A Brace Of Blunders By A Roving Englishman.
I arrived at Bayonne from Paris, by the Malle-Poste, one glorious morning. How well I remember it! The courier, who used to play an important part in the economy of the old French Malle-Poste, was the most irritable man I ever saw. He quarreled with every one and every thing on the road. I fancy that he was liable to some slight penalty in case of reaching Bayonne later than a given hour; but had the penalty been breaking on the wheel, he could not have been more anxious to drive at full speed. Here let me note, by the way, that the pace of a French courier, in the good old times, was the most tremendous pace at which I have ever traveled behind horses. It surpassed the helter-skelter of an Irish mail. The whole economy of the Malle-Poste was curious. No postillion ever drove more than one stage: mortal arms could not have continued flogging any farther. The number of the horses was indefinite—now there were four; presently, five, or six, or seven; four again, or eight; all harnessed with broken bits of rope and wonders of fragmentary tackle. The coach-box, on which the postillion used to sit, was the minutest iron perch to which the body of a man could hook itself. The coach itself was britzka-shaped, with room for two. It was in this conveyance that I traveled over the frightful hills between Bordeaux and Bayonne. When we neared any descent a mile or two long, the postillion regularly tied the reins loosely to some part of the frail box, seized the whip, and flogged, and shouted, until down we went with a great rush, dashing and rocking from side to side while my irate friend, the courier, plied a sort of iron drag or rudder, with the enthusiastic gestures of a madman. Watching my time, when, after one of these frantic bouts, my friend sank back exhausted, and quite hoarse with all his roaring, I quietly offered him a bunch of grapes, which I had bought at Tours. Their grateful coolness made the man my friend eternally, but had I offered him a captain's biscuit at that moment I could not have answered for the consequences. So much depends on judgment in the timing of a gift!
On arriving at Bayonne, the first notable thing I saw was a gendarme, who asked me for my passport. I had none. He looked grave, but I, young in travel, pushed him aside cavalierly, and bade my servant, who had arrived the day before, see to my luggage. The cocked hat followed me into the inn, but bidding it be off, I walked into a private sitting-room, in which a bed was a prominent article of furniture. I ordered for my breakfast some broiled ham and eggs, and was informed that I could not have ham, though in Bayonne. I should be served with chocolate and sugar-sticks, pump-water, and milk-bread. While breakfast was preparing, the cocked hat arrested me, and marched me off to the police-office.
“Your passport?” said the Inspector.
“My breakfast,” said I.
“You are under arrest,” said the Inspector.
Then I referred to the consul, with whom I had a sort of second-hand acquaintance, and who offered to provide me with a passport; but his offer was declined. I was conducted to the prefêt. The prefêt transferred me to the Procureur du Roi, whom I unhappily disturbed when he was sitting down to breakfast. I apologized for my unavoidable intrusion.
“Pray don't mention it,” said he; “I take cold fish for breakfast, and iced coffee;” so he sat down and listened to my tale, and said that I must be detained.
“Impossible!” I cried. “I have sent on my money and baggage to Madrid.”
“Many political agitators have slipped through Bayonne,” replied the procureur. “Write to Lord Hervey. When a passport comes for you from Paris you can pass the frontier; not before.”
Of course he said he was “desolated,” as he bowed me out. I was at liberty to reside at the hôtel, under the lackeyship of two gendarmes, who waited on me night and day. A crowd had gathered to witness my return from the house of the procureur, and ladies thronged the balconies. Rumor had, in fact, created me Conde de Montemolin!
Henceforth, until my passport came, I was peeped at through all manner of doors by all manner of men, and encountered accidentally in passages by all manner of women; one band hindered me from sleeping in my bed, another played to me at dinner, and both expected payment for their services, until the passport came, and brought me so much degradation as enabled me to step, uncared for, into the common diligence, and travel on.
It has occurred to many other people to be mistaken in some such way, and more than once it has occurred to people to make, on their own account, a certain blunder, which Goldsmith has immortalized. This blunder, I, when I ought to have known better, was incautious enough one day to commit....
In the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-eight, I was engaged in a tour through the by-ways of Germany, on horseback. During this tour I found myself, one summer morning, drawing near to the small town of Maikommen, in the Palatinate. Though the dawn had been cloudless, the noon threatened a storm, and already the big drops struck on the ground. Respect for my baggage, which consisted of two shirts, three books, and a pair of stockings, made me look for shelter.
The heavy drops fell faster as I cantered on at a brisk pace, and just at the entrance of the little town rode through a pair of broad gates into what I took for the inn-yard. Having stabled my horse in a remarkably clean stall, I ran into the house, and got under cover, just as the first peal of thunder rattled among the distant hills, and the rain had begun plashing down in earnest. A pretty child sucked its thumbs in the passage. “Quick, little puss,” said I, shaking the raindrops from my hat, “tell somebody to come to me!” “Mamma,” the child cried, running in, “here is a strange gentleman.”
A pleasant-looking woman, with a homely German face, came out of an adjoining room with the child clinging to her dress, and asked me what I wanted?
“Some dinner,” I answered “and a bottle of your best wine.”
“Go and tell father to come,” said the woman, looking at me curiously. A tall, good-humored man, of about fifty, made his appearance, and I repeated my desire in a tone somewhat more authoritative. He laughed, and the wife laughed, and the child shrieked with laughter. But I had met with many curiosities among the German innkeepers in remote country places, and, being willing to let these people, see that, though an Englishman, I was also good-humored, I joined their laugh, and then asked, with a grave face, when the table-d'hôte would be served?
“We keep no table-d'hôte,” replied the husband.
“Well,” I said, “but notwithstanding, you will let me have some dinner, I suppose? I have come a long way, and it is far to the next town. Besides, it rains!”
“Certainly, it rains!” replied the man, with a phlegmatic look over the puddles in the court-yard.
At this moment a clattering of plates, a steam of soup, and a sweet odor of fresh cucumber, attracted my attention. I said immediately that I was quite willing to dine at their table. By this time the child had got over its fear, and was at play with my riding-whip; a few caressing words of mine toward the little one, had reassured its mother. She spoke for a moment in patois with her husband; and then bade the servant lay another knife and fork.
I rather liked my landlord's eccentricity; so, tapping him upon the shoulder in a friendly way, I desired that he would let me have a bottle of his very best wine; and by way of propitiating him still more, I feigned to have heard a good deal of his cellar, and requested to see it. “O, very well,” he said; “follow me if you please.'”
He took me down into a cellar capitally stocked, and there we tasted a good many wines. My landlord seemed to be in the best temper.
“And what,” I asked, “is the price of that white wine in the thin long-necked bottles?”
I despair of getting its colossal name down upon paper, or I would try it; he gave it a great many syllables, and said it was the choicest and most expensive wine he had.
“Then,” said I, “that is what we will drink to-day. I will take a bottle to myself, and you another; you shall drink it with me.”
“You are very kind,” he said; “but let me recommend some other bin; this wine you will find is—is very heady.”
I thought that, like a thrifty host, he had some qualm about my means of paying for it; so I seized, manfully, a bottle in each hand, and crying “Come along!” accompanied the host into the dining-room.
The wine deserved its praise; opening our hearts, it soon made us famous friends. I had [pg 542] been pleased with the scenery about this quiet nook, and, being master of my time, and very comfortable, I made up my mind and said,
“I tell you what, my friend. I shall send for my things from Heidelberg, and stay here for a week or two.”
The laughter again pealed out; but my host, who probably had seen quite enough of a guest who insisted upon drinking his best wine, put on a grave face. It looked like an innkeeper's face, when he is buckling himself up to strike a bargain. To save him trouble, I at once said that I would pay three florins a day for myself, and one for the accommodation of my horse.
“He thinks we keep an inn!” the little child screamed through her laughter. I instantly collapsed.