A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe on Rivers and Lakes of Europe Part 16

Merely for a change, I ran the Rob Roy into a long millrace in search of breakfast. This stream having secured hold of the boat stealthily ran away with us in a winding course among the hayfields, and quite out of reach of the river, until it seemed that after all we were only in a streamlet for irrigation, which would vanish into rills an inch deep in a water meadow. However, I put a bold face on it, and gravely and swiftly sped through the fields, and bestowed a nod now and then on the rural gazers. A fine boy of twelve years old soon trotted alongside, and I asked him if he was an honest lad, which he answered by a blush, and "Yes." "Here is a franc, then. Go and buy me bread and wine, and meet me at the mill." A few of the "hands" soon found out the canoe, moored, as it was thought, in quiet retirement, with its captain resting under a tree, and presently a whole crowd of them swarmed out, and shouted with delight as they pressed round to see.

The boy brought a very large bottle of wine, and a loaf big enough to dine four men; and I set to work with an oarsman's appet.i.te, and that happy _sang froid_ which no mult.i.tude of gazers now could disturb.

However, one of the party invited me into her house, and soon set delicate viands before the new guest, while the others filled the room in an instant, and were replaced by sets of fifty at a time, all very good-humoured and respectful.

But it was so hot and bustling here that I resolved to go away and have a more pleasant and sulky meal by myself on some inaccessible island.

The retreat through the crowd had to be regularly prepared for by military tactics; so I appointed four of the most troublesome boys as "policemen" to guard the boat in its transit across the fields, but they discharged their new duties with such vigour that two little fellows were soon knocked over into the canoe, and so we launched off, while the Manager of the factory called in vain to his cottonspinners, who were all now in full cry after the boat, and were making holiday without leave.

CHAPTER XIII.

River Moselle--Epinal--The Tramp--Halcyon--Painted woman--Beating to quarters--Boat in a hedge--The Meurthe--Moving House--Tears of a mother--Five francs.

Under a dark arbour-like arch of foliage, where the water was deep and still, I made fast to the long gra.s.s, cast my tired limbs into the fantastic folds of ease, and, while the bottle lasted and the bread, I watched the bees and b.u.t.terflies, and the beetles and rats, and the coloured tribes of airy and watery life that one can see so well in a quiet half hour like this.

How little we are taught at school about these wondrous communities of real life, each with its laws and instincts, its beauties of form, and marvellous ingenuities!

How little of flowers and insects, not to say of trees and animals, a boy learns as school-lessons, while he has beaten into him at one end and crammed in at the other the complicated politics of heathen G.o.ds, and their loves and faction fights, which are neither real nor possible.

The Moselle rapidly enlarged in volume, though one could easily see that it had seldom been so low before. It is a very beautiful river to row on, especially where we began. Then it winds to the west and north, and again, turning a little eastwards, traverses a lovely country between Treves and Coblentz, where it joins the ancient Rhine.

My resting-place for this evening was Epinal, a town with little to interest; and so we could turn to books and pencils until it was time for bed.

Next day the scenery was by no means so attractive, but I had plenty of hard work, which was enjoyed very much, my shoes and socks being off all day, for it was useless to put them on when so many occasions required me to jump out.

Here it was a plain country, with a gravel soil, and fast rushings of current; and then long pools like the Serpentine, and winding turns leading entirely round some central hill which the river insisted upon circ.u.mventing.

At noon we came upon a large number of labourers at work on a milldam, and as this sort of crowd generally betokens something to eat (always, at any rate, some drinkable fluid), I left my boat boldly in mid-stream, and knocked at a cottage, when an old woman came out. "Madame, I am hungry, and you are precisely the lady who can make me an omelette."

"Sir, I have nothing to give you."

"Why," said I, "look at these hens; I am sure they have laid six eggs this morning, they seem so conceited."

She evidently thought I was a tramp demanding alms, and when told to look at the boat which had come from England, she said she was too old and too blind to see. However, we managed to make an omelette together, and she stood by (with an eye, perhaps, to her only fork) and chatted pleasantly, asking, "What have you got to sell?" I told her I had come there only for pleasure. "What sort of pleasure, Monsieur, can you possibly hope to find in _this_ place?" But I was far too gallant to say bluntly that her particular mansion was not the ultimate object of the tour. After receiving a franc for the rough breakfast, she kept up a battery of blessings till the Rob Roy started, and she ended by shrieking out to a navvy looking on, "I tell you every Englishman is rich!"

Next day was bright and blue-skyed as before, and an early start got the fine fresh morning air on the water.

The name of this river is sometimes p.r.o.nounced "Moselle," and at other times "Mosel," what we should call "Mozle." When a Frenchman speaks of "la Moselle," he puts an equal emphasis on each of the three syllables he is p.r.o.nouncing; whereas generally we Englishmen call this river Moselle.

The name of a long river often indeed goes through changes as it traverses various districts and dialects; for instance, the Missouri, which you hear the travellers in Kansas call "Mzoory," while they wend along the Californian road.

When the scenery is tame to the canoist, and the channel of the river is not made interesting by dangers to be avoided, then one can always turn again to the animals and birds, and five minutes of watching will be sure to see much that is curious.

Here, for instance, we have the little kingfisher again, who had met us on the Danube and the Reuss, and whom we knew well in England before; but now we are on a visit to _his_ domain, and we see him in his private character alone. There are several varieties of this bird, and they differ in form and colour of plumage. This "Royal bird," the _Halcyon_ of antiquity, the _Alcedo_ in cla.s.sic tongue, is called in German "Eis fogl," or "Ice bird," perhaps because he fishes even in winter's frost, or because his nest is like a bundle of icicles, being made of minnows'

bones most curiously wrought together.

But now it is on a summer day, and he is perched on a twig within two inches of the water, and under the shade of a briar leaf, his little parasol. He is looking for fish, and is so steady that you may easily pa.s.s him without observing that brilliant back of azure, or the breast of blushing red.

When I desired to see these birds, I quietly moved my boat till it grounded on a bank, and, after it was stationary thus for a few minutes, the Halcyon fisher got quite unconcerned, and plied his task as if unseen.

He peers with knowing eye into the shallow below him, and now and then he dips his head a bit to make quite sure he has marked a fish worth seizing; then suddenly he darts down with a spluttering splash, and flies off with a little white minnow, or a struggling sticklebat nipped in his beak.

If it is caught thus crosswise, the winged fisherman tosses his prey into the air, and nimbly catches it in his mouth, so that it may be gulped down properly. Then he quivers and shakes with satisfaction, and quickly speeds to another perch, flitting by you with wonderful swiftness, as if a sapphire had been flung athwart the sunbeam, flashing beauteous colours in its flight.

Or, if bed-time has come, or he is fetching home the family dinner, he flutters on and on, and then with a little sharp note of "good-bye,"

pops into a hole, the dark staircase to his tiny nest, and there he finds Mrs. Halcyon sitting in state, and thirteen baby Kingfishers gaping for the dainty fish.

This pretty bird has an air of quiet mystery, beauty, and vivid motion, all combined, which has made him a favourite with the Rob Roy.

Strangely enough, the river in this part of its course actually gets less and less as you descend it. Every few miles some of the water is drawn off by a small ca.n.a.l to irrigate the neighbouring land, and in a season of drought like this, very little of the abstracted part returns.

They told me that the Moselle river never has been so "ba.s.se" for 30 years, and I was therefore an unlucky _voyageur_ in having to do for the first time what could have been done more easily in any other season.

As evening fell we reached the town of Chatel, and the Rob Roy was sent to bed in the washhouse of the hotel. But five minutes had not elapsed before a string of visitors came for the daily inspection of the boat.

As I sauntered along the bridge a sprightly youth came up, who had not seen the canoe, but who knew I was "one of her crew." He was most enthusiastic on the subject, and took me to see _his_ boat, a deadly-looking flat-bottomed open cot, painted all manner of patterns; and as he was extremely proud of her I did not tell him that a boat is like a woman, too good to paint: a pretty one is spoiled by paint, and a plain one is made hideous.

Then he came for a look at the Rob Roy, and, poor fellow, it was amusing to observe how instantly his countenance fell from pride to intense envy. He had a "boating mind," but had never seen a really pretty boat till now. However, to console himself he invited me to another hotel to drink success to the canoe in Bavarian beer, and to see my drawings, and then I found that my intelligent, eager, and, we may add, gentlemanly friend was the waiter there!

A melancholy sensation pervaded the Rob Roy to-day, in consequence of a sad event, the loss of the captain's knife. We had three knives on board in starting from England; one had been given away in reward for some signal service, and this which was now lost was one with a metal haft and a curious hook at the end, a special description made in Berlin, and very useful to the tourist. It is not to be wondered that in so many leaps and somersaults, and with such constant requirements for the knife to mend pencils, &c., &c., the trusty blade should at last have disappeared, but the event suggests to the next canoeman that his boat-knife should be secured to a lanyard.

One singular conformation of the river-bed occurred in my short tour upon this part of the Moselle. Without much warning the banks of rock became quite vertical and narrowed close together. They reminded me of the rock-cutting near Liverpool, on the old railway to Manchester. The stream was very deep here, but its bed was full of enormous stones and crags, very sharp and jagged, which, however, could be easily avoided, because the current was gentle.

A man I found fishing told me that a little further on there was an "impossible" place, so when after half a mile the well-known sound of rushing waters came (the ear got marvellous quick for this), we beat to quarters and prepared for action.

The ribbon to keep my hat was tied down. Sleeves and trousers were tucked up. The covering was braced tight and the baggage secured below; and then came the eager pleasures of antic.i.p.ating, wishing, hoping, fearing, that are mixed up in the word excitement.

The sound was quite near now, but the river took the strangest of all the forms I had yet seen.

If you suppose a trench cut along Oxford-street to get at the gas-pipes, and if all the water of a river which had filled the street before suddenly disappeared in the trench, that would be exactly what the Moselle had now become.

The plateau of rock on each side was perfectly dry, though in flood times, no doubt, the river covers that too. The water boiled and foamed through this channel from 3 to 20 feet deep, but only in the trench, which was not five feet wide.

An intelligent man came near to see me enter this curious pa.s.sage, but when we had got a little way in I had to stop the boat, and this too by putting my hands on both sides of the river!

Then I got out and carefully let the boat drive along the current, but still held by the painter. Soon it got too narrow and fast even for this process, so I pulled the canoe upon the dry rock, and sat down to breathe and to cool my panting frame.

Two other gentlemen had come near me by this time, and on a bridge above were several more with two ladies.

I had to drag the boat some hundred yards over most awkward rocks, and these men hovered round and admired, and even talked to me, and actually praised my perseverance, yet not one offer of any help did any one of them give!

In deep water again, and now exactly under the bridge I looked up and found the whole party regarding the Rob Roy with curiosity and smiles.

Within a few yards was a large house these people had come from, and I thought their smiles were surely to preface, "Would you not like a gla.s.s of wine, Sir, after your hour of hard work?" But as it meant nothing of the sort I could not help answering their united adieux! by these words, "Adieu, ladies and gentlemen. Many to look, but none to help. The exhibition is gratuitous!" Was it wrong to say this? It was utterly impossible not to think as much.

One or two other places gave trouble without interest, such as when I had to push the boat into a hedge point foremost, and to pull it through by main force from the other side, and then found, after all, it was pushed into the wrong field, so the operation had to be done over again in a reverse direction.