THE CHURCH AT QUARTES
"A miry lane led us up from Quartes with its church and bickering windmill."—R. L. S.
THE SAMBRE FROM THE BRIDGE AT PONT
Where "the landlady stood upon the bridge, probably lamenting she had charged so little," when the canoeists arrived back by river from Quartes after having been treated like pedlars at Pont.
Only in the most insignificant way can Maubeuge have changed since Sir Walter Simpson was nearly arrested for drawing the fortifications, "a feat of which he was hopelessly incapable," so that I suspect something of misplaced sentiment in Stevenson's impressions of the place. For my part, I should find it difficult to mention a town of the same size in England or Scotland to compare with Maubeuge as a place to pass one's days in. That omnibus driver with the soul of a Raleigh may have been in some measure a creature of the romancer's fancy. At all events, it is likely enough that he has travelled far since 1876, as I take him to have been a man of middle age then. The hotel omnibus with its two horses still makes its journey to and from the station, but the driver is a stout young fellow of florid face, who, I am sure, is perfectly contented with his lot, and enjoys his meals. "C'est toujours la même ici," said Veuve Bonnaire, the landlady of the "Grand Cerf," when I chatted with her in the bureau after luncheon. Yet not always the same, for where was M. Bonnaire? And I fear that our canoeists, if they could visit the hostelry again would scarce recognise in this lady of gross body their hostess of thirty years ago. The building itself is quite unchanged, I was assured, and I ate my food in the same room and in just such company as the voyagers dined—military officers all absurdly alike in sharp features, small moustache and tuft on chin, and ungallant baldness of head; and three or four commercial travellers, each with a tendency to "a full habit of body."