XV.
From Moy to La Fère is a very short journey even by the river, but the canoeists had lingered till late afternoon before leaving the former place, which "invited to repose," and it was dark when they got to La Fère in their chronic state of dampness. "It was a fine night to be within doors over dinner, and hear the rain upon the windows." They had heard that the principal inn at the place was a particularly good one, and cheery pictures of their comfortable state there arose in their minds as they stowed their canoes and set forth into the town, which lies chiefly eastward of the river, and is enclosed by two great lines of fortification. But they reckoned without their hostess! The lady of the inn mistook them for pedlars, and rushed them back into the dismal night. "Out with you—out of the door!" she screeched. "Sortez! Sortez! Sortez par la porte!" Stevenson's picture of the incident is full of sly humour, but the feelings of the travellers must indeed have been poignant. "We have been taken for pedlars again," said the baronet, "Good God, what it must be to be a pedlar in reality!" says his companion of the pen. "Timon was a philanthropist alongside of him." He prayed that he might never be uncivil to a pedlar. But after all, it was for the best. That cosy inn would not have afforded the essayist such interesting matter for reflection as he found at "la Croix de Malte," a little working-class auberge at the other end of the town, where the Porte Notre-Dame gives exit to the straggling suburbs.
THE TOWN HALL, NOYON
HÔTEL DU NORD, NOYON
Where the travellers stayed
"The Hotel du Nord lights its secular tapers within a stone-cast of the church."—R. L. S.