Part 13 (1/2)

'You see that _type?_' said the young man who was driving, and who balanced himself on the edge of a board.

'Yes.'

'Well, he owns more land than any other peasant about here, and is rich, and yet, rather than turn a bit of his ground into a thres.h.i.+ng-floor, he brings his corn where you see him and threshes it upon the road.'

I said to myself that this man was not the first to discover that one way to get on is to trespa.s.s as much as possible upon the rights of that easy-going neighbour called the Public.

The hills between the two valleys were, for the most part, wooded with natural forest, with a dense undergrowth of heather and gorse. As soon as we began to descend towards the Dronne, the great southern broom, six or eight feet high, was seen in splendid flower upon the roadside banks. We found the Dronne at the village of Tocane St. Apre, and we launched the boat below the mill about half a mile farther down-stream. Then, having put on board a knapsack containing clothes, a valise filled chiefly with provisions, several bottles of wine, one of rum (a safer spirit in France than some others), and another of black coffee, made very strong, so that it should last a long time, we took our first lunch in the boat, in the cool shade of some old alders.

The wine had been already heated by the sun during the journey, but the means of cooling it somewhat was near at hand. We hitched a couple of bottles to the roots of the alders, with their necks just out of the water.

The young peasant who had driven us was invited to share our meal, and the horse was left at the mill with a good feed of oats to comfort him and help him to forget all the horrible suspicions that the boat had caused him. The meal was simple enough, for we had brought no luxurious fare with us; but the feeling of freedom and new adventure, the low song of the stream running over the gravel in the shallows, the peace and beauty of the little cove under the alders, made it more delightful than a sumptuous one with other surroundings.

Everything went as smoothly as the deep water where the boat was chained, until the spirit-lamp was lighted for warming the coffee. Then it was discovered that the little saucepan had been forgotten. This was trying, for when you have grown used to coffee after lunch you do not feel happy without it, so long as there is a chance of getting it. It is exasperating when you have the coffee ready made, but cannot warm it for want of a small utensil. The peasant went to the mill to borrow a saucepan, and he brought back one that was just what we wanted; at least, we thought so until the coffee began to run out through a hole in the bottom. In vain we tried to stop the leak with putty, which was brought in case the boat should spring one; but after awhile it stopped itself--quite miraculously. Thus good fortune came to our aid at the outset, and it looked like a fair omen of a prosperous voyage.

We did not linger too long over this meal, for I had not come prepared to pa.s.s the night either in the boat or on the gra.s.s, and I hoped to reach Riberac in the evening. The bottles were put away in the locker, and what was not eaten was returned to the valise. Then we parted company with the young peasant, whose private opinion was that we should not go very far.

But he was mistaken; we went a long way, after encountering many serious obstacles, as will be seen by-and-by.

The chain being pulled in, the boat glided off like the willow-leaf to which I have already compared it. I sat on my piece of sliding board about the middle, and Hugh sat on his piece of wood--which was the top of the locker--in the stern. We both used long double-bladed paddles. In a few seconds we were in the current, and in a few more were aground. Although the canoe was flat-bottomed, it needed at least three inches of water to float comfortably with us and the cargo. We were in a forest of reeds that hid the outer world from us, and we had left the true current for another that led us to the shallows. But this little difficulty was quickly overcome, and I soon convinced myself that, notwithstanding the dearth of water after the long drought, it was quite possible to descend the Dronne from St. Apre in a boat such as mine.

Now, as there was no wager to make me hurry, and my main purpose in giving myself all the trouble that lay before me was to see things, I put my paddle down, and leaving Hugh to work off some of his youthful ardour for navigation, I gave myself up for awhile to the spell of this most charming stream. Its breadth and its depth were constantly changing, and in a truly remarkable manner. Now it was scarcely wider than a brook might be, and was nearly over-arched by its alders and willows; now it widened out and sped in many a flas.h.i.+ng runnel through a broad jungle of reeds where the blistering rays of the sun beat down with tropical ardour; then it slept in pools full of long green streamers that waved slowly like an Undine's hair.

Here and there all about stood the waxen flowers of sagittaria above the barbed floating leaves, cool and darkly green. Close to the banks the tall and delicately branching water-plantains, on which great gra.s.shoppers often hang their shed skins, were flecked with pale-pink blooms-flowers of biscuit-porcelain on hair-like stems.

The splas.h.i.+ng of a water-wheel roused me from my idle humour. We had reached--much too quickly--our first mill-dam. It was a very primitive sort of dam, formed of stakes and planks, but chiefly of brambles, dead wood and reeds that had floated down and lodged there. Then began the tugging, pus.h.i.+ng, and lifting, to be continued at irregular intervals for several days. The canoe was less than three feet wide in the middle, but it was more than six yards long, and this length, although it secured steadiness and greatly reduced the risk of capsizing in strong rapids or sinister eddies, brought the weight up to about 170 lb., without reckoning the baggage, which was turned out upon the gra.s.s or on the stones at each weir.

After pa.s.sing the first obstacle, we floated into one of those long deep pools which lend a peculiar charm to the Dronne. Usually covered in summer with white or yellow lilies--seldom the two species together--these and other plants that rejoice in the cool liquid depths show their scalloped or feathery forms with perfect distinctness far below the surface of the limpid water.

Here, O idle water-wanderer, let your boat glide with the scarcely moving current, and gaze upon the leafy groves of the sub-aqueous wilderness lit up by the rays of the sun, and watch the fish moving singly or in shoals at various depths--the bearded barbel, the spotted trout, the s.h.i.+mmering bream, and the bronzen tench. Watch, too, the speckled water-snakes gliding upon the gravel or lurking like the ancient serpent in mimic gardens of Eden. Mark all the varied life and wondrous beauty of nature there. Above all, do not hurry, for little is seen by those who hasten on.

At a weir of sticks and stones forming a rather wide dam, overgrown by tall hemp-agrimony now in flower, we met with our first difficulty. There was no overflow to help us, for in this time of drought the mill-wheel needed all the stream to turn it; so the boat had to be lifted over the stakes and stones. Into the water we had to go, and boots and socks, being now put aside, were not worn again for five days, except when we went ash.o.r.e in the evening, and had to make an effort to look respectable.

The dam being pa.s.sed, the boat shot down a rapid current; then, as the bed widened out and the water stilled, we were hidden from the world by reeds, through which we had to force a way while the sun smote us and frizzled us.

Countless dragonflies flashed their brilliant colours as they whirled and darted, green frogs plunged at our approach from their diving-boards of matted rush, or quirked defiance from the banks where they were safe; and now and again a startled kingfisher showed us the blue gleam of a wing above the brown maces of the bulrushes and the high-hanging ta.s.sels of the sedges.

The bell of an unseen church a long way off sounded the mid-day angelus, and told that we had not drifted so far as it appeared from the peopled world. Leaving the reeds, we pa.s.sed again into the shade of alders that stretched their gnarled, fantastic roots far over the babbling or dreaming water, and thence again amongst the sunny reeds. And so the hours went by, and there were no villages, or even houses, to be seen, but the little rough mills beside the slowly toiling wheel, which in most cases seemed to be the only living thing there. Once, however, there was a naked child, very brown, and as round as a spider between the hips and the waist, playing upon a flowery bank above the mother, who wore a brilliant-coloured kerchief on her head, and who knelt beside the water as she rinsed the little elfs s.h.i.+rt. I thought the picture pretty enough to make a note of it. This caused some contemptuous surprise to my companion in the back of the boat--not yet alive to the innocent cunning of the artist and writer, for he asked me, in the descriptive language of the British schoolboy:

'Are you going to stick down _that?_'

On we went, turning and turning, gliding into nooks that seemed each more charming than the other, and having a constant succession of delightful surprises, interrupted only by the mill-dams, which were distressingly frequent.

The hot hours stole away or pa.s.sed into the mellowness of evening, and the marsh-mallows that fringed the stream were looking coolly white when we drew near to Riberac. The water widened and deepened, and we met a pleasure-boat, vast and gaudy, recalling some picture of Queen Elizabeth's barge on the Thames. Under an awning sat a bevy of ladies in bright raiment, pleasant to look at, and in front of them were several young men valiantly rowing, or, rather, digging their short sculls into the water, as if they were trying to knock the brains out of some fluvial monsters endeavouring to capture the youth and loveliness under the awning.

Having reached that part of the river which was nearest Riberac, I had to find a place where the boat could be left, and where it would be safe from the enterprise of boys--a bad invention in all countries. It is just, however, to the French boy to say that he is not quite so fiendish out of doors as the English one; but he makes things even by his conduct at home, where he conscientiously devotes his animal spirits to the destruction of his too-indulgent parents.

My difficulty was solved by a kind butcher, whose garden ran down to the water. He let me chain the boat to one of his trees, and he took our fowl, which was intended for lunch next day, and put it into his meat-safe--an excellent service, for the drainage of his slaughter-house, emptying into the river by the side of the boat, was enough to make even a live fowl lose its freshness in a single night. We were soon settled in a comfortable inn that prided itself, not without reason, upon its _cuisine_. Here we had a _friture_ of gudgeons from the Dronne, which is famous throughout a wide region for the quality of these and other fish.

The next morning I bought a saucepan, a melon, and grapes--which were already ripe, although the date was the 9th August. Thus laden, we returned to the boat and to the kindly butcher, who gave us our fowl wrapped up, not in a newspaper as we had left it, but in a sheet of spotless white paper.

Having refilled our bottles, some with water, others with wine, we parted from our hospitable acquaintance with pleasant words, and were afloat again before the hour of eight. We had a serious wetting at the first weir, but were dry again before we stopped to lunch. This time we landed, and chose our spot in a beautiful little meadow, where an alder cast its shade upon the bank. It was far from all habitations, but had the case been otherwise, there would have been no danger of our being disturbed by a voice from behind saying: 'You have no right to land here,' or, 'You are trespa.s.sing in this field.'

Now, this little meadow was, except where the river ran by it, enclosed by a high hedge, just as one in England might be, and although it was some four hundred miles south of Paris, and the season had been exceptionally dry, the gra.s.s was brightly green. Just below us was the clear river, fringed with sedges, sprinkled all over with yellow lilies; beyond this were other meadows, and then rose towards the cloudless sky the line of wooded hills. There was a great quietude that nothing broke, save the splash of a rising fish and the chorus of gra.s.shoppers in the sunny herbage. Here we stayed a good hour and warmed our coffee tranquilly in the new saucepan, which afterwards proved very useful for baling purposes. Then I smoked the pipe of peace, and felt tempted to tarry in this pleasant place; but Hugh roused me to action by talking of fis.h.i.+ng.

A few minutes later we were again on our voyage. Not far below was another mill-dam of sticks and stones, and when this was pa.s.sed the river widened so that it flowed round a little island covered with alders and purple loosestrife, and girt by a broad belt of white water-lilies. At the next weir, which was troublesome, we were helped by the miller and his brother, while a pretty young woman of about twenty, who stood with bare feet, short skirt, uncovered stays, open chemise, and a linen sun-bonnet of the pattern known in England, looked on with a fat baby in her arms. These helpful people refilled our water-bottles, and watched us with interest until we were out of sight.