Chapter 13

A screech, a bell, and two red eyes come gliding down the Admiralty Pier with a smoothness of motion rendered more smooth by the heaving of the boat. The sea makes noises against the pier, as if several hippopotami were lapping at it, and were prevented by circumstances over which they have no control from drinking peaceably. We, the boat, become violently agitated--rumble, hum, scream, roar--and establish an immense family washing-day at each paddle-box. Bright patches break out in the train as the doors of the post-office vans are opened, and instantly stooping figures with sacks upon their backs begin to be beheld among the piles, descending as it would seem in ghostly procession to Davy Jones's Locker. The passengers come on board; a few shadowy Frenchmen, with hatboxes shaped like the stoppers of gigantic case-bottles; a few shadowy Germans in immense fur coats and boots; a few shadowy Englishmen prepared for the worst and pretending not to expect it. I cannot disguise from my uncommercial mind the miserable fact that we are a body of outcasts; that the attendants on us are as scant in number as may serve to get rid of us with the least possible delay; that there are no night-loungers interested in us; that the unwilling lamps shiver and shudder at us; that the sole object is to commit us to the deep and abandon us. Lo, the two red eyes glaring in increasing distance, and then the very train itself has gone to bed before we are off! What is the moral support derived by some sea-going amateurs from an umbrella? Why do certain voyagers across the Channel always put up that article, and hold it up with a grim and fierce tenacity? A fellow-creature near me--whom I only know to be a fellow-creature because of his umbrella: without which he might be a dark bit of cliff, pier, or bulkhead--clutches that instrument with a desperate grasp that will not relax until he lands at Calais. Is there an analogy, in certain constitutions, between keeping an umbrella up and keeping the spirits up? A hawser thrown on board with a flop replies, "Stand by!" "Stand by, below!" "Half a turn ahead!" "Half a turn ahead!" "Half speed!" "Half speed!" "Port!" "Port!" "Steady!" "Steady!" "Go on!" "Go on!"

A stout wooden wedge driven in at my right temple and out at my left, a floating deposit of lukewarm oil in my throat, and a compression of the bridge of my nose in a blunt pair of pincers--these are the personal sensations by which I know we are off, and by which I shall continue to know it until I am on the soil of France. My symptoms have scarcely established themselves comfortably, when two or three skating shadows that have been trying to walk or stand, get flung together, and other two or three shadows in tarpaulin slide with them into corners and cover them up. Then the South Foreland lights begin to hiccup at us in a way that bodes no good.

It is at about this period that my detestation of Calais knows no bounds. Inwardly I resolve afresh that I never will forgive that hateful town. I have done so before, many times, but that is past. Let me register a vow. Implacable animosity to Calais everm--that was an awkward sea, and the funnel seems of my opinion, for it gives a complaining roar.

The wind blows stiffly from the nor'-east, the sea runs high, we ship a deal of water, the night is dark and cold, and the shapeless passengers lie about in melancholy bundles, as if they were sorted out for the laundress; but, for my own uncommercial part, I cannot pretend that I am much inconvenienced by any of these things. A general howling, whistling, flopping, gurgling, and scooping, I am aware of, and a general knocking about of Nature; but the impressions I receive are very vague. In a sweet, faint temper, something like the smell of damaged oranges, I think I should feel languidly benevolent if I had time. I have not time, because I am under a curious compulsion to occupy myself with Irish melodies. "Rich and rare were the gems she wore," is the particular melody to which I find myself devoted. I sing it to myself in the most charming manner and with the greatest expression. Now and then I raise my head (I am sitting on the hardest of wet seats, in the most uncomfortable of wet attitudes, but I don't mind it) and notice that I am a whirling shuttle-cock between a fiery battledore of a lighthouse on the French coast and a fiery battledore of a lighthouse on the English coast; but I don't notice it particularly, except to feel envenomed in my hatred of Calais. Then I go on again, "Rich and rare were the ge-ems she-e-e-e wore, And a bright gold ring on her wa-and she bo-ore, But O her beauty was fa-a-a-r beyond"--I am particularly proud of my execution here, when I become aware of another awkward shock from the sea, and another protest from the funnel, and a fellow-creature at the paddle-box more audibly indisposed than I think he need be--"Her sparkling gems, or snow-white wand, But O her beauty was fa-a-a-a-a-r beyond"--another awkward one here, and the fellow creature with the umbrella down and picked up--"Her spa-a-arkling ge-ems, or her Port! port! steady! steady! snow-white fellow-creature at the paddle-box very selfishly audible, bump roar wash white wand."

As my execution of the Irish melodies partakes of my imperfect perceptions of what is going on around me, so what is going on around me becomes something else than what it is. The stokers open the furnace-doors below, to feed the fires, and I am again on the box of the old Exeter Telegraph fast coach, and that is the light of the for-ever-extinguished coach-lamps, and the gleam on the hatches and paddle-boxes is _their_ gleam on cottages and haystacks, and the monotonous noise of the engines is the steady jingle of the splendid team. Anon, the intermittent funnel-roar of protest at every violent roll becomes the regular blast of the high-pressure engine, and I recognise the exceedingly explosive steamer in which I ascended the Mississippi when the American Civil War was not, and when only its causes were. A fragment of mast on which the light of a lantern falls, an end of rope, and a jerking block or so become suggestive of Franconi's Circus in Paris, where I shall be this very night mayhap (for it must be morning now), and they dance to the selfsame time and tune as the trained steed, Black Raven. What may be the speciality of these waves as they come rushing on I cannot desert the pressing demands made upon me by the gems she wore, to inquire, but they are charged with something about Robinson Crusoe, and I think it was in Yarmouth Roads that he first went a-seafaring and near foundering (what a terrific sound that word had for me when I was a boy!) in his first gale of wind. Still, through all this, I must ask her (who _was_ she, I wonder!) for the fiftieth time, and without ever stopping, Does she not fear to stray, so lone and lovely through this bleak way, And are Erin's sons so good or so cold, As not to be tempted by more fellow-creatures at the paddle-box or gold? Sir Knight, I feel not the least alarm, No son of Erin will offer me harm, For though they love fellow creatures with umbrella down again and golden store, Sir Knight, they--what a tremendous one!--love honour and virtue more: For though they love stewards with a bull's-eye bright, they'll trouble you for your ticket, sir--rough passage to-night!

I freely admit it to be a miserable piece of human weakness and inconsistency, but I no sooner become conscious of those last words from the steward than I begin to soften towards Calais. Whereas I have been vindictively wishing that those Calais burghers who came out of their town by a short cut into the History of England, with those fatal ropes round their necks by which they have since been towed into so many cartoons, had all been hanged on the spot, I now begin to regard them as highly respectable and virtuous tradesmen. Looking about me, I see the light of Cape Grinez well astern of the boat on the davits to leeward, and the light of Calais Harbour undeniably at its old tricks, but still ahead and shining. Sentiments of forgiveness of Calais, not to say of attachment to Calais, begin to expand my bosom. I have weak notions that I will stay there a day or two on my way back. A faded and recumbent stranger, pausing in a profound reverie over the rim of a basin, asked me what kind of place Calais is? I tell him (Heaven forgive me!) a very agreeable place indeed--rather hilly than otherwise.

So strangely goes the time, and on the whole so quickly--though still I seem to have been on board a week--that I am bumped, rolled, gurgled, washed, and pitched into Calais Harbour before her maiden smile has finally lighted her through the Green Isle. When blest for ever is she who relied On entering Calais at the top of the tide. For we have not to land to-night down among those slimy timbers--covered with green hair as if it were the mermaid's favourite combing-place--where one crawls to the surface of the jetty, like a stranded shrimp; but we go steaming up the harbour to the Railway-station Quay. And, as we go, the sea washes in and out among the piles and planks with dead, heavy beats and in quite a furious manner (whereof we are proud), and the lamps shake in the wind, and the bells of Calais striking One seem to send their vibrations struggling against troubled air, as we have come struggling against troubled water. And now, in the sudden relief and wiping of faces, everybody on board seems to have had a prodigious double-tooth out, and to be this very instant free of the dentist's hands. And now we all know for the first time how wet and cold we are, and how salt we are; and now I love Calais with my heart of hearts!

"Hôtel Dessin!" (but in this one case it is not a vocal cry; it is but a bright lustre in the eyes of the cheery representative of that best of inns). "Hôtel Meurice!" "Hôtel de France!" "Hôtel de Calais!" "The Royal Hotel, sir, Anglaishe 'ouse!" "You going to Parry, sir?" "Your baggage, registair free, sir?" Bless ye, my Touters; bless ye, my commissionaires; bless ye, my hungry-eyed mysteries in caps of military form, who are always here, day or night, fair weather or foul, seeking inscrutable jobs which I never see you get! Bless ye, my Custom-house officers in green and grey; permit me to grasp the welcome hands that descend into my travelling-bag, one on each side, and meet at the bottom to give my change of linen a peculiar shake-up, as if it were a measure of chaff or grain! I have nothing to declare, Monsieur le Douanier, except that, when I cease to breathe, Calais will be found written on my heart. No article liable to local duty have I with me, Monsieur l'Officier de l'Octroi, unless the overflowing of a breast devoted to your charming town should be in that wise chargeable. Ah! see at the gangway by the twinkling lantern my dearest brother and friend, he once of the Passport Office, he who collects the names! May he be for ever changeless in his buttoned black boat-surtout, with his note-book in his hand, and his tall black hat surmounting his round, smiling, patient face! Let us embrace, my dearest brother. I am yours _à tout jamais_--for the whole of ever.

Calais up and doing at the railway-station, and Calais down and dreaming in its bed; Calais with something of "an ancient and fish-like smell" about it, and Calais blown and sea-washed pure; Calais represented at the Buffet by savoury roast fowls, hot coffee, cognac, and Bordeaux; and Calais represented everywhere by flitting persons with a monomania for changing money--though I never shall be able to understand, in my present state of existence, how they live by it; but I suppose I should, if I understood the currency question; Calais _en gros_ and Calais _en détail_, forgive one who has deeply wronged you,--I was not fully aware of it on the other side, but I meant Dover.

Ding, ding! To the carriages, gentlemen the travellers. Ascend then, gentlemen the travellers, for Hazebroucke, Lille, Douai, Bruxelles, Arras, Amiens, and Paris! I, humble representative of the uncommercial interest, ascend with the rest. The train is light to-night, and I share my compartment with but two fellow-travellers; one, a compatriot in an obsolete cravat, who thinks it a quite unaccountable thing that they don't keep "London time" on a French railway, and who is made angry by my modestly suggesting the possibility of Paris time being more in their way; the other, a young priest, with a very small bird in a very small cage, who feeds the small bird with a quill, and then puts him up in the network above his head, where he advances twittering to his front wires, and seems to address me in an electioneering manner. The compatriot (who crossed in the boat, and whom I judge to be some person of distinction, as he was shut up, like a stately species of rabbit, in a private hutch on deck) and the young priest (who joined us at Calais) are soon asleep, and then the bird and I have it all to ourselves....

LETTERS [Sidenote: _Walter Bagehot_]

The complete letter-writer is now an unknown animal. In the last century, when communications were difficult, and epistles rare, there were a great many valuable people who devoted a good deal of time to writing elaborate letters. You wrote letters to a man whom you knew nineteen years and a half ago, and told him what you had for dinner, and what your second cousin said, and how the crops got on. Every detail of life was described and dwelt on, and improved. The art of writing, at least of writing easily, was comparatively rare, which kept the number of such compositions within narrow limits. Sir Walter Scott says he knew a man who remembered that the London post-bag once came to Edinburgh with only one letter in it. One can fancy the solemn, conscientious elaborateness with which a person would write, with the notion that his letter would have a whole coach and a whole bag to itself, and travel two hundred miles alone, the exclusive object of a red guard's care. The only thing like it now--the deferential minuteness with which one public office writes to another, conscious that the letter will travel on her Majesty's service three doors down the passage--sinks by comparison into cursory brevity.

No administrative reform will be able to bring even the official mind of these days into the grave inch-an-hour conscientiousness with which a confidential correspondent of a century ago related the growth of apples, the manufacture of jams, the appearance of flirtations, and other such-like things. All the ordinary incidents of an easy life were made the most of; a party was epistolary capital, a race a mine of wealth. So deeply sentimental was this intercourse that it was much argued whether the affections were created for the sake of ink, or ink for the sake of the affections. Thus it continued for many years, and the fruits thereof are written in the volumes of family papers, which daily appear, are prized as "materials for the historian," and consigned, as the case may be, to posterity or oblivion. All this has now passed away. Mr. Rowland Hill is entitled to the credit, not only of introducing stamps, but also of destroying letters.

THE TRAGEDY [Sidenote: _Ingoldsby_]

Quæque ipse miserrima vidi.--_Virgil_

Catherine of Cleves was a Lady of rank, She had lands and fine houses, and cash in the bank; She had jewels and rings, And a thousand smart things; Was lovely and young, With a rather sharp tongue, And she wedded a Noble of high degree With the star of the order of _St. Esprit_; But the Duke de Guise Was, by many degrees, Her senior, and not very easy to please; He'd a sneer on his lip, and a scowl with his eye, And a frown on his brow,--and he look'd like a Guy,-- So she took to intriguing With Monsieur St. Megrin, A young man of fashion, and figure, and worth, But with no great pretensions to fortune or birth; He would sing, fence, and dance With the best man in France, And took his rappee with genteel _nonchalance_; He smiled, and he flattered, and flirted with ease, And was very superior to Monseigneur de Guise. Now Monsieur St. Megrin was curious to know If the lady approved of his passion or no; So without more ado, He put on his _surtout_, And went to a man with a beard like a Jew, One Signor Ruggieri, A cunning man near, he Could conjure, tell fortunes, and calculate tides, Perform tricks on the cards, and Heaven knows what besides, Bring back a stray'd cow, silver ladle, or spoon, And was thought to be thick with the Man in the Moon. The Sage took his stand With his wand in his hand, Drew a circle, then gave the dread word of command, Saying solemnly--"_Presto!--Hey, quick!--Cock-a-lorum!_" When the Duchess immediately popp'd up before 'em.

Just then a conjunction of Venus and Mars, Or something peculiar above in the stars, Attracted the notice of Signor Ruggieri, Who "bolted," and left him alone with his deary.-- Monsieur St. Megrin went down on his knees, And the Duchess shed tears large as marrow-fat peas, When,--fancy the shock,--a loud double-knock, Made the lady cry, "Get up, you fool!--there's De Guise!"-- 'Twas his Grace, sure enough; So Monsieur, looking bluff, Strutted by, with his hat on, and fingering his ruff, While, unseen by either, away flew the dame Through the opposite key-hole, the same way she came; But, alack! and alas! A mishap came to pass, In her hurry she, somehow or other, let fall A new silk _bandana_ she'd worn as a shawl; She used it for drying Her bright eyes while crying, Ane blowing her nose, as her beau talk'd of dying!

Now the Duke, who had seen it so lately adorn her, And he knew the great C with the Crown in the corner, The instant he spied it, smoked something amiss, And said, with some energy, "D---- it! what's this?" He went home in a fume, And bounced into her room, Crying, "So, Ma'am, I find I've some cause to be jealous! Look here!--here's a proof you run after the fellows! --Now take up that pen,--if it's bad choose a better,-- And write, as I dictate, this moment a letter To Monsieur--you know who!" The lady look'd blue; But replied with much firmness--"Hang me if I do!" De Guise grasped her wrist With his great bony fist, And pinched it, and gave it so painful a twist, That his hard gauntlet the flesh went an inch in,-- She did not mind death, but she could not stand pinching; So she sat down and wrote This polite little note:--

"Dear Mister St. Megrin, The Chiefs of the League in Our house mean to dine This evening at nine; I shall, soon after ten, Slip away from the men, And you'll find me upstairs in the drawing-room then; Come up the back way, or those impudent thieves Of servants will see you; Yours CATHERINE OF CLEVES."

She directed and sealed it, all pale as a ghost, And De Guise put it into the Twopenny Post. St. Megrin had almost jumped out of his skin For joy that day when the post came in; He read the note through Then began it anew, And thought it almost too good news to be true.-- He clapp'd on his hat, And a hood over that, With a cloak to disguise him, and make him look fat; So great his impatience, from half after Four, He was waiting till Ten at De Guise's backdoor. When he heard the great clock of St. Genevieve chime, He ran up the back staircase six steps at a time, He had scarce made his bow, He hardly knew how, When alas! and alack! There was no getting back, For the drawing-room door was bang'd to with a whack;--

In vain he applied To the handle and tried, Somebody or other had locked it outside! And the Duchess in agony mourn'd her mishap: "We are caught like a couple of rats in a trap."

Now the Duchess's page, About twelve years of age, For so little a boy was remarkably sage; And, just in the nick, to their joy and amazement, Popp'd the gas-lighter's ladder close under the casement. But all would not do,--Though St. Megrin got through The window,--below stood De Guise and his crew. And though never man was more brave than St. Megrin, Yet fighting a score is extremely fatiguing; He thrust _carte_ and _tierce_ Uncommonly fierce, But not Beelzebub's self could their cuirasses pierce: While his doublet and hose, Being holiday clothes, Were soon cut through and through from his knees to his nose. Still an old crooked sixpence the Conjurer gave him, From pistol and sword was sufficient to save him, But, when beat on his knees, That confounded De Guise Came behind with the "fogle" that caused all this breeze, Whipp'd it tight round his neck, and, when backward he'd jerk'd him, The rest of the rascals jump'd on him and Burked him. The poor little page, too, himself got no quarter, but Was served the same way, And was found the next day With his heels in the air, and his head in the water-butt;

Catherine of Cleves Roar'd "Murder!" and "Thieves!" From the window above While they murder'd her love; Till, finding the rogues had accomplish'd his slaughter, She drank Prussic acid without any water, And died like a Duke-and-a-Duchess's daughter!

CHATTER OF A DILETTANTE [Sidenote: _Horace Walpole_]

The people are good-humoured here and easy; and, what makes me pleased with them, they are pleased with me. One loves to find people who care for one, when they can have no view in it.

[Sidenote: _Horace Walpole_]

As to "Hosier's Ghost," I think it very easy, and consequently pretty; but, from the ease, should never have guessed it Glover's. I delight in your, "the patriots cry it up, and the courtiers cry it down, and the hawkers cry it up and down."

[Sidenote: _Horace Walpole_]

There is a little book coming out that will amuse you. It is a new edition of Isaac Walton's "Complete Angler," full of anecdotes and historic notes. It is published by Mr. Hawkins, a very worthy gentleman in my neighbourhood, but who, I could wish, did not think angling so very _innocent_ an amusement. We cannot live without destroying animals, but shall we torture them for our sport--sport in their destruction? I met a rough officer at his house t'other day, who said he knew such a person was turning Methodist; for, in the middle of conversation, he rose and opened the window to let out a moth. I told him I did not know that the Methodists had any principle so good, and that I, who am certainly not on the point of becoming one, always did so too. One of the bravest and best men I ever knew, Sir Charles Wager, I have often heard declare he never killed a fly willingly. It is a comfortable reflection to me, that all the victories of last year have been gained since the suppression of the Bear Garden and prize-fighting; as it is plain, and nothing else would have made it so, that our valour did not singly and solely depend upon these two Universities. Adieu!

[Sidenote: _Horace Walpole_]

Can we easily leave the remains of such a year as this? It is still all gold. I have not dined or gone to bed by a fire till the day before yesterday. Instead of the glorious and ever-memorable year 1759, as the newspapers call it, I call it this ever-warm and victorious year. We have not had more conquest than fine weather; one would think we had plundered East and West Indies of sunshine. Our bells are worn threadbare with ringing for victories. I believe it will require ten votes of the House of Commons before people will believe it is the Duke of Newcastle that has done this, and not Mr. Pitt. One thing is very fatiguing--all the world is made knights or generals. Adieu! I don't know a word of news less than the conquest of America. Adieu! yours ever.

P.S.--You shall hear from me again if we take Mexico or China before Christmas.

[Sidenote: _Horace Walpole_]