Very speedily I launched my old travelling companion, and had a paddle up the river by moonlight, and it was surprising to find that scarcely any water leaked in, though the other boats which were hung up in the barge were found to be a good deal injured by the strong draught of wind rushing through the arch of the bridge, and then under the open sides of the shed, covered only by a roof. But then those other boats were new, and perhaps some were not built of such well-seasoned wood[119]as Messrs. Searle employ beyond all other boat-builders I know; whereas the weatherbeaten Rob Roy had been too long inured to wet and dry, sun and wind, heat and cold, to be affected with the rheumatism and ague which shook even the man-of-war’s boats on the barge.
The sketch (see next page), represents a man watering a horse, and who swum it out to my boat to get a paper, and then carefully placed the gift in a dry place ashore until he should be able to use it when he was dressed again.
My life at the Exhibition soon settled into a somewhat regular one. Seeing, seeing, seeing all day, and then returning to my quiet bed on the river at night, with a ‘Times’ newspaper to study, and books and letters. It was a variety to launch the dingey, and scull along the quays and visit the other yachts, all of them most hospitable to the Rob Roy. I ventured even to go alongside the Turkish vessel, theDahabeeh, from the Nile, full of specimen “fellahs,” all hidden by a curtain of grey calico, except to those who had paid their franc for general entrance. We never observed any visitor actually on board this vessel; indeed, it required a bold inquirer to face those solemn Africans’ gaze, as they sat cross-legged on deck, and ate their soup from a universal bowl, or calmly inspired from their chibouques, and blew out a formal and composed puff of the bluest tobacco-smoke. It did, indeed, soon forcibly recall the feelings of Egyptian travel to see these men;—the red fiery sunsets, the palm-trees, and crocodiles, and obelisks, and Indian corn, and, over all, the thrumming, not unmusical sound of thetarabookrah—earthen drum—with the wailing melodies in a minor key of the “Chaldæans whose cry is in the ships.”[121]
Sunday ride
So I ventured near in my dingey, and the imperturbable Egyptians were fairly taken by surprise. They soon rallied to a word or two in their language and an Englishman’s smile, and rapidly we became friends, and talked of Damascus and Constantinople, and finally decided that “Englishman bono!” The shape and minute dimensions of my dingey much astonished them; but they probably believed, that in that very craft I had come all the way from London.
The luxury of Paris must have at least some effect in makinggourmandsof the young generation, even if their fathers did not set the example. The operation, or rather the solemn function, of breakfast or dinner, is with many Frenchmen the only serious act in life. When people can afford to order a dinner in exact accordance with the lofty standard of excellence meant by its being “good,” the diner approaches the great proceeding with a staid and watchful air, and we may well leave him now he is involved in such important service. But with theoctroiduty for even a single pheasant at two shillings and sixpence, there are many good feeders who cannot afford to “dine well,” and the fuss they make about their eatables is something preposterous. It is a vice—this systematic gluttony—that seems to be steadily increasing in France for the last twenty years, at least in its public manifestation, and moreover it is an evil somewhat contagious.
One evening, while some of us had dinner at the Terrasse in St. Cloud, a family entered the room, and were partly disrobing themselves of bonnets and hats for a regular downright dinner, when the waiter came, and in reply to the order of a “friture” he calmly said they had none.
At this awful news the whole party were struck dumb and pale, and they leant back on their chairs as if in a swoon. The poor waiter prudently retreated for reinforcements, and the landlady herself came in to face the infuriate guests.
“No friture!” said the father. “No friture, and we come to St. Cloud?” he muttered deeply in rage. His wife proceeded to make horribly wry faces, whereat Rob Roy irreverently laughed, but he was not observed, for they noticed nothing of the external trifling world. The daughters heaved deep sighs, and then burst into voluble and loud denunciations. Then the son (who wanted dinner at any rate, and the objurgations might do afterwards) proposed at once to leave the desolate, famine-stricken spot.
But though this was debated warmly, it was not carried. They had already anchored, as it were, and they resolved to dine “starving,” and to grumble all the time of dinner when no one subject was talked about except thefriture. It was a miserable spectacle to witness, but confirming the proposition, not at all new, that the French care more about eating than even John Bull.
Paris Regatta—Absentees—Novelties—New Brunswickers—Steam yachts—Canoe race—Canoe chase—Entangled—M. Forcat—Challenge.
While the voyage in the Rob Roy’s dingey on Sunday was such as we have described, it was a busy time a little further down the river at St. Cloud, being the first day of the Paris Regatta, which continued also on the Monday, and then our British Regatta occupied the next four days. These two were under separate committees. The British Regatta was managed by experienced oarsmen, and His Royal Highness the Commodore of the Canoe Club was patron—not a merely nominal patron but presiding frequently at the committee meetings held at Marlborough House, and generously contributing to the funds. The Emperor of the French also gave us his name, and prizes to the amount of 1000l. were offered in a series of contests open to all the world. In these better days now the rowing world of France could lately count upon the patronage of their distinguished Foreign Minister, M. Waddington, who rowed in the same boat with me at Cambridge—‘ages ago.’
But this experiment of holding an international regatta in a foreign country was quite novel, and there were difficulties around it which it is not convenient to detail.
Notwithstanding the hasty predictions of people who could not approve of what was originated and carried out without requiring their advice, the regatta brought together a splendid body of the best oarsmen and canoeists in the world from England, France, and America. Three Champions of England for the first time contended at the same place. The most renowned watermen came from Thames and Tyne and Humber, and eight-oared boats raced for the first time on the Seine. The weather was magnificent, the course was in perfect order, and better than almost any other of equal length near any capital; the arrangements made were the very best that might be contrived under the peculiarly difficult circumstances which could not be controlled, even by a committee comprising the very best men for the purpose, and zealous in their work; and lastly the racing itself, for spirit and for speed, and for that exciting interest which is caused by equal excellence sustained during well-contested struggles, was never surpassed.
But this grand exhibition of water athletics was not seen by more than a few hundreds of persons, so that “Tribunes,” richly draped, and with streamers flying above, and seats below for 1000 visitors, often had not three people there at a time.
The French oarsmen must have been absent at some “better” place, and of the French public you might see more of them assembled on the roadside round a dancing dog. The Emperor could not come—perhaps Bismarck would not let him, and as the Prince of Wales had to be in his proper place as the representative of England, receiving the Sultan in London, this important duty prevented His Royal Highness from enjoying the pleasure he might well have counted upon after the trouble he had taken in connection with the British Regatta in Paris.
But after stating this disappointment bluntly, it will be remembered by all who were at St. Cloud, that there was a great deal of real amusement, as well as of hard work, and the whole had a strange novelty both in its charms and its troubles.
For crews in “hard training” to sit down tobifteck, and Medoc, omelette, andharicots verts, with strawberries and cream, and bad French jabbered round, was certainly a novelty. To see a group of London watermen, addressed in unknown tongues, but perfectly self-possessed, visiting the Exhibition in the morning and rowing a race in the afternoon, was new; and to observe the complete bewilderment of soldiers and police at the whole proceedings, which came upon them of course with surprise in a country where no one reads the papers for an advertisement, except about a new play, or an infallible pill—all this was very amusing to those who could listen and look on.
The English rowing-men soon made themselves as comfortable as they could in their new quarters, and suffered patiently the disagreeables of French lodgings. They repaired their boats, often broken by the transit from London, and behaved with good humour in proportion to their good sense. Even the grumblers were satisfied, because they were provided with a new set of grievances; and so things passed off better than was expected by those who knew the real circumstances of the venture. It was the first regatta of the kind, and doubtless it will be the last.
No particular description of the various races for eight-oars, four-oars, pair-oars, and sculling, by watermen and amateurs, would be interesting to general readers; but a few notable lessons were there to be learned, which will probably not be disregarded.
An interesting feature was added to the occasion by the arrival of four men, who came from New Brunswick, to row at this regatta. They had no coxswain to steer them, as every other boat had, but the rudder was worked by strings leading to one of the rowers’ feet.
They contended first in a race where it was not allowed to use “outrigged” boats (so called because they are so narrow that the oars cannot work on the gunwale, but are rigged out on iron frames). Moreover, they rowed in a broad, heavy, clumsy-looking craft, with common oars like those used at sea, and they pulled a short jerky stroke, and had to go round a winding French course—indeed with apparently every disadvantage; yet they came in first, beating English and French, and winning 40l.
The same crew went in next for another race, and in another boat, an outrigger they had brought with them from the Dominion of Canada, and again they were first, and won 40l. more.[128]At once “Les Canadiens” became the favourites and heroes of the day. Englishmen cheered them because they were the winners, and some Frenchmen cheered them because they supposed the men were French, whereat the hardy Canadians smiled with French politeness, but muttering the while round protestations, intelligible only to English ears.
The river Seine was made unusually lively during the summer by the movement upon it of a whole fleet of steamers of all shapes and sizes, and with flags often exceedingly ‘coquet.’ Little screw yachts or steam launches flitted up and down, sometimes so small as to admit only three or four people on board, with a bit of awning to deflect the sun; others were crowded with passengers. This style of locomotion is peculiarly adapted to Parisians. It has all the heat, bustle, and noise that can be desirable in nautical pleasures, and yet it almost avoids those highly inconvenient undulations which open water has too often the bad taste to assume. The completion of the Thames Embankment and of the purification of our river has already made water travelling more fashionable in London. Soon, perhaps, the Representative of some powerful Trades-union or incorrupt Borough, will see by the Westminster Clock that it is time to go down to the “House,” and will order his double-screw steamer round to the water steps near his terrace door; and no coachman in those days need apply for a place unless he can steer.
Even now, the number of miniature steamers, tug-boats, and private yachts on the Thames is large and increasing; while a few years ago not one was to be seen. Most of these are pretty little things, and the best of all craft to be handled safely in the crowded waterway. The multitude of them one sees at Stockholm shews what may be seen some day in Middlesex.
Several English screw yachts had come to Paris. Mr. Manners Sutton kindly lent his to the Regatta Committee, and the steam launch of the Admiralty Barge was also used, so that the umpire was able to follow each race in a proper position for seeing fair play, while the Rob Roy was anchored at the winning-post, to guard the palm of victory. Here, too, various bomb-shells were fired high into the air at the end of each race, and were supposed to correspond in number with the place of the winning boat on the programme; but somehow they so exploded as effectually to confuse the audience they were meant to enlighten as to “who had won:” which uncertainty, we all know, is one of the principal excitements of a regatta, and it can be sometimes prolonged even until the day afterwards.
The other features of these rowing matches on the Seine may be left to the reader’s imagination if he has seen a regatta before; and if he has not seen one, he could not well apprehend the thing by reading. The canoe races, however, being more novel, have another claim on attention.
One of these races was for fast canoes, and to be decided only by speed. The other was a “canoe chase,” in which dexterity and pluck were required for success.
For the canoe race three Englishmen had brought from the Thames three long boats with long paddles, and they were the three fastest canoes in England, so far as could be proved by previous trials. Against these, three French canoes were entered, all of them short, and with short paddles. One of these, propelled by an Englishman (resident in Paris), came in easily first, and the second prize was won by a Frenchman. Here, surely, was a good sound lesson to English canoe-men who wished to paddle fast on still water, in a boat useless for any other purpose, and slower at last than a skiff with two sculls. Accordingly, we accepted the beating with thanks.
The ‘Canoe Chase,’ first instituted at our Club races on the Thames, was found to be an agreeable variety in nautical sport, and very amusing. Therefore, two prizes were offered at the Paris Regatta for a canoe chase, open to all the “peoples.” Five French canoes entered, but there was only one English canoeist ready in his Rob Roy to meet all comers (the Hon. A. F. Kinnaird).
The canoes were drawn up on land alongside each other, and with their steins touching the lower step of the “Tribune” or Grand Stand. It was curious to observe the various positions taken up by the different men, as each adopted what he thought was the best manner of starting. One was at his boat’s stern; another, at the side, half carried his canoe, ready to be “off;” another grasped the bow; while the most knowing paddler held the end of his “painter” (or little rope) extended from the bow as far as it would reach.
All dashed off together on being started, and ran with their boats to the water. The Frenchmen soon got entangled together by trying to get into their boats dry; but the Englishman had made up his mind for a wetting, and it might as well come now, at once, as in a few minutes after, so he rushed straight into the river up to his waist, and therefore being free from the crowding of others, he got into his boat all dripping wet, but foremost of all, and then paddled swiftly away. The rest soon followed; and all of them were making to the flag-boat anchored a little way off, round which the canoes must first make a turn. Here the Englishman, misled by the various voices on shore telling him the (wrong) side he was to take, lost all the advantage of his start so that all the six boats arrived at the flag-boat together, each struggling to get round it, but locked with some other-opponent in a general scramble. Next, their course was back to the shore, where they jumped out and ran along, each one dragging his boat round another flag on dry land, amid the cheers and laughter of the dense group of spectators, who had evidently not anticipated a contest so new in its kind, and so completely visible from beginning to end. Again, dashing into the water the little struggling fleet paddled away to another flag-boat, but not now in such close array. Some stuck in the willows or rushes, or were overturned and had to swim; and the chance of who might win was still open to the man of strength and spirit, with reasonably good luck. Once more the competing canoes came swiftly back to shore, and were dragged round the flag, and another time paddled round the flag-boat; and now he was to be winner who could first reach the shore again and bring his canoe to the Tribune: a well-earned victory, won by the Hon. A. F. Kinnaird, far ahead of the rest.
The struggle
The whole affair lasted not much longer than might be required to write its history; but the strain was severe upon pluck and muscle, and called forth several qualities very useful in life at sea, but which mere rowing in a straight race does not require and cannot therefore exhibit. Instantly after this exciting contest, a Frenchman challenged the winner to another chase over the same course. But as the challenger had not thought fit to enter the lists and test his powers in the chase, which was open to him like the rest, it would, of course, have been quite unfair to allow him, quite fresh, to have a special race with the hard-worked winner, though the Englishman was at once ready to accept the gage.
Among the visitors to the regatta was M. Forcat, whose peculiar system of propelling boats I have mentioned in the account of a former voyage; and he brought up for exhibition, and for the practical trial by the winner of the canoe chase, a very narrow and crank boat, rowed by oars jointed to a short mast in front of the sitter, and thus obtaining one of the advantages possessed by canoeists, that their faces are turned to the bow, and so they see where they are going.
It is no doubt an enormous disadvantage that in ordinary rowing your back is turned upon the course, with all its dangers and beauties; and this inconvenience is only put up with because you can go faster as you row with your back foremost, and the scenery is of no account if a river serves only to float the skiff but not to please the eye. As for travelling on new and lovely waters in this style, with face to the stern, it is just as if you were to walk backwards along a road, and to think you could appreciate the picturesque either by a stare at the retreating beauties you are leaving, or by a glance now and then over your shoulder at what is coming. But though M. Forcat’s boat had the rower’s face to the bow, the form and size of the nondescript novelty were not to be understood in a moment, and we tried to dissuade our young canoeist from entering hastily a new sort of boat, very easily capsized. He had his own will, however, and his own way, because he was a Scot, and only “English” in the sense we use that word for “British,”—too frequently thereby giving dire offence to the blue lion of the North, whose armorial tail is so punctiliously correct as to the precise curl and make up of its “back hair.”
“He’s upset,” they cried in a minute or so. But we might well let so good a swimmer take his chance; he merely pushed the boat ashore, and then took a pleasant swim, until he was finally captured and put into the Rob Roy’s cabin, to change his wet clothes as well as a modest man might do behind a plaid screen and before the curious world.
Therefore in boats, as well as in business and politics, we may learn lessons from one another, both on the water and on the land: from Canada, as to the steering and the stroke; from France, as to the fast, quick turning canoe in still water; and from England, as to theman.
It was to see this regatta and to help in it that the Rob Roy had pushed her way to Paris; and for this six hundred miles of river navigation in a sea-going boat were justifiable, yet often did I feel much the sea-trim lifeboat yawl was out of place upon a calm inland water like the Seine.
Before the arrival of my little yacht, a challenge had been sent to her to sail on the Seine against a French yacht there. To this I replied that it would be scarcely a fair match for the Rob Roy, a sea craft, to race on a river known only to one of the competitors; but that the yawl would gladly sail a match with any French yacht having only one man on board,—the course to be at sea either one hundred miles for speed, or one week for distance, and communication not allowed with any other boat or shore. No answer came.
Dawn music—Cleared for action—Statistics—Blue Peter—Passing bridges—A gale—A shave—Provisions—Toilette—An upset—Last bridge—A peep below—Cooking inside—Preserved provisions—Soups.
The Rob Roy was very pleasant lodgings when moved down to the lovely bend at St. Cloud. Sometimes she was made fast to a tree, and the birds sung in my rigging, and gossamers spun webs on the masts, and leaves fell on the deck. At other times we struck the anchor into soft green grass, and left the boat for the day, until at night, returning from where the merry rowers dined so well in training, and after a pleasant and cool walk “home” by the river side, there was the little yawl all safe on a glassy pool, and her deck shining spangled with dewdrops under the moon, and the cabin snug within,—airy but no draughts, cool without chill, and brightly lighted up in a moment, yet all so undisturbed, without dust or din, and without any bill to pay.
Awake with the earliest sun, there was always the same sound alongside as we lay at anchor. The sweet murmurings of the water running by, cleft by my sharp bow, and gliding in wavelets along the smooth sides only a few inches from my ear, and sounding with articulate distinctness through the tight mahogany skin; and then there was the muttering chatter of the amateur fisherman, who was sure to be at his post, however early.
This respectable personage, not young but still hearty, is in his own boat,—a boat perfectly respectable too, and well found in all particulars, flat, brown, broad, utterly useless for anything but this its duty every morning.
Quietly his anchor is dropped, and he then fixes a pole into the bottom of the river, and lashes the boat to that, and to that it will be fixed until nine o’clock; at present it is five. He puts on a grey coat, and brown hat, and blue spectacles, all the colours of man and boat being philosophically arranged, and as part of a complicated and secret plot upon the liberties of that unseen, mysterious, and much-consideredgoujonwhich is poetically imagined to be below. It has baffled all designs for this last week, for it is a wily monster, butthismorning it is most certainly to be snared.
Rod, line, float, hook, bait, are all prepared for the conflict, and the fisherman now seats himself steadily in a sort of arm-chair, and with stealth and gravity drops the deceitful line into hidden deeps. At that float he will stare till he cannot see. He looks contented; at any rate, no muscle moves in his face, though envy may be corroding his soul. After an hour hemayjust yield so much as to mutter some few sounds, or a suppressed moaning over his hard lot, ‘and that is what I hear in my cabin.’ Then at last he rises with a determined briskness in his mien, and the resentment against fate from an ill-used man, and he casts exactly three handfuls of corn or bread-crumbs into the water, these to beguile the reluctant obstinate gudgeon, who, perhaps, poor thing, is not so much to blame for inattention after all, being at the time just one hundred and fifty yards away, beside those bulrushes.
Indeed that very idea seems to have struck the fisherman too, and he marks the likely spot, and will go there to-morrow, not to-day—no, he will always stick one day at one place. How he moves to or from it I do not know, for the man and boat had always come before I saw them, and I never stopped long enough to see them depart. Four men fished four mornings thus, and only two fish were caught by them in my presence.
The regatta is over, and Nadar’s balloon is in the sky, but seeming no bigger than other balloons, so soon does the mind fail to appreciate positive size when the object you look at is seen alone. It is the old story of the moon, which “looks as large as a soup-plate,” and yet Nadar’sGéantwas the largest balloon ever seen, and it carries a house below it instead of a car—a veritable house, with two storeys, and doors and windows. The freedom of its motion sailing away reminds me that the Rob Roy ought to be moving too,—that she was not built to dabble about on rivers, but to charge the crested wave; and, indeed, there was always a sensation of being pent up when she was merely floating near the inland cornfields, and so far from the salt green sea; and this, too, even though pleasant parties of ladies were on board, and boys got jaunts and cruises from me, which I am certain pleased them much; still the reef-points on her sails rattled impatiently for real breezes and the curl of the surf, while the storm mizen was growing musty, so long stowed away unused.
Next day, therefore, the Blue Peter was flying at the fore, and the Rob Roy’s cellar had its sea stock laid in from “Spiers and Pond,” of ale, and brandy, and wine. Before a fine fresh wind, with rain pelting cheerfully on my back, we scudded down the Seine. To sail thus along a rapid stream with many barges to meet, and trees overhanging, and shoals at various depths below, is a very capital exercise, especially if you feel your honour at stake about getting aground, however harmless that would be. But the Seine has greater difficulties here, because the numerous bridges each will present an obstacle which must be dealt with at once, and yet each particular bridge will have its special features and difficulties, not perhaps recognized when first you meet them so suddenly.[142]The bridges on the Seine were often not high enough to allow the yawl to pass under, except in the centre, or within a few feet on one side or other of the keystone, and as the wind is deflected by the bridge, just at the critical moment when you reach such places, and the current of water below rushes about in eddies from the piers, there is quite enough of excitement to keep a captain pretty well awake in beating to windward through these bridges; for the windmustbe dead ahead a great part of the time, because the river bends about and about with more and sharper turns than almost any other of the kind.
Though sun and wind had varnished my face to the proper regulation hue, in perfect keeping with a mahogany boat, yet the fortnight of fresh water had softened that hardiness of system acquired in real sea. My hands had gradually discarded, one after another, the islands of sticking-plaister, and a whole geography of bumps and bruises, which once had looked as if no gloves ever could get on again—or rather as if the hands must always be encased in gloves to be anywhere admissible in a white-skinned country.
But now once again outward bound, though still so many miles from the iodine scent of the open sea, and the gracious odour of real ship’s tar, one’s nerves are strung tight in a moment. The change was hailed with joy, though sudden enough, from the glassy pond-like water at St. Cloud, lulled only by gentle catspaws, half asleep and dreaming, to the rattling of spars and blocks, and hissing of the water, in the merry whistling gale by which we now were rapt away.
At Argenteuil there are numerous French pleasure-boats, and the Rob Roy ran into a good berth. Next day there was a downright gale, so I actually had to reef before starting, because in a narrow river the work of beating against the wind is very severe on legs and arms, and especially on one’s hands, unless they are hardened, and kept hard, too, by constant handling of the strong ropes.
At length we put into a quiet bay, where the river Oise joined the Seine, and we moored snugly under the lee of a green meadow, while trees were above waving and rustling in the breeze. It was far from houses, for I wished to have a good rest, as the tossing of the former night had almost banished sleep.
But soon the inquisitive natives found the yawl in her hiding-place, and they sat on the grass gazing by the hour. The surroundings were so much like a canoe voyage, that I felt more strongly than ever the confinement to a river, while the sea would have been so open and grand under such a breeze. Therefore I gave up all idea of sailing down the Seine any more, and decided to get towed to Havre, and to launch out fairly on our proper element once more.
Yet it was fine fun to row about in the dingey, and to discover a quaint old inn, and to haul ashore my tiny cockleshell and dine. Here they were certainly an uncouth set, they did not even put a cloth on the table, nor any substitute for it,—a state of things seen very seldom indeed in the very outermost corners of my various trips.
Faithful promise was made by a man that he would rouse me from slumber in my cabin under the haybank at the passing of the next steamer, be it light or dark at the time. The shriek of the whistle came in the first hours of morning, and the man ran to tell it, with one side of his face shaven, and the other frothed over with lather.
Being towed down is so like being towed up the river, that we need merely allude to a few features in the voyage westward.
At one pretty town we stopped to unload cargo for some hours, and I climbed the hills, scaled the old castle walls, and dived into curious tumbledown streets. The keeper of the newspaper-shop confessed to me his own peculiar grievance, namely, that he often sent money to England in reply to quack advertisements, but never had any reply. He seemed to be too “poli” to credit my assertion that there are “many rogues in perfidious Albion,” and on the whole he was scarcely shaken in the determination to persevere in filling their pockets, though he might empty his own.
An old man at a lock was delighted by a New Testament given to him. “I know what this is; it is Protestant prayers. Oh, they are good.” Then he brought his wife and his grandchildren, and every one of them shook hands.
It was not very easy to get one’s sea-stores replenished in the continuous run down the Seine. Sometimes I saw a milkman trundling his wheelbarrow over a bridge, and, jumping on shore, I waylaid him for the precious luxury, or sent off a boy for bread, and butter, and eggs; but, of course, the times of eating had nothing to do with any hours, or recurring seasons for a meal: you must cook when you can, and snatch a morsel here or there, in a lock or a long reach of the stream. At night the full moon sailed on high, and the crew lay down with their faces over the steamer’s side, chattering with their English comrade till it was far past bed-time, for we shall be off at three to-morrow morning.
The steam in the boiler first warns of the coming bustle as its great bubbles burst inside, and rattle the iron plates. Then, being more frequent and tighter bound, they give out a low moaning, hidden rumble; and if the boat touches the side of the steamer, there is a strong vibration through all her sonorous planks, until some tap is turned in the engine, and the rush of steam leaps into the cylinder as if indignant at its long restraint. You had better get up now (there is no dressing, for the simple reason that there has been no undressing), and in two minutes you are fresh and hearty, though it is only a few hours since you dropped to rest.
Rouen looks as if it would be all that is pleasant for a sailing-boat to rest in. Never was a greater deception. It is difficult to find an anchorage, and impossible to get a quiet berth by the quay. The bustle all day, and the noise all night, keep you ever on the tenterhooks; though, as these discomforts are caused by the active commerce of the port, one ought to bear them patiently.
In one of the numerousmêléesof barges, boats, and steamers whirling round and round, amid entangled hawsers, and a swift stream, we had at last to invoke aid from shore, and a number of willing loungers gladly hauled on my rope. Some of these men, when I thanked them, said they had more to thank me for,—the books I had given them in my voyage up. Still, with all this aid, the Rob Roy was inextricably entangled with other heavier craft, and, in shoving her off I tumbled overboard, and had to put up with a thorough wetting; so, after a warm bath ashore, moreà la mode, I returned to my little cabin for a profound sleep.
Rain, almost ceaseless for a whole day and night, had searched the smallest chink, and trickled ungraciously into my very bed-room. But I suspended an iron tea-cup in the dark just over my body, sothatone little stream was intercepted. This was the first really hard pressure of wet on the Rob Roy, and all the defects it brought to light were entirely remedied afterwards at Cowes.
On each of the four preceding nights I had been aroused for the next day’s work at three, or two, or even one o’clock, in the dark, and yet for one night more there was to be no regular repose.
My mast had been made fast to the quay wall, but in forgetfulness that on a tidal river this fastening must be such as to allow for several feet of fall as the water ebbs. Therefore, about the inevitable hour of one o’clock, in the dark, there was a loud and ominous crack and jerk from the rope, and I knew too well the cause. In the rainy night it was a troublesome business to arrange matters, and next day was a drowsy one with me, spent in the strange old streets of the town.
The policeman had orders to call me at any hour when a steamer went by, and, being hooked at last to the powerful twin-screwDu Tremblay, with a pleasant captain, I rejoiced to near the very last bridge on the river, with the feeling at heart, “After this we are done with fresh-water sailing.”
It was a suspension-bridge, and the worthy captain forgot all about the Rob Roy and her mast, when he steered for a low part, where his own funnel could pass because it was lowered, but where I saw in a moment my mast must strike.
There was no time to call out, nor would it have availed even to chop the towing-line with my axe, for the boat had too much “way” on her to stop. Therefore I could only duck down into the well, to avoid the falling spars and the splinters.
The bridge struck the mast about two feet from the top, and, instead of its breaking off with a short snap, the mast bent back and back at least four feet just as if it were a fishing rod, to my great amazement. The strong vibration of its truck (pommethe French call it), throbbed every nerve of boat and man, as it scraped over each plank above, and then the mast sprang up free from the bridge with such a switch, that it burst the lashings of both the iron shrouds merely by this rebound.
Now was felt the congratulation that we had carefully secured a first-rate mast for the Rob Roy, one of the pieces of Vancouver wood, proved, by the competitions lately held, to be the strongest of all timber.
The moments of expected disaster and of happy relief were vivid as they passed, but I made the steamer stop, and on climbing the mast, I found not even the slightest crack or injury there. Henceforth we shall trust the goodly spar in any gale, with the confidence only to be had by a crucial test like this.
As we shall soon be at sea again, but the river is calm enough here, perhaps this will be a fit opportunity for the reader to peep into Rob Roy’s cave as it was usually made up for the night.
The floor of the cabin is made of thin mahogany boards, resting on cross-beams. The boards are loose, so that even in bed I can pull one up, and thus get at my cellar or at the iron pigs of ballast. The bed is of cork, about seven feet long and three feet wide. On this (for itwasrather hardish) I put a plaid,[150]and then a railway rug, which being coloured, had been substituted for a blanket, as the white wool of the latter insisted on coming off, and gave an untidy look to my thick blue boating-jacket.
One fold of the rug was enough for an ample covering, and I never once was cold in the cabin.
A large pillow was encased by day in blue (the uniform colour of all my decorations), and it was stripped at night to be soft and smooth for the cheek of the sleeper.
Putting under this my coats and a regulation woven Jersey, with the yacht’s name worked in red across its breast in regular sailor’s fashion, the pillow became a most comfortable cushion, and the woodcut shows me reclining in the best position for reading or writing, as if on a good sofa. On my right hand behind is a candle-lamp, with a very heavy stand. It rests upon a shelf, which can be put in any convenient place by a simple arrangement.
The Cabin
In the sketch already given at p. 41, there is a tarpaulin spread over the well, and this was used on one occasion when we had to cook in rain while at anchor.[151]
On the same side, and below the boxes, “Tools” and “Eating,” already mentioned, are two large iron cases, labelled “Prog,”—a brief announcement which vastly troubled the brains of several French visitors, whose English etymology did not extend to such curt terms.
In these heavy boxes are cases of preserved meats, soups, and vegetables, and these I found perfectly satisfactory in every respect, when procured at a proper place (Morel’s in Piccadilly). Here you can get little tin cases, holding half a pint each and sealed up hermetically.[152]
To cook one of these tins full—which, with bread and wine is an ample dinner—you cut the top circle with the lever-knife, but allowing it to be still attached by a small part to the tin, and fold this lid part back for a handle.
Then put the tin into a can of such a shape and size that it has about half an inch of water all round the tin, but not reaching too high up, else it may bubble over when boiling, and as you can use salt water or muddy water for this water-jacket, it will not do to sprinkle any of that inside the tin.
The can is then hung over the Rob Roy lamp, and in six minutes the contents of the tin are quite hot. Soup takes less time, and steak perhaps a little more, depending on the facility of circulation of the materials in the tin and the amount of wind moderating the heat. The preserved meat or soup has been thoroughly cooked before it is sold, and it has sauce, gravy, and vegetables, and the oxtail has joints, all properly mixed. Therefore, in this speedy manner your dinner is prepared, and indeed it will be smoking hot and ready before you can get the table laid, and the “things” set out from the pantry.
Concentrated soup I took also, but it has a tame flavour, so it was put by for a famine time, which never came. As for “Liebig’s Extract of Meat,” you need not starve while there is any left, but that is the most we can say in its favour.
High tide—Seine pilot—To bed—Terrible scene—A tumble in—In the swell—Novel steeling—The Empress—Puzzled—Night thoughts—The Start—A draft on the deck—Balloon jib—On the deep.
On the Seine there is a tide phenomenon, called thebarre, as in English rivers thebore, which, when not provided for, is very dangerous, especially at spring tides. The water then rushes up the narrowing funnel-shaped estuary, in a broad and swelling wave, sometimes four feet high, and this will sweep off even large vessels from their anchors, and it causes many wrecks.
On a former occasion when I happened to be in this neighbourhood, a high tide had been truly predicted by astronomers, which would culminate at the little town of Caudebec on the Seine, but would also rise higher than ever known before on all the adjacent coasts.
The news of this coming wonder spread over France, and there being then a lull in Europe as to revolutions, &c. (except, of course, the perennial revolution in Spain), thequidnuncsof the provinces had to run to the coast for an excitement. Excursion trains, and heavily-laden steamers poured volumes of people into Caudebec, and many of them had never seen salt sea before. At the fashionable bathing-town of Trouville the sight was a strange one when thousands of expectant observers paraded the soft white sand as the full moon shone on a waveless sea, and the brilliant dresses of the ladies coloured the beautiful tableau.
The tide flowed and flowed; it bubbled over the usual bounds of the shore; it trickled into the bathing sheds; it swelled still higher upon the trim-kept promenade, until it lapped the highest point and then went gently down again. Eclipses and tides are patent proofs to the people that physical science can appeal to. The “music of the spheres” hath also a true rhythm, “There is neither speech nor language but their voices are heard.”
To escape thisbarreon the Seine, our steamer anchored by the quaint old town of Quillebœuf with other vessels; and, though the wind howled and the rain poured, the hill beside us sheltered all from its blasts, which were too wild and powerful in the sea outside to allow us to proceed next day.[156]
However, our Seine pilot pointed to an English steamer “which dared not go out;” so any remonstrance on the subject was silenced, and then he boldly asked if I would like a pilot on board the Rob Roy (towed by the steamer all the time), and I had sufficient command of countenance to decline with due gravity. Better, perhaps, it would have been for me not to carry then so much of the John Bull into these strange waters, as will be seen from what occurred that night.
The tide rushed up with extraordinary strength, until it was quite full. Then it paused for five minutes, and again it set off in the opposite direction with the same fury, increased, too, by the stream and the wind being also down the river.
At each of these changes every vessel, of course, swung round to its anchor, and so must have loosened its hold, while all the water picture changed from right to left like a scene shifted on the stage. During this short interval of quiet you could row ashore, but to get back again was almost impossible when the full torrent of water ran in straight.
As night came on I noticed that our steamer’s anchor was dragging, and that other steam vessels, more on the alert, were easing the strain on their cables by working their engines at half power all the time.
“Captain, we are dragging anchor.” “No, sir,” he said, “you are mistaken.” “I am sure we are dragging: I have watched for ten minutes.” “No, sir, I am certain we do not drag.” He said this with such firmness, that I confidingly believed it, and turned into bed.
But it was not to sleep, except in fitful snatches. The sound of the water hurrying by my side, like a mill race, and within a few inches of my ear, had a strange and unwonted effect, not now to soothe, but to drive sleep away. Bits of wood and otherdébrisoften struck my mahogany sounding-board with a loud thump, until I became accustomed even to this, and was in a dreamy dozing about one o’clock.
Then there came a new noise,—a low, steady rap, tap, tap, tap, on the boat, and from underneath. For a moment or two there was a sensation without apprehension,—a sort of mesmeric, irresistible spell; but a sudden thought burst through the trance, and with a powerful impression of what was doing—one no less horrid than true—I dashed off covering, roof, hatchway, and all, and stood upon deck to meet a terrible scene.
Our steamer had drifted in the dark until we closed upon another steamboat astern. My yawl, tied to the stern of one, was between that and the bows of the other, the anchor chain of which had already got underneath the waist of the Rob Roy, and had been ringing the rap, tap, tap of a warning that undoubtedly saved her life. Light flashed from the riding lamp at the steamer’s bow full on my boat’s deck, which was now heeled over deeply until the dark water rushed through her gunwale; it seemed that only a few seconds more and the poor little yawl would sink in the flood, or be ground into splinters by the two great iron monsters nearing each instant in the dark.
All this was noticed in the same rapid glance which in such dangers grasps a whole scene in a moment and stamps it in the mind for years.
My boat hung on the cold iron chain, yet it wavered with equal poise to go this way or that. If she could be swerved to the stern she might possibly escape destruction, but if to the other side, then the strong rope at her bow would entirely prevent her escape. With a loud shout to arouse the crews I put every atom of bodily force into one strenuous shove, straining nerve and muscle in the desperate effort until I could not see. She trembled and surged—it was successful, and I fell into the water, but my yawl was saved.[159a]
Crash came the two steamers together. I heeded nothing of their din and smashing, and the uproar of the men, but I scrambled all wet into my cabin, nervously shaking with excitement and a chattering of teeth. Then I sat down to sum up my bruises,—a barked shin, sprained thigh, and bleeding cheek-bone; and a hapless object I must have seemed, bathing, by turns, my leg, and shin, and face, from a brandy bottle, and then a gulp inside. In a survey of the yawl made next day, there was to be seen (as still there is) the marks of the iron chain-links deeply impressed in the mahogany planks of her waist. The piece of wood that bears these mementoes of that night’s deed might well be cut out and kept as a curious memorial. The bowsprit also was found to have been nipped at the end (though it had been drawn in close to the stem), and the squeeze had quite flattened the strong iron ring upon it, and jammed up the wood into a pulp as if it were cork.[159b]
The weather did not moderate next day, but we started nevertheless, and when the waves of the wider sea were tumbling in I expected to have a wetting as in passing here before; but the sea was in fine long swells, and so the yawl rode over them buoyantly. Also the large twin-screw tugboat is far more pleasant to follow than the smaller steamer with its two paddle-wheels, one at each side of the stern.[160]
In another way also I managed better than before while undergoing the process of being towed. I set the hatch of the well in front of me, and then allowed the reflection of the funnel of the steamer upon the wet deck of my boat to be seen through a chink, while my head and body were entirely concealed and completely sheltered from spray.
Now, having marked where this reflection rested, when I was exactly in a proper line abaft the steamer, I was enabled to steer altogether by the shadowy image, although I could not see the object itself to which I was directing the bow of my boat. The captain and crew of the steamer were very much astonished with this proceeding.[161]
Arriving at Havre on July 21, there was need for a good rest, and the port was suited for it. There is quiet water in a sequestered nook of the harbour and plenty of amusement on shore. Havre, too, was in a state of much excitement, for the Empress was about to embark thence for England, and the Imperial yacht was in the basin, with a splendid crew on board. In the evening the Emperor also came to the town, to escort his wife when she embarked, and as his carriage drove past the crowd ran after it hallooing.
The last time I had seen the Empress Eugenie was under somewhat peculiar circumstances; she was floating in the sea, and we shall tell more of her Majesty afloat in a future page, when fair bathers at Margate appear.
The beautiful English yacht ‘Vindex’ was on the gridiron with the Rob Roy; that is to say, on a sunk stage of wood, on which you can place a vessel, if it is desired to examine or repair its hull and keel when the tide leaves it there dry.
‘Vindex’ had come to the Havre Regatta, and as she had won the prize there in the previous year a great deal of interest was shown about her now. But the regatta on this occasion was by no means interesting, for the wind fell into calm, and it was merely a drifting match.
My usual visits in the dingey had disposed of nearly all my store of French books and periodicals, and the remainder we took to a civil bookseller, from whom we bought French charts and a Pilot book of the English south coast soundings.
Meantime, after a rest and refreshment to my crew, a thorough scraping to my boat, and a good stock laid in of comfort for my voyage to England, the question had to be distinctly put, “How am I to get over the broad Channel to the Isle of Wight?” It was, of course, impossible to think of coming back as we had gone,—that is, along the French coast. This would never do. Again, it was also found that the steamers were not allowed to tow any boat to sea behind the passenger vessels unless in cases of distress, so that put an end to another solution of the problem, which was to get half way by towing and then to cast off and sail.
Well, shall I get an additional hand on board? But where is he to sit if it blows hard? And if it does not blow hard, what is the use of him? In fact I was steadily driven, as if by severe logic, to the conclusion already at the bottom of my mind, tosail right across alone.
Then I asked one or two experienced sailors if they thought the Rob Roy could do it, and they said, “Yes, she can; but canyou? You may be three or four days out, and can you stand the fatigue? At any rate, do not start in a southwest wind: it raises a sea and the up and down of the waves will tire you soon in a long day’s work, and then there is the night besides.”
Having retired to my calm little creek, where the yawl was tied by a line to a large fishing-smack, I tried to read, but very soon found I was thinking of anything but the words on the printed page; then to sleep; but still I was musing on the prospect now opened of a hazardous and delightful sail.
About one o’clock I gazed out moodily on the quiet night scene of the harbour, sleeping around. Tall masts whitened by the moon, black hulls darkened in the shade, busy quays silent, long-necked iron cranes peering into the deep water that reflected quaint leaning houses, all distorted, and big buoys magnified by the haze.
“Why continue this anxiety about how to get over? See the clouds drift over the clear moon with an east wind. Will it ever be easier than now? I cannot sleep—why not start this moment?”
Once the decision was made, all was alert on the Rob Roy; and in half an hour I had breakfasted, and then very noiselessly loosed the thin line that bound us to the quay, and bid “adieu to France.”
Every single thing we could think of was perfectly prepared. The sails were all ready to set, but we had to row the yawl slowly into the main harbour, and there we met a low round swell coming in from the sea. We tugged hard to force her against the adverse tide, but progress was tediously slow. Presently some fishing luggers were getting under way, and soon the usual clatter and din of the French sailors, at full tide, rang forth as if by a magic call at two in the morning.
After shouting some time for a boat to tow me to the pier-head, at last one came.
“What will you charge?”
“Ten francs.”
“I’ll give you eight;” and after parley the two men in their little boat agreed to take the Rob Roy in tow.
Almost immediately I noticed that the moon was hid, and the wind had chopped round to the southwest, the very wind I was told not to start with, but now—well it was too late to withdraw, and so we laboured on, while the great clumsy luggers crossed and recrossed our course, and frequently dashed upon the piles of the pier in the stupidest manner, with much loud roaring of voices, and creaking of spars, and fluttering of sails.
Presently the men called out that, as the sea was getting higher, I had better pay them the money. “Certainly,” I said; but, alas! I could find only five francs of change, the rest being napoleons.
They shouted, “Give us gold—we will send the change to England;” but I bellowed out a better plan, to give them an order on the yacht agents at Havre for five francs, and the silver besides.
Finally this was accepted, so I got out paper and envelope, and on the wet deck, by moonlight, wrote the banker’s draft.
When they came near the harbour’s mouth, they sung out “Get ready your mizen.”
“Ay, ay!”
“Hoist;” and so up went the trim little sail, glad to flap once more in salt air. Then they bid me “Get ready your jib—we have cast you off; hoist!” Yes, and I did hoist.
Perhaps the reader may recollect that the end of my bowsprit had been squeezed by a collision, and was in fact as weak as a charred stick. But I had entirely forgotten this by some unaccountable fatality, during the three days at Havre, when it might have been easily repaired.
The moment therefore I had hoisted the jib, the bowsprit end broke sharp off into a ragged stump, and the jib instantly flew away into the air just like an umbrella blown inside out.
This was of course a most critical time for such a mishap, with a strong breeze dead ahead, driving me in upon piles, and a tumbling sea, and numerous large luggers sailing about me in the dark. Therefore I felt that this unlucky accident and the southwest wind meant, “I must not go out to-night. It will not do to begin a voyage of a hundred miles with a broken bowsprit.”
For a hundred miles
All this prudent reasoning was at once cut short by the Frenchmen calling out, “Voulez-vous sortir encore,monsieur?” and the Rob Roy thus hailed could make but one reply, “Oui,oui,certainement;” so I bid them lay hold again while I captured the truant jib, hauled down and reefed it, and made it fast to the stem, and then again “Lachez tous,” we are free on the rolling waves.
At the worst, methought, we can return in four or five hours, when the tide falls, if we find it unadvisable to go on; but meanwhile our yawl shot away westward to get a good offing from the Cape de la Hève, and then I cooked breakfast (the former one counted of course in the former day, according to the excellent rule already explained), and about half-past four I laid on my straight course to old England, with a capital breeze on my quarter, and a hundred times glad that I had not gone back.
Nodding—Prancing—First Thoughts—England—Mid-channel thoughts—Battle—Religion—Science—Church—Guide.
Up rose the sun, and all was cheerful. Then I laid her to, and got out my axe, and chopped the bowsprit into shape, so that it would run out further, and then set the whole jib firmly on it.
All the feelings restrained so long by the river work, and regatta amenities, and Exhibition in Paris, now came forth powerfully in a flow of enthusiasm.
Boys seem to like the stories of the canoe voyages, and perhaps they will read this one of the yawl. If they have a sailor turn, they will imagine the new pleasure to be felt when you glide away from a fast-retreating land, and nothing is in front but sea, sea, sea. Then the little boat you are in, and know in every plank, and love too, becomes more than ever cherished as a friend. It is your only visible trust, and, if itisa good boat, you trust it well, for indeed it seems to try its very best, like a horse on the desert plain, that knows it must go on if it is ever to get to the other side. Then as the cliffs, that looked high behind you, dwindle into a line of deep blue, the compass by your knees becomes a magic thing, with no tongue indeed to speak, but surely a brain it must have to know the way so well.
For hours we went on thus in silent pleasure, gazing at the gentle needle as it moved without noise; and, with nothing around but plash of waves, bright sun, and a feeling of hot silence, the spell of sleep was overpowering. Homer sometimes nodded, it is said, and he would have certainly had a good nap had he steered long thus. The sinking off into these delicious slumbers was imperceptible, and perfectly beyond the will’s control. In a moment of trance I would be far away in dreamland, and with a thousand incidents, all enacted in orderly succession, with fights, wrecks, or pageantry, or the confused picture of bright-coloured nothings which fancy paints on the half-alive brain.
From these sweet dreams there was a rude awakening; a slap from the sea on my face, as the yawl, untended, suddenly rounded to, or a rattling taptoo on the deck when the jib-sheets found they were free.
Then for a time I would resolutely insist upon attention—every moment of slumber being a positive wandering from the course; but no, the outer self that demands a nap will not be denied by the inner nobler self that commands alertness.
Only one single sea-gull did I see in thirty hours. One vessel also far off was the sole break upon the painfully straight horizon, and as the wind gradually died away into nothing, the prospect did not improve.
Then came the up and down riding over seas without gaining a yard, the “prancing” of the vessel which had galloped forth in the morning like a horse in its first bounds on grass when, leaving a hard road, its hoof paws gladly the springy turf.
Some feelings that came up then from deep recesses in the mind were new, but too new and unnamed to put in words. Alone on the waters, when you cannot see land, is a strange condition. However, if only fog or darkness hides the land you still feel that land is there. Quite another thing is it to be afloat alone, where, because it is fifty miles away, landcannotbe seen. Doubtless it may seem foolish, but I am not able to tell the feelings of that time.
Becalmed midway between France and England, it was natural for the mind to think of both countries, and every time I have left France it has been with more admiration of that lively land;[171]but Frenchmen, during this visit, looked at by us for the twentieth time, had evident signs of wounded vanity: they were conscious of playing second fiddle in a grand German opera.
Thinking of England, on the other hand, religion and not politics became the theme; for is not religion at least more considered amongst us than ever before? It may be opposed or misapprehended or derided, but it is not ignored as it used to be.
Look at the three leading newspapers, the morning, the evening, and the weekly registers of the direction, warmth, and pressure of public thought, as noted by keen observers, who are shrewd and weatherwise as to the signs of the times, and are seldom wrong when they hoist a storm signal. More and more each of these secular papers occupies its best columns with religious questions, and not with the mere facts or gossip on the subject, or with records of philanthropy, important as these are, but with deep essential doctrines, and prolonged arguments about the very kernel of truth.
Religion is allowed to have a place now in every stratum of society, even if a wrong place and a very uncomfortable place for a slender religion, though sometimes, indeed, a politician laments that “Parliament has its time occupied by the subject,” as if it were possible for the House to settle the Church and the School and the homes of men, without also considering their religion.
And if almost each family gives some place or other to it, so perhaps no one man in England would allow any other man to say of him that he has “nothing to do with religion.”
Religion is more present among us; but this is a wide term—‘religion.’ If there is a God, then that there is a revealed religion is acknowledged, and that the Christian religion has the best, if not the only claims to be this. Who is to decide for me as to whether there is a God?
If ignorance unfits me to judge this rightly, does not class prejudice unfit others to be the arbiters?
Are not the official exponents of theology liable to be prejudiced in its favour as something that establishes or enhances the position of their order among men?
Are not the votaries of natural science subject to a prejudice against Theism as something that dethrones them from supremacy?
Is there not among these last a writhing invisible agony to escape from the avowal that God governs? And why is this? Perhaps because man proudly relishes freedom, and hates to say that his life is inspected and controlled by another Being who will also judge him hereafter; and because the student of physical science knows that if there is a God, then moral science must be a far nobler pursuit than his own pursuit, even if it is less palpable and popular; also because the scientific man is tempted to do all he can to ignore that anything is outside the ken of science—that there is a Being on quite another plane, far above him and his researches.
But science has no exclusive or even predominant right in the decision of this matter; nor has it any solid success in the long battle, though one or other in its ranks may triumph in a skirmish. When one philosopher demolishes the Bible, an ordinary man cannot convince him he is wrong. But when a dozen savants tilt in the fray, even an ordinary man can see that their weapons demolish each other, and the old Book stands.
This geologist has scratched the varnish on the globe, and forthwith frames his new theory of creation. In ten years he is proved utterly wrong by that microscopist who has detected animal remains in an igneous rock. The simple bystander cannot understand either side, and far less tell which side is true. But when the combatants slay each other, the wayfaring man can understand this neutralization. The philosopher strikes me with awe so long as he keeps aloft beyond my knowledge or comprehension. When he comes down I can love him, but the reverence of his mystery is gone, and he is soon found out to be a brother mite. My friend can walk faster and farther on earth than I can; but when he wades into the water, I find I can swim just as well as he—while if we try to fly in the air, neither of us can soar a yard.
Thus the mind that is great in observing, collating, and even generalizing facts, gets immediately out of its depth a few feet from land in the ocean of hypothesis, and it can be drowned there like my own.
Reaching up higher, in search of First Cause, the clever brain grasps the liquid æther above, and yearns; but it holds nothing, not one atom more than an ordinary mind; nor has all the striving of all the world lifted one man a foot above the plain towards heaven.
If these sentiments are pretentious, they show that one can learn at least forwardness from philosophers, if not wisdom.
But it is not the Atheist that puzzles one so much as those who find it convenient to admit the one point to start from—“There is a God,” be He styled in redundant reverence, “Nature,” “Providence,” or “Heaven.” The vacuity behind that is too dark and abysmal to be a home for their soul, and therefore they will accompany you thus far.
This short creed is long enough to cover many different meanings, and elastic enough to be worn, at least outside, for common decency, and to fit almost any form of life and character.
Some men have never had more than this meagre garment. Others have been swathed in more ample folds from the nursery, but have stripped off the mental clothing of their childhood, feeling it tight, or encumbered with braid and tassels, and some have torn it all to tatters; but at last, as their inner being chills in the air of naked freedom, they take upon them this creed as the one general raiment of prudence.
There may be quiet in this creed, for a time, if not comfort; but the garment fails to warm the heart if indeed it even covers the head; and the mind soon wonders whether God canbe, and yet notdo, and it yearns to know what God has said and done. Instinct tells it that to know the very truth upon this will make the man’s creed a vascular body for action, not a mere decent clothing. The mind begins its search for this truth on a battle-field. It is a fight for peace as well as a search for treasure. Facts have to be settled, in hot conflict, which are felt to touch every point of life, and not mere fancies high in the air, or thoughts too deep for common people. Each man fights hand-to-hand here. Strategy and leaders avail not. Mere numbers on one side or the other do not count for individual conviction; we are not saved in bundles.
No man can keep out of reach of the turmoil, though many would be content to remain as bystanders, secure from remark or disturbance, in a hazy cloud where the only thing distinct is their denial that there is anything definite. Their creed is not strengthened by its being vague and curtailed. “Moral sense,” “intuitive truth,” “general utility”—their ultimate appeal—is just as far out of reach of algebraic logic as any of the propositions are which they reject because these cannot be proved thus. Try this scrimp creed by their own standard of proof, and it shrivels away, until no God,—no soul,—no being remains as absolutely demonstrated, and there is only athingfaintly conscious of its own existence. In this watery element of dim, soft fog, or hard cold ice, there is no rest for the soul.
There are others, again, who, frightened by the hurly-burly, after a short wild wandering alone, join any group, as a refuge, if it be only visible, and seek a Church as an asylum for the timid rather than a fortress for the brave.
But what Church shall give rest, or which of them is even quieter than the outer din? There is one, indeed, that, long nursed and dozing in the lap of the State, is now roughly shaken, but is she yet awake? She has grown in bulk at least, while sleeping. Is she not like an overgrown child too big to be carried, and too rickety to walk alone?
She is called National but is only Diocesan, with different doctrine and worship in different dioceses. The bishops meet, and thinking different, but trying to say the same, they say what is unanimous only when it means nothing. The clergy meet, but while some of them are true Ministers, others would be as Presbyters towards their bishops and Popes to their people. Each parish can wear the ribbons that are badges of its doctrine. We are crystallizing into congregations, and soon these will split into families, and so perhaps we shall get back at last to the simple old shape, when the message was for Nymphas and “the church which is in his house.”
Meantime, my life-borne bark must not founder for lack of a guide. True, there is a chart, and precepts for the right way are clear, but my craving is for a living Spirit within which shall point me to the peaceful shore by an attraction powerful and unerring, though unseen, and, like that of the needle, incomprehensible.
And was it not the divinest act ever done by God to come down Himself among men, saying, “I am the Way,” “and I will give you rest?”
Now we can safely steer, and will surely reach port.