Rice and old slippers! What superstitious folly! And yet some very eminent men, wise and no way credulous, have been burdened with the log of superstition. Tyco Brahé was afraid to lay the first stone of his observatory till the stars were in a 'happy conjunction.' The astronomer who discovered the spots on the sun wiped his spectrum fifty times before he could persuade himself to believe his own sight. Sainte-Beuve, sceptic though he was, grew pale if the salt were spilt.
O'Hoolohan and O'Hara were not superstitious. They were of the school which believes that it is unlucky to walk under a ladder—only when an awkward workman is handling bricks overhead; unlucky to sit down thirteen at table—only when there is not food enough for more than twelve.
But Captain Chauvin was superstitious, after a kind. Like his idol, he held by destiny, and had faith in his planet. On all high days and holy days it was his wont to make pilgrimage to the shrine of his patron saint. Call this whim if you like, superstition if you will. On this happy day his secretly-cherished idea was to carry out his habit, and the moment he spoke of it his friends agreed to humour him. And in this wise it came to pass that there was a honeymoon trip, but a brief one in limit of time and travelling.
Now, where should the honeymoon trip be taken? In London, that is a question easier to answer than in Paris.
'Anywhere, anywhere out of London,' would be the answer.
But in Paris the air you breathe is pure and brisk; the flowers in the city grass-plots are fresh and fragrant; the waters of the Seine course swiftly on with sparkling movement; the tall trees on the boulevards make friendly rustle; there are wide shady shrubs, clad in thick mantle of emerald, varied with citron and flecked with brown, in the public gardens; silvery fountains seem to dance to inaudible music; the shafts of sunshine play through clustering branches in the Elysian Fields and the Luxembourg, and make fretwork of black and gold on the smooth sward. This happens when Nature is in gracious mood and scatters broadcast her charms from her bounteous lap. In Paris her mood is usually gracious, for Paris is the favoured city, the queen-city, the one haunt of the multitude where you can meet the Rus in Urbe, where you can salute the pets of art in the bosom of the Benign Mother.
In two open victorias the party started on the trip. Captain Chauvin and Caroline were on the seat of the first, and O'Hara on the strapontin in front of them, dangerously near to the tempting hands of the tall girl and in full range of her witching eyes. The bridegroom and bride were in the second victoria. The captain went foremost, for he was cicerone. To the Champ de Mars they drove first and entered the Military School, the Chelsea Hospital of France.
'Go up, my children,' said Captain Chauvin; 'I am too feeble to accompany you. Mount one hundred and seventy-three steps and you will find the cell my saint occupied when he was a boy. There he lay in his camp-bed; there he dreamed dreams, and there he made his first sketch. Till your return, I shall fight an old fight with—a comrade.'
When they descended, the captain escorted them to the adjoining church.
'Here,' he said, 'he rests, the mortal part of him; here he was carried to his tomb by the heirs of the dynasty he helped to overthrow. You see, my children, he sleeps in the midst of the ancient braves at whose head he once marched to victory; there, on the bronze tripod, is the sword he wore at Austerlitz; look above, where those dusty trophies droop, ah! sixty of them—this poor arm helped to win some few—they are flags taken from the enemy in fair fight. They are—torn, bullet-pierced, and time-mouldered as they are—the emblems of a glory that will live while lives the world!'