One person in Maubeuge, however, showed me something
more than his outside. That was the driver of
the hotel omnibus: a mean enough looking little
man, as well as I can remember; but with a spark of
something human in his soul. He had heard of
our little journey, and came to me at once in envious
sympathy. How he longed to travel! he told me.
How he longed to be somewhere else, and see the round
world before he went into the grave! ‘Here
I am,’ said he. ’I drive to the
station. Well. And then I drive back again
to the hotel. And so on every day and all the
week round. My God, is that life?’ I
could not say I thought it was—for him.
He pressed me to tell him where I had been, and where
I hoped to go; and as he listened, I declare the fellow
sighed. Might not this have been a brave African
traveller, or gone to the Indies after Drake?
But it is an evil age for the gypsily inclined among
men. He who can sit squarest on a three-legged
stool, he it is who has the wealth and glory.
I wonder if my friend is still driving the omnibus
for the Grand Cerf? Not very likely, I believe;
for I think he was on the eve of mutiny when we passed
through, and perhaps our passage determined him for
good. Better a thousand times that he should
be a tramp, and mend pots and pans by the wayside,
and sleep under trees, and see the dawn and the sunset
every day above a new horizon. I think I hear
you say that it is a respectable position to drive
an omnibus? Very well. What right has
he who likes it not, to keep those who would like
it dearly out of this respectable position? Suppose
a dish were not to my taste, and you told me that it
was a favourite amongst the rest of the company, what
should I conclude from that? Not to finish the
dish against my stomach, I suppose.
Respectability is a very good thing in its way, but
it does not rise superior to all considerations.
I would not for a moment venture to hint that it
was a matter of taste; but I think I will go as far
as this: that if a position is admittedly unkind,
uncomfortable, unnecessary, and superfluously useless,
although it were as respectable as the Church of England,
the sooner a man is out of it, the better for himself,
and all concerned.
ON THE SAMBRE CANALISED
TO QUARTES
About three in the afternoon the whole establishment
of the Grand Cerf accompanied us to the water’s
edge. The man of the omnibus was there with
haggard eyes. Poor cage-bird! Do I not
remember the time when I myself haunted the station,
to watch train after train carry its complement of
freemen into the night, and read the names of distant
places on the time-bills with indescribable longings?
