The ghost of Charlotte Cray, and other stories
and legs to match, who nurses her flag as if it were a baby, and gazes
at the flying train with a countenance which could not be more
impassive were it carved in wood. We have hardly finished laughing at
her, when the train rushes past another station, at which appears a
withered old crone, her head tied up in a coloured handkerchief, and
her petticoats, cut up to her knees, looking cruelly short for such a
wintry day, and displaying a pair of attenuated legs and feet for
which the huge wooden _sabots_ look miles too large. She waves about
the signal-flag in a nervous, agitated manner, which suggests the idea
that she is not quite sure whether she has caught up the right one or
not; but before we have time to be made uncomfortable by the fact, we
are passing another of these Belgic “shanties,” at the door of which
appears for a moment a middle-aged woman, who waves the signal at us
in a menacing manner, and rushes back immediately to her children or
her cooking.
Remembering our own signalmen, and the importance attached to their
capabilities and education for the important office assigned them, it
ceases to be a matter of amusement to see the lives of hundreds daily
intrusted to the direction of such ignorant creatures as these. I
suppose that “Monsieur,” smoking at his ease by the fireside in the
little wooden station-house, directs the actions of his mother, wife,
or daughter; but what are the authorities about not to insist on his
performing his duty himself?
Notwithstanding all which, however, our train reaches Jemelle (the
nearest station to Rochefort) in safety, and in the midst of a wind
sufficient, if not to take our heads, to take our hats off, we and our
belongings come to the ground. It takes some minutes to get our nine
packages together; and when we present ourselves at the door of the
diligence, it is nearly full. I look despairingly at the nurse and all
the children, and decide that the younger members of the family must
go by diligence, and the elder shall walk with me to Rochefort. But
the Rochefortians are too polite to permit such a thing. Two of them
insist upon getting out and giving up their places to the children. I
protest against such a proceeding, of course, as in duty bound, but
they will hear of no excuse, and start off walking at such a pace that
they are out of sight before the diligence is set in motion. At last
the luggage is all packed away on the top, and we are all packed away
inside, in company with two gentlemen, who open the conversation
pleasantly by asking us where we come from, and telling us that we
must not expect to find Rochefort as large as Brussels, which, to say
truth, we had scarcely anticipated. The talk becomes fragmentary, for
the diligence rattles and jolts over the stony, hilly road, and the
bells on the horses’ collars jangle in unison; and the baby is so
enchanted with the noise, that he shouts till no one can be heard but
himself. But twenty minutes’ purgatory brings us into a long, steep,
narrow street, paved with stones, and bordered with grey-and-white
houses; and I have hardly time to ask, “Is this Rochefort?” when the
diligence draws up before a whitewashed house with a sign swinging
before the door, and I am asked if we are for the Hôtel Biron. No, we
are for the Hôtel de la Cloche d’Or; and as no one seems to be for
the Hôtel Biron, the diligence continues to climb the stony street
until it reaches the summit, and halts before the Hôtel de la Cloche
d’Or.
Here we all unpack ourselves; and a buxom German landlady, with a
kind, motherly face, comes down the steps to greet us. She has
received my letter; the beds are all ready for us; the dinner will be
on the table in half-an-hour; we are to be pleased to enter, and make
ourselves at home. We _are_ very pleased; for we are dreadfully tired
(not cold, for the weather is unnaturally mild), and have not had
anything substantial to eat all the day. We climb up the steps of the
hotel, which looks just like a farmhouse abutting on the main street,
and find ourselves in a sanded room, containing a long wooden table,
with benches either side of it, and bearing evident reminiscences of
smoking and drinking--in fact, “not to put too fine a point on it,”
the public tap-room--but where we are met by the landlady’s two eldest
daughters, Thérèse and Josephine, who are beaming in their welcome.
They usher us into a second room, where the children scream at the
sight of a table laid for dinner, and the four corners of which bear
bowls of whipped cream and custard, and rosy Ardennes apples, and
biscuits just out of the oven. The little people want to begin at
once, and cannot be brought to see the necessity of washing their
faces and hands first or waiting till the meat and potatoes shall be
placed upon the table. Would Madame like to see the _chambres à
coucher_ at once? Madame saying yes, Thérèse catches up the youngest
child but one, and, preceded by Josephine, we enter first a scullery,
next a bricked passage, thence mount a most perilous set of dark
narrow stairs, and stumble into a long whitewashed corridor, which
terminates in a glass-door opening on to a garden. Here three doors
successively thrown open introduce us to our bedrooms; and the trunks
having been brought up the breakneck stairs, we take possession at
once. The little white-curtained beds are small, but beautifully
clean, and each one is surmounted by its eider-down quilt in a
coloured cotton case. Two little islands of carpet in a sea of painted
boards represent the coverings of the floors; and the washing-stands
are only deal-tables, and there are no chests of drawers; but we
inhale the fresh, vigorous breeze which is pouring through the windows
(open even at that season), and think of fever-infected Brussels, and
are content. But though it is all very nice and clean, we cannot
possibly wash without water, nor dry our hands without towels.
An imbecile shout from the door for anybody or anything brings a
broad-featured, rosy, grinning German girl to our aid, who, when she
is asked her name, says it is Katrine, but we can call her by any name
we please. The pronunciation of “Katrine” not presenting those
difficulties to our foreign tongues which the owner of it seems to
anticipate, we prefer to adhere to her baptismal cognomen, instead of
naming her afresh, and desire Katrine to bring us some hot water and
towels; on which she disappears, still on the broad grin, and returns
with a pail of warm water, which she sets down in the middle of the
room. We manage well enough with that, however, but are at our wits’
end when, on being asked for more of the same fluid with which to mix
the baby’s bottle, she presents it to us in a washing-basin. But as, a
few minutes after, I encounter her in the corridor carrying a
coffee-pot full to E----’s room, I conclude that in Rochefort it is
the fashion to use vessels indiscriminately, and resolve thenceforth
to take the goods the gods provide, without questioning.
On descending to the dining-room, we find that the gods have been very
munificent in their gifts. After the soup appears roast beef; and as
we are very hungry, we cause it to look foolish, and are just
congratulating each other on having made an excellent dinner, when in
trots Thérèse, pops our dirty knives and forks upon the table-cloth,
whips away our plates, with that which contains the remainder of the
beef, and puts down a dish of mutton-chops in its stead. We look at
one another in despair; we feel it to be perfectly impossible to begin
again upon mutton-chops, and I am obliged to hint the same to
Thérèse in the most delicate manner in the world. She expostulates;
but to no purpose, and leaves the room, mutton-chops in hand. But only
to give place to her mother, who enters with a countenance of dismay
to inquire what is wrong with the cooking that we cannot eat.
Nothing is wrong; we have eaten remarkably well. It is our
capabilities of stowage which are at fault. Will we not have the hare,
which is just ready to be served up?
Sorry as we are to do it, we must decline the hare; and as we affirm
that we are ready for the pudding, and nothing else, we feel we have
sunk in Madame’s estimation.
The pudding, a _compote_ of apples and preserves, with the whipped
cream and custard, is delicious; and as soon as we have discussed it,
we are very thankful to stretch ourselves under the eider-down quilts,
and know the day to be over. We have done work enough that day to
entitle us to twelve hours’ repose; yet we are all wide-awake with the
first beams of the morning sun.
We dress ourselves with the pleasurable anticipation of seeing new
things, however simple, and come down-stairs to a breakfast-table, in
its way as plentifully spread as the dinner-table of the night before.
We have an abundance of milk,--so fresh from the cow that it is
covered with froth, and the jug which contains it is quite
warm,--eggs, cold meat, home-made bread in huge brown loaves, good
butter, and strong clear coffee. In fact, we come to the conclusion
that our landlady knows how to live, and we no longer marvel at the
rosy cheeks and full forms of Thérèse and Josephine, nor that Madame
herself fills out her dresses in such a magnificent manner.
E---- has been for a stroll before breakfast, and brings back a report
of ruins on the high ground; he has already unpacked his sketch-books
and sharpened his pencils. We, not being walking encyclopædias, seize
our _Continental Bradshaw_, and find that the ruins are those of a
castle in which Lafayette was made prisoner by the Austrians in 1792.
As soon as breakfast is concluded, we rush off to see the ruined
castle, which stands on an eminence just above the hotel, and which
our landlady (who walks into our sitting-room and takes a chair in the
most confiding manner possible whenever she feels so inclined) informs
us, although not open to the public, belongs to a lady whose house is
built on the same ground, and who will doubtless allow us to look over
it. We can see the remains of the castle before we reach them, and
decide that it must have been uglier and less interesting when whole
than now, having been evidently designed with a view to strength
rather than beauty. The little winding acclivitous path which leads to
it, bounded by a low wall fringed with ferns and mosses, is perhaps
the prettiest part of the whole concern; but just as we have scaled
it, and come upon the private dwelling-house, our poetic meditations
are interrupted by the onslaught of half-a-dozen dogs (one of which is
loose, and makes fierce snaps at our unprotected legs), which rush out
of their kennels at chains’ length, and bark so vociferously, that we
feel we have no need to make our presence known by knocking at the
door. A child appears at it; and we inquire politely if we may see the
ruins, at which she shakes her head, and we imagine she doesn’t
understand our Parisian French.
But in another moment we are undeceived, for the shrill, vixenish
voice of a woman (may dogs dance upon her grave!) exclaims sharply
from the open door, “_Fermez, fermez; on ne peut pas entrer_.” The
child obediently claps it to in our faces, and we retrace our steps,
with a conviction that the lady is like her castle--more strong than
beautiful. E--is so disgusted that he will not even sketch the ruins
from the opposite side of the road, up which another precipitous path
leads us to a long walk, which in summer must be a perfect bower, from
the interlacing of the branches of the trees with which it is
bordered; and from which we have a far better view of the ruins than
the utmost politeness of their owner could have afforded us. But no;
judgment has gone out against them; we decide they are heavy and