What did he fear in France?
That morning we had left Melun, where we had spent the night at the Grand Monarque, and after driving through the delightful Fôret de Fontainebleau, had lunched at the Hôtel de l’Épée in busy Auverre, and then spun away over the straight wide route nationale through Vermenton, Avallon, and quiet old Saulieu, in the midst of the rich vinelands, until we had accomplished the steep hills between that place and Arnay-le-Duc.
It was our intention to get on to Mâcon, a hundred kilometres farther, that night, but while we were sitting at dinner, in the unpretentious little salle à manger, eating a tasty meal of trout and cutlets, washed down by an old and perfect bottle of Beaune, Harris, the chauffeur, who had been hired for the tour because he knew the French roads, came and informed us of a slight breakdown of the engine, which would take him at least a couple of hours or so to repair.
“Then we can’t get on to Mâcon to-night, that’s very certain,” remarked Shaw.
“That’s a pity, Dad,” exclaimed Asta, “for I wanted to spend a few hours there. I’ve heard it is a wonderful place to buy antiques, and I want some old crucifixes to add to my collection.”
“Never mind, dear,” he said, “we will lunch there to-morrow. We can’t expect to go through France without a single mishap. Very well, Harris,” he added, “we’ll stay here to-night.”
Three travellers in the wine trade, men who tucked their serviettes into their collars, and who ate and drank heartily, were our table companions, and soon we were all chatting merrily in French, while Madame and her two daughters waited upon us.
The room was at the back, and looked out upon the spacious old courtyard into which, in days bygone, the dusty Lyons mail used to rumble over the cobbles. It was bare, with highly polished oak floor, a mirror on the walls, and an old buffet, as is the style in French inns, while when we ascended to our rooms we found the same bareness and cleanliness pervading.
My window looked out upon the village street. The floor was carpetless and polished, the bed an old-fashioned wooden one, and besides a chair, a chest of drawers, and a washstand, the only other furniture was a japanned iron stand of hooks upon which to hang coats—that article which is common in every hotel from Archangel to Reggio, and from Ekaterinburg to Lisbon.
After a wash, we met below and strolled about the village, which, three hundred kilometres distant from Paris, and two hundred from Lyons, was, we found, a charming old-world place, once important, but now, alas! decayed and forgotten in the mad hurry of our modern world. In the heart of the wine-country, with the vines in lines with great regularity everywhere, it is still a place with a certain amount of commerce, but surely not so important or busy as in the days when on an average two hundred travelling coaches passed through daily.