And of one thing I am sure: that every one thawed
and became more humanised and conversible as soon
as these innocent people appeared upon the scene.
I would not very readily trust the travelling merchant
with any extravagant sum of money; but I am sure his
heart was in the right place. In this mixed
world, if you can find one or two sensible places
in a man—above all, if you should find a
whole family living together on such pleasant terms—you
may surely be satisfied, and take the rest for granted;
or, what is a great deal better, boldly make up your
mind that you can do perfectly well without the rest;
and that ten thousand bad traits cannot make a single
good one any the less good.
It was getting late. M. Hector lit a stable
lantern and went off to his cart for some arrangements;
and my young gentleman proceeded to divest himself
of the better part of his raiment, and play gymnastics
on his mother’s lap, and thence on to the floor,
with accompaniment of laughter.
‘Are you going to sleep alone?’ asked
the servant lass.
‘There’s little fear of that,’ says
Master Gilliard.
‘You sleep alone at school,’ objected
his mother. ’Come, come, you must be a
man.’
But he protested that school was a different matter
from the holidays; that there were dormitories at
school; and silenced the discussion with kisses:
his mother smiling, no one better pleased than she.
There certainly was, as he phrased it, very little
fear that he should sleep alone; for there was but
one bed for the trio. We, on our part, had firmly
protested against one man’s accommodation for
two; and we had a double-bedded pen in the loft of
the house, furnished, beside the beds, with exactly
three hat-pegs and one table. There was not
so much as a glass of water. But the window
would open, by good fortune.
Some time before I fell asleep the loft was full of
the sound of mighty snoring: the Gilliards,
and the labourers, and the people of the inn, all
at it, I suppose, with one consent. The young
moon outside shone very clearly over Pont-sur-Sambre,
and down upon the ale-house where all we pedlars were
abed.
TO LANDRECIES
In the morning, when we came downstairs, the landlady
pointed out to us two pails of water behind the street-door.
’Voila de l’eau pour vous debarbouiller,’
says she. And so there we made a shift to wash
ourselves, while Madame Gilliard brushed the family
boots on the outer doorstep, and M. Hector, whistling
cheerily, arranged some small goods for the day’s
campaign in a portable chest of drawers, which formed
a part of his baggage. Meanwhile the child was
letting off Waterloo crackers all over the floor.
I wonder, by-the-bye, what they call Waterloo crackers
in France; perhaps Austerlitz crackers. There
is a great deal in the point of view. Do you
remember the Frenchman who, travelling by way of Southampton,
was put down in Waterloo Station, and had to drive
across Waterloo Bridge? He had a mind to go home
again, it seems.
