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 _café_ 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 _café_. 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 _réveilles_, 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 _café_ 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 _café_, 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 château_. 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--_ça serait
tout-à-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
ça_--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 Étreux: 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-Benoîte, when we arrived.




ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOÎTE

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 Français," which may rank among the most dissuasive
war-lyrics on record. It would not be possible to fight at all in such a
spirit. The bravest conscript would turn pale if such a ditty were
struck up beside him on the morning of battle; and whole regiments would
pile their arms to its tune.

If Fletcher of Saltoun is in the right about the influence of national
songs, you would say France was come to a poor pass. But the thing will
work its own cure, and a sound-hearted and courageous people weary at
length of sniveling over their disasters. Already Paul Déroulède has
written some manly military verses. There is not much of the
trumpet-note in them, perhaps, to stir a man's heart in his bosom; they
lack the lyrical elation, and move slowly; but they are written in a
grave, honourable, stoical spirit, which should carry soldiers far in a
good cause. One feels as if one would like to trust Déroulède with
something. It will be happy if he can so far inoculate his
fellow-countrymen that they may be trusted with their own future. And in
the meantime, here is an antidote to "French Conscripts" and much other
doleful versification.

We had left the boats over-night in the custody of one whom we shall
call Carnival. I did not properly catch his name, and perhaps that was
not unfortunate for him, as I am not in a position to hand him down with
honour to posterity. To this person's premises we strolled in the course
of the day, and found quite a little deputation inspecting the canoes.
There was a stout gentleman with a knowledge of the river, which he
seemed eager to impart. There was a very elegant young gentleman in a
black coat, with a smattering of English, who led the talk at once to
the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. And then there were three handsome
girls from fifteen to twenty; and an old gentleman in a blouse, with no
teeth to speak of, and a strong country accent. Quite the pick of
Origny, I should suppose.

The _Cigarette_ had some mysteries to perform with his rigging in the
coach-house, so I was left to do the parade single-handed. I found
myself very much of a hero whether I would or not. The girls were full
of little shudderings over the dangers of our journey. And I thought it
would be ungallant not to take my cue from the ladies. My mishap of
yesterday, told in an off-hand way, produced a deep sensation. It was
Othello over again, with no less than three Desdemonas and a sprinkling
of sympathetic senators in the background. Never were the canoes more
flattered, or flattered more adroitly.

"It is like a violin!" cried one of the girls in an ecstasy.

"I thank you for the word, mademoiselle," said I. "All the more since
there are people who call out to me that it is like a coffin."

"Oh 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-Benoîte by the river.




ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOÎTE

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 têtes 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, ça!_" 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.