THROUGH THE RAIN.
THOUGH the Englishman was not on hand in the morning, Madame, all the commercial gentlemen except Mephistopheles, the waiter, and the postman, who was just then passing, stood out on the street to see us start.—We carried away from St. Just not only pleasant recollections, but a handful of sticking labels of advertisement of the Cheval Blanc, which Madame pressed upon us as she shook hands.
The first place of note was Fitz-James, labelled in the convenient French fashion, its aggressive English name as unadaptable to foreign pronunciation as is English prejudice to foreign customs. There we pushed the tricycle to the other end of the town, then up the long hill into the principal street of Clermont, to find that the hill did not end with the pavé. There still remained a climb of two kilometres.
From the top of the hill outside of Clermont, six kilometres into Angy, we went with feet up as fast as the clouds, now ominously black. Of such a ride what should one remember save the rapid motion through fresh green country? Before we realised our pleasure we were in Angy, and then in Mouy, which is literally next door, and where we lunched at a café with as little loss of time as possible.—We hoped to get to Paris that night. We were determined to take the train at Beaumont, since there were forty-seven kilometres of pavé from that town to the capital.—In our first enthusiasm, before our troubles came upon us, we had declared that nothing, not even pavé, would induce us to forswear sentiment and go by train. But, thanks to the few kilometres we had already bumped over, we were wiser now. All the old travellers over the post-roads complain of the pavé. Mr. Sterne, as at Nampont, found it a hindrance to sentiment. Before his day, Evelyn lamented that if the country, where the roads are paved with a small square freestone, “does not much molest the traveller with dirt and ill way as in England, ’tis somewhat hard to the poor horses’ feet, which causes them to ride more temperately, seldom going out of the trot, or grand pas, as they call it.”
If it is so hard to horses’ feet, fancy what it must be to the tyres of a tricycle!
No sooner were we out of the town than the rain began. At first it was but a soft light shower. But it turned into a drenching pour just as we came into a grey thatch-roofed village. We took shelter by a stone wall under a tree. A woman offered to lend us her umbrella; we could send it back the next day, she insisted. This was the most disinterested benevolence shown us throughout the journey.
Presently we set out again, but only to retreat almost at once up a little vine-covered path leading to a cottage whose owner, when he saw us, invited us indoors. It seemed useless to wait, however. We had dragged the tricycle under the vines, but the rain dripped through and made the saddles wet and slippery. We thanked him kindly, put on our gossamers, and then plodded on through the driving rain over a sticky clay road. Now,
almost blinded, we worked up long ascents between woods and fields where indefatigable sportsmen frightened what birds there were. Now we rode through deserted villages and by dreary châteaux.—Occasionally the rain stopped, only to begin the next second with fresh force. Against it our gossamers were of no more avail than if they had been so much paper. In half-an-hour we were uncomfortably conscious that our only dry clothes were in the bag. As misfortunes never come singly, the luggage-carrier loosened and swung around to the left of the backbone. Every few minutes J—— was down in the mud setting it straight again. The water poured in streams from our hats. With each turn of the wheels we were covered with mud.
It was in this condition we rode into the streets of Neuilly. Men and women came to their doors and laughed as we passed.—This decided us. There is nothing that chills sentiment as quickly as a drenching and ridicule. We went to the railway station, to learn there would be no train for three hours. It was simply out of the question to wait in our wet clothes for that length of time. That it never once occurred to us to stay in the town overnight shows how poorly we thought of it. Back we went through the streets, again greeted with the same heartless laughter from every side. If I were a prophet I would send an army of bears to devour the people of Neuilly.
The rain, the mud, and the luggage-carrier had it their own way the rest of the afternoon. When we could we rode as if for our lives.—But every now and again we had to stop, that J—— might unlace his boots, take them off, and let the water run out of them. Of course no one was abroad. What sane men would have dared such weather? We met but one small boy driving a big cart in a zig-zag course, particularly aggravating because we were just then on a down-grade. This was the last affront that made the rest unbearable. J—— is not a man patient of injuries.——
“Million names of the name! Little fly!” he yelled, and the boy let us pass.
—When a turn in the road brought us out on the banks of the Oise, we were so wet that a plunge in its waters could not have made us wetter.—A grey town, climbing up to a grey church, rose on the opposite banks. We supposed it must be Beaumont. But indeed its name just then mattered little. Without stopping to identify it, we crossed the bridge and got down at the first inn we came to.
AN ENGLISH LANDLADY.
FORTUNATELY the town really was Beaumont, and the first inn tolerably decent—so decent we wondered as to our reception. With due respect for the clean floors, we waited humbly at the threshold until the landlady appeared.——
“We are very wet,” said I in French, as if this was not a self-evident truth.
“Oh!” said she in unmistakable insular English. “Fancy!”
—Here was a stroke of good luck! A Frenchwoman would have measured our respectability by our looks; an Englishwoman could judge us by our love for sport. She sent a boy with J—— to put away the tricycle, and bade me follow her. Where we had stood were two pools of water. She took my gossamer; a muddy stream ran down the passage. I made a wet trail wherever I went. I followed the landlady up two flights of stairs into a well-furnished bedroom. I thought that now our troubles were at an end. But when J—— joined me I found there were two more to add to the list.—It seemed that just as he unstrapped the bag the luggage-carrier snapped at the top. And still worse, the constant swinging of the carrier had worked the bag partly open, and half its contents were well soaked. We managed to get together a few dry flannels, and then piled the rest of our wardrobe, from hats to shoes, outside the door—a melancholy monument to our misfortunes. The landlady, returning just then with two glasses of hot brandy and water, promised to carry our clothes downstairs and have them dried at once.
So far, so good; but what was to be done next? To remain in our present thin attire meant certain colds, if nothing more serious. There was but one alternative, and we accepted it. When the landlady unceremoniously opened the door and saw us sitting up in the two little beds, solemnly staring at each other as we sipped the brandy and water, she was so embarrassed she forgot her English and broke out in French. It was fluent, but little else could be said for it. In a minute she was out of the room; in another she was knocking discreetly, and telling us there were dressing-gowns and shawls and slippers without at our service. She was of the opinion that bed was no place for us, and would not hear of our staying there. We must
come into her private sitting-room, where there was a fire. As a rule private sitting-rooms and fires in September are not insignificant items in a bill. But she would hear of no excuse, and waited by the door until we dressed, after a fashion.
I flattered myself that I, in her neat wrapper, with a little white ruffle in the neck, made quite a presentable appearance. J——’s costume, consisting of her husband’s dressing-gown and a short kilt improvised out of a plaid-shawl, was more picturesque, but less successful.—It was still so wet without that we found comfort in the great wood fire in her room. She gave us easy-chairs, one on either side, and for our entertainment produced Thornbury’s illustrated London. But we were more taken up in looking at each other, and were reasonably serious only when she was in the room.
At half-past six she announced dinner, adding that our clothes were not yet dry, though a large fire had been kindled for their express benefit. I looked at J——. No, it was simply impossible to appear at the table d’hôte with him in his present costume. Before I had time to tell him so——
“You can’t go down as you now are,” said he to me.
—The landlady was of the same mind, for a pretty little maid, coming in just then, laid the cloth on the table in the centre of the room. I thought of our bill the next morning. Private dining-rooms, like private sitting-rooms, are luxuries not to be had for nothing.
The dinner was good, and the little maid, be it said to her credit, behaved with great propriety. So long as she was in attendance she never once smiled. However, I cannot answer for her gravity on the other side of the door.
It was half-past eight when the landlady said good-night, assuring us everything would be ready early in the morning.—But we went to bed at once. The last thing we heard before we fell asleep was the rain still pouring into the waters of the Oise and upon the paved streets of Beaumont.
OVER THE PAVÉ.
NEXT morning, because we were to go by train, we realised the advantage of travelling by tricycle. Early as we were, our clothes, dry and clean, were in readiness. When we appeared in them in the public dining-room the maid at first did not recognise us.—I think it is well worth recording that our bill amounted to just twelve francs and fifty centimes, though all the items, even to the fire that dried our entire wardrobe, were mentioned separately.—After breakfast J—— carried the luggage-carrier to a blacksmith within a few doors of the hotel. The latter examined it, found the trouble to be but trifling, and accordingly treated it as such, to our later discomfiture. The rain had stopped, though the clouds were still heavy. There was nothing to detain us save the provoking fact that the train would not start for an hour. It was at these times we best appreciated the independence of cycling.
This delay gave us a chance to see something of Beaumont, a town we found interesting chiefly because it was there we crossed the route of Mr. Stevenson’s Inland Voyage. That whatever attractions it may possess do not appear on its surface, is shown by this book, since Mr. Stevenson, who on his way down the Oise must have paddled past, never even names Beaumont. Mr. Evelyn, who in the course of his travels went through it, merely mentions it, while our sentimental Master ignores it altogether. It would therefore seem more in his spirit to say as little about it as possible.
—We left the train at St. Denis, had the tricycle lifted out—always a trouble at way stations—only to be told the Ceinture was three-quarters of a mile nearer Paris, and that we could not carry the machine on it, since baggage-cars were never attached to the trains. The porter suggested we could walk to the first Ceinture station, and take the train to the Gare de Lyon. He would put the velocipede on another train that would carry it to the Gare du Nord. We could on our arrival return to the Gare du Nord and ride the velocipede across the city. If Monsieur was pleased to do this he would charge himself with the machine. This ingenious suggestion we dismissed with the contempt it deserved. Then he said there was nothing to do but to wait at St. Denis for the next train to Paris, due in an hour and a half.
I declare during that long wasted interval we did not as much as turn our heads on the side towards the Abbey. Richness of their treasury! Stuff and nonsense! Bating their jewels, which are all false, I would not give three sous for any one thing in it but Jaidas’ lantern; nor for that neither, only as it grows dark it might be of use. But on second thoughts I doubt if it would be much better than the lamp on the tricycle. Of course Mr. Tristram Shandy’s words are recognised at once? But then, why should I not use them if they set forth the sentiments that certainly would have been ours had we once remembered there was an Abbey at St. Denis?
PARIS.
CRACK, crack—crack, crack—crack, crack. So this is Paris! quoth we, continuing in the same mood, when, having at last reached the Gare du Nord, we went out on the street in search of a cab—So this is Paris!
The first, the finest, the most brilliant!
The cabmen at first would have nothing to do with us. Take that thing on their carriage indeed! Crack, crack—crack, crack—what a fuss they made! But at last, when chances of a fare grew less, they listened to our explanation that the cab was but for me and the bag.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Ten cafés within three minutes’ driving! To see Paris from a cab, as you cross the city from one station to another, is to conclude that Parisians do nothing but drink coffee. As if he had read my thoughts, and would confirm me in this opinion, the driver set me down in front of the large café of the Gare de Lyon.
Inside the station I waited with the usual crowd;—with slouchy, red-trousered soldiers and baggy Zouaves, old curés and one brand-new curé, young ladies with high heels and old women in caps, young men in straight-brimmed tall hats, and gendarmes in full uniform. At the end of an hour J—— joined me. He looked very warm, his clothes were well bespattered with mud, and the lamp was sticking out of his coat pocket.—Though the streets of Paris are no longer villainously narrow, it is, I am sure, as difficult as ever to turn a wheelbarrow in them, because of the recklessness of the drivers and the vileness of the pavé. At all events it is no easy matter to wheel a tricycle through the broadest boulevards. Still J—— had much to be thankful for. He was run into but twice, and only the luggage-carrier and the lamp were broken.
We lunched in the café. Some of the high-heeled young ladies and high-hatted young gentlemen were lunching there at the same time. They and the waiters stared at us too astonished to smile. It is true we, and more especially J——, had not the Parisian air. But stares were the only attentions we received. This made us glad we had decided not to stay several days in Paris in order to go on pilgrimage to Versailles. In the capital, apparently, knee-breeches were too conspicuous for comfort.—It was on business connected with his passport Mr. Sterne went to Versailles. We had no passport; therefore it would be absurd to follow him thither. This was our argument. But it seemed as if the farther we rode on our journey the more certain we were to make sentimental plans but to break them.
No; I cannot stop a moment to give you the character of the people—their genius, their manners, their customs, their laws, their religion, their government, their manufactures, their commerce, their finances, with all the resources and hidden springs that sustain them—qualified as I may be by spending three hours amongst them, and during all that time making these things the entire subject of my inquiries and reflections.
Still,—still we must away—the roads were paved; we could not ride; the train went at 12.15; ’twas almost noon when we finished our lunch.
The notice inside the station announced the departure of the train at a quarter past twelve; but on the platform a porter, pointing to a second official placard that changed the hour to twelve, hurried the tricycle into the baggage-car, and us into the first second-class carriage we came to. It seemed that notices were set up at the Gare de Lyon for the confusion of travellers! The carriage was empty save for a bag and one overcoat.
At the last moment—the train, in utter disregard of both notices, starting at five minutes after twelve—the owner of the bag jumped in. He gave us one glance, seized his property, and fairly fled.—I might have fancied we were not concerned in his flight had it not been for the sequel at Melun. Here at the station J——, with the bag, was out even before the train stopped. When I followed to the door the man was already on the platform. The moment I stepped out he stepped in, shut the door with a bang, and from the window watched our suspicious movements.—I wondered what he thought when he saw the tandem.
The porters and stationmaster immediately were for showing us the road to Barbizon. That the little village was our destination they had no doubt. Did they not see Monsieur’s portfolio?—They were mightily interested in the tricycle, and leaned over the railroad bridge above the road to watch it out of sight. But by shouting down useless parting directions, they made it seem as if they were there for our convenience rather than for their curiosity.—As for Melun, though it was of old a Roman town, and later was made famous by Abelard, I can say nothing of it, for the good reason that we at once turned our backs upon its pavé.