Chapter 17

I was invited with much kindness and courtesy to stay until after the eleven o'clock meal; but, grateful as I felt to the Trappists for their bread and cheese and home-brewed beer, which had enabled me to sustain life for more than twelve hours, I was quite content with what I had received in that way. My curiosity being also satisfied, I gladly went forth into the wicked world again after exchanging a cordial farewell with the genial porter, who, when he caught sight of me returning to his lodge, looked sharply to see if the jar of beer was safe, and his mind being made easy on the point, he begged me to let him pour me out a glass. Then he gazed at me with round eyes of surprise and reproach when I declined the offer.

It was only a little past eight when I left the monastery. 'Ah,' I thought, as I felt the gentle glow of the early sunshine and breathed the fresh air of the wide world, 'there is time enough for me to become a Trappist.'

I continued on the road to Montpont. It was a sad and silent land over which I passed, with frequent crosses by the wayside, telling of the influence of the monks. The words, '_O crux, ave!_' met me amidst the heather and on the margin of lonely pools. I was now in the most forlorn part of the Double, where all around the eye rested upon forest, swamp, and moor. Not that I found it dismal: I drew delight from the lonesomeness, and revelled in the wildness of all things. Sunshine and flowers made the desert beautiful. The waysides were red with thyme or purple with heather, and the blooming lysimachia was like a belt of gold around the reedy pools. After walking some miles over this country, patches of maize, potatoes, and vines told me I was nearing a village. At length I came to one, and it was called St. Barthélemy. It was on the top of a bare chalky hill, and commanded an extensive view of the wasteful Double. It had a windblown, naked appearance, like many villages near the sea, although the ocean was still far from here. Moreover, there was a strange quietude--the stillness of a fever-stricken spot. The men and women looked undersized and prematurely old, and the children were pale and thin. Although the village was on a hill, the evil influence of the marshes reached it. I was told, however, that it had become much less unhealthy of late years. On the highest spot was a poor and plain little church, with a paddock-like cemetery on one side of it.

Although the hour was still early, I stopped for a meal at St. Barthélemy, for it seemed to me that I had been fasting a day or more. Choosing the only inn that looked promising, I sat down in a large room, where there were two long tables and a bed in one corner. The shutters of the windows were carefully closed to keep out the flies, and all the light that entered came through the chinks and cracks. In the South, people prefer to eat in semi-darkness rather than be tormented by flies. The only other person in the house was a young woman, and she was very uncouth. She may have held me in suspicion, for not a word would she say beyond what was rigorously necessary; but, as she cooked much better than I had expected, I thought no ill of her. She gave me, after an _omelette au cerfeuil_, a _fricassée_ of chicken, with very fair wine of the district, red and white. Dessert and coffee followed, and the charge was not much over a shilling.

As I left the village, I noticed upon a low building these words in large letters, '_Dépôt de Sangsues_,' and concluded that catching leeches in the pools about here was a local industry. On inquiring, however, I was told that such was not the case, but that a man here had had a quantity of leeches sent from Bordeaux to supply the district.

'But what is the meaning of this great liking for leeches?' I asked.

'Well,' replied my informant, 'I should tell you that the people about here always used to be bled when they had anything the matter with them. But the doctors will do it no longer, consequently we do it ourselves.'

The sad-looking peasants, with pale dark faces, whom I saw reaping their meagre wheat on the outskirts of the village, seemed, like many more I had met since I left Riberac, to be in much greater need of blood than leeches. Women, wearing straw-bonnets of the coal-scuttle shape, were reaping with men in the noonday heat. Upon all the burden of life appeared to press very heavily. The chalky soil produced miserable crops of wheat, maize, and potatoes that yielded no just return for the labour expended. The luxuriance of the young vines, planted where the old ones had perished from the phylloxera, showed that the hillsides here are better suited for wine-growing than for anything else.

As I went on, the country became more sombre from the increasing number of pines bordering the road and mingling with the distant forest. Very weird pines these were, chiefly covered with closely-packed dead foliage, with a living tuft of dark green at the end of each branchlet. A living death seemed to be their lot, and they moaned without moving as the light wind passed on its way.

But the descent towards the valley of the Isle had now begun. Huts built of brick and mud and wood became frequent, with hedges of quince bordering the gardens or little fields. Quite unexpectedly the river shone beneath me, and by following its course downward I soon came to a large block of scarcely connected buildings with high Mansard roofs. This was a monastery of the Carthusians. I did not recognise it at once as the conventual establishment well known in the district as the Chartreuse de Vauclaire, nor did I show any better understanding as regards a certain human form hoeing in a field beside the road with back towards me.

Wishing for information, I hailed this fellow-being as 'Madame!' The figure straightened itself immediately and turned towards me a head covered with a broad-brimmed straw hat, such as women wear in the fields; but the face ended in a long, grizzly beard. Then I noticed that what I had taken for a brown stuff dress was a monk's frock.

It was a Carthusian Brother whom I had addressed as 'Madame!' As he gave no sign to indicate what his feelings were with regard to this mistake, I thought it better not to make excuses, but asked him if I was on the road to Montpont Learning that I was, I went on, and having reached the convent, which I now recognised for what it was, I pulled the bell of the porter's lodge. I was at once admitted to the presence of a tall and meagre Carthusian father, with a long, coal-black beard and very dark eyes, with a fixed expression that expressed nothing that I could be sure about. What I fancied that I read in them was doubtfulness as to my motives, and the necessity of being cautious.

By far the greater number of visitors who call here ask for food. I wished to see the monastery. After a little hesitation, this father, who before I left him was so communicative as to tell me he was a Spaniard, made a sign to me to follow him. He showed me the church--which contains some interesting carvings--the cloisters, and the cemetery; but every bit of information had to be drawn from him as if it were a tooth. This was the kind of conversation that passed between us:

'Are there many monks here?'

'Not a small number.'

'Do you make cheese?'

'Yes.'

'For sale?'

'No.'

'Do you make the _liqueur?_'

'Oh no.'

He would have allowed me to leave with the impression that the Carthusians of Vauclaire did nothing beyond observing the canonical hours; but I learnt from the peasants of the country that, like the Trappists, they laboured industriously in clearing and draining the desert.

My walk across the Double ended at Montpont, a small agricultural centre on the banks of the Isle, offering no charm to the traveller, unless he be a commercial one. It was a little fortified town of some importance in the Middle Ages. In 1370 the Bretons in garrison at Périgueux besieged it, and it was surrendered without a struggle by the baron, Guillaume de Montpont, an English partisan. The Duke of Lancaster then hurried up and besieged the place with one hundred men-at-arms and five hundred archers. For eleven weeks the little band of Bretons held out, but a breach having been made in the wall, Montpont again fell into the power of the English.

A CANOE VOYAGE ON THE DRONNE.

Before starting upon a long-thought-of voyage down the Dronne, I resolved to make the canoe look as beautiful as possible, so that it might produce a favourable impression upon the natives of the regions through which it was going to pass. I had learnt from experience that when one can take the edge off suspicion by giving one's self or one's belongings a respectable appearance, that does not cost much, it is well to do it.

Therefore I sent the bare-footed Hélie, who always helped me when I had any dirty work on hand, to buy some paint. Having first puttied up all the cracks and crevices, we laid the paint on, and as the colour chosen was a very pale green, the effect was anything but vulgar. When the boat was put on the water again it looked like a floating willow-leaf of rather uncommon size.

Now, between the river Isle, where I was, and the Dronne, where I wished to be, there was an obstacle in the shape of some twelve miles of hilly country. A light cart was accordingly hired to convey the canoe and ourselves (I was accompanied on this adventure by an English boy named Hugh, sixteen years old, and just let loose from school) to the point at which I had decided to commence the voyage down-stream. We left at five in the morning, when the sun was gilding the yellow tufts and the motionless long leaves of the maize-field. When we were fairly off--the boat, in which we were seated, stretching many feet in the rear of the very small cart--the most anxious member of the party was the horse, for he had never carried such a queer load as this before, and the novelty of the sensation caused by the weight far behind completely upset his notions of propriety. His conduct was especially strange while going up-hill, for then he would stop short from time to time and make an effort to look round, as if uncertain whether it was all a hideous dream, or whether he was really growing out behind in the form of a crocodile.

The peasants whom we met on the road stood still and gazed with eyes and mouths wide open until we were out of sight. They had never seen people travelling in a boat before on dry land. When they heard we were English all was explained: '_Ces diables d'Anglais sont capables de tout_.'

While crossing the country in this fashion we passed a spot on the highroad where a man was getting ready to thresh his wheat. He had prepared the place by spreading over it a layer of cow-dung, and levelling it with his bare feet until it was quite smooth and hard. It is in this way that the threshing-floors are usually made.

'You see that _type?_' said the young man who was driving, and who balanced himself on the edge of a board.

'Yes.'

'Well, he owns more land than any other peasant about here, and is rich, and yet, rather than turn a bit of his ground into a threshing-floor, he brings his corn where you see him and threshes it upon the road.'

I said to myself that this man was not the first to discover that one way to get on is to trespass as much as possible upon the rights of that easy-going neighbour called the Public.

The hills between the two valleys were, for the most part, wooded with natural forest, with a dense undergrowth of heather and gorse. As soon as we began to descend towards the Dronne, the great southern broom, six or eight feet high, was seen in splendid flower upon the roadside banks. We found the Dronne at the village of Tocane St. Apre, and we launched the boat below the mill about half a mile farther down-stream. Then, having put on board a knapsack containing clothes, a valise filled chiefly with provisions, several bottles of wine, one of rum (a safer spirit in France than some others), and another of black coffee, made very strong, so that it should last a long time, we took our first lunch in the boat, in the cool shade of some old alders.

The wine had been already heated by the sun during the journey, but the means of cooling it somewhat was near at hand. We hitched a couple of bottles to the roots of the alders, with their necks just out of the water. The young peasant who had driven us was invited to share our meal, and the horse was left at the mill with a good feed of oats to comfort him and help him to forget all the horrible suspicions that the boat had caused him. The meal was simple enough, for we had brought no luxurious fare with us; but the feeling of freedom and new adventure, the low song of the stream running over the gravel in the shallows, the peace and beauty of the little cove under the alders, made it more delightful than a sumptuous one with other surroundings.

Everything went as smoothly as the deep water where the boat was chained, until the spirit-lamp was lighted for warming the coffee. Then it was discovered that the little saucepan had been forgotten. This was trying, for when you have grown used to coffee after lunch you do not feel happy without it, so long as there is a chance of getting it. It is exasperating when you have the coffee ready made, but cannot warm it for want of a small utensil. The peasant went to the mill to borrow a saucepan, and he brought back one that was just what we wanted; at least, we thought so until the coffee began to run out through a hole in the bottom. In vain we tried to stop the leak with putty, which was brought in case the boat should spring one; but after awhile it stopped itself--quite miraculously. Thus good fortune came to our aid at the outset, and it looked like a fair omen of a prosperous voyage.

We did not linger too long over this meal, for I had not come prepared to pass the night either in the boat or on the grass, and I hoped to reach Riberac in the evening. The bottles were put away in the locker, and what was not eaten was returned to the valise. Then we parted company with the young peasant, whose private opinion was that we should not go very far. But he was mistaken; we went a long way, after encountering many serious obstacles, as will be seen by-and-by.

The chain being pulled in, the boat glided off like the willow-leaf to which I have already compared it. I sat on my piece of sliding board about the middle, and Hugh sat on his piece of wood--which was the top of the locker--in the stern. We both used long double-bladed paddles. In a few seconds we were in the current, and in a few more were aground. Although the canoe was flat-bottomed, it needed at least three inches of water to float comfortably with us and the cargo. We were in a forest of reeds that hid the outer world from us, and we had left the true current for another that led us to the shallows. But this little difficulty was quickly overcome, and I soon convinced myself that, notwithstanding the dearth of water after the long drought, it was quite possible to descend the Dronne from St. Apre in a boat such as mine.

Now, as there was no wager to make me hurry, and my main purpose in giving myself all the trouble that lay before me was to see things, I put my paddle down, and leaving Hugh to work off some of his youthful ardour for navigation, I gave myself up for awhile to the spell of this most charming stream. Its breadth and its depth were constantly changing, and in a truly remarkable manner. Now it was scarcely wider than a brook might be, and was nearly over-arched by its alders and willows; now it widened out and sped in many a flashing runnel through a broad jungle of reeds where the blistering rays of the sun beat down with tropical ardour; then it slept in pools full of long green streamers that waved slowly like an Undine's hair. Here and there all about stood the waxen flowers of sagittaria above the barbed floating leaves, cool and darkly green. Close to the banks the tall and delicately branching water-plantains, on which great grasshoppers often hang their shed skins, were flecked with pale-pink blooms-flowers of biscuit-porcelain on hair-like stems.

The splashing of a water-wheel roused me from my idle humour. We had reached--much too quickly--our first mill-dam. It was a very primitive sort of dam, formed of stakes and planks, but chiefly of brambles, dead wood and reeds that had floated down and lodged there. Then began the tugging, pushing, and lifting, to be continued at irregular intervals for several days. The canoe was less than three feet wide in the middle, but it was more than six yards long, and this length, although it secured steadiness and greatly reduced the risk of capsizing in strong rapids or sinister eddies, brought the weight up to about 170 lb., without reckoning the baggage, which was turned out upon the grass or on the stones at each weir. After passing the first obstacle, we floated into one of those long deep pools which lend a peculiar charm to the Dronne. Usually covered in summer with white or yellow lilies--seldom the two species together--these and other plants that rejoice in the cool liquid depths show their scalloped or feathery forms with perfect distinctness far below the surface of the limpid water.

Here, O idle water-wanderer, let your boat glide with the scarcely moving current, and gaze upon the leafy groves of the sub-aqueous wilderness lit up by the rays of the sun, and watch the fish moving singly or in shoals at various depths--the bearded barbel, the spotted trout, the shimmering bream, and the bronzen tench. Watch, too, the speckled water-snakes gliding upon the gravel or lurking like the ancient serpent in mimic gardens of Eden. Mark all the varied life and wondrous beauty of nature there. Above all, do not hurry, for little is seen by those who hasten on.

At a weir of sticks and stones forming a rather wide dam, overgrown by tall hemp-agrimony now in flower, we met with our first difficulty. There was no overflow to help us, for in this time of drought the mill-wheel needed all the stream to turn it; so the boat had to be lifted over the stakes and stones. Into the water we had to go, and boots and socks, being now put aside, were not worn again for five days, except when we went ashore in the evening, and had to make an effort to look respectable.

The dam being passed, the boat shot down a rapid current; then, as the bed widened out and the water stilled, we were hidden from the world by reeds, through which we had to force a way while the sun smote us and frizzled us. Countless dragonflies flashed their brilliant colours as they whirled and darted, green frogs plunged at our approach from their diving-boards of matted rush, or quirked defiance from the banks where they were safe; and now and again a startled kingfisher showed us the blue gleam of a wing above the brown maces of the bulrushes and the high-hanging tassels of the sedges.

The bell of an unseen church a long way off sounded the mid-day angelus, and told that we had not drifted so far as it appeared from the peopled world. Leaving the reeds, we passed again into the shade of alders that stretched their gnarled, fantastic roots far over the babbling or dreaming water, and thence again amongst the sunny reeds. And so the hours went by, and there were no villages, or even houses, to be seen, but the little rough mills beside the slowly toiling wheel, which in most cases seemed to be the only living thing there. Once, however, there was a naked child, very brown, and as round as a spider between the hips and the waist, playing upon a flowery bank above the mother, who wore a brilliant-coloured kerchief on her head, and who knelt beside the water as she rinsed the little elfs shirt. I thought the picture pretty enough to make a note of it. This caused some contemptuous surprise to my companion in the back of the boat--not yet alive to the innocent cunning of the artist and writer, for he asked me, in the descriptive language of the British schoolboy:

'Are you going to stick down _that?_'

On we went, turning and turning, gliding into nooks that seemed each more charming than the other, and having a constant succession of delightful surprises, interrupted only by the mill-dams, which were distressingly frequent.

The hot hours stole away or passed into the mellowness of evening, and the marsh-mallows that fringed the stream were looking coolly white when we drew near to Riberac. The water widened and deepened, and we met a pleasure-boat, vast and gaudy, recalling some picture of Queen Elizabeth's barge on the Thames. Under an awning sat a bevy of ladies in bright raiment, pleasant to look at, and in front of them were several young men valiantly rowing, or, rather, digging their short sculls into the water, as if they were trying to knock the brains out of some fluvial monsters endeavouring to capture the youth and loveliness under the awning.

Having reached that part of the river which was nearest Riberac, I had to find a place where the boat could be left, and where it would be safe from the enterprise of boys--a bad invention in all countries. It is just, however, to the French boy to say that he is not quite so fiendish out of doors as the English one; but he makes things even by his conduct at home, where he conscientiously devotes his animal spirits to the destruction of his too-indulgent parents.

My difficulty was solved by a kind butcher, whose garden ran down to the water. He let me chain the boat to one of his trees, and he took our fowl, which was intended for lunch next day, and put it into his meat-safe--an excellent service, for the drainage of his slaughter-house, emptying into the river by the side of the boat, was enough to make even a live fowl lose its freshness in a single night. We were soon settled in a comfortable inn that prided itself, not without reason, upon its _cuisine_. Here we had a _friture_ of gudgeons from the Dronne, which is famous throughout a wide region for the quality of these and other fish.

The next morning I bought a saucepan, a melon, and grapes--which were already ripe, although the date was the 9th August. Thus laden, we returned to the boat and to the kindly butcher, who gave us our fowl wrapped up, not in a newspaper as we had left it, but in a sheet of spotless white paper. Having refilled our bottles, some with water, others with wine, we parted from our hospitable acquaintance with pleasant words, and were afloat again before the hour of eight. We had a serious wetting at the first weir, but were dry again before we stopped to lunch. This time we landed, and chose our spot in a beautiful little meadow, where an alder cast its shade upon the bank. It was far from all habitations, but had the case been otherwise, there would have been no danger of our being disturbed by a voice from behind saying: 'You have no right to land here,' or, 'You are trespassing in this field.'

Now, this little meadow was, except where the river ran by it, enclosed by a high hedge, just as one in England might be, and although it was some four hundred miles south of Paris, and the season had been exceptionally dry, the grass was brightly green. Just below us was the clear river, fringed with sedges, sprinkled all over with yellow lilies; beyond this were other meadows, and then rose towards the cloudless sky the line of wooded hills. There was a great quietude that nothing broke, save the splash of a rising fish and the chorus of grasshoppers in the sunny herbage. Here we stayed a good hour and warmed our coffee tranquilly in the new saucepan, which afterwards proved very useful for baling purposes. Then I smoked the pipe of peace, and felt tempted to tarry in this pleasant place; but Hugh roused me to action by talking of fishing.