CHAPTER XI, A FRAGMENT OF FOREST LIFE

I am half sorry already that I have told that little story of myself. Somehow the recollection is painful. And now I would rather hasten away from Brussels, and wander on to other scenes; and yet there are many things I fain would speak of, and some people, too, worth a mention in passing. I should like to have taken you a moonlight walk through the Grande Place, and after tracing against the clear sky the delicate outline of the beautiful spire, whose gilded point seemed stretching away towards the bright star above it, to have shown you the interior of a Flemish club in the old Salle de Loyauté. Primitive, quaint fellows they are, these Flemings; consequential, sedate, self-satisfied, simple creatures; credulous to any extent of their own importance, but kindly withal; not hospitable themselves, but admirers of the virtue in others; easily pleased, when the amusement costs little; and, in a word, a people admirably adapted by nature to become a kind of territorial coinage alternately paid over by one great State to another, as the balance of Europe inclines to this side or that; with industry enough always to be worth robbing, and with a territory perfectly suitable to pitched battles--two admirable reasons for Belgium being a species of Houns-low Heath or Wormwood Scrubs, as the nations of the Continent feel disposed for theft or fighting. It was a cruel joke, however, to make them into a nation. One gets tired of laughing at them at last; and even Sancho’s Island of Barataria had become a nuisance, were it long-lived.

Well, I must hasten away now. I can’t go back to the ‘France’ yet awhile, so I’ll even take to the road. But what road? that’s the question. What a luxury it would be, to be sure, to have some person of exquisite taste, who could order dinner every day in the year, arranging the carte by a physiognomical study of your countenance, and plan out your route by some innate sense of your desires. Arthur O’Leary has none such, however, his whole philosophy in life being to throw the reins on the hack Fortune’s neck, and let the jade take her own way. Not that he has had any reason to regret his mode of travel. No: his nag has carried him pleasantly on through life, now cantering softly over the even turf, now picking her way more cautiously among bad ground and broken pebbles; and if here and there an occasional side leap or a start has put him out of saddle, it has scarcely put him out of temper; for one great secret has he at least learned--and, after all, it’s one worth remembering-- very few of the happiest events and pleasantest circumstances in our lives have not their origin in some incident, which, had we been able, we had prevented happening. So then, while taking your mare Chance over a stiff country, be advised by me: give her plenty of head, sit close, and when you come to a ‘rasper,’ let her take her own way over it. So convinced am I of the truth of this axiom, that I should not die easy if I had not told it. And now, if anything should prevent these Fragments being printed, I leave a clause in my will to provide for three O’Leary treatises, to establish this fact being written, for which my executors are empowered to pay five pounds sterling for each. Why, were it not for this, I had been married, say at the least some fourteen times, in various quarters of the globe, and might have had a family of children, black and white, sufficient to make a set of chessmen among then. There’s no saying what might have happened to me. It would seem like boasting, if I said that the Emperor of Austria had some notions of getting rid of Metternich to give me the ‘Foreign Affairs,’ and that I narrowly escaped once commanding the Russian fleet in the Baltic. But of these at another time. I only wish to keep the principle at present in view, that Fortune will always do better for us than we could do for ourselves; but to this end there must be no tampering or meddling on our part. The goddess is not a West-End physician, who, provided you are ever prepared with your fee, blandly permits you all the little excesses you are bent on. No: she is of the Abernethy school, somewhat rough occasionally, but always honest; never suffering any interference from the patient, but exacting implicit faith and perfect obedience. As for me, I follow the regimen prescribed for me, without a thought of opposition; and wherever I find myself in this world, be it China or the Caucasus, Ghuznee, Genoa, or Glasnevin, I feel for the time that’s my fitting place, and endeavour to make the best of it.

The pedestrian alone, of all travellers, is thus taken by the hand by Fortune. Your extra post, with a courier on the box, interferes sadly with the current of all those little incidents of the road which are ever happening to him who takes to the ‘byways’ of the world. The odds are about one hundred to one against you that, when seated in your carriage, the postillion in his saddle and the fat courier outside, the words _en route_ being given, you arrive at your destination that evening, without any accident or adventure whatever of more consequence than a lost shoe from the near leader, a snapped spring, or a heartburn from the glass of bad brandy you took at the third stage. A blue post with white stripes on it tells you that you are in Prussia; or a yellow- and-brown pole, that the Grand-Duke of Nassau is giving you the hospitality of his territory--save which you have no other evidence of change. The village inn, and its little circle of celebrities, opens not to _you_ those peeps at humble life so indicative of national character: _you_ stop not at the wayside chapel in the sultry heat of noon to charm away your peaceful hour of reflection, now turning from the lovely Madonna above the altar to the peasant girl who kneels in supplication beneath, now contrasting the stern features of some painted martyr with the wrinkled front and weather-beaten traits of some white-haired beggar, now musing over the quiet existence of the humble figure whose heavy sabots wake the echoes of the vaulted aisle, or watching, perhaps, that venerable priest who glides about before the altar in his white robes, and disappears by some unseen door, seeming like a phantom of the place. The little relics of village devotion, so touching in their poverty, awake no thought within _you_ of the pious souls in yonder hamlet. The old curé himself, as he jogs along on his ambling pony, suggests nothing save the figure of age and decrepitude. _You_ have not seen the sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks of his humble flock, who salute him as he passes, nor gazed upon that broad high forehead, where benevolence and charity have fixed their dwelling. The foot-sore veteran or the young conscript have not been your fellow-travellers; mayhap you would despise them. Their joys and sorrows, their hopes, their fears, their wishes, all move in a humble sphere, and little suit the ears of those whose fortune is a higher one.

Not that the staff and the knapsack are the passports to only such as these. My experience would tell very differently. With some of the most remarkable men I ever met, my acquaintance grew on the road; some of the very pleasantest moments of my life had their origin in the chances of the wayside; the little glimpses I have ever enjoyed of national character have been owing to these same accidents; and I have often hailed some casual interruption to my route, some passing obstacle to my journey, as the source of an adventure which might afford me the greatest pleasure. I date this feeling to a good number of years back, and in a great measure to an incident that occurred to me when first wandering in this country. It is scarcely a story, but as illustrating my position I will tell it.

Soon after my Polish adventure--I scarcely like to be more particular in my designation of it--I received a small remittance from England, and started for Namur. My Uncle Toby’s recollections had been an inducement for the journey, had I not the more pleasant one in my wish to see the Meuse, of whose scenery I had already heard so much.

The season was a delightful one--the beginning of autumn; and truly the country far surpassed all my anticipations. The road to Dinant led along by the river, the clear stream rippling at one side; at the other, the massive granite rocks, rising to several hundred feet, frowned above you; some gnarled oak or hardy ash, clung to the steep cliffs, and hung their drooping leaves above your head. On the opposite bank of the river, meadows of emerald green, intersected with ash rows and tall poplars, stretched away to the background of dense forest that bounded the view to the very horizon. Here and there a little farmhouse, framed in wood and painted in many a gaudy colour, would peep from the little inclosure of vines and plum-trees; more rarely still, the pointed roof and turreted gable of a venerable chateau would rise above the trees.

How often did I stop to gaze on these quaint old edifices, with their balustrades and terraces, on which a solitary peacock walked proudly to and fro--the only sound that stirred being the hissing plash of the _jet d’ eau_, whose sparkling drops came pattering on the broad water-lilies. And as I looked, I wondered within myself what kind of life they led who dwelt there. The windows were open to the ground, bouquets of rich flowers stood on the little tables. These were all signs of habitation, yet no one moved about, no stir or bustle denoted that there were dwellers within. How different from the country life of our great houses in England, with trains of servants and equipages hurrying hither and thither--all the wealth and magnificence of the great capital transported to some far-off county, that ennui and fastidiousness, fatigue, and lassitude, should lose none of their habitual aids! Well, for _my_ part, the life among green trees and flowers, where the thrush sings, and the bee goes humming by, can scarcely be too homely for _my_ taste. It is in the peaceful aspect of all Nature, the sense of calm that breathes from every leafy grove and rippling stream, that I feel the soothing influence of the country. I could sit beside the trickling stream of water, clear but brown, that comes drop by drop from some fissure in the rocky cliff and falls into the little well below, and dream away for hours. These slight and simple sounds that break the silence of the calm air are all fraught with pleasant thoughts; the unbroken stillness of a prairie is the most awful thing in all Nature.

Unoppressed in heart, I took my way along the river’s bank, my mind revolving the quiet, pleasant thoughts that silence and lovely scenery are so sure to suggest. Towards noon I sat myself down on a large flat rock beside the stream, and proceeded to make my humble breakfast--some bread and a few cresses, washed down with a little water scarce flavoured with brandy, followed by my pipe; and I lay watching the white bubbles that flowed by me, until I began to fancy I could read a moral lesson in their course. Here was a great swollen fellow, rotund and full, elbowing out of his way all his lesser brethren, jostling and pushing aside each he met with; but at last bursting from very plethora, and disappearing as though he had never been. There were a myriad of little bead-like specks, floating past noiselessly, and yet having their own goal and destination; some uniting with others, grew stronger and hardier, and braved the current with bolder fortune, while others vanished ere you could see them well. A low murmuring plash against the reeds beneath the rock drew my attention to the place, and I perceived that a little boat, like a canoe, was fastened by a hay-rope to the bank, and surged with each motion of the stream against the weeds. I looked about to see the owner, but no one could I detect; not a living thing seemed near, nor even a habitation of any kind. The sun at that moment shone strongly out, lighting up all the rich landscape on the opposite side of the river, and throwing long gleams into a dense beech- wood, where a dark, grass-grown alley entered. Suddenly the desire seized me to enter the forest by that shady path. I strapped on my knapsack at once, and stepped into the little boat. There was neither oar nor paddle, but as the river was shallow, my long staff served as a pole to drive her across, and I reached the shore safely. Fastening the craft securely to a branch, I set forward towards the wood. As I approached, a little board nailed to a tree drew my eye towards it, and I read the nearly-effaced inscription, ‘Route des Ardennes.’ What a thrill did not these words send through my heart! And was this, indeed, the forest of which Shakespeare told us? Was I really ‘under the greenwood tree,’ where fair Rosalind had rested, and where melancholy Jaques had mused and mourned? And as I walked along, how instinct with his spirit did each spot appear! There was the oak--

‘Whose antique root peeps out Upon the brook that brawls along the wood.’ A little farther on I came upon--

‘The bank of osiers by the murmuring stream.’

What a bright prerogative has genius, that thus can people space with images which time and years erase not, making to the solitary traveller a world of bright thoughts even in the darkness of a lonely wood! And so to me appeared, as though before me, the scenes he pictured. Each rustling breeze that shook the leafy shade seemed like the impetuous passion of the devoted lover; the chirping notes of the wood-pigeon, like the flippant raillery of beauteous Rosalind; and in the low ripple of the brook I heard the complaining sounds of Jaques himself.

Sunk in such pleasant fancies I lay beneath a spreading sycamore, and with half-closed lids invoked the shades of that delightful vision before me, when the tramp of feet, moving across the low brushwood, suddenly aroused me. I started up on one knee, and listened. The next moment three men emerged from the wood into the path. The two foremost, dressed in blouses, were armed with carbines and a sabre; the last carried a huge sack on his shoulders, and seemed to move with considerable difficulty.

‘_Ventre du diable!_’ cried he passionately, as he placed his burden on the ground; ‘don’t hasten on this way; they’ll never follow us so far, and I am half dead with fatigue.’

‘Come, come, Gros Jean,’ said one of the others, in a voice of command, ‘we must not halt before we reach the three elms.’

‘Why not bury it here?’ replied the first speaker, ‘or else take your share of the labour?’

‘So I would,’ retorted the other violently, ‘if you could take my place when we are attacked; but, _parbleu!_ you are more given to running away than fighting.’

During this brief colloquy my heart rose to my mouth. The ruffianly looks of the party, their arms, their savage demeanour, and their secret purpose, whatever it was, to which I was now to a certain extent privy, filled me with terror, and I made an effort to draw myself back on my hands into the brushwood beneath the tree. The motion unfortunately discovered me; and with a spring, the two armed fellows bounded towards me, and levelled their pistols at my head.

‘Who are you? What brings you here?’ shouted they both in a breath.

‘For heaven’s sake, messieurs,’ said I, ‘down with your pistols! I am only a traveller, a poor inoffensive wanderer, an Englishman--an Irishman, rather, a good Catholic’--Heaven forgive me if I meant an equivocation here!--‘lower the pistols, I beseech you.’

‘Shoot him through the skull; he’s a spy!’ roared the fellow with the sack.

‘Not a bit of it,’ said I; ‘I’m a mere traveller, admiring the country, and an----’

‘And why have you tracked us out here?’ said one of the first speakers.

‘I did not; I was here before you came. Do put down the pistols, for the love of Mary! there’s no guarding against accidents, even with the most cautious.’

‘Blow his brains out!’ reiterated he of the bag, louder than before.

‘Don’t, messieurs, don’t mind _him_; he’s a coward! You are brave men, and have nothing to fear from a poor devil like me.’

The two armed fellows laughed heartily at this speech, while the other, throwing the sack from him, rushed at me with clenched hands.

‘Hold off, Gros Jean,’ said one of his companions; ‘if he never tells a heavier lie than that, he may make an easy confession on Sunday’; and with that he pushed him rudely back, and stood between us. ‘Come, then,’ cried he, ‘take up that sack and follow us.’

My blood curdled at the order; there was something fearful in the very look of the long bag as it lay on the ground. I thought I could actually trace the outline of a human figure. Heaven preserve me, I believed I saw it move!

‘Take it up,’ cried he sternly; ‘there’s no fear of its biting you.’

‘Ah,’ said I to myself, ‘the poor fellow is dead, then.’ Without more ado they placed the bag on my shoulders, and ordered me to move forward.

I grew pale and sick, and tottered at each step.

‘Is it the smell affects you?’ said one, with a demoniac sneer.

‘Pardon, messieurs,’ said I, endeavouring to pluck up courage, and seem at ease; ‘I never carried a--a thing like this before.’

‘Step out briskly,’ cried he; ‘you ‘ve a long way before you’; and with that he moved to the front, while the others brought up the rear.

As we proceeded on our way, they informed me that if by any accident they should be overtaken by any of my friends or associates, meaning thereby any of the human race that should chance to walk that way, the first thing they would do would be to shoot me dead--a circumstance that considerably damped all my ardour for a rescue, and made me tremble lest at any turn of the way some faggot-gatherer might appear in sight. Meanwhile, never did a man labour more strenuously to win the favour of his company.

I began by protesting my extreme innocence; vowed that a man of more estimable and amiable qualities than myself never did nor never would exist. To this declaration they listened with manifest impatience, if not with actual displeasure. I then tried another tack. I abused the rich and commended the poor; I harangued in round terms on the grabbing monopoly of the great, who enjoyed all the good things of this life, and would share none with their neighbours; I even hinted a sly encomium on those public-spirited individuals whose gallantry and sense of justice led them to risk their lives in endeavours to equalise somewhat more fairly this world’s wealth, and who were so ungenerously styled robbers and highwaymen, though they were in reality benefactors and heroes. But they only laughed at this; nor did they show any real sympathy with my opinions till in my general attack on all constituted authorities-- kings, priests, statesmen, judges, and gendarmes--by chance I included revenue-officers. The phrase seemed like a spark on gunpowder.

‘Curses be on the wretches! they are the plague-spots of the world,’ cried I, seeing how they caught at the bait; ‘and thrice honoured the brave fellows who would relieve suffering humanity from the burden of such odious oppression.’

A low whispering now took place among my escort, and at length he who seemed the leader stopped me short, and placing his hand on my shoulder, cried out--

‘Are you sincere in all this? Are these your notions?’

‘Can you doubt me?’ said I. ‘What reasons have I for speaking them? How do I know but you are revenue-officers that listen to me?’

‘Enough, you shall join us. We are going to pass this sack of cigars.’

‘Ho! these are cigars, then,’ said I, brightening up. ‘It is not a--a-- eh?’

‘They are Dutch cigars, and the best that can be made,’ said he, not minding my interruption. ‘We shall pass them over the frontier by Sedan to-morrow night, and then we return to Dinant, where you shall come with us.’

‘Agreed!’ said I, while a faint chill ran through my limbs, and I could scarcely stand--images of galley life, irons with cannon-shot, and a yellow uniform all flitting before me. From this moment they became extremely communicative, detailing for my amusement many pleasing incidents of their blameless life--how they burned a custom-house here, and shot an inspector there--and in fact displaying the advantages of my new profession, with all its attractions, before me. How I grinned with mock delight at atrocities that made my blood curdle, and chuckled over the roasting of a revenue-officer as though he had been a chestnut! I affected to see drollery in cruelties that deserved the gallows, and laughed till the tears came at horrors that nearly made me faint. My concurrence and sympathy absolutely delighted the devils, and we shook hands a dozen times over.

It was evening, when, tired and ready to drop with fatigue, my companions called a halt.

‘Come, my friend,’ said the chief, ‘we’ll relieve you now of your burden. You would be of little service to us at the frontier, and must wait for us here till our return.’

It was impossible to make any proposal more agreeable to my feelings. The very thought of being quit of my friends was ecstasy. I did not dare, however, to vent my raptures openly, but satisfied myself with a simple acquiescence.

‘And when,’ said I, ‘am I to have the pleasure of seeing you again, gentlemen?’

‘By to-morrow forenoon at farthest.’

By that time, thought I, I shall have made good use of my legs, please Heaven!

‘Meanwhile,’ said Gros Jean, with a grin that showed he had neither forgotten nor forgiven my insults to his courage--‘meanwhile we’ll just beg leave to fasten you to this tree’; and with the words, he pulled from a great canvas pocket he wore at his belt a hank of strong cord, and proceeded to make a slip noose on it.

‘It’s not your intention, surely, to tie me here for the whole night?’ said I, in horror.

‘And why not?’ interposed the chief. ‘Do you think there are bears or wolves in the Ardennes forest in September?’

‘But I shall die of cold or hunger! I never endured such usage before!’

‘You’ll have plenty worse when you’ve joined us, I promise you,’ was the short reply, as without further loss of time they passed the cord round my waist, and began, with a dexterity that bespoke long practice, to fasten me to the tree. I protested vigorously against the proceeding; I declaimed loudly about the liberty of the subject; vowed that England would take a frightful measure of retribution on the whole country, if a hair of my head were injured, and even went so far in the fervour of my indignation as to threaten the party with future consequences from the police.

The word was enough. The leader drew his pistol from his belt, and slapping down the pan, shook the priming with his hand.

‘So,’ cried he, in a harsh and savage voice, unlike his former tone, ‘you ‘d play the informer would you? Well, it’s honest at least to say as much. Now then, my man, a quick shrift and a short prayer, for I’ll send you where you’ll meet neither gendarmes nor revenue-officers, or if you do, they’ll have enough of business on their hands not to care for yours.’

‘Spare my life, most amiable monsieur,’ said I, with uplifted hands. ‘Never shall I utter one word about you, come what will. I’ll keep all I’ve seen a secret. Don’t kill the father of eight children. Let me live this time, and I’ll never wander off a turnpike road three yards as long as I breathe.’

They actually screamed with laughter at the terror of my looks; and the chief, seemingly satisfied with my protestation, replaced his pistol in his belt, and kneeling down on the ground began leisurely to examine my knapsack, which he coolly unstrapped and emptied on the grass.

‘What are these papers?’ said he, as he drew forth a most voluminous roll of manuscript from a pocket.

‘They are notes of my travels,’ said I obsequiously--little pen sketches of men and manners in the countries I’ve travelled in. I call them “Adventures of Arthur O’Leary.” That’s my name, gentlemen, at your service.’

‘Ah, indeed. Well, then, we’ve given you a very pretty little incident for your journal this evening,’ said he, laughing, ‘in return for which I’ll ask leave to borrow these memoranda for wadding for my gun. Believe me, Monsieur O’Leary, they’ll make a greater noise in the world under my auspices than under yours’; and with that he opened a rude clasp-knife and proceeded to cut my valued manuscript into pieces about an inch square. This done, he presented two of my shirts to each of his followers, reserving three for himself; and having made a most impartial division of my other effects, he pocketed the purse I carried, with its few gold pieces, and then, rising to his feet said--

‘Antoine, let us be stirring now; the moon will be up soon. Gros Jean, throw that sack on your shoulder and move forward. And now, monsieur, I must wish you a good-night; and as in this changeful life we can never answer for the future, let me commend myself to your recollection hereafter, if, as may be, we should not meet again. Adieu, adieu,’ said he, waving his hand.

‘Adieu,’ said I, with a great effort to seem at ease; ‘a pleasant journey, and every success to your honest endeavours.’

‘You are a fine fellow,’ said he, stopping and turning about suddenly-- ‘a superb fellow; and I can’t part from you without a _gage d’amitié_ between us’; and with the word he took my handsome travelling-cap from my head and placed it on his own, while he crowned me with a villainous straw thing that nothing save my bondage prevented me from hurling at his feet.

He now hurried forward after the others, and in a few minutes I was in perfect solitude.

‘Well,’ thought I (it was my first thought), ‘it might all have been worse; the wretches might have murdered me, for such reckless devils as practise their trade care little for human life. Murder, too, would only meet the same punishment as smuggling, or nearly so--a year more or a year less at the galleys; and, after all, the night is fine, and if I mistake not he said something about the moon.’ I wondered where was the pretty countess--travelling away, probably, as hard as extra post could bring her. Ah, she little thought of my miserable plight now! Then came a little interval of softness; and then a little turn of indignation at my treatment--that I, an Englishman, should be so barbarously molested; a native of the land where freedom was the great birthright of every one! I called to mind all the fine things Burke used to say about liberty, and if I had not begun to feel so cold I’d have tried to sing ‘Rule, Britannia,’ just to keep up my spirits; and then I fell asleep, if sleep it could be called--that frightful nightmare of famished wolves howling about me, tearing and mangling revenue-officers; and grisly bears running backward and forward with smuggled tobacco on their backs. The forest seemed peopled by every species of horrible shapes--half men, half beast--but all with straw hats on their heads and leather gaiters on their legs.

However, the night passed over, and the day began to break; the purple tint, pale and streaky, that announces the rising sun, was replacing the cold grey of the darker hours. What a different thing it is, to be sure, to get out of your bed deliberately, and rubbing your eyes for two or three minutes with your fingers, as you stand at the half-closed curtain, and then through the mist of your sleep look out upon the east, and think you see the sun rising, and totter back to the comfortable nest again, the whole incident not breaking your sleep, but merely being interwoven with your dreams, a thing to dwell on among other pleasant fancies, and to be boasted of the whole day afterwards--what a different thing it is, I say, from the sensations of him who has been up all night in the mail; shaken, bruised, and cramped; sat on by the fat man, and kicked by the lean one--still worse of him who spends his night _dos à dos_ to an oak in a forest, cold, chill, and comfortless; no property in his limbs beneath the knees, where all sensation terminates, and his hands as benumbed as the heart of a poor-law guardian!

If I have never, in all my after-life, seen the sun rise from the Rigi, from Snowdon, or the Pic du Midi, or any other place which seems especially made for this sole purpose, I owe it to the experience of this night, and am grateful therefore. Not that I have the most remote notion of throwing disrespect on the glorious luminary, far from it--I cut one of my oldest friends for speaking lightly of the equator; but I hold it that the sun looks best, as every one else does, when he’s up and dressed for the day. It’s a piece of prying, impertinent curiosity to peep at him when he ‘s rising and at his toilette; he has not rubbed the clouds out of his eyes, or you dared not look at him--and you feel it too. The very way you steal out to catch a glimpse shows the sneaking, contemptible sense you have of your own act. Peeping Tom was a gentleman compared to your early riser.

The whole of which digression simply seems to say that I by no means enjoyed the rosy-fingered morning’s blushes the more for having spent the preceding night in the open air. I need not worry myself, still less my reader, by recapitulating the various frames of mind which succeeded each other every hour of my captivity. At one time my escape with life served to console me for all I endured; at another, my bondage excited my whole wrath. I vowed vengeance on my persecutors too, and meditated various schemes for their punishment--my anger rising as their absence was prolonged, till I thought I could calculate my indignation by an algebraical formula, and make it exactly equal to the ‘squares of the distance’ of my persecutors. Then I thought of the delight I should experience in regaining my freedom, and actually made a bold effort to see something ludicrous in the entire adventure: but no--it would not do; I could not summon up a laugh.

At last--it might have been towards noon--I heard a merry voice chanting a song, and a quick step coming up the _allée_ of the wood. Never did my heart beat with such delight! The very mode of progression had something joyous in it; it seemed a hop and a step and a spring, suiting each motion to the tune of the air--when suddenly the singer, with a long bound, stood before me. It would, indeed, have been a puzzling question which of us more surprised the other; however, as I can render no accurate account of _his_ sensations on seeing me, I must content myself with recording mine on beholding him, and the best way to do so is to describe him. He was a man, or a boy--Heaven knows which--of something under the middle size, dressed in rags of every colour and shape; his old white hat was crushed and bent into some faint resemblance of a chapeau, and decorated with a cockade of dirty ribbons and a cock’s feather; a little white jacket, such as men-cooks wear in the kitchen, and a pair of flaming crimson-plush shorts, cut above the knee, and displaying his naked legs, with sabots, formed his costume. A wooden sword was attached to an old belt round his waist--an ornament of which he seemed vastly proud, and which from time to time he regarded with no small satisfaction.

‘Holloa!’ cried he, starting back, as he stood some six paces off, and gazed at me with most unequivocal astonishment; then recovering his self-possession long before I could summon mine, he said, ‘Bonjour, bonjour, camarade! a fine day for the vintage.’

‘No better,’ said I; ‘but come a little nearer, and do me the favour to untie these cords.’

‘Ah, are you long fastened up there?’

‘The whole night,’ said I, in a lamentable accent, hoping to move his compassion the more speedily.

‘What fun!’ said he, chuckling. ‘Were there many squirrels about?’

‘Thousands of them. But, come, be quick and undo this, and I ‘ll tell you all about it.’

‘Gently, gently,’ said he, approaching with great caution about six inches nearer me. ‘When did the rabbits come out? Was it before day?’

‘Yes, yes, an hour before. But I’ll tell you everything when I ‘m loose. Be alive now, do!’

‘Why did you tie yourself so fast?’ said he eagerly, but not venturing to come closer.

‘Confound the fellow!’ said I passionately. ‘I didn’t tie myself; it was the--the----

‘Ah, I know; it was the mayor, old Pierre Bogout. Well, well, he knows best when you ought to be set free. Bonjour,’ and with that he began once more his infernal tune, and set out on his way as if nothing had happened; and though I called, prayed, swore, promised, and threatened with all my might, he never turned his head, but went on capering as before, and soon disappeared in the dark wood.

For a full hour, passion so completely mastered me that I could do nothing but revile fools and idiots of every shade and degree-- inveighing against mental imbecility as the height of human wickedness, and wondering why no one had ever suggested the propriety of having ‘naturals’ publicly whipped. I am shocked at myself now, as I call to mind the extravagance of my anger; and I grieve to say that had I been for that short interval the proprietor of a private madhouse, I fear I should have been betrayed into the most unwarrantable cruelties towards the patients; indeed, what is technically called ‘moral government’ would have formed no part of my system.

Meanwhile time was moving on, if not pleasantly, at least steadily; and already the sun began to decline somewhat--his rays, that before came vertically, being now slanting as they fell upon the wood. For a while my attention was drawn off from my miseries by watching the weasels as they played and sported about me, in the confident belief that I was at best only a kind of fungus--an excrescence on an oak-tree. One of them came actually to my feet, and even ran across my instep in his play. Suddenly the thought ran through me--and with terror--how soon may it come to pass that I shall only be a miserable skeleton, pecked at by crows, and nibbled by squirrels! The idea was too dreadful; and as if the hour had actually come, I screamed out to frighten off the little creatures, and sent them back scampering into their dens.

‘Holloa there! what’s the matter?’ shouted a deep mellow voice from the middle of the wood; and before I could reply, a fat, rosy-cheeked man of about fifty, with a pleasant countenance terminating in a row of double chins, approached me, but still with evident caution, and halting when about five paces distant, stood still.

‘Who are you?’ said I hastily, resolving this time at least to adopt a different method of effecting my liberation.

‘What’s all this?’ quoth the fat man, shading his eyes with his palm, and addressing some one behind him, whom I now recognised as my friend the fool who visited me in the morning.

‘I say, sir,’ repeated I, in a tone of command somewhat absurd from a man in my situation, ‘who are you, may I ask?’

‘The Maire de Givet,’ said he pompously, as he drew himself up, and took a large pinch of snuff with an imposing gravity, while his companion took off his hat in the most reverent fashion, and bowed down to the ground.

‘Well, Monsieur le Maire, the better fortune mine to fall into such hands. I have been robbed, and fastened here, as you see, by a gang of scoundrels’--I took good care to say nothing of smugglers--‘who have carried away everything I possessed. Have the goodness to loosen these confounded cords, and set me at liberty.’

‘Were there many of them?’ quoth the mayor, without budging a step forward.

‘Yes, a dozen at least. But untie me at once. I’m heartily sick of being chained up here.’

‘A dozen at least!’ repeated he, in an accent of wonderment. ‘_Ma foi_, a very formidable gang. Do you remember any of their names?’

‘Devil take their names! how should I know them? Come, cut these cords, will you? We can talk just as well when I ‘m free.’

‘Not so fast, not so fast,’ said he, admonishing me with a bland motion of his hand. ‘Everything must be done in order. Now, since you don’t know their names, we must put them down as “parties unknown.”’

‘Put them down whatever you like; but let me loose!’

‘All in good time. Let us proceed regularly. Who are your witnesses?’

‘Witnesses!’ screamed I, overcome with passion; ‘you’ll drive me distracted! I tell you I was waylaid in the wood by a party of scoundrels, and you ask me for their names, and then for my witnesses! Cut these cords, and don’t be so infernally stupid! Come, old fellow, look alive, will you?’

‘Softly, softly; don’t interrupt public justice,’ said he, with a most provoking composure. ‘We must draw up the _procès-verbal_.’

‘To be sure,’ said I, endeavouring to see what might be done by concurrence with him, ‘nothing more natural But let me loose first; and then we ‘ll arrange the _procès_.’

‘Not at all; you’re all wrong,’ interposed he. ‘I must have two witnesses first, to establish the fact of your present position; ay, and they must be of sound mind, and able to sign their names.’

‘May Heaven grant me patience, or I’ll burst!’ said I to myself, while he continued in a regular sing-song tone--

‘Then we’ll take the depositions in form. Where do you come from?’

‘Ireland,’ said I, with a deep sigh, wishing I were up to the neck in a bog-hole there, in preference to my actual misfortune.

‘What language do you usually speak?’

‘English.’

‘There, now,’ said he, brightening up, ‘there’s an important fact already in the class No. 1--identity--which speaks of “all traits, marks, and characteristic signs by which the plaintiff may be known.” Now, we’ll set you forth as “an Irishman that speaks English.”’

‘If you go on this way a little longer, you may put me down as “insane,” for I vow to heaven I’m becoming so!’

‘Come, Bobeche,’ said he, turning towards the natural, who stood in mute admiration at his side, ‘go over to Claude Gueirans, at the mill, and see if the _notaire_ be up there--there was a marriage of his niece this morning, and I think you ‘ll find him; then cross the bridge, and make for Papalot’s, and ask him to come up here, and bring some stamped paper to take informations with him. You may tell the curé as you go by that there’s been a dreadful crime committed in the forest, and that “la justice s’informe.’” These last words were pronounced with an accent of the most magniloquent solemnity.

Scarcely had the fool set out on his errand when my temper, so long restrained, burst all bounds, and I abused the mayor in the most outrageous manner. There was no insult I could think of that I did not heap on his absurdity, his ignorance, his folly, his stupidity; and I never ceased till actually want of breath completely exhausted me. To all this the worthy man made no reply, nor paid even the least attention. Seated on the stump of a beech-tree, he looked steadily at vacancy, till at length I began to doubt whether the whole scene were real, and if he were not a mere creature of my imagination. I verily believe I’d have given five louis d’ors to have been free one moment, if only to pelt a stone at him.

Meanwhile, the shadow of coming night was falling on the forest; the crows came cawing home to their dwelling in the tree-tops; the sounds of insect life were stilled in the grass; and the odours of the forest, stronger as night closed in, filled the air. Gradually the darkness grew thicker and thicker, and at last all I could distinguish was the stems of the trees near me, and a massive black object I judged to be the mayor. I called out to him in accents intended to be most apologetic. I begged forgiveness for my warmth of temper; protested my regrets, and only asked for the pleasure of his entertaining society till the hour of my liberation should arrive. But no answer came; not a word, not a syllable in reply--I could not even hear him breathing. Provoked at this uncomplying obstinacy, I renewed my attacks on all constituted authorities; expressed the most lively hopes that the gang of robbers would some day or other burn down Givet and all it contained, not forgetting the mayor and the notary; and, finally, to fill up the measure of insult, tried to sing the _ça ira_, which in good monarchical Holland was, I knew, a dire offence, but I broke down in the melody, and had to come back to prose. However, it came just to the same--all was silent. When I ceased speaking, not even an echo returned me a reply. At last I grew wearied; the thought that all my anathemas had only an audience of weasels and woodpeckers damped the ardour of my eloquence, and I fell into a musing fit on Dutch justice, which seemed admirably adapted to those good old times when people lived to the age of eight or nine hundred years, and when a few months were as the twinkling of an eye. Then I began a little plan of a tour from the time of my liberation, cautiously resolving never to move out of the most beaten tracks, and to avoid all districts where the mayor was a Dutchman. Hunger and thirst and cold by this time began to tell upon my spirits too, and I grew sleepy from sheer exhaustion.

Scarcely had I nodded my head twice in slumber, when a loud shout awoke me. I opened my eyes, and saw a vast mob of men, women, and children carrying torches, and coming through the wood at full speed, the procession being led by a venerable-looking old man on a white pony, whom I at once guessed to be the curé, while the fool, with a very imposing branch of burning pine, walked beside him. ‘Good-evening to you, monsieur,’ said the old man, as he took off his hat, with an air of courtesy.

‘You must excuse the miserable plight I ‘m in, Monsieur le Curé,’ said I, ‘if I can’t return your politeness; but I ‘m tied.’

‘Cut the cords at once,’ said the good man to the crowd that now pressed forward.

‘Your pardon, Father Jacques,’ said the mayor, as he sat up in the grass and rubbed his eyes, which sleep seemed to have almost obliterated; ‘but the _proces verbal_ is----’

‘Quite unnecessary here,’ replied the old man. ‘Cut the rope, my friends.’

‘Not so fast,’ said the mayor, pushing towards me. ‘I ‘ll untie it. That’s a good cord and worth eight sous.’

And so, notwithstanding all my assurances that I ‘d give him a crown- piece to use more despatch, he proceeded leisurely to unfasten every knot, and took at least ten minutes before he set me at liberty.

‘Hurrah!’ said I, as the last coil was withdrawn, and I attempted to spring into the air; but my cramped and chilled limbs were unequal to the effort, and I rolled headlong on the grass.

The worthy curé, however, was at once beside me, and after a few directions to the party to make a litter for me, he knelt down to offer up a short prayer for my deliverance; the rest followed the act with implicit devotion, while I took off my hat in respect, and sat still where I was.

‘I see,’ whispered he, when the _Ave_ was over--’ I see you are a Protestant. This is a fast day with us; but we ‘ll get you a poulet at my cottage, and a glass of wine will soon refresh you.’

With many a thankful speech, I soon suffered myself to be lifted into a large sheet, such as they use in the vineyards; and with a strong cortege of the villagers carrying their torches, we took our way back to Givet.

The circumstances of my adventure, considerably exaggerated of course, were bruited over the country; and before I was out of bed next morning, a chasseur, in a very showy livery, arrived with a letter from the lord of the manor, entreating me to take my abode for some days at the Château de Rochepied, where I should be received with a perfect welcome, and every endeavour made to recover my lost effects. Having consulted with the worthy curé, who counselled me by all means to accept this flattering invitation--a course I was myself disposed to--I wrote a few lines of answer, and despatched a messenger by post to Dinant to bring up my heavy baggage, which I had left there.

Towards noon the count’s carriage drove up to convey me to the château; and having taken an affectionate farewell of my kind host, I set out for Rochepied. The wicker conveniency in which I travelled, all alone, albeit not the thing for Hyde Park, was easy and pleasant in its motion; the fat Flemish mares, with their long tails tastefully festooned over a huge cushion of plaited straw on their backs, went at a fair, steady pace; the road led through a part of the forest abounding in pretty vistas of woodland scenery; and everything conspired to make me feel that even an affair with a gang of smugglers might not be the worst thing in life, if it were to lead to such pleasant results afterwards.

As we jogged along, I learned from the fat Walloon coachman that the château was full of company; that the count had invited numerous guests for the opening of the _chasse_, and that there were French and Germans and English, and for aught he knew Chinese expected to ‘assist’ at the ceremony. I confess the information considerably damped the pleasure I at first experienced. I was in hopes to see real country life, the regular course of château existence, in a family quietly domesticated on their own property. I looked forward to a peep at that _vie intime_ of Flemish household, of which all I knew was gathered from a Wenix picture, and I wanted to see the thing in reality. The good vrow, with her high cap and her long waist, her pale features lit up with eyes of such brown as only Van Dyck ever caught the colour of; the daughters, prim and stately, with their stiff, quaint courtesy, moving about the terraced walks, like figures stepping from an ancient canvas, with bouquets in their white and dimpled fingers, or mayhap a jess-hawk perched upon their wrist; the Mynheer Baron, a large and portly Fleming, with a slouched beaver and a short trim moustache, deep of voice, heavy of step, seated on a grey Cuyp-like horse, with a flowing mane and a huge tassel of a tail, flapping lazily his brawny flanks, or slapping with heavy stroke the massive jack-boots of his rider--such were my notions of a Dutch household. The unchanged looks of the dwellings, which for centuries were the same, in part suggested these thoughts. The quaint old turrets, the stiff and stately terraces, the fosse, stagnant and sluggish, the carved tracery of the massive doorway, were all as we see them in the oldest pictures of the land; and when the rind looks so like, it is hard to imagine the fruit with a different flavour.

It was then with considerable regret I learned that I should see the family _en gala_; that I had fallen upon a time of feasting and entertainment. Had it not been too late, I should have beaten my retreat, and taken up my abode for another day with the curé of Givet; as it was, I resolved to make my visit as brief as possible, and take to the road with all convenient despatch.

As we neared the château, the Walloon remembered a number of apologies with which the count charged him to account for his not having gone himself to fetch me, alleging the claims of his other guests, and the unavoidable details which the forthcoming _ouverture de la chasse_ demanded at his hands. I paid little attention to the mumbled and broken narrative, interrupted by imprecations on the road and exhortations to the horses; for already we had entered the precincts of the demesne, and I was busy in noting down the appearance of the place. There was, however, little to remark. The transition from the wide forest to the park was only marked by a little improvement in the road; there was neither lodge nor gate--no wall, no fence, no inclosure of any kind. The trim culture, which in our country is so observable around the approach of a house of some consequence, was here totally wanting; the avenue was partly of gravel, partly of smooth turf; the brushwood of prickly holly was let grow wild, and straggled in many places across the road; the occasional views that opened seemed to have been made by accident, not design; and all was rank vegetation and rich verdure, uncared for-- uncultivated, but like the children of the poor, seeming only the healthier and more robust, because left to their own unchecked, untutored impulses. The rabbits played about within a few paces of the carriage tracks; the birds sat motionless on the trees as we passed, while here and there through the foliage I could detect the gorgeous colouring of some bright peacock’s tail, as he rested on a bough and held converse with his wilder brethren of the air, just as if the remoteness of the spot and its seclusions led to intimacies which in the ordinary routine of life had been impossible. At length the trees receded farther and farther from the road, and a beautiful expanse of waving lawn, dotted with sheep, stretched before the eye. In the distance, too, I could perceive the château itself--a massive pile in the shape of a letter L, bristling with chimneys, and pierced with windows of every size and shape; clumps of flowering shrubs and fruit- trees were planted about, and little beds of flowers spangled the even turf like stars in the expanse of heaven. The Meuse wound round the château on three sides, and perhaps thus saved it from being inflicted by a ditch, for without water a Dutchman can no more exist than a mackerel.

‘Fine! isn’t it?’ said the Walloon, as he pointed with his finger to the scene before me, and seemed to revel with delight in my look of astonishment, while he plied his whip with renewed vigour, and soon drew up at a wide flight of stone steps, where a row of orange-trees mounted guard on each side, and filled the place with their fragrance.

A servant in the strange _mélange_ of a livery, where the colours seemed chosen from a bed of ranunculuses just near, came out to let down the steps and usher me into the house. He informed me that the count had given orders for my reception, but that he and all his friends were out on horseback, and would not be back before dinner-time. Not sorry to have a little time to myself, I retired to my room, and threw myself down on a most comfortable sofa, excessively well satisfied with the locality and well disposed to take advantage of my good fortune. The little bed, with its snow-white curtains and gilded canopy; the brass dogs upon the hearth, that shone like gold; the cherry-wood table, that might have served as a mirror; the modest book-shelf, with its pleasant row of volumes; but, better than all, the open window, from which I could see for miles over the top of a dark forest, and watch the Meuse as it came and went, now shining, now lost in the recesses of the wood-- all charmed me; and I fully confessed what I have had very frequently to repeat in life, that ‘Arthur O’Leary was born under a lucky planet.’