Arthur O'Leary Part 5

"Don't swear," said I. "If I had you in Rotterdam, I'd fine you two guilders."

"What does he say?" while his eyes flashed fire. "Tell _La grande morue_, to speak French."

"Tell him I am not a cod fish," said I.

"Who speaks Dutch here?" said he. "General de Ritter, ask him where are the _Echevins_, or, is the man a fool?"

"I have heard," said the General, bowing obsequiously--"I have heard, your Majesty, that he is little better."

"_Tonnerre de Dieu!_" said he; "and this is their chief magistrate!

Maret, you must look to this to-morrow; and as it grows late now, let us see the citadel at once; he can show us the way thither, I suppose:"

and with this he moved forward, followed by the rest, among whom I found myself hurried along, no one any longer paying me the slightest respect, or attention.

"To the citadel," said one.

"To the citadel," cried another.

"Come, Hoogendorp, lead the way," cried several together; and so they pushed me to the front, and, notwithstanding all I said, that I did not know the citadel, from the Dome Church, they would listen to nothing, but only called the louder, "Step out, old '_Grande culotte_,'" and hurried me down the street, at the pace of a boar-hunt.

"Lead on," cried one. "To the front," said another. "Step out,"

roared three or four together: and I found myself at the head of the procession, without the power to explain or confess my ignorance.

"As sure as my name is Peter van Hoogendorp, I'll give you all a devil's dance," said I to myself; and with that, I grasped my staff, and set out as fast as I was able. Down, one narrow street we went, and up, another: sometimes we got into a _cul de sac_, where there was no exit, and had to turn back again; another time, we would ascend a huge flight of steps, and come plump into a tanner's yard, or a place where they were curing fish, and so, we blundered on, till there wasn't a blind alley, nor crooked lane, of Antwerp, that we didn't wade through, and I was becoming foot-sore, and tired myself, with the exertion.

All this time the Emperor--for it was Napoleon--took no note of where we were going; he was too busy conversing with old General de Hitter, to mind anything else. At last, after traversing a long narrow street, we came down upon an arm of the Scheldt, and so overcome was I then, that I resolved I would go no further without a smoke, and I sat myself down on a b.u.t.ter firkin, and took out my pipe, and proceeded to strike a light with my flint. A t.i.tter of laughter from the officers now attracted the Emperor's attention, and he stopped short, and stared at me as if I had been some wonderful beast.

"What is this?" said he. "Why don't you move forward?"

"It 's impossible," replied I, "I never walked so far, since I was born."

"Where is the citadel?" cried he in a pa.s.sion.

"In the devil's keeping," said I, "or we should have seen it long ago."

"That must be it yonder," said an aide-de-camp, pointing to a green, gra.s.sy eminence, at the other side of the Scheldt.

The Emperor took the telescope from his hand, and looked through it steadily for a couple of minutes.

"Yes," said he, "that's it: but why have we come all this round, the road lay yonder."

"Ja!" said I, "so it did."

"_Ventre bleu!_" roared he, while he stamped his foot upon the ground, "_ce gaillard se moque de nous_."

"Ja!" said I again, without well knowing why.

"The citadel is there! It is yonder!" cried he, pointing with his finger.

"Ja!" said I once more.

"_En avant!_ then," shouted he, as he motioned me to descend the flight of steps which led down to the Scheldt; "if this be the road you take, _par Saint Denis _! you shall go first."

Now the frost, as I have said, had only set in a few days before, and the ice on the Scheldt would scarcely have borne the weight of a drummer-boy; so I remonstrated at once, at first in Dutch, and then in French, as well as I was able, but n.o.body would mind me. I then endeavoured' to show the danger his Majesty himself would incur; but they only laughed at this, and cried--

"_En avant, en avant toujours_," and before I had time for another word, there was a corporal's guard behind me, with fixed bayonets; the word "march" was given, and out I stepped.

I tried to say a prayer, but I could think of nothing but curses upon the fiends, whose shouts of laughter behind put all my piety to flight.

When I came to the bottom step I turned round, and, putting my hand to my sides, endeavoured by signs to move their pity; but they only screamed the louder at this, and at a signal from an officer, a fellow touched me with a bayonet.

"That was an awful moment," said old Hoogendorp, stopping short in his narrative, and seizing the can, which for half an hour he had not tasted. "I think I see the river before me still, with its flakes of ice, some thick and some thin, riding on each other; some whirling along in the rapid current of the stream; some lying like islands where the water was sluggish. I turned round, and I clenched my fist, and I shook it in the Emperor's face, and I swore by the bones of the Stadtholder, that if I had but one grasp of his hand, I'd not perform that dance without a partner. Here I stood," quoth he, "and the Scheldt might be, as it were, there. I lifted my foot thus, and came down upon a large piece of floating ice, which, the moment I touched it, slipped away, and shot out into the stream."

[Ill.u.s.tration: 047]

At this moment Mynheer, who had been dramatizing this portion of his adventure, came down upon the waxed floor, with a plump, that shook the paG.o.da to its centre, while I, who had during the narrative been working double tides at the schiedam, was so interested at the catastrophe, that I thought he was really in the Scheldt, in the situation he was describing. The instincts of humanity were, I am proud to say, stronger in me than those of reason. I kicked off my shoes, threw away my coat, and plunged boldly after him. I remember well, catching him by the throat, and I remember too, feeling, what a dreadful thing was the grip of a drowning man; for both his hands were on my neck, and he squeezed me fearfully. Of what happened after, the waiters, or the Humane Society may know something: I only can tell, that I kept my bed, for four days, and when I next descended to the _table d'hote_, I saw a large patch of black sticking-plaster across the bridge of old Hoogendorp's nose--and I never was a guest in "l.u.s.t und Rust" afterwards.

The loud clanking of the _table d'hote_ bell aroused me, as I lay dreaming of Frank Holbein and the yellow doublet. I dressed hastily and descended to the _saal_; everything was exactly as I left it ten years before; even to the cherry-wood pipe-stick that projected from Mynheer's breeches-pocket, nothing was changed. The clatter of post-horses, and the heavy rattle of wheels drew me to the window, in time to see the Alderman's carriage with four posters, roll past; a kiss of the hand was thrown me from the rumble. It was the "Honourable Jack" himself, who somehow, had won their favour, and was already installed, their travelling companion.

"It is odd enough," thought I, as I arranged my napkin across my knee, "what success lies in a well-curled whisker--particularly if the wearer be a fool."

CHAPTER IV. MEMS. AND MORALIZINGS.

He who expects to find these "Loiterings" of mine of any service as a "Guide Book" to the Continent, or a "Voyager's Manual," will be sorely disappointed; as well might he endeavour to devise a suit of clothes from the patches of cloth scattered about a tailor's shop, there might be, indeed, wherewithal to repair an old garment, or make a pen-wiper, but no more.

My fragments, too, of every shape and colour--sometimes showy and flaunting, sometimes a piece of hodden-grey or linsey-wolsey--are all I have to present to my friends; whatever they be in shade or texture, whether fine or homespun, rich in Tyrian dye, or stained with russet brown, I can only say for them, they are all my own--I have never "cabbaged from any man's cloth." And now to abjure decimals, and talk like a unit of humanity: if you would know the exact distance between any two towns abroad--the best mode of reaching your destination--the most comfortable hotel to stop at, when you have got there--who built the cathedral--who painted the altar-piece--who demolished the town in the year fifteen hundred and--fiddlestick--then take into your confidence the immortal John Murray, he can tell you all these, and much more; how many kreutzers make a groschen, how many groschen make a gulden, reconciling you to all the difficulties of travel by historic a.s.sociations, memoirs of people who lived before the flood, and learned dissertations on the etymology of the name of the town, which all your ingenuity can't teach you how to p.r.o.nounce.

Well, it's a fine thing, to be sure, when your carriage breaks down in a _chaussee_, with holes large enough to bury a dog--it's a great satisfaction to know, that some ten thousand years previous, this place, that seems for all the world like a mountain torrent, was a Roman way.

If the inn you sleep in, be infested with every annoyance to which inns are liable--all that long catalogue of evils, from boors to bugs--never mind, there's sure to be some delightful story of a b.l.o.o.d.y murder connected with its annals, which will amply repay you for all your suffering.

And now, in sober seriousness, what literary fame equals John Murray's?

What portmanteau, with two s.h.i.+rts and a night-cap, hasn't got one "Hand-book?" What Englishman issues forth at morn, without one beneath his arm? How naturally, does he compare the voluble statement of his _valet-de-place_, with the testimony of the book. Does he not carry it with him to church, where, if the sermon be slow, he can read a description of the building? Is it not his guide at _table-d'hote_, teaching him, when to eat, and where to abstain? Does he look upon a building, a statue, a picture, an old cabinet, or a ma.n.u.script, with whose eyes does he see it? With John Murray's to be sure! Let John tell him, this town is famous for its mushrooms, why he'll eat them, till he becomes half a fungus himself; let him hear that it is celebrated for its lace manufactory, or its iron work--its painting on gla.s.s, or its wigs; straightway he buys up all he can find, only to discover, on reaching home, that a London shopkeeper can undersell him in the same articles, by about fifty per cent.

In all this, however, John Murray is not to blame; on the contrary, it only shows his headlong popularity, and the implicit trust, with which is received, every statement he makes. I cannot conceive anything more frightful than the sudden appearance of a work which should contradict everything in the "Hand-book," and convince English people that John Murray was wrong. National bankruptcy, a defeat at sea, the loss of the colonies, might all be borne up against; but if we awoke one morning to hear that the "Continent" was no longer the Continent we have been accustomed to believe it, what a terrific shock it would prove. Like the worthy alderman of London, who, hearing that Robinson Crusoe was only a fiction, confessed he had lost one of the greatest pleasures of his existence; so, should we discover that we have been robbed of an innocent and delightful illusion, for which no reality of cheating waiters and cursing Frenchmen, would ever repay us.

Of the implicit faith with which John and his "Manual" are received, I remember well, witnessing a pleasant instance a few years back on the Rhine.

On the deck of the steamer, amid that strange commingled ma.s.s of c.o.c.kneys and Dutchmen, Flemish boors, German barons, bankers and blacklegs, money-changers, cheese-mongers, quacks, and consuls, sat an elderly couple, who, as far apart from the rest of the company as circ.u.mstances would admit, were industriously occupied in comparing the Continent with the "Hand-book," or, in other words, were endeavouring to see, if nature had dared to dissent from the true type, they held in their hands.

"'Andernach, formerly. Andemachium,'" read the old lady aloud. "Do you see it, my dear?"

"Yes," said the old gentleman, jumping up on the bench, and adjusting his pocket telescope--"yes," said he, "go on. I have it."

"'Andernach,'" resumed she, "'is an ancient Roman town, and has twelve towers----'"