The other day as I was taking my pleasure along a river called "The
River of Gold," from which one can faintly see the enormous mountains
which shut off Spain from Europe, as I walked, I say, along the Mail, or
ordered and planted quay of the town, I heard, a long way off, a man
singing. His singing was of that very deep and vibrating kind which
Gascons take for natural singing, and which makes one think of hollow
metal and of well-tuned bells, for it sounds through the air in waves;
the further it is the more it booms, and it occupies the whole place in
which it rises. There is no other singing like it in the world. He was
too far off for any words to be heard, and I confess I was too occupied
in listening to the sound of the music to turn round at first and notice
who it was that sang; but as he gradually approached between the houses
towards the river upon that happy summer morning, I left the sight of
the houses, and myself sauntered nearer to him to learn more about him
and his song.
I saw a man of fifty or thereabouts, not a mountaineer, but a man of the
plains--tall and square, large and full of travel. His face was brown
like chestnut wood, his eyes were grey but ardent; his brows were
fierce, strong, and of the colour of shining metal, half-way between
iron and silver. He bore himself as though he were still well able to
wrestle with younger men in the fairs, and his step, though extremely
slow (for he was intent upon his song), was determined as it was
deliberate. I came yet nearer and saw that he carried a few pots and
pans and also a kind of kit in a bag: in his right hand was a long and
polished staff of ashwood, shod with iron; and still as he went he
sang. The song now rose nearer me and more loud, and at last I could
distinguish the words, which, were, in English, these:
"Men that cook in copper know well how difficult is the cleaning of
copper. All cooking is a double labour unless the copper is properly
tinned."
This couplet rhymed well in the tongue he used, which was not Languedoc
nor even Béarnais, but ordinary French of the north, well chosen,
rhythmical, and sure. When he had sung this couplet once, glancing, as
he sang it, nobly upwards to the left and the right at the people in
their houses, he paused a little, set down his kit and his pots and his
pans, and leant upon his stick to rest. A man in white clothes with a
white square cap on his head ran out of a neighbouring door and gave him
a saucepan, which he accepted with a solemn salute, and then, as though
invigorated by such good fortune, he lifted his burdens again and made a
dignified progress of some few steps forward, nearer to the place in
which I stood. He halted again and resumed his song.
It had a quality in it which savoured at once of the pathetic and of the
steadfast: its few notes recalled to me those classical themes which
conceal something of dreadful fate and of necessity, but are yet
instinct with dignity and with the majestic purpose of the human will,
and Athens would have envied such a song. The words were these:
"All kinds of game, Izard, Quails, and Wild Pigeon, are best roasted
upon a spit; but what spit is so clean and fresh as a spit that has been
newly tinned?"
When he had sung this verse by way of challenge to the world, he halted
once more and mopped his face with a great handkerchief, waiting,
perhaps, for a spit to be brought; but none came. The spits of the town
were new, and though the people loved his singing, yet they were of too
active and sensible a kind to waste pence for nothing. When he saw that
spits were not forthcoming he lifted up his kit again and changed his
subject just by so pinch as might attract another sort of need. He
sang--but now more violently, and as though with a worthy protest:
Le lièvre et le lapin,
Quand c'est bien cuit, ça fait du bien.
That is: "Hare and rabbit, properly cooked, do one great good," and then
added after the necessary pause and with a gesture half of offering and
half of disdain: "But who can call them well cooked if the tinning of
the pot has been neglected?" And into this last phrase he added notes
which hinted of sadness and of disillusion. It was very fine.
As he was now quite near me and ready, through the slackness of trade,
to enter into a conversation, I came quite close and said to him, "I
wish you good day," to which he answered, "And I to you and the
company," though there was no company.