CHAPTER IX.
FLANDERS.
"At length I made my option to take service
In that same legion of Auxiliaries,
In which we lately served the Belgian."
The Ayrshire Tragedy.
A few days afterwards he was on his way, hastening to join the army in Belgium. His orders were to travel with speed, as hostilities were expected daily. All Europe was alarmed, great events were expected, and mail and telegraph arrivals were watched with the most feverish anxiety.
On landing at Ostend, Stuart heard that Buonaparte had joined the French army, and had issued a proclamation calling to mind their former victories, and telling them that fresh dangers were to be dared and battles won; but he felt assured their familiarity with hardship and death, their steadiness, discipline, and inherent bravery, would make them, in every encounter, most signally victorious.
"Time will prove all this," thought Ronald, as, seated on an inverted keg, he was deciphering this proclamation in a French paper, while travelling on the canal of Ostend in a flat-bottomed boat for Bruges.
The broad and waveless surface of the long yellow canal was gleaming under the meridian sun like polished metal; and, when standing erect on the roof or upper deck of the barge, he could see it for miles winding away through the country, which on every side was verdant and flat, like a vast bowling-green. The monotony of the scenery struck Stuart the more forcibly, because, as a Highlander, he could not help drawing comparisons between it and the tremendous hills, the solemn valleys, and the majestic rivers of his native Scotland. At times, a few bulbous-shaped boors, in steeple-crowned hats, or fur caps, and enormous breeches, appeared on the canal bank, singly or in groups, smoking their long pipes, and staring hard with their great lack-lustre eyes on the passing boat, the slow motion of which they would watch for miles, standing on the same spot, immovable as a milestone. Very plump and very red-cheeked country girls, wearing short petticoats, and making an unusual display of legs, which were more substantial than elegant, appeared tripping along the banks, bearing jars of milk or butter on their heads, where they were poised with miraculous exactness. Sometimes a party of these rustic fair ones passed in a gaudily-painted cart or waggon, all laughing and talking merrily,—their noisy vivacity forming a strange contrast with the sulky demeanour of the silent and phlegmatic boor, who sat smoking and driving on the tram of the car, keeping his seat there with the same lurching motion that a bag of oats would have done. There is little disposition in Dutch or German blood to be gallant or cavalier-like.
Afar in the distance, where the landscape stretched away as level as the sea, were seen great squares of light green or bright yellow, showing where lay the fields of golden corn and other grain, waving, ripe and tall, everywhere ready for the sickle. In some places appeared a cluster of pretty little cottages, their walls white as alabaster and roofed with bright yellow thatch, embosomed among a grove of light willow trees, from the midst of which arose the tall and slender church spire, surmounted by a clumsy vane, around which flew scores of cawing rooks, fluttering and contesting for footing on the gilded weathercock. Sometimes the canal barge passed through the very midst of a farm and close to the mansion, with its deep, thatched roof, having walls of glaring white or yellow, and gaudy red or blue streaks six inches broad painted round each door and window,—the brass knocker on the green door, the burnished windows, the gilt vanes, and painted walls, all gleaming in the light of the sun. Contrasting with the rural dwelling, the parterres before it, the stack-yard behind, the ducks, the geese, the pigs, and the children in the yard, or among the reeds by the canal bank, appeared, perhaps close by a vessel of two hundred tons or so, laid up in ordinary, or high and dry in the farm-yard, with hens roosting beside her keel. In some places these craft lay in small docks having a flood-gate, with their top-masts struck, their rigging and spars all dismantled, and stowed away below or on deck. Most of the Dutch and Belgian farmers are also ship-owners; and by means of those great and beautiful canals, which like veins intersect the whole country, they bring their craft to their farm-yards, perhaps fifty or eighty miles inland, and there keep them during the winter. They can thus the more readily load or provision them with their own farm produce, before they are again sent to sea.
As Ronald was totally ignorant of Dutch, and knew very little of French, he could neither converse with the boatmen nor the dull Flemish boors who happened to be passengers; and he passed his time monotonously enough, yawning over a few London newspapers, or watching every schuytje sculled along by its "twenty-breeched" boatmen.
In the evening, he arrived at the busy and opulent, but smoky town of Bruges; and hence, passing the night at an hotel, and rising next morning with the lark, he proceeded to Ghent, that city of bustle and bridges. On landing at one of the quays, he was surprised to observe a French soldier on sentry, walking briskly about before his box. When passing, monsieur came smartly to 'his front,' and presented arms. In traversing the streets, he met many French officers in undress, all of whom politely touched their caps on passing. They all wore their swords and belts, and were to be seen promenading every where, singly or in parties, in the streets, on the bridges, on the quays, or flirting with the girls who kept the booths and fancy warehouses in the great square.