At length we put into a quiet bay, where the river Oise joined the Seine, and we moored snugly under the lee of a green meadow, while trees were above waving and rustling in the breeze. It was far from houses, for I wished to have a good rest, as the tossing of the former night had almost banished sleep.
But soon the inquisitive natives found the yawl in her hiding-place, and they sat on the grass gazing by the hour. The surroundings were so much like a canoe voyage, that I felt more strongly than ever the confinement to a river, while the sea would have been so open and grand under such a breeze. Therefore I gave up all idea of sailing down the Seine any more, and decided to get towed to Havre, and to launch out fairly on our proper element once more.
Yet it was fine fun to row about in the dingey, and to discover a quaint old inn, and to haul ashore my tiny cockleshell and dine. Here they were certainly an uncouth set, they did not even put a cloth on the table, nor any substitute for it,—a state of things seen very seldom indeed in the very outermost corners of my various trips.
Faithful promise was made by a man that he would rouse me from slumber in my cabin under the haybank at the passing of the next steamer, be it light or dark at the time. The shriek of the whistle came in the first hours of morning, and the man ran to tell it, with one side of his face shaven, and the other frothed over with lather.
Being towed down is so like being towed up the river, that we need merely allude to a few features in the voyage westward.
At one pretty town we stopped to unload cargo for some hours, and I climbed the hills, scaled the old castle walls, and dived into curious tumbledown streets. The keeper of the newspaper-shop confessed to me his own peculiar grievance, namely, that he often sent money to England in reply to quack advertisements, but never had any reply. He seemed to be too “poli” to credit my assertion that there are “many rogues in perfidious Albion,” and on the whole he was scarcely shaken in the determination to persevere in filling their pockets, though he might empty his own.
An old man at a lock was delighted by a New Testament given to him. “I know what this is; it is Protestant prayers. Oh, they are good.” Then he brought his wife and his grandchildren, and every one of them shook hands.
It was not very easy to get one’s sea-stores replenished in the continuous run down the Seine. Sometimes I saw a milkman trundling his wheelbarrow over a bridge, and, jumping on shore, I waylaid him for the precious luxury, or sent off a boy for bread, and butter, and eggs; but, of course, the times of eating had nothing to do with any hours, or recurring seasons for a meal: you must cook when you can, and snatch a morsel here or there, in a lock or a long reach of the stream. At night the full moon sailed on high, and the crew lay down with their faces over the steamer’s side, chattering with their English comrade till it was far past bed-time, for we shall be off at three to-morrow morning.
The steam in the boiler first warns of the coming bustle as its great bubbles burst inside, and rattle the iron plates. Then, being more frequent and tighter bound, they give out a low moaning, hidden rumble; and if the boat touches the side of the steamer, there is a strong vibration through all her sonorous planks, until some tap is turned in the engine, and the rush of steam leaps into the cylinder as if indignant at its long restraint. You had better get up now (there is no dressing, for the simple reason that there has been no undressing), and in two minutes you are fresh and hearty, though it is only a few hours since you dropped to rest.
Rouen looks as if it would be all that is pleasant for a sailing-boat to rest in. Never was a greater deception. It is difficult to find an anchorage, and impossible to get a quiet berth by the quay. The bustle all day, and the noise all night, keep you ever on the tenterhooks; though, as these discomforts are caused by the active commerce of the port, one ought to bear them patiently.