Arthur O'Leary: His Wanderings And Ponderings In Many Lands

‘Meanwhile,’ said Gros Jean, with a grin that showed he had neither forgotten nor forgiven my insults to his courage – ‘meanwhile we’ll just beg leave to fasten you to this tree’; and with the words, he pulled from a great canvas pocket he wore at his belt a hank of strong cord, and proceeded to make a slip noose on it.

‘It’s not your intention, surely, to tie me here for the whole night?’ said I, in horror.

‘And why not?’ interposed the chief. ‘Do you think there are bears or wolves in the Ardennes forest in September?’

‘But I shall die of cold or hunger! I never endured such usage before!’

‘You’ll have plenty worse when you’ve joined us, I promise you,’ was the short reply, as without further loss of time they passed the cord round my waist, and began, with a dexterity that bespoke long practice, to fasten me to the tree. I protested vigorously against the proceeding; I declaimed loudly about the liberty of the subject; vowed that England would take a frightful measure of retribution on the whole country, if a hair of my head were injured, and even went so far in the fervour of my indignation as to threaten the party with future consequences from the police.

The word was enough. The leader drew his pistol from his belt, and slapping down the pan, shook the priming with his hand.

‘So,’ cried he, in a harsh and savage voice, unlike his former tone, ‘you ‘d play the informer would you? Well, it’s honest at least to say as much. Now then, my man, a quick shrift and a short prayer, for I’ll send you where you’ll meet neither gendarmes nor revenue-officers, or if you do, they’ll have enough of business on their hands not to care for yours.’

‘Spare my life, most amiable monsieur,’ said I, with uplifted hands. ‘Never shall I utter one word about you, come what will. I’ll keep all I’ve seen a secret. Don’t kill the father of eight children. Let me live this time, and I’ll never wander off a turnpike road three yards as long as I breathe.’

They actually screamed with laughter at the terror of my looks; and the chief, seemingly satisfied with my protestation, replaced his pistol in his belt, and kneeling down on the ground began leisurely to examine my knapsack, which he coolly unstrapped and emptied on the grass.

‘What are these papers?’ said he, as he drew forth a most voluminous roll of manuscript from a pocket.

‘They are notes of my travels,’ said I obsequiously – little pen sketches of men and manners in the countries I’ve travelled in. I call them “Adventures of Arthur O’Leary.” That’s my name, gentlemen, at your service.’

‘Ah, indeed. Well, then, we’ve given you a very pretty little incident for your journal this evening,’ said he, laughing, ‘in return for which I’ll ask leave to borrow these memoranda for wadding for my gun. Believe me, Monsieur O’Leary, they’ll make a greater noise in the world under my auspices than under yours’; and with that he opened a rude clasp-knife and proceeded to cut my valued manuscript into pieces about an inch square. This done, he presented two of my shirts to each of his followers, reserving three for himself; and having made a most impartial division of my other effects, he pocketed the purse I carried, with its few gold pieces, and then, rising to his feet said —

‘Antoine, let us be stirring now; the moon will be up soon. Gros Jean, throw that sack on your shoulder and move forward. And now, monsieur, I must wish you a good-night; and as in this changeful life we can never answer for the future, let me commend myself to your recollection hereafter, if, as may be, we should not meet again. Adieu, adieu,’ said he, waving his hand.

‘Adieu,’ said I, with a great effort to seem at ease; ‘a pleasant journey, and every success to your honest endeavours.’

‘You are a fine fellow,’ said he, stopping and turning about suddenly – ‘a superb fellow; and I can’t part from you without a gage d’amitié between us’; and with the word he took my handsome travelling-cap from my head and placed it on his own, while he crowned me with a villainous straw thing that nothing save my bondage prevented me from hurling at his feet.

He now hurried forward after the others, and in a few minutes I was in perfect solitude.

‘Well,’ thought I (it was my first thought), ‘it might all have been worse; the wretches might have murdered me, for such reckless devils as practise their trade care little for human life. Murder, too, would only meet the same punishment as smuggling, or nearly so – a year more or a year less at the galleys; and, after all, the night is fine, and if I mistake not he said something about the moon.’ I wondered where was the pretty countess – travelling away, probably, as hard as extra post could bring her. Ah, she little thought of my miserable plight now! Then came a little interval of softness; and then a little turn of indignation at my treatment – that I, an Englishman, should be so barbarously molested; a native of the land where freedom was the great birthright of every one! I called to mind all the fine things Burke used to say about liberty, and if I had not begun to feel so cold I’d have tried to sing ‘Rule, Britannia,’ just to keep up my spirits; and then I fell asleep, if sleep it could be called – that frightful nightmare of famished wolves howling about me, tearing and mangling revenue-officers; and grisly bears running backward and forward with smuggled tobacco on their backs. The forest seemed peopled by every species of horrible shapes – half men, half beast – but all with straw hats on their heads and leather gaiters on their legs.

However, the night passed over, and the day began to break; the purple tint, pale and streaky, that announces the rising sun, was replacing the cold grey of the darker hours. What a different thing it is, to be sure, to get out of your bed deliberately, and rubbing your eyes for two or three minutes with your fingers, as you stand at the half-closed curtain, and then through the mist of your sleep look out upon the east, and think you see the sun rising, and totter back to the comfortable nest again, the whole incident not breaking your sleep, but merely being interwoven with your dreams, a thing to dwell on among other pleasant fancies, and to be boasted of the whole day afterwards – what a different thing it is, I say, from the sensations of him who has been up all night in the mail; shaken, bruised, and cramped; sat on by the fat man, and kicked by the lean one – still worse of him who spends his night dos à dos to an oak in a forest, cold, chill, and comfortless; no property in his limbs beneath the knees, where all sensation terminates, and his hands as benumbed as the heart of a poor-law guardian!

If I have never, in all my after-life, seen the sun rise from the Rigi, from Snowdon, or the Pic du Midi, or any other place which seems especially made for this sole purpose, I owe it to the experience of this night, and am grateful therefore. Not that I have the most remote notion of throwing disrespect on the glorious luminary, far from it – I cut one of my oldest friends for speaking lightly of the equator; but I hold it that the sun looks best, as every one else does, when he’s up and dressed for the day. It’s a piece of prying, impertinent curiosity to peep at him when he ‘s rising and at his toilette; he has not rubbed the clouds out of his eyes, or you dared not look at him – and you feel it too. The very way you steal out to catch a glimpse shows the sneaking, contemptible sense you have of your own act. Peeping Tom was a gentleman compared to your early riser.

The whole of which digression simply seems to say that I by no means enjoyed the rosy-fingered morning’s blushes the more for having spent the preceding night in the open air. I need not worry myself, still less my reader, by recapitulating the various frames of mind which succeeded each other every hour of my captivity. At one time my escape with life served to console me for all I endured; at another, my bondage excited my whole wrath. I vowed vengeance on my persecutors too, and meditated various schemes for their punishment – my anger rising as their absence was prolonged, till I thought I could calculate my indignation by an algebraical formula, and make it exactly equal to the ‘squares of the distance’ of my persecutors. Then I thought of the delight I should experience in regaining my freedom, and actually made a bold effort to see something ludicrous in the entire adventure: but no – it would not do; I could not summon up a laugh.

At last – it might have been towards noon – I heard a merry voice chanting a song, and a quick step coming up the allée of the wood. Never did my heart beat with such delight! The very mode of progression had something joyous in it; it seemed a hop and a step and a spring, suiting each motion to the tune of the air – when suddenly the singer, with a long bound, stood before me. It would, indeed, have been a puzzling question which of us more surprised the other; however, as I can render no accurate account of his sensations on seeing me, I must content myself with recording mine on beholding him, and the best way to do so is to describe him. He was a man, or a boy – Heaven knows which – of something under the middle size, dressed in rags of every colour and shape; his old white hat was crushed and bent into some faint resemblance of a chapeau, and decorated with a cockade of dirty ribbons and a cock’s feather; a little white jacket, such as men-cooks wear in the kitchen, and a pair of flaming crimson-plush shorts, cut above the knee, and displaying his naked legs, with sabots, formed his costume. A wooden sword was attached to an old belt round his waist – an ornament of which he seemed vastly proud, and which from time to time he regarded with no small satisfaction.

‘Holloa!’ cried he, starting back, as he stood some six paces off, and gazed at me with most unequivocal astonishment; then recovering his self-possession long before I could summon mine, he said, ‘Bonjour, bonjour, camarade! a fine day for the vintage.’

‘No better,’ said I; ‘but come a little nearer, and do me the favour to untie these cords.’

‘Ah, are you long fastened up there?’

‘The whole night,’ said I, in a lamentable accent, hoping to move his compassion the more speedily.

‘What fun!’ said he, chuckling. ‘Were there many squirrels about?’

‘Thousands of them. But, come, be quick and undo this, and I ‘ll tell you all about it.’

‘Gently, gently,’ said he, approaching with great caution about six inches nearer me. ‘When did the rabbits come out? Was it before day?’

‘Yes, yes, an hour before. But I’ll tell you everything when I ‘m loose. Be alive now, do!’

‘Why did you tie yourself so fast?’ said he eagerly, but not venturing to come closer.

‘Confound the fellow!’ said I passionately. ‘I didn’t tie myself; it was the – the —

‘Ah, I know; it was the mayor, old Pierre Bogout. Well, well, he knows best when you ought to be set free. Bonjour,’ and with that he began once more his infernal tune, and set out on his way as if nothing had happened; and though I called, prayed, swore, promised, and threatened with all my might, he never turned his head, but went on capering as before, and soon disappeared in the dark wood.

For a full hour, passion so completely mastered me that I could do nothing but revile fools and idiots of every shade and degree – inveighing against mental imbecility as the height of human wickedness, and wondering why no one had ever suggested the propriety of having ‘naturals’ publicly whipped. I am shocked at myself now, as I call to mind the extravagance of my anger; and I grieve to say that had I been for that short interval the proprietor of a private madhouse, I fear I should have been betrayed into the most unwarrantable cruelties towards the patients; indeed, what is technically called ‘moral government’ would have formed no part of my system.

Meanwhile time was moving on, if not pleasantly, at least steadily; and already the sun began to decline somewhat – his rays, that before came vertically, being now slanting as they fell upon the wood. For a while my attention was drawn off from my miseries by watching the weasels as they played and sported about me, in the confident belief that I was at best only a kind of fungus – an excrescence on an oak-tree. One of them came actually to my feet, and even ran across my instep in his play. Suddenly the thought ran through me – and with terror – how soon may it come to pass that I shall only be a miserable skeleton, pecked at by crows, and nibbled by squirrels! The idea was too dreadful; and as if the hour had actually come, I screamed out to frighten off the little creatures, and sent them back scampering into their dens.

‘Holloa there! what’s the matter?’ shouted a deep mellow voice from the middle of the wood; and before I could reply, a fat, rosy-cheeked man of about fifty, with a pleasant countenance terminating in a row of double chins, approached me, but still with evident caution, and halting when about five paces distant, stood still.

‘Who are you?’ said I hastily, resolving this time at least to adopt a different method of effecting my liberation.

‘What’s all this?’ quoth the fat man, shading his eyes with his palm, and addressing some one behind him, whom I now recognised as my friend the fool who visited me in the morning.

‘I say, sir,’ repeated I, in a tone of command somewhat absurd from a man in my situation, ‘who are you, may I ask?’

‘The Maire de Givet,’ said he pompously, as he drew himself up, and took a large pinch of snuff with an imposing gravity, while his companion took off his hat in the most reverent fashion, and bowed down to the ground.

‘Well, Monsieur le Maire, the better fortune mine to fall into such hands. I have been robbed, and fastened here, as you see, by a gang of scoundrels’ – I took good care to say nothing of smugglers – ‘who have carried away everything I possessed. Have the goodness to loosen these confounded cords, and set me at liberty.’

‘Were there many of them?’ quoth the mayor, without budging a step forward.

‘Yes, a dozen at least. But untie me at once. I’m heartily sick of being chained up here.’

‘A dozen at least!’ repeated he, in an accent of wonderment. ‘Ma foi, a very formidable gang. Do you remember any of their names?’

‘Devil take their names! how should I know them? Come, cut these cords, will you? We can talk just as well when I ‘m free.’

‘Not so fast, not so fast,’ said he, admonishing me with a bland motion of his hand. ‘Everything must be done in order. Now, since you don’t know their names, we must put them down as “parties unknown.”’

‘Put them down whatever you like; but let me loose!’

‘All in good time. Let us proceed regularly. Who are your witnesses?’

‘Witnesses!’ screamed I, overcome with passion; ‘you’ll drive me distracted! I tell you I was waylaid in the wood by a party of scoundrels, and you ask me for their names, and then for my witnesses! Cut these cords, and don’t be so infernally stupid! Come, old fellow, look alive, will you?’

‘Softly, softly; don’t interrupt public justice,’ said he, with a most provoking composure. ‘We must draw up the procès-verbal.’

‘To be sure,’ said I, endeavouring to see what might be done by concurrence with him, ‘nothing more natural But let me loose first; and then we ‘ll arrange the procès.’

‘Not at all; you’re all wrong,’ interposed he. ‘I must have two witnesses first, to establish the fact of your present position; ay, and they must be of sound mind, and able to sign their names.’

‘May Heaven grant me patience, or I’ll burst!’ said I to myself, while he continued in a regular sing-song tone —

‘Then we’ll take the depositions in form. Where do you come from?’

‘Ireland,’ said I, with a deep sigh, wishing I were up to the neck in a bog-hole there, in preference to my actual misfortune.

‘What language do you usually speak?’

‘English.’

‘There, now,’ said he, brightening up, ‘there’s an important fact already in the class No. 1 – identity – which speaks of “all traits, marks, and characteristic signs by which the plaintiff may be known.” Now, we’ll set you forth as “an Irishman that speaks English.”’

‘If you go on this way a little longer, you may put me down as “insane,” for I vow to heaven I’m becoming so!’

‘Come, Bobeche,’ said he, turning towards the natural, who stood in mute admiration at his side, ‘go over to Claude Gueirans, at the mill, and see if the notaire be up there – there was a marriage of his niece this morning, and I think you ‘ll find him; then cross the bridge, and make for Papalot’s, and ask him to come up here, and bring some stamped paper to take informations with him. You may tell the curé as you go by that there’s been a dreadful crime committed in the forest, and that “la justice s’informe.’” These last words were pronounced with an accent of the most magniloquent solemnity.

Scarcely had the fool set out on his errand when my temper, so long restrained, burst all bounds, and I abused the mayor in the most outrageous manner. There was no insult I could think of that I did not heap on his absurdity, his ignorance, his folly, his stupidity; and I never ceased till actually want of breath completely exhausted me. To all this the worthy man made no reply, nor paid even the least attention. Seated on the stump of a beech-tree, he looked steadily at vacancy, till at length I began to doubt whether the whole scene were real, and if he were not a mere creature of my imagination. I verily believe I’d have given five louis d’ors to have been free one moment, if only to pelt a stone at him.

Meanwhile, the shadow of coming night was falling on the forest; the crows came cawing home to their dwelling in the tree-tops; the sounds of insect life were stilled in the grass; and the odours of the forest, stronger as night closed in, filled the air. Gradually the darkness grew thicker and thicker, and at last all I could distinguish was the stems of the trees near me, and a massive black object I judged to be the mayor. I called out to him in accents intended to be most apologetic. I begged forgiveness for my warmth of temper; protested my regrets, and only asked for the pleasure of his entertaining society till the hour of my liberation should arrive. But no answer came; not a word, not a syllable in reply – I could not even hear him breathing. Provoked at this uncomplying obstinacy, I renewed my attacks on all constituted authorities; expressed the most lively hopes that the gang of robbers would some day or other burn down Givet and all it contained, not forgetting the mayor and the notary; and, finally, to fill up the measure of insult, tried to sing the ça ira, which in good monarchical Holland was, I knew, a dire offence, but I broke down in the melody, and had to come back to prose. However, it came just to the same – all was silent. When I ceased speaking, not even an echo returned me a reply. At last I grew wearied; the thought that all my anathemas had only an audience of weasels and woodpeckers damped the ardour of my eloquence, and I fell into a musing fit on Dutch justice, which seemed admirably adapted to those good old times when people lived to the age of eight or nine hundred years, and when a few months were as the twinkling of an eye. Then I began a little plan of a tour from the time of my liberation, cautiously resolving never to move out of the most beaten tracks, and to avoid all districts where the mayor was a Dutchman. Hunger and thirst and cold by this time began to tell upon my spirits too, and I grew sleepy from sheer exhaustion.

Scarcely had I nodded my head twice in slumber, when a loud shout awoke me. I opened my eyes, and saw a vast mob of men, women, and children carrying torches, and coming through the wood at full speed, the procession being led by a venerable-looking old man on a white pony, whom I at once guessed to be the curé, while the fool, with a very imposing branch of burning pine, walked beside him. ‘Good-evening to you, monsieur,’ said the old man, as he took off his hat, with an air of courtesy.

‘You must excuse the miserable plight I ‘m in, Monsieur le Curé,’ said I, ‘if I can’t return your politeness; but I ‘m tied.’

‘Cut the cords at once,’ said the good man to the crowd that now pressed forward.

‘Your pardon, Father Jacques,’ said the mayor, as he sat up in the grass and rubbed his eyes, which sleep seemed to have almost obliterated; ‘but the proces verbal is – ’

‘Quite unnecessary here,’ replied the old man. ‘Cut the rope, my friends.’

‘Not so fast,’ said the mayor, pushing towards me. ‘I ‘ll untie it. That’s a good cord and worth eight sous.’

And so, notwithstanding all my assurances that I ‘d give him a crown-piece to use more despatch, he proceeded leisurely to unfasten every knot, and took at least ten minutes before he set me at liberty.

‘Hurrah!’ said I, as the last coil was withdrawn, and I attempted to spring into the air; but my cramped and chilled limbs were unequal to the effort, and I rolled headlong on the grass.

The worthy curé, however, was at once beside me, and after a few directions to the party to make a litter for me, he knelt down to offer up a short prayer for my deliverance; the rest followed the act with implicit devotion, while I took off my hat in respect, and sat still where I was.

‘I see,’ whispered he, when the Ave was over – ’ I see you are a Protestant. This is a fast day with us; but we ‘ll get you a poulet at my cottage, and a glass of wine will soon refresh you.’

With many a thankful speech, I soon suffered myself to be lifted into a large sheet, such as they use in the vineyards; and with a strong cortege of the villagers carrying their torches, we took our way back to Givet.

The circumstances of my adventure, considerably exaggerated of course, were bruited over the country; and before I was out of bed next morning, a chasseur, in a very showy livery, arrived with a letter from the lord of the manor, entreating me to take my abode for some days at the Château de Rochepied, where I should be received with a perfect welcome, and every endeavour made to recover my lost effects. Having consulted with the worthy curé, who counselled me by all means to accept this flattering invitation – a course I was myself disposed to – I wrote a few lines of answer, and despatched a messenger by post to Dinant to bring up my heavy baggage, which I had left there.

Towards noon the count’s carriage drove up to convey me to the château; and having taken an affectionate farewell of my kind host, I set out for Rochepied. The wicker conveniency in which I travelled, all alone, albeit not the thing for Hyde Park, was easy and pleasant in its motion; the fat Flemish mares, with their long tails tastefully festooned over a huge cushion of plaited straw on their backs, went at a fair, steady pace; the road led through a part of the forest abounding in pretty vistas of woodland scenery; and everything conspired to make me feel that even an affair with a gang of smugglers might not be the worst thing in life, if it were to lead to such pleasant results afterwards.

As we jogged along, I learned from the fat Walloon coachman that the château was full of company; that the count had invited numerous guests for the opening of the chasse, and that there were French and Germans and English, and for aught he knew Chinese expected to ‘assist’ at the ceremony. I confess the information considerably damped the pleasure I at first experienced. I was in hopes to see real country life, the regular course of château existence, in a family quietly domesticated on their own property. I looked forward to a peep at that vie intime of Flemish household, of which all I knew was gathered from a Wenix picture, and I wanted to see the thing in reality. The good vrow, with her high cap and her long waist, her pale features lit up with eyes of such brown as only Van Dyck ever caught the colour of; the daughters, prim and stately, with their stiff, quaint courtesy, moving about the terraced walks, like figures stepping from an ancient canvas, with bouquets in their white and dimpled fingers, or mayhap a jess-hawk perched upon their wrist; the Mynheer Baron, a large and portly Fleming, with a slouched beaver and a short trim moustache, deep of voice, heavy of step, seated on a grey Cuyp-like horse, with a flowing mane and a huge tassel of a tail, flapping lazily his brawny flanks, or slapping with heavy stroke the massive jack-boots of his rider – such were my notions of a Dutch household. The unchanged looks of the dwellings, which for centuries were the same, in part suggested these thoughts. The quaint old turrets, the stiff and stately terraces, the fosse, stagnant and sluggish, the carved tracery of the massive doorway, were all as we see them in the oldest pictures of the land; and when the rind looks so like, it is hard to imagine the fruit with a different flavour.