Part 21

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 trespassing 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 grass 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 grasshoppers 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 fishing.

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 passed 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.

Reeds again--innumerable reeds--through which we had to drag the canoe, for we had somehow lost the current. Arrow-head and prickly bur-reed, great rushes and sedges--a joy to the marsh botanist by the variety of their species--stood against us in serried phalanxes, saying: 'Union is strength; we are weak when alone, but altogether we will give you some work that you will remember.' And they did so before we left them behind. Now, above the lily-spotted water, deep and clear, showed a little cluster of houses on a low cliff, and below these, close to the river, an old pigeon-house with pointed roof.

To finish the picture, a narrow wooden bridge supported by poles stretching downward at all angles, like the legs of an ungainly insect, had been thrown across the stream. And here a great flock of geese, horrified at so unwonted an apparition as the pale green boat and the paddles in fantastic movement, were holding a hasty council of war, which we broke up before they came to a decision.

The flow of water in the river had been perceptibly increased by tributaries, and now, after each mill, the current was strong enough to take us down for a mile or two at a quick rate. The little boat danced gaily in the rapids. The great heat of the day had gone, and the light was waning, when we mistook an arm of the river for the main stream, and found ourselves at length in a little gully, very dim with overarching foliage, and where the sound of rushing water grew momentarily louder.

It was all one to Hugh whether he got turned out or not, but I had lived long enough not to like the vision of a roll in the stream at the end of the day, with baggage swamped, if not lost. Therefore I chained up the boat, and went to examine the rapids. I found the stream in great turmoil, where it rushed over hidden rocks, and in the centre was a wave about three feet high, that rose like a curve of clear green glass, but turned white with anger, and broke into furious foam, as it fell into the basin below. Having ascertained that the rock was sufficiently under water, I decided that we would take our chance in the current after turning out the baggage.

We kept right in the centre. It was an exciting moment as we touched the wave. The canoe made a bound upwards, then plunged into the boiling torrent below. A moment more and we were out of all risk. So swift was the passage that scarcely a gallon of water was taken in. Having put the baggage back, we continued our voyage towards the unknown, for I knew not whither this stream was going to take us. About a mile or two farther down, however, it joined the river, which here seemed very wide. It was marvellous to find that the brook of yesterday had grown to this; a circumstance to be explained, however, by the number of springs that rise in its bed.

The scene was beyond all description beautiful. The wooded banks, the calm water, the islands of reeds and sedges, the pure white lilies that scented the air and murmured softly as the boat brushed their snowy petals, were all stained with the blood of the dying sun. For a moment I saw the upper rim of the red disc between the trunks of two trees far away that seemed to grow taller and more sombre; then came the twilight with its purple tones.

The colours faded, darkness crept over the valley, and the water, losing its transparency, looked unfathomably deep, and mirrored with tenfold power all the fantastic gloom of the leaning alders, and the weird forms of the hoary willows. And there was no light or sound from any town or village, nor even from a lonely cottage. I had expected to reach at sundown the little town of Aubeterre, in the department of the Charente, but all ideas of distance based upon a map are absurdly within the mark when one follows the course of a winding river, and the information of the inhabitants is equally misleading, for they always calculate distances by the road.

When we reached the next weir there was very little light left, so, without attempting to pass it, we paddled down to the mill. It was kept by three brothers, who treated us with much kindness and attention. I learnt that we were not far from the village of Nabinaud in the Charente, where there was a small inn at which it would be possible to pass the night.

Aubeterre was still some miles off by water, and there were weirs to overcome. Tired out, with legs and feet scraped and scratched by stones and stumps, and smarting still more from sun-scorch, we were glad enough to find a sufficient reason for getting out of the boat here.

One of the brothers carried politeness so far--I saw from the importance of the mill that remuneration was not to be thought of--as to walk about a mile uphill in order to show the inn and to see us settled in it. Then he left, for I could not prevail upon him to sit down and chink glasses. It was but a cottage-inn on the open hillside, and I doubt if the simple-minded people who kept it would have accepted us for the night but for the introduction. Husband and wife gave up their room to us, and where they went themselves I could not guess, unless it was to the loft or fowl-house. They were surprised, almost overcome, by the invasion, the like of which had never happened to them before; but they showed plenty of goodwill.

All that could be produced in the way of dinner was an omelet, some fried ham, very fat and salt, and some grillons-a name given to the residue that is left by pork-fat when it has been slowly boiled down to make lard. The people of Guyenne think much of their grillons or fritons. I remember a jovial-faced innkeeper of the South telling me that he and several members of his family went to Paris in a party to see the Exhibition of 1889, and that they took with them grillons enough to keep them going for a week, with the help of bread and wine, which they were compelled to buy of the Parisians, Had they done all that their provincial ideas of prudence dictated, they would have taken with them everything that was necessary to the sustenance of the body during their absence from home.

The best part of our meal must not be forgotten; it was salad, fresh-plucked from the little garden enclosed by a paling, well mixed with nut-oil, wine-vinegar, and salt. Then for dessert there was abundance of grapes and peaches.

The little room in which we slept, or, to speak more correctly, where I tried to sleep, had no ornament except the Sunday clothes of the innkeeper and his wife hanging against the walls. Next to it was the pigsty, as the inmates took care to let me know by their grunting. Had I wished to escape in the night without paying the bill, nothing would have been easier, for the window looked upon a field that was about two feet below the sill.

I opened this window wide to feel the cool air, and long after Hugh went to sleep, with the willingness of his sixteen years, I sat listening to the crickets and watching the quiet fields and sky, which were lit up every few seconds by the lightning flash of an approaching storm--still too far away, however, to blur even with a cloudy line the tranquil brilliancy of the stars.

Leaving the window open, I lay down upon the outer edge of the bed, but to no purpose. In the first place, I am never happy on the edge of a narrow bed, and then sleep and I were on bad terms that night. The lightning, growing stronger, showed my host's best trousers hanging against the whitewashed wall, and from the pigsty came indignant snorts in answer to the deepening moan of the thunder; but the crickets of the house sang after their fashion of the hearth and home, and those outside of the great joy of idleness in the summer fields. From a bit of hedge or old wall came now and then the clear note of a fairy-bell rung by a goblin toad.

I lit the candle again, and elfish moths, with specks of burning charcoal for eyes, dashed at me or whirled and spun about the flame. One was a most delicately-beautiful small creature, with long white wings stained with pink. Thus I spent the night, looking at the sights and listening to the sounds of nature; which is better than to lie with closed eyes quarrelling with one's own brain.

We left with a boy carrying a basket of grapes and peaches, also wine to refill the empty bottles in the boat. On my way down the hill, I stopped at the ruin of a mediaeval castle that belonged to Poltrot de Méré, the assassin of the Due de Guise. All this country of the Angoumois, even more than Périgord, is full of the history of the religious wars of the sixteenth century. The whole of the southwestern region of France might be termed the classic ground of atrocities committed in the name of religion. Simon de Montfort's Crusaders and the Albigenses, after them the Huguenots and the Leaguers, have so thickly sown this land with the seed of blood, to bear witness through all time to their merciless savagery, that the unprejudiced mind, looking here for traces of a grand struggle of ideals, will find little or nothing but the records of revolting brutality.

There is nothing left of Poltrot de Méré's stronghold but a few fragments of wall much overgrown with ivy and brambles. In order to get a close view of these I had to ask permission of the owner of the land--an elderly man, who looked at me with a troubled eye, and while he wished to be polite, considered it his duty to question me concerning my 'quality' and motives. I knew what was in his mind: a foreigner, a spy perchance, was going about the country, taking notes of fortified places.

It was true that this fortress, nearly hidden by vegetation, was no longer in a state to withstand a long siege, but who could tell what importance it might have in the eyes of a foreign Power traditionally credited with a large appetite for other people's property? However, he was not an ill-natured man, and when I had talked to him a bit, he moved his hand towards the ruin with quite a noble gesture, and told me that I was free to do there anything I liked. Had I been a snake-catcher, I might have done a good deal there.

We were afloat again before the sun had begun to warm an apple's ruddy cheek; but already the white lips of the water-lilies were wide-parted, as the boat slid past or through their colonies upon the reedy river. We glided under brambled banks, overtrailed with the wild vine; then the current took us round and about many an islet of reeds and rushes where the common phragmites stood ten or twelve feet high; and now by other banks all tangled with willow-herb, marsh-mallow, and loose-strife. Over the clear water, and the wildernesses of reeds and flowers, lay the mild splendour of the morning sunshine. But the blissful minutes passed too quickly; all the tones brightened to brilliancy, and by ten o'clock the rays were striking down again with torrid ardour.

We had lunched amongst the reeds under a clump of alders, and were paddling on again, when the massive walls and tower of a vast fortress of old time appeared upon the top of a steep hill, rising above all other hills that were visible, and at the foot of the castle rock were many red roofs of houses that seemed to be nestled pleasantly in a spacious grove of trees. Above all was the dazzling blue of the sky. A truly southern picture, flaming with shadeless colour, and glittering with intense whiteness. We were reaching Aubeterre.

We beached the canoe beside a meadow, opposite a spot where about twenty women were washing clothes, their noses very near the water. They were mightily surprised to see us suddenly arrive in our swift boat. All the heads came up together, and the rest went down.

We walked into a riverside inn, and there I made friends with the innkeeper over one or two bottles of beer--there was an innocent liquor so called on sale at Aubeterre. The aubergiste was rather down on his luck, for some mill at which he had been employed had gone wrong financially, and the wheels thought it no longer worth while to turn round. He therefore undertook to show us the way to everything that ought to be seen at Aubeterre.