CHAPTER XX.
PATERFAMILIAS, GUERNSEY, MONA.
When I returned in the autumn of 1855 from my principal continental tour, wherein for three months I had conducted my whole family of eleven (servants inclusive) all through the usual route of French and Swiss travel,—I committed my journal to Hatchard, who forthwith published it; but not to any signal success,—for it was anonymous, which was a mistake: however, I did not care to make public by name all the daily details of my homeflock pilgrimage. The pretty little book with its fine print of the Pass of Gondo as a frontispiece, nevertheless made its way, and has been inserted in Mr. Gregory's list of guide-books as a convenience if not a necessity to travellers on the same roads, though in these days of little practical use: indeed, wherever we stopped, I contrived to exhaust, on the spot all that was to be seen or done, with the advantages of personal inspection, and therefore of graphic and true description. The book has been praised for its interest and includes divers accidents, happily surmounted, divers exploits in the milder form of Alpine climbing (as the Mauvais Pas, which I touch experimentally at the end of Life's Lessons, in "Proverbial Philosophy," Series IV.), divers grand sights, as the Great Exhibition, close to which we lived for some weeks in the Champs Élysées, and many pleasant incidents, as greetings with friends, old and new, and other usual memorabilia. Among these let me mention the honest kindliness of Courier Pierre,—always called Pere by my children, with whom he was a great favourite—the more readily because he has long gone to "the bourne whence no traveller returns," so he needs no recommendation from his late employer. This, then, I say is memorable. At Lucerne, as my remittance from Herries failed to reach me, I seemed obliged to make a stop and to return; but Pierre objected, saying it was "great pity not to pass the Simplon and see Milan,—and, if Monsieur would permit him, he could lend whatever was needful, and could be paid again." Certainly I said this was very kind, and so I borrowed at his solicitation:—it was £100, as I find by the journal; our travel was costing us £40 a week. Well, to recount briefly, when, after having placed in our repertoire Bellinzona, Como, Milan, &c. &c., I found myself at Geneva, and with remittances awaiting me, my first act was to place in Pierre's hands £105,—and when he counted the notes, he said, "Sare, there is one five-pound too many."—"Of course, my worthy Pierre, I hope you will accept that as interest."—"Non, Monsieur, pardon; I could not, I always bring money to help my families:"—and he would not. Now, if that was not a model courier, worthy to be commemorated thus,—well, I hope there are some others of his brethren on the office-books of Bury Street, St. James's, who are equally duteous and disinterested. "Some people are heroes to their valets; my worthy help is a hero to me:" so saith my journal. Here's another extract, after two slight earthquakes at Brieg, and Turtman (Turris Magna);—"Again a bad accident. One of our spirited wheelers got his hind leg over the pole in going down a hill: at once there was a chaos of fallen horses and entangled harness, and but for the screw machine drag locking both hind-wheels we must have been upset and smashed,—as it was, the scrambling and kicking at first was frightful; but Paterfamilias dragged the younger children out into the road, and other help was nigh at hand, and the providential calm that comes over fallen horses after their initiatory struggle was at hand too, and in due time matters were righted: that those two fiery stallions did not kick everything to pieces, and that all four steeds did not gallop us to destruction, was due, under Providence, to the skill and courage of our good Pierre and the patient Muscatelli."—Railways have since superseded all this peril, and cost, and care: and trains now go through the Simplon, instead of "good horses, six to the heavy carriage, four to the light one," pulling us steadily and slowly over it: thus losing the splendid scenery climaxed by the Devil's Bridge: but let moderns be thankful. "Paterfamilias's Diary" has long been out of print, and its author is glad that he made at the time a full record of the happy past, and recommends its perusal to any one who can find a copy anywhere. My friend, the late Major Hely, who claimed an Irish peerage, was very fond of this "Diary," and thought it "the best book of travels he had ever read."
Guernsey.
Guernsey is another of the spots where your author has lived and written, though neither long nor much. He comes, as is well known, of an ancient Sarnian family, as mentioned before. As to any writings of mine about insular matters while sojourning there occasionally, they are confined to some druidical verses about certain cromlechs, a few other poems, as one given below—"A Night-Sail in the Race of Alderney,"—and in chief that in which I "Raised the Haro," which saved the most picturesque part of Castle Cornet from destruction by some artillery engineer. Here is the poem, supposing some may wish to see it: especially as it does not appear in my only extant volume of poems, Gall & Inglis. It occurs (I think solely) in Hall & Virtue's extinct edition of my Ballads and Poems, 1853, and is there headed "'The Clameur de Haro,' an old Norman appeal to the Sovereign, 1850":—
"Haro, Haro! à l'aide, mon Prince!
A loyal people calls;
Bring out Duke Rollo's Norman lance
To stay destruction's fell advance
Against the Castle walls:
Haro, Haro! à l'aide, ma Reine!
Thy duteous children not in vain
Plead for old Cornet yet again,
To spare it, ere it falls!
"What? shall Earl Rodolph's sturdy strength,
After six hundred years, at length
Be recklessly laid low?
His grey machicolated tower
Torn down within one outraged hour
By worse than Vandals' ruthless power?—
Haro! à l'aide, Haro!
"Nine years old Cornet for the throne
Against rebellion stood alone—
And honoured still shall stand,
For heroism so sublime,
A relic of the olden time,
Renowned in Guernsey prose and rhyme,
The glory of her land!
"Ay,—let your science scheme and plan
With better skill than so;
Touch not this dear old barbican,
Nor dare to lay it low!