we had to go, and boots and socks, being now put
aside, were not worn again for five days, except when we went ashore in the
evening, and had to make an effort to look respectable.
The dam being passed, the boat shot down a rapid current; then, as the bed
widened out and the water stilled, we were hidden from the world by reeds,
through which we had to force a way while the sun smote us and frizzled us.
Countless dragonflies flashed their brilliant colours as they whirled and
darted, green frogs plunged at our approach from their diving-boards of
matted rush, or quirked defiance from the banks where they were safe; and
now and again a startled kingfisher showed us the blue gleam of a wing
above the brown maces of the bulrushes and the high-hanging tassels of the
sedges.
The bell of an unseen church a long way off sounded the mid-day angelus,
and told that we had not drifted so far as it appeared from the peopled
world. Leaving the reeds, we passed again into the shade of alders that
stretched their gnarled, fantastic roots far over the babbling or dreaming
water, and thence again amongst the sunny reeds. And so the hours went by,
and there were no villages, or even houses, to be seen, but the little
rough mills beside the slowly toiling wheel, which in most cases seemed to
be the only living thing there. Once, however, there was a naked child,
very brown, and as round as a spider between the hips and the waist,
playing upon a flowery bank above the mother, who wore a brilliant-coloured
kerchief on her head, and who knelt beside the water as she rinsed the
little elfs shirt. I thought the picture pretty enough to make a note of
it. This caused some contemptuous surprise to my companion in the back of
the boat--not yet alive to the innocent cunning of the artist and writer,
for he asked me, in the descriptive language of the British schoolboy:
'Are you going to stick down _that?_'
On we went, turning and turning, gliding into nooks that seemed each more
charming than the other, and having a constant succession of delightful
surprises, interrupted only by the mill-dams, which were distressingly
frequent.
The hot hours stole away or passed into the mellowness of evening, and the
marsh-mallows that fringed the stream were looking coolly white when
we drew near to Riberac. The water widened and deepened, and we met a
pleasure-boat, vast and gaudy, recalling some picture of Queen Elizabeth's
barge on the Thames. Under an awning sat a bevy of ladies in bright
raiment, pleasant to look at, and in front of them were several young men
valiantly rowing, or, rather, digging their short sculls into the water,
as if they were trying to knock the brains out of some fluvial monsters
endeavouring to capture the youth and loveliness under the awning.
Having reached that part of the river which was nearest Riberac, I had to
find a place where the boat could be left, and where it would be safe from
the enterprise of boys--a bad invention in all countries. It is just,
however, to the French boy to say that he is not quite so fiendish out of
doors as the English one; but he makes things even by his conduct at home,
where he conscientiously devotes his animal spirits to the destruction of
his too-indulgent parents.
My difficulty was solved by a kind butcher, whose garden ran down to the
water. He let me chain the boat to one of his trees, and he took our fowl,
which was intended for lunch next day, and put it into his meat-safe--an
excellent service, for the drainage of his slaughter-house, emptying into
the river by the side of the boat, was enough to make even a live fowl lose
its freshness in a single night. We were soon settled in a comfortable inn
that prided itself, not without reason, upon its _cuisine_. Here we had a
_friture_ of gudgeons from the Dronne, which is famous throughout a wide
region for the quality of these and other fish.
The next morning I bought a saucepan, a melon, and grapes--which were
already ripe, although the date was the 9th August. Thus laden, we returned
to the boat and to the kindly butcher, who gave us our fowl wrapped up, not
in a newspaper as we had left it, but in a sheet of spotless white paper.
Having refilled our bottles, some with water, others with wine, we parted
from our hospitable acquaintance with pleasant words, and were afloat again
before the hour of eight. We had a serious wetting at the first weir, but
were dry again before we stopped to lunch. This time we landed, and chose
our spot in a beautiful little meadow, where an alder cast its shade upon
the bank. It was far from all habitations, but had the case been otherwise,
there would have been no danger of our being disturbed by a voice from
behind saying: 'You have no right to land here,' or, 'You are trespassing
in this field.'
Now, this little meadow was, except where the river ran by it, enclosed by
a high hedge, just as one in England might be, and although it was some
four hundred miles south of Paris, and the season had been exceptionally
dry, the grass was brightly green. Just below us was the clear river,
fringed with sedges, sprinkled all over with yellow lilies; beyond this
were other meadows, and then rose towards the cloudless sky the line of
wooded hills. There was a great quietude that nothing broke, save the
splash of a rising fish and the chorus of grasshoppers in the sunny
herbage. Here we stayed a good hour and warmed our coffee tranquilly in the
new saucepan, which afterwards proved very useful for baling purposes. Then
I smoked the pipe of peace, and felt tempted to tarry in this pleasant
place; but Hugh roused me to action by talking of fishing.
A few minutes later we were again on our voyage. Not far below was another
mill-dam of sticks and stones, and when this was passed the river widened
so that it flowed round a little island covered with alders and purple
loosestrife, and girt by a broad belt of white water-lilies. At the next
weir, which was troublesome, we were helped by the miller and his brother,
while a pretty young woman of about twenty, who stood with bare feet, short
skirt, uncovered stays, open chemise, and a linen sun-bonnet of the pattern
known in England, looked on with a fat baby in her arms. These helpful
people refilled our water-bottles, and watched us with interest until we
were out of sight.
Reeds again--innumerable reeds--through which we had to drag the canoe, for
we had somehow lost the current. Arrow-head and prickly bur-reed, great
rushes and sedges--a joy to the marsh botanist by the variety of their
species--stood against us in serried phalanxes, saying: 'Union is strength;
we are weak when alone, but altogether we will give you some work that you
will remember.' And they did so before we left them behind. Now, above the
lily-spotted water, deep and clear, showed a little cluster of houses on a
low cliff, and below these, close to the river, an old pigeon-house with
pointed roof.
To finish the picture, a narrow wooden bridge supported by poles stretching
downward at all angles, like the legs of an ungainly insect, had been
thrown across the stream. And here a great flock of geese, horrified at so
unwonted an apparition as the pale green boat and the paddles in fantastic
movement, were holding a hasty council of war, which we broke up before
they came to a decision.
The flow of water in the river had been perceptibly increased by
tributaries, and now, after each mill, the current was strong enough to
take us down for a mile or two at a quick rate. The little boat danced
gaily in the rapids. The great heat of the day had gone, and the light was
waning, when we mistook an arm of the river for the main stream, and found
ourselves at length in a little gully, very dim with overarching foliage,
and where the sound of rushing water grew momentarily louder.
It was all one to Hugh whether he got turned out or not, but I had lived
long enough not to like the vision of a roll in the stream at the end of
the day, with baggage swamped, if not lost. Therefore I chained up the
boat, and went to examine the rapids. I found the stream in great turmoil,
where it rushed over hidden rocks, and in the centre was a wave about three
feet high, that rose like a curve of clear green glass, but turned white
with anger, and broke into furious foam, as it fell into the basin below.
Having ascertained that the rock was sufficiently under water, I decided
that we would take our chance in the current after turning out the baggage.
We kept right in the centre. It was an exciting moment as we touched the
wave. The canoe made a bound upwards, then plunged into the boiling torrent
below. A moment more and we were out of all risk. So swift was the passage
that scarcely a gallon of water was taken in. Having put the baggage back,
we continued our voyage towards the unknown, for I knew not whither this
stream was going to take us. About a mile or two farther down, however, it
joined the river, which here seemed very wide. It was marvellous to find
that the brook of yesterday had grown to this; a circumstance to be
explained, however, by the number of springs that rise in its bed.
The scene was beyond all description beautiful. The wooded banks, the calm
water, the islands of reeds and sedges, the pure white lilies that scented
the air and murmured softly as the boat brushed their snowy petals, were
all stained with the blood of the dying sun. For a moment I saw the upper
rim of the red disc between the trunks of two trees far away that seemed to
grow taller and more sombre; then came the twilight with its purple tones.
The colours faded, darkness crept over the valley, and the water, losing
its transparency, looked unfathomably deep, and mirrored with tenfold power
all the fantastic gloom of the leaning alders, and the weird forms of the
hoary willows. And there was no light or sound from any town or village,
nor even from a lonely cottage. I had expected to reach at sundown the
little town of Aubeterre, in the department of the Charente, but all ideas
of distance based upon a map are absurdly within the mark when one follows
the course of a winding river, and the information of the inhabitants is
equally misleading, for they always calculate distances by the road.
When we reached the next weir there was very little light left, so, without
attempting to pass it, we paddled down to the mill. It was kept by three
brothers, who treated us with much kindness and attention. I learnt that we
were not far from the village of Nabinaud in the Charente, where there was
a small inn at which it would be possible to pass the night.
Aubeterre was still some miles off by water, and there were weirs to
overcome. Tired out, with legs and feet scraped and scratched by stones and
stumps, and smarting still more from sun-scorch, we were glad enough to
find a sufficient reason for getting out of the boat here.
One of the brothers carried politeness so far--I saw from the importance
of the mill that remuneration was not to be thought of--as to walk about a
mile uphill in order to show the inn and to see us settled in it. Then he
left, for I could not prevail upon him to sit down and chink glasses.
It was but a cottage-inn on the open hillside, and I doubt if the
simple-minded people who kept it would have accepted us for the night but
for the introduction. Husband and wife gave up their room to us, and where
they went themselves I could not guess, unless it was to the loft or
fowl-house. They were surprised, almost overcome, by the invasion, the
like of which had never happened to them before; but they showed plenty of
goodwill.
All that could be produced in the way of dinner was an omelet, some fried
ham, very fat and salt, and some _grillons_-a name given to the residue
that is left by pork-fat when it has been slowly boiled down to make lard.
The people of Guyenne think much of their _grillons_ or _fritons_. I
remember a jovial-faced innkeeper of the South telling me that he and
several members of his family went to Paris in a party to see the
Exhibition of 1889, and that they took with them _grillons_ enough to keep
them going for a week, with the help of bread and wine, which they were
compelled to buy of the Parisians, Had they done all that their provincial
ideas of prudence dictated, they would have taken with them everything that
was necessary to the sustenance of the body during their absence from home.
The best part of our meal must not be forgotten; it was salad,
fresh-plucked from the little garden enclosed by a paling, well mixed with
nut-oil, wine-vinegar, and salt. Then for dessert there was abundance of
grapes and peaches.
The little room in which we slept, or, to speak more correctly, where I
tried to sleep, had no ornament except the Sunday clothes of the innkeeper
and his wife hanging against the walls. Next to it was the pigsty, as the
inmates took care to let me know by their grunting. Had I wished to escape
in the night without paying the bill, nothing would have been easier, for
the window looked upon a field that was about two feet below the sill.
I opened this window wide to feel the cool air, and long after Hugh went to
sleep, with the willingness of his sixteen years, I sat listening to the
crickets and watching the quiet fields and sky, which were lit up every few
seconds by the lightning flash of an approaching storm--still too far away,
however, to blur even with a cloudy line the tranquil brilliancy of the
stars.
Leaving the window open, I lay down upon the outer edge of the bed, but to
no purpose. In the first place, I am never happy on the edge of a narrow
bed, and then sleep and I were on bad terms that night. The lightning,
growing stronger, showed my host's best trousers hanging against the
whitewashed wall, and from the pigsty came indignant snorts in answer to
the deepening moan of the thunder; but the crickets of the house sang after
their fashion of the hearth and home, and those outside of the great joy of
idleness in the summer fields. From a bit of hedge or old wall came now and
then the clear note of a fairy-bell rung by a goblin toad.
I lit the candle again, and elfish moths, with specks of burning charcoal
for eyes, dashed at me or whirled and spun about the flame. One was a most
delicately-beautiful small creature, with long white wings stained with
pink. Thus I spent the night, looking at the sights and listening to the
sounds of nature; which is better than to lie with closed eyes quarrelling
with one's own brain.
We left with a boy carrying a basket of grapes and peaches, also wine to
refill the empty bottles in the boat. On my way down the hill, I stopped
at the ruin of a mediaeval castle that belonged to Poltrot de Méré, the
assassin of the Due de Guise. All this country of the Angoumois, even
more than Périgord, is full of the history of the religious wars of the
sixteenth century. The whole of the southwestern region of France might be
termed the classic ground of atrocities committed in the name of religion.
Simon de Montfort's Crusaders and the Albigenses, after them the Huguenots
and the Leaguers, have so thickly sown this land with the seed of blood,
to bear witness through all time to their merciless savagery, that the
unprejudiced mind, looking here for traces of a grand struggle of ideals,
will find little or nothing but the records of revolting brutality.
There is nothing left of Poltrot de Méré's stronghold but a few fragments
of wall much overgrown with ivy and brambles. In order to get a close view
of these I had to ask permission of the owner of the land--an elderly man,
who looked at me with a troubled eye, and while he wished to be polite,
considered it his duty to question me concerning my 'quality' and motives.
I knew what was in his mind: a foreigner, a spy perchance, was going about
the country, taking notes of fortified places.
It was true that this fortress, nearly hidden by vegetation, was no longer
in a state to withstand a long siege, but who could tell what importance
it might have in the eyes of a foreign Power traditionally credited with
a large appetite for other people's property? However, he was not an
ill-natured man, and when I had talked to him a bit, he moved his hand
towards the ruin with quite a noble gesture, and told me that I was free to
do there anything I liked. Had I been a snake-catcher, I might have done a
good deal there.
We were afloat again before the sun had begun to warm an apple's ruddy
cheek; but already the white lips of the water-lilies were wide-parted,
as the boat slid past or through their colonies upon the reedy river. We
glided under brambled banks, overtrailed with the wild vine; then the
current took us round and about many an islet of reeds and rushes where the
common _phragmites_ stood ten or twelve feet high; and now by other banks
all tangled with willow-herb, marsh-mallow, and loose-strife. Over the
clear water, and the wildernesses of reeds and flowers, lay the mild
splendour of the morning sunshine. But the blissful minutes passed too
quickly; all the tones brightened to brilliancy, and by ten o'clock the
rays were striking down again with torrid ardour.
We had lunched amongst the reeds under a clump of alders, and were paddling
on again, when the massive walls and tower of a vast fortress of old time
appeared upon the top of a steep hill, rising above all other hills that
were visible, and at the foot of the castle rock were many red roofs of
houses that seemed to be nestled pleasantly in a spacious grove of trees.
Above all was the dazzling blue of the sky. A truly southern picture,
flaming with shadeless colour, and glittering with intense whiteness. We
were reaching Aubeterre.
We beached the canoe beside a meadow, opposite a spot where about twenty
women were washing clothes, their noses very near the water. They were
mightily surprised to see us suddenly arrive in our swift boat. All the
heads came up together, and the rest went down.
We walked into a riverside inn, and there I made friends with the innkeeper
over one or two bottles of beer--there was an innocent liquor so called on
sale at Aubeterre. The _aubergiste_ was rather down on his luck, for some
mill at which he had been employed had gone wrong financially, and the
wheels thought it no longer worth while to turn round. He therefore
undertook to show us the way to everything that ought to be seen at
Aubeterre.
He led us up a steep winding road where the sun smote furiously, where
there was no shade, and where the dust was so hot that it might have
roasted an egg, if the person waiting for it was in no great hurry. We had
gone a very little way, when Hugh proposed to return and mount guard over
the boat, for whose safety he had become unreasonably anxious. On reaching
the steep little town there was more shade, because the streets were
narrow, but the rough pitching of cobble-stones was very bad for feet so
sore as ours, and so swollen that the boots into which we managed to force
them before leaving the river were now several sizes too small.
We stopped at the parish church, but not so long as I should have, had I
been a lonely wayfarer without anybody to guide me. It is a delightful
example of a Romanesque style that is found much repeated in Périgord,
Angoumois, and the Bordelais. The great interest lies in the façade, which
dates from the eleventh century. Here we have a large central portal, and
on each side of it, what the architectural design supposes to be a smaller
one, but which in reality is only a sham doorway. The slender columns
of the jambs, and the archivolts filled in with little figures, sacred,
fantastic, and grotesque, are there, as in connection with the central
arch; but all this has only an ornamental purpose. The spectator who is
at all interested in ecclesiastical architecture will examine with much
delight the elaborate mouldings and the strangely-suggestive forms of
men, beasts, birds, shapes fantastic and chimerical, which ornament these
Romanesque doorways.
But this church has not the interest of singularity which belongs to
another at Aubeterre--that of St. John. It is, or was, truly a church, and
yet it is not an edifice. Like one at St. Émilion, it is monolithic in the
sense that those who made it worked upon the solid rock with pick, hammer,
and chisel; in which way they quarried out a great nave with a rough apse
terminating in the very bowels of the hill. On one side of the nave, enough
has been left of the rock to form four immense polygonal piers, whose upper
part is lost to sight in the gloom, until the eye grows somewhat reconciled
to the glimmer of day, which, stealing in through openings in the cliff,
is drowned in darkness before it reaches the hollow of the apse. On the
opposite side is a high gallery cut in the rock in imitation of the
triforium gallery. The row of piers separates the church proper from what
was for centuries the cemetery of Aubeterre: a vast burrow made by the
living for the reception of the dead, where they were plunged out of the
sunlight teeming with earthly illusion and phantasy, to await the breaking
of the great dawn.
Not a spring violet nor a gaudy flower of summer gave to the air the
perfume, or to the earth the colour of sweet life, to soothe and lighten
the dreariness of the dead: such thoughts in the Middle Ages would have
been almost pagan. Then the darkness of death was like the darkness of
night here in this necropolis hewn in the side of the ancient rock, whose
very substance is made up chiefly of other and older forms of life.
Moreover, the hope that was then so firmly fixed beyond the grave was the
hope of rest--everlasting repose--after so much tossing and battling upon
the sea of life. The palmer dying of weariness by the wayside, and the
Crusader of his wounds upon the blood-soaked sand, could imagine no more
blessed reward from the '_dols sire Jhésu_' for all their sacrifice of
sleep, and other pain endured for their souls' sake, than a 'bed in
paradise.' To me it seemed that had I lived seven centuries ago, I should,
when dying, have been so weak as to beg my friends not to lay my body in
the awful gloom of this sepulchral cavern, there to remain until the end of
time. But the mediaeval mind, having better faith, appeared to be moved by
no such solicitude for the lifeless body.
If there are ghostly people who haunt the earth, and have their
meeting-places for unholy revel, what a playground this must be for them at
the witching hour! It is enough to make one's hair stand on end to think of
what may go on there when the sinking moon looks haggard, and the owls
hoot from the abandoned halls open to the sky of the great ruin above. The
burying went on within the rock until thirty years ago, and the skulls that
grin there in the light of the visitor's candle, and all the other bones
that have been dug up and thrown in heaps, would fill several waggons. It
was with no regret that I went out into the hot and brilliant air, and
left for ever these gloomy vaults, with their dismal human relics and that
penetrating odour of the earth that once moved and spoke, which dwells in
every ancient charnel-house.
Now we climbed to the top of the calcareous and chalky hill and made the
round of the castle wall. We could not enter, because by ill-luck the owner
had gone away, and had not left the keys with anybody. This was especially
disappointing to me, because my imagination had been worked upon by
the stories I had heard of the subterranean passages leading from this
fifteenth-century stronghold far under the hill, and which had not been
thoroughly explored since the castle was abandoned. The innkeeper assured
me that during an exploration that was being made in one of them the
candles went out, and that nobody had attempted again to reach the end of
the mysterious gallery.
I may observe here that people in this part of France have such a strong
horror of passages underground, which they commonly believe to be inhabited
by snakes and toads--an abomination to them--that it is just possible
the candles of which the _aubergiste_ spoke may have been put out by the
superior brilliancy of the meridional imagination.
The time spent in this interesting little town that lies quite off all
beaten tracks made the prospect of arriving that night at St. Aulaye, the
next place by the river, look rather doubtful. We re-started, however, with
the knowledge that we had still several hours of daylight before us. The
voyage now became more exciting, and likewise more fatiguing. Mills were
numerous, and the weirs changed completely in character. The simple dam of
sticks and stones, with a drop of only two or three feet on the lower side,
disappeared, and in its place we had a high well-built weir, with a fall of
eight or ten feet. Fortunately, there was generally enough water running
over to help us, and not enough to threaten shipwreck. The manoeuvre,
however, had to be quite altered. The boat had to be thrust or drawn
forward until it hung several feet over the edge of the weir, then a quick
push sent it down stern first into the water, while I held the chain, which
was fastened to the other end. Then Hugh, saucepan in hand, let himself
down by the chain, sometimes in a cascade, and baled out the water taken
in. Finally, when all the traps had been collected from the dry places
where they had been laid and were handed down, I had to get into the boat
and bring the chain with me. It was a movement that had to be learnt before
it could be done gracefully and surely, and at the second weir of this
kind, where there was a considerable rush of water, in stepping on board I
lost my balance, and rolled into the river. It was, however, not the first
bath that I had received in my clothes since starting upon this expedition,
and the inconvenience of being wet to the skin was now one that troubled
neither of us much. We were dry again in two hours, if no similar
misadventure happened in the meantime.
It was an afternoon full of misfortune. We lost the spirit-lamp and
the best dinner knife, and, what was far more precious to me, the most
companionable of sticks--one that had walked with me hundreds of miles.
It was once a young oak growing upon the stony _causse_. A friendly baker
hardened it over the embers of his oven, and a cunning blacksmith put
a beautiful spike at one end of it, which became the terror of dogs
throughout Guyenne.
Evening stole quietly upon us with a stormy yellow glow; then little clouds
turned crimson overhead. Onward went the boat through the reeds in the rosy
light, onward over the purpling water. It was nearly night when we caught
sight of the houses of St. Aulaye upon a hill.
Presently the wailing of water was heard, by which we knew that another
weir was near. Instead of trying to pass it, we went on down the
mill-stream, my intention being to leave the canoe with the miller and walk
to the town.
Now the gentle miller, after accepting the custody of the boat, held a
rapid consultation with his wife on the threshold of his dwelling, and as
we were moving off to look for a hostelry, he limped up to me--he had a leg
that seemed as stiff as a post--and said:
'If _ces messieurs_ would like to stop here to-night, we will do our best
for them. We have little to offer, for we do not keep an inn, and are only
simple people; but _ces messieurs_ are tired perhaps, and would rather stay
near their boat.'
Although it was dark, I quite realized what a disreputable figure I made,
with my bare red feet, muddy flannels, and my straw hat, which, after
taking many baths and being dried as often by the sun, had come to have the
shape of almost everything but a hat. I had, therefore, grave doubts of
my ability to inspire any respectable innkeeper with confidence, and I
resolved at once to accept the offer that had been so unexpectedly made.
The spot where we were to pass the night was decidedly sombre, for there
were trees around that cast a dark shadow, and there was the incessant cry
of unseen, troubled water; but from the open door of the low house that
adjoined the mill there flashed a warm light, and, as we entered, there was
the sight, which is ever grateful to the tired wanderer, of freshly-piled
sticks blazing upon the hearth. The room was large, and the flickering
oil-lamp would have left it mostly in shadow had it not been helped by the
flame of the fire. The walls were dark from smoke and long usage, for this
was a very old mill. There was no sign of plenty, save the chunks of fat
bacon which hung from the grimy rafters. There were several children, and
one of them, almost a young woman, went out with a basket to buy us some
meat. We had not a very choice meal, but it was a solid one. It commenced
with a big tureen of country soup, made of all things, but chiefly of
bread, and which Hugh, with his ideas newly-shaped in English moulds,
described as 'stodgey.' Then came an omelet, a piece of veal, and a dish
of gudgeons. I am sorry to add that these most amusing little bearded fish
were dropped all alive into the boiling nut-oil.
Although our bedroom was immediately overhead, we had to pass through the
mill to reach it, and the journey was a roundabout one. The lame miller was
our guide, and on our way we learnt the cause of his lameness. About a year
before he had been caught up by some of his machinery and mangled in a
frightful manner. We came to a brick wall plastered over, and a little
below a shaft that ran through it was a ragged hole nearly three feet in
diameter.