How little of flowers and insects, not to say of trees and animals, a boy learns as school-lessons, while he has beaten into him at one end and crammed in at the other the complicated politics of heathen gods, and their loves and faction fights, which are neither real nor possible.
The Moselle rapidly enlarged in volume, though one could easily see that it had seldom been so low before. It is a very beautiful river to row on, especially where we began. Then it winds to the west and north, and again, turning a little eastwards, traverses a lovely country between Treves and Coblentz, where it joins the ancient Rhine.
My resting-place for this evening was Epinal, a town with little to interest; and so we could turn to books and pencils until it was time for bed.
Next day the scenery was by no means so attractive, but I had plenty of hard work, which was enjoyed very much, my shoes and socks being off all day, for it was useless to put them on when so many occasions required me to jump out.
Here it was a plain country, with a gravel soil, and fast rushings of current; and then long pools like the Serpentine, and winding turns leading entirely round some central hill which the river insisted upon circumventing.
At noon we came upon a large number of labourers at work on a milldam, and as this sort of crowd generally betokens something to eat (always, at any rate, some drinkable fluid), I left my boat boldly in mid-stream, and knocked at a cottage, when an old woman came out. "Madame, I am hungry, and you are precisely the lady who can make me an omelette."
"Sir, I have nothing to give you."
"Why," said I, "look at these hens; I am sure they have laid six eggs this morning, they seem so conceited."
She evidently thought I was a tramp demanding alms, and when told to look at the boat which had come from England, she said she was too old and too blind to see. However, we managed to make an omelette together, and she stood by (with an eye, perhaps, to her only fork) and chatted pleasantly, asking, "What have you got to sell?" I told her I had come there only for pleasure. "What sort of pleasure, Monsieur, can you possibly hope to find in this place?" But I was far too gallant to say bluntly that her particular mansion was not the ultimate object of the tour. After receiving a franc for the rough breakfast, she kept up a battery of blessings till the Rob Roy started, and she ended by shrieking out to a navvy looking on, "I tell you every Englishman is rich!"
Next day was bright and blue-skyed as before, and an early start got the fine fresh morning air on the water.