‘I see,’ whispered he, when the Ave was over—’ I see you are a Protestant. This is a fast day with us; but we ‘ll get you a poulet at my cottage, and a glass of wine will soon refresh you.’
With many a thankful speech, I soon suffered myself to be lifted into a large sheet, such as they use in the vineyards; and with a strong cortege of the villagers carrying their torches, we took our way back to Givet.
The circumstances of my adventure, considerably exaggerated of course, were bruited over the country; and before I was out of bed next morning, a chasseur, in a very showy livery, arrived with a letter from the lord of the manor, entreating me to take my abode for some days at the Château de Rochepied, where I should be received with a perfect welcome, and every endeavour made to recover my lost effects. Having consulted with the worthy curé, who counselled me by all means to accept this flattering invitation—a course I was myself disposed to—I wrote a few lines of answer, and despatched a messenger by post to Dinant to bring up my heavy baggage, which I had left there.
Towards noon the count’s carriage drove up to convey me to the château; and having taken an affectionate farewell of my kind host, I set out for Rochepied. The wicker conveniency in which I travelled, all alone, albeit not the thing for Hyde Park, was easy and pleasant in its motion; the fat Flemish mares, with their long tails tastefully festooned over a huge cushion of plaited straw on their backs, went at a fair, steady pace; the road led through a part of the forest abounding in pretty vistas of woodland scenery; and everything conspired to make me feel that even an affair with a gang of smugglers might not be the worst thing in life, if it were to lead to such pleasant results afterwards.
As we jogged along, I learned from the fat Walloon coachman that the château was full of company; that the count had invited numerous guests for the opening of the chasse, and that there were French and Germans and English, and for aught he knew Chinese expected to ‘assist’ at the ceremony. I confess the information considerably damped the pleasure I at first experienced. I was in hopes to see real country life, the regular course of château existence, in a family quietly domesticated on their own property. I looked forward to a peep at that vie intime of Flemish household, of which all I knew was gathered from a Wenix picture, and I wanted to see the thing in reality. The good vrow, with her high cap and her long waist, her pale features lit up with eyes of such brown as only Van Dyck ever caught the colour of; the daughters, prim and stately, with their stiff, quaint courtesy, moving about the terraced walks, like figures stepping from an ancient canvas, with bouquets in their white and dimpled fingers, or mayhap a jess-hawk perched upon their wrist; the Mynheer Baron, a large and portly Fleming, with a slouched beaver and a short trim moustache, deep of voice, heavy of step, seated on a grey Cuyp-like horse, with a flowing mane and a huge tassel of a tail, flapping lazily his brawny flanks, or slapping with heavy stroke the massive jack-boots of his rider—such were my notions of a Dutch household. The unchanged looks of the dwellings, which for centuries were the same, in part suggested these thoughts. The quaint old turrets, the stiff and stately terraces, the fosse, stagnant and sluggish, the carved tracery of the massive doorway, were all as we see them in the oldest pictures of the land; and when the rind looks so like, it is hard to imagine the fruit with a different flavour.
It was then with considerable regret I learned that I should see the family en gala; that I had fallen upon a time of feasting and entertainment. Had it not been too late, I should have beaten my retreat, and taken up my abode for another day with the curé of Givet; as it was, I resolved to make my visit as brief as possible, and take to the road with all convenient despatch.
As we neared the château, the Walloon remembered a number of apologies with which the count charged him to account for his not having gone himself to fetch me, alleging the claims of his other guests, and the unavoidable details which the forthcoming ouverture de la chasse demanded at his hands. I paid little attention to the mumbled and broken narrative, interrupted by imprecations on the road and exhortations to the horses; for already we had entered the precincts of the demesne, and I was busy in noting down the appearance of the place. There was, however, little to remark. The transition from the wide forest to the park was only marked by a little improvement in the road; there was neither lodge nor gate—no wall, no fence, no inclosure of any kind. The trim culture, which in our country is so observable around the approach of a house of some consequence, was here totally wanting; the avenue was partly of gravel, partly of smooth turf; the brushwood of prickly holly was let grow wild, and straggled in many places across the road; the occasional views that opened seemed to have been made by accident, not design; and all was rank vegetation and rich verdure, uncared for—uncultivated, but like the children of the poor, seeming only the healthier and more robust, because left to their own unchecked, untutored impulses. The rabbits played about within a few paces of the carriage tracks; the birds sat motionless on the trees as we passed, while here and there through the foliage I could detect the gorgeous colouring of some bright peacock’s tail, as he rested on a bough and held converse with his wilder brethren of the air, just as if the remoteness of the spot and its seclusions led to intimacies which in the ordinary routine of life had been impossible. At length the trees receded farther and farther from the road, and a beautiful expanse of waving lawn, dotted with sheep, stretched before the eye. In the distance, too, I could perceive the château itself—a massive pile in the shape of a letter L, bristling with chimneys, and pierced with windows of every size and shape; clumps of flowering shrubs and fruit-trees were planted about, and little beds of flowers spangled the even turf like stars in the expanse of heaven. The Meuse wound round the château on three sides, and perhaps thus saved it from being inflicted by a ditch, for without water a Dutchman can no more exist than a mackerel.
‘Fine! isn’t it?’ said the Walloon, as he pointed with his finger to the scene before me, and seemed to revel with delight in my look of astonishment, while he plied his whip with renewed vigour, and soon drew up at a wide flight of stone steps, where a row of orange-trees mounted guard on each side, and filled the place with their fragrance.
A servant in the strange mélange of a livery, where the colours seemed chosen from a bed of ranunculuses just near, came out to let down the steps and usher me into the house. He informed me that the count had given orders for my reception, but that he and all his friends were out on horseback, and would not be back before dinner-time. Not sorry to have a little time to myself, I retired to my room, and threw myself down on a most comfortable sofa, excessively well satisfied with the locality and well disposed to take advantage of my good fortune. The little bed, with its snow-white curtains and gilded canopy; the brass dogs upon the hearth, that shone like gold; the cherry-wood table, that might have served as a mirror; the modest book-shelf, with its pleasant row of volumes; but, better than all, the open window, from which I could see for miles over the top of a dark forest, and watch the Meuse as it came and went, now shining, now lost in the recesses of the wood—all charmed me; and I fully confessed what I have had very frequently to repeat in life, that ‘Arthur O’Leary was born under a lucky planet.’