Faces and Places Part 7

It was time to go to bed after that, and I left the matron to cool down from the boiling-point to which she had been suddenly lifted at sight of the ghost of 1854. My little room looked cheerless enough in the candlelight, but I had brought sleep with me as a companion, and knew that I should soon be as happy as if my bed were of down, and the roof-tree that of Buckingham Palace.

And so in sooth I would have been but for the chimney. Why did the otherwise unexceptional Master Watts insist upon the chimney? Such a chimney it was, too, yawning across the full length of one side of the room, and open straight up to the cold sky. There was--what I forgot to mention in the inventory--a sort of tall clothes-horse standing before the enormous aperture, and after trying various devices to keep the wind out, I at last bethought me of the supernumerary blanket, and, throwing it over the clothes-horse, I leaned it against the chimney board. This served admirably as long as it kept its feet, and when it blew down, as it did occasionally during the night, it only meant putting up and refixing it, and the exercise prevented heavy sleeping.

At seven in the morning we were called up, and after another "good wash," went our ways, each with fourpence sterling in his hand, the parting gift of hospitable Master Watts.

"Good-bye, paper-stainer," said the matron, as, after looking up and down High Street, I strode off towards the bridge, Londonwards. "Come and see us again if you are pa.s.sing this way."

"Thank you,--I will," I said.

CHAPTER X.

NIGHT AND DAY ON THE CARS IN CANADA.

"Porter!"

The voice broke the stillness of a long night, and suddenly woke me out of a deep sleep. There was a moment's pause, and then the voice, which sounded singularly near to my bed-curtains, spoke again.

"Porter!"

"Yes, sah!"

"You have given me the wrong boots."

From the foot of my bed, as it seemed, there came another voice which said, with querulous emphasis, "These are not my boots."

Then followed explanations, apologies, and interchange of boots; and before the parleying had come to an end I was sufficiently awake to remember that on the previous night I had gone to bed in a Pullman car at Montreal, and had been speeding all night towards Halifax. It had been mild autumnal weather in Montreal, and the snow, which a week ago had fallen to the depth of two or three inches, had melted and been trodden out of sight save for the sprinkling which remained on the crest of Mount Royal. Here, as a glance through the window disclosed, we were again in the land of snow. It was not deep, for winter had not yet set in, and the sleighs, joyfully brought out at the first fall, had been relegated to summer quarters. But there was quite enough about to give the country a cheerful wintry aspect, the morning sun shining merrily over the white fields and the leafless trees, bare save for the foliage with which the snowflakes had endowed them. It may have been an equally fine morning in Montreal, but it is certain it seemed twice as bright and fresh here, and we began to realise something of those exhilarating properties of the Canadian air of which we had fondly read.

On this long journey eastward travellers do not enter the city of Quebec. They pa.s.s by on the other side of the river, and thus gain the advantage of seeing Quebec as a picture should be seen, from a convenient distance. Moreover, like many celebrated paintings, Quebec will not stand inspection at the length of the nose. But even taken in detail, walking through its narrow and steep streets, there is much to delight the eye. It has quaint old houses, and shops with pea green shutters, over which flaunt crazy, large-lettered signs that it could have entered into the heart of none but a Frenchman to devise. Save for the absence of the blouse and the sabot you might, picking your way through the mud in a street in the lower part of the city, imagine yourself in some quarters of Dieppe or Calais, or any other of the busier towns in the north of France. The peaked roofs, the unexpected balconies, the ill-regulated gables, and the general individuality of the houses are pleasing to the eye wearied with the prim monotony of English street architecture.

Quebec, to be seen at its best, should be gazed at from the harbour, or from the other side of the river. This morning it is glorious, with its streets in the snow, its many spires in the sunlight, and the blue haze of the hills in the distance. We make our first stoppage at Point Levi, the station for Quebec, and here are twenty minutes for breakfast. The whereabouts of breakfast is indicated by a youth, who from the steps of an "hotel" at the station gate stolidly rings a bell. The pa.s.sengers enter, and are shown into a room, in the centre of which is a large stove. The atmosphere is simply horrible. The double windows are up for the still dallying winter, and, as the drops of dirty moisture which stand on the panes testify, they are hermetically closed. The kitchen leads out of the room by what is apparently the only open door in the house, every other being jealously closed lest peradventure a whiff of fresh air should get in. It is impossible to eat, and one is glad to pay for the untasted food and get out into the open air before the power of respiration is permanently injured.

It was said this is the only place where there would be any chance of breakfast, nothing to eat till Trois Pistoles is reached, late in the afternoon. Happily this information turned out ill-founded. At L'Islet, a little station reached at eleven o'clock a stoppage was made at an unpretentious but clean and fresh restaurant, where the people speak French and know how to make soup.

A few years ago a journey by rail between Montreal and Halifax, without break save what is necessary for replenishing the engine stores, would have been impossible. The Grand Trunk, spanning the breadth of the more favoured provinces of Ontario and Quebec, leaves New Brunswick and Nova Scotia without other means of intercommunication than is afforded by its many rivers and its questionable roads. For many years Canadian statesmen, and all others interested in the practical confederation of the various provinces that make up the Dominion, felt that the primary and surest bond of union would be a railway. The military authorities were even more urgent as to the necessity of connecting Quebec and Halifax, and at one time a military road was seriously talked about.

Long ago a railway was projected, and in 1846-8 a survey was carried out with that object. From that date up to 1869, when the road was actually commenced, the matter was fitfully discussed, and it was only in 1876 that the railway was opened.

It is only a single line, and as a commercial undertaking is not likely to pay at that, pa.s.sing as it does through long miles of territory where "still stands the forest primeval." It was made by the Dominion Government in pursuance of a high national policy, and it adequately and admirably meets the ends for which it was devised. The total length from Riviere du Loup to Halifax is 561 miles. There is a spur running down to St. John, in the Bay of Fundy, eighty-nine miles long, another branch fifty-two miles long to Pictou, a great coal district opposite the southern end of Prince Edward Island; while a third span of eleven miles, branching off at Monckton and finishing at Point du Char, meets the steamers for Prince Edward Island, making a total length of 713 miles. The rails are steel, and the road is, mile for mile, as well made as any in England. The carriages are on the American principle--the long waggons capable of seating fifty or sixty persons, with an open pa.s.sage down the centre, through which the conductor and ticket collector periodically walk. The carriages are heated to distraction by means of a huge stove at either end. It is possible to open the windows, but that is to be easily accomplished only after an apprenticeship too long for the stay of the average traveller. After a painful hour one gets accustomed to the atmosphere of the place, as it is happily possible to grow accustomed to any atmosphere. But the effect of these fierce stoves and obstinate windows must be permanently deleterious.

The Pullman car has fortunately come to make railway travelling in America endurable. Apart from other considerations, the inevitable stove is better managed. You are thoroughly warmed,---occasionally, it is true, parboiled. But there is at least freedom from the sulphurous atmosphere which pervades the ordinary car, with its two infernal machines, one at either end. In addition, the Pullman cars have more luxurious fittings, and are hung on smoother springs. It is at night their value becomes higher, and travellers are inclined to lie awake and wonder how their fathers and elder brothers managed to travel in the pre-Pullman era.

Life is too short to limit travel on this continent to the daytime.

Travelling eight hours a day by rail, which we in England think a pretty good allowance, it would take just five days to go from Montreal to Halifax. Thanks to the Pullman car and its adequate sleeping accommodation, a business man may leave Montreal at ten o'clock at night, say on Monday, and be in Halifax in time to transact business shortly after noon on Wednesday. Thus he loses only a day, for he must sleep somewhere, and he might find many a worse bed than is made up for him on a Pullman. The arrangements for ventilation leave nothing to be desired save a little less apprehension on the part of Canadians of the supposed malign influence of fresh air. If you can get the ventilators kept open you may sleep with impunity. But, as far as a desire for preserving the goodwill of my immediate neighbours controls me, I would, being in Canada, as soon pick a pocket as open a window. One night, before the beds were made up I secretly approached the coloured gentleman in charge of the carriage and heavily bribed him to open the ventilators. This he faithfully did, as I saw, but when I awoke this morning, half stifled in the heavy atmosphere, I found every ventilator closed.

After leaving Quebec, and for a far-reaching run, the railway skirts the river St. Lawrence, of which we get glimpses near and far as we pa.s.s.

The time is not far distant when this mighty river will be frozen to the distance of fully a mile out, and men may skate where Atlantic steamers sail. At present the river is free, but the frost comes like a thief in the night, and the wary shipmasters have already gone into winter quarters. The railway people are also preparing for the too familiar terrors of the Canadian winter. As we steamed out of Quebec we saw the snow-ploughs conveniently shunted, ready for use at a moment's notice.

The snowsheds are a permanent inst.i.tution on the Intercolonial Railway.

The train pa.s.ses through them sometimes for the length of half a mile.

They are simply wooden erections like a box, built in parts of the line where the snow is likely to drift. Pa.s.sing swiftly through them just now you catch glimmers of light through the crevices. Presently, when the snow comes, these will be effectually closed up. Snow will lie a hundred feet thick on either side, to the full height of the shed, and the train, as watched from the line, will seem to vanish in an illimitable snow mound.

This is as yet in the future. At present the landscape has all the beauty that snow can give without the monotony of the unrelieved waste of white. Mounds of brown earth, tufts of gra.s.s, bits of road, roofs of houses, and belts of pine showing above the sprinkling of snow, give colour to the landscape. One divines already why Canadians, in building their houses, paint a door, or a side of a chimney, or a gable-end, red or chocolate, whilst all the rest is white. This looks strange in the summer, or in the bleak interregnum when neither the sun nor the north-east wind can be said absolutely to reign. But in the winter, when far as the eye can roam it is wearied with sight of the everlasting snow, a patch of red or of warm brown on the scarcely less white houses is a surprising relief.

The country in the neighbourhood of Riviere du Loup, where the Grand Trunk finishes and the Intercolonial begins, is filled with comfortable homesteads. The line runs through a valley between two ranges of hills.

All about the slopes on the river side stand snug little houses, each within its own grounds, each having a peaked roof, which strives more or less effectually to rival the steepness of its neighbour. The houses straggle for miles down the line, as if they had started out from Quebec with the intention of founding a town for themselves, and had stopped on the way, beguiled by the beauty of the situation. Sometimes a little group stand together, when be sure you shall find a church, curiously small but exceedingly ornate in its architecture. The spires are coated with a glazed tile, which catches whatever sunlight there may be about, and glistens strangely in the landscape.

The first day following the first night of our journey closed in a manner befitting its rare beauty. The sun went down amid a glow of grandeur that illuminated all the world to the west, transfigured the blue mountains veined with snow, and spread a soft roseate blush over the white lowlands. We went to bed in New Brunswick still in the hilly country named by the colonists Northumberland. We awoke to find ourselves in the narrow neck of land which connects Nova Scotia with the continent. It was like going to bed in Sweden in December, and waking in Ireland in September. The snow was melted, the sun was hidden behind the one thin cloud that spread from horizon to horizon, and the sharp, brisk air of yesterday was exchanged for a cold, wet atmosphere, that distilled itself in dank drops on the window-panes. The aspect of the country was also changed. The ground was sodden, the gra.s.s brown with perpetual wet. In one field we saw the hapless hayc.o.c.ks floating in water. Thus it was through Nova Scotia into Halifax--water everywhere on the ground, and threatening rain in the air.

CHAPTER XI

EASTER ON LES AVANTS.

We nearly lost our Naturalist between Paris and Lausanne. It was felt at the time, more especially by the latest additions to the party, that this would have been a great calamity. Habits, long acquired, of stopping by the roadside and minutely examining weeds or bits of stone, are not to be eradicated in a night's journey by rail. Accordingly, wherever the train stopped the Naturalist was, at the last moment, discovered to be absent, and search parties were organised with a promptness that, before we reached Dijon, had become quite creditable.

But the success achieved begat a condition of confidence that nearly proved fatal. In travelling on a French line there is only one thing more remarkable than the leisurely way in which an express train gets under way after having stopped at a station, and that is the excitement that pervades the neighbourhood ten minutes before the train starts. Men in uniform go about shrieking _"En voiture, messieurs, en voiture!"_ in a manner that suggests to the English traveller that the train is actually in motion, and that his pa.s.sage is all but lost.

It was this habitude that led to our excitement at Melun. We had, after superhuman efforts, got the Naturalist into the carriage, and had breathlessly fallen back in the seat, expecting the train to move forthwith. Ten minutes later it slowly steamed out of the station, accompanied by the sound of the tootling horn and enveloped in thick clouds of poisonous smoke. This sort of thing happening at one or two other stations, we were induced to give our Naturalist an extra five minutes to gather some fresh specimen of a rare gra.s.s growing between the rails or some curious insect embedded in the bookstall. It was at Sens that, growing bolder with success, we nearly did lose him, dragging him in at the last moment, amid a scene of excitement that could be equalled elsewhere only on the supposition that the station was on fire and that five kegs of gunpowder were in the booking-office.

Shortly after leaving Dijon a conviction began to spread that perhaps if the fates had proved adverse, and we had lost him somewhere under circ.u.mstances that would have permitted him to come on by a morning train, we might have borne up against the calamity. Amongst a miscellaneous and imposing collection of scientific instruments, he was the pleased possessor of an aneroid. This I am sure is an excellent and even indispensable instrument at certain crises. But when you have been so lucky as to get to sleep in a railway carriage on a long night journey, to be awakened every quarter of an hour to be informed "how high you are now" grows wearisome before morning.

It was the Chancery Barrister who was partly responsible for this. He found it impossible to sleep, and our Naturalist, fastening upon him, kept him carefully posted up in particulars of the increasing alt.i.tude.

This was the kind of thing that broke in upon our slumbers all through the night:--

Our Naturalist: "1200 feet above the level of the sea."

The Chancery Barrister (in provokingly sleepy tone): "Ah!"

Then we turn over, and fall asleep again. A quarter of an hour later:

Our Naturalist: "1500 feet now."

Chancery Barrister: "Really!"

Another fitful slumber, broken by a strong presentiment that the demoniacal aneroid is being again produced.

Our Naturalist (exultantly, as if he had privately arranged the incline, and was justly boastful of his success): "2100 feet."

Chancery Barrister (evidently feeling that something extra is expected of him): "No, _really_ now!"

This kind of thing through what should be the silent watches of the night is to be deprecated, as tending to bring science into disrepute.

There was a good deal of excitement about the baggage. We were a personally conducted party to the extent that the Hon. Member who had suggested the trip, had undertaken the general direction, or had had the office thrust upon him. Feeling his responsibility, he had, immediately on arriving at Calais, changed some English money. This was found very convenient. n.o.body had any francs except the Member, so we freely borrowed from him to meet trifling exigencies.

With the object of arriving at the best possible means of dealing with the vexed question of luggage, a variety of expedients had been tried.

The Chancery Barrister, having read many moving narratives of raids made upon registered luggage in the secrecy of the luggage van, had adopted a course which displayed a profound knowledge of human nature. He had argued with himself (as if he were a judge in chambers) that what proved an irresistible temptation to foreign guards and other railway officials was the appearance of boxes and portmanteaux iron-clasped, leather-strapped, and double-locked. The inference naturally was that they contained much that was valuable. Now, he had pointed out to himself, if you take a directly opposite course, and, as it were, invite the gentleman in charge of your luggage to open your portmanteau, he will think you have nothing in it worth his attention, and will pa.s.s on to others more jealously guarded. You can't very well leave your box open, as the things might tumble out. So, as a happy compromise, he had duly locked and strapped his portmanteau, and then tied the key to the handle.

As he observes, with the shrewd perception that will inevitably lead him to the Woolsack, "You are really helpless, and can do nothing to prevent these gentlemen from helping themselves. If you leave the key there, there is a fair chance of their treating your property as the Levite treated the Good Samaritan. If not, your box will be decently opened instead of having the lock broken or the hinges wrenched off."