We stayed a month at this little hotel at The Tadpoles. The English family soon fraternized with that of Jean Baudin, the Flemish painter, also sojourning there, and the only other resident guests.
John's wife and Mademoiselle became good friends and gossips, and sat at work and chat many a summer hour under the hop trellises. Mademoiselle Rose Leclerc was the Frenchwoman's name, but her name of ceremony was simply "Mademoiselle." John and I used to walked about the country, among the lanes, and woods, and hamlets which diversify the flats on that side of Brussels, accompanying Jean Baudin and his paint-box. We sat under a tree, or on a stone fence, smoking pipes of patience, while Jean made studies for those wonderful, elaborate tiny pictures, the work of his big hands, by which he and his little son lived. I remember, in particular, a mossy old cottage, rough and grey; the front clothed with vines, the quaint long gable running down behind to within a yard of the ground. Baudin sketched that cottage very often; and often used its many picturesque features.
Sometimes it was the rickety, black-timbered porch, garlanded with vine; a sonsy, blond-haired young Flemish maiden sat there, and twirled the bobbins on a lace-cushion, in a warm yellow flicker of sunshine. Sometimes Jean went right into the porch and into the cottage itself, and presently brought us out an old blue-gowned, black-coifed creature, knitting as she kicked the grand-babe's clumsy cradle [{111}] with her clumsy sabot;—a ray through the leafy little window-hole found the crone's white hair, and the infant cheek. Honest Jean only painted what he saw with his eyes. He could copy such simple poetry as this, and feel it too, though he could indite no original poems on his canvas pages. He was a hearty good fellow, and we soon got to like him, and his kindly, unpretentious, but not unshrewd, talk— that is, when it could be got off the paternal grooves—which, to say the truth, was seldomer than we (who were not ourselves at that period the parents of prodigies) may have secretly desired.
In the summer evenings we used to sit in the garden all together, the ladies graciously permitting us to smoke. We liked to set the children a-dancing again on the grass-plot before us; and I must here confess that they saltated to a mandolin touched by this hand. I had studied the instrument under a ragged maestro of Naples, and flattered myself. I performed on it with credit to both, and to the general delight.
Sometimes Jean Baudin would tie to his cane a little pocket-handkerchief of Monsieur Auguste, and putting this ensign into his hand, cause him to go through a certain vocal performance of a martial and defiant character. The pale little man did it with much spirit, and a truculent aspect, stamping fiercely at particular moments of the strain. I can only remember the effective opening of this entertainment. Thus it began—"Les Belges" (at this point the small performer threw up the staff and flag of his country, and shouted ff) "SONT BRAVES!!" Papa and aunt regarded with pride that ferocious champion of his valiant compatriots, looking round to read our astonishment and rapture in our faces.
We all got on excellently with the hotel folk, ingratiating ourselves chiefly by paying a respectful court to the solid and rosy little princess of the house. Jean Baudin painted her, sitting placid, a little open-mouthed, heavy-lidded, over-fed, with a lapful of cherries. We all made much of her and submitted to her. John's wife presented her with a frock of English print, of a charming apple-green; out of which the fat pink face bloomed like a carnation-bud out of its calyx.
The young landlord would bring us out a dish to our garden dinner-table, on purpose that he might linger and chat about England. That country, and some of its model institutions, appeared to excite in his mind a mixture of awe and curiosity, wonder and horror. For instance, he had heard—he did not altogether believe it (deprecatingly)—that not only were the shops of London closed, with shutters, on the Sunday, but also the theatres; and not only the theatres, but also the expositions, the gardens and salons of dance, of music, of play. How! it was actually the truth?
"Certainly, what Madame was good enough to affirm one must believe. But then what do they? No business, no amusement what then do they, mon Dieu!—"
"They go to church, read the Bible, and keep the Sabbath day holy," asserts Mrs. Freshe, in perfect good faith, and severely and proudly, as becomes a Protestant Britishwoman.
"Tiens, tiens! But it is triste, that—. Is it not that it is triste, Madame? Tiens, tiens! And this is that which is the Protestantism. Since Madame herself affirms it, one can doubt no longer."