Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 680

Sometimes people are ennobled in spite of themselves, as when Mr Hamerton, much to his own annoyance, had the title of 'My Lord' bestowed upon him by his French neighbours. It was in vain that he protested against it; he was shewn the title duly registered in an official book at the prefecture; and half-angry, half-amused, he at last accepted his fate, and settled tranquilly down into the dignity of the peerage.

From the noble of the earth, who may be, and sometimes are very poor indeed, one glides by a natural transition into a consideration of the very wealthy. These do not abound in France. As a rule, it is difficult to find a Crœsus; but gentlemen with comfortable incomes, which, with careful management, may be made to procure all the luxuries of life, are very common. The law of the division of property militates against either very large estates or very large incomes, and has made great nobles, such as were common in the days of Louis XIV., an impossibility. The great castles built by these men still exist, and are out of all keeping with the establishments maintained in them. It is not unusual to find a stable with stalls for forty horses, and in a corner the family stud of four unobtrusively munching their oats; while in the great house beyond, the proprietor lives quietly with two or three servants in a tower or wing of his ancestral palace, often thinking very little of himself at all, and a great deal of those who are to come after him, and pinching and saving, that the old place may not require to be sold.

No one is ashamed of saving; thrift is the rule in France; and Mr Samuel Smiles himself cannot have a more genuine admiration of it than the French middle classes have. They are economical to a fault, and their thrifty habits form the great financial strength of their country. A middle-class Frenchman almost invariably lives so as to have something to his credit at the end of the year; if he is rich the balance is large; if he is poor it is small; but, unless in exceptional circumstances, it is always there. In the country the French rise early; five in summer and seven in winter is the usual hour. Ladies in the morning have generally a cup of coffee when they rise and a piece of bread; but the majority of men eat nothing until breakfast, which is the great meal of the day. There is always at breakfast one or two dishes of meat, vegetables, and dessert, and the beverage used is wine, vin ordinaire. A Frenchman never tastes tea except when ill, and then he regards it as a kind of medicine. In summer, white wine mixed with seltzer-water is often used at breakfast; and after the meal, coffee is drunk. Breakfast is usually served between ten and eleven in the forenoon, and dinner at six in the evening. Unless when guests are present, it is a much lighter meal than breakfast, and often consists of an omelette and salad, or soupe maigre and cold chicken.

In rural districts the usual hour for retiring at night is nine o'clock; and after dinner it is not unusual to find some of the elderly gentlemen so sleepy that they are almost incapable of conversation. This drowsiness is caused by their open-air habits and the great amount of exercise they take.

In the country, all the gentlemen shoot; the game consists of partridges, rabbits, hares, snipe, woodcock, wolves, and wild boars; the hunting of which last is by no means child's play. Few country-gentlemen ride; they all of them drive a little, and are most of them great walkers, thinking nothing of what we would count very long distances, such as fifteen miles and back in a day.

Formerly, country-life in France had a certain charming rural rusticity about it, which admitted of the utmost freedom in matters of dress and housekeeping; but now, Mr Hamerton tells us, the old liberty to do exactly as one pleased is disappearing, and fashion and a superficial veneer of external polish are greatly increasing the cost of living, without improving in any way the minds, manners, or constitutions of the people.

On one most important point, however, the old freedom is still maintained – no Frenchman burdens himself with more servants than are absolutely necessary for the requirements of his household. Mr Hamerton relates a case in point: he had an intimate friend in Paris, who went out into the best society and received at his house the greatest people in Europe, yet this man kept only three servants and had no carriage.

It is in this liberty to spend or not as you choose, in this freedom from the tyranny of custom in the matter of expenditure, that the cheapness of continental life lies. Added to this is the pre-eminently practical tone of the French mind, which is always striving with incessant activity to solve the problem, how to make the best of life. As a means to this end, the French almost invariably get on comfortably with their servants; and French servants, when frankly and familiarly treated, and considered as human beings and not as mere machines, generally make very good servants indeed; and the tenure of service, which with us is not unfrequently a matter of months, often continues unbroken in France until the servant is married or dies.

Such is life in the country. Life in a small French city is very different in many respects. It is full of a lazy, purposeless enjoyment, which is always ready with some trifling amusement to fill up every vacant moment in the too abundant leisure of men, who are either independent in fortune, or have professions yielding them an easy maintenance without engrossing much of their time. To such individuals the cafés and clubs of a small town, with their good eating and drinking and sociable small-talk, form a realisation of contented felicity beyond which they do not care to aspire, although it stifles all that is noblest in their nature, and too often lays the foundation of what we would call drinking habits.

The peasantry in France form a class, a world by themselves, full of prejudices, devoid of culture, and very independent in their tone of feeling. The French peasant is inconceivably ignorant, and yet very intelligent; his manners are good, and he can talk well; but he can neither read nor write, and his knowledge of geography is so small, that he cannot comprehend what France is, much less any foreign state. Freed from the grinding oppressions of the past, he is still under bondage to the iron slavery of custom. Every other Frenchman may dress as he chooses, but the peasant must always wear a blue blouse, a brownish-gray cloak, and a hat of a peculiar shape. Custom also prescribes to him the furniture of his house; he must have a linen press, a clock and a bed, and these must be all of walnut wood. Cookery, which is the national talent par excellence, does not exist for him. In the morning he has soup, cheaply compounded of hot water, in which float a few scraps of rusty bacon, a handful or two of peas, and a few potatoes; and if there is not enough of soup to satisfy his hunger, he finishes his meal with dry bread and cold water ad libitum. At noon he dines on potatoes, followed (as an occasional variety in his perennial diet) either with a pancake, a salad, or clotted milk. He never tastes wine or meat except during hay-making and harvest, when he has a little bit of salt pork, and a modest allowance of wine with a liberal admixture of water. Among the peasantry, many of the old superstitions are still prevalent.

Between husband and wife there is little love, but there is also little wrangling or disputing, and they are mutually true and helpful each to each. The children grow up in this cold home, under a rigid patriarchal discipline, in which personal chastisement plays an important part, and is continued even to mature age. In peasant as in town life, however, the tendency is towards change; the children now are in course of being educated; and the young men, although frugal still, are not so parsimonious as their fathers were. They smoke, heedless of the expense, a piece of extravagance which their stoic ancestors would have most sternly denounced; and in the train of tobacco the common comforts of life are slowly finding their way into the houses of the more wealthy peasants.

No subject is more interesting to the English observer in France than marriage, a subject, however, which has already been adverted to in these columns.3 We conclude this notice of Mr Hamerton's interesting work by relating how he remained in the country during the Franco-Prussian war, and how he shared to the full the anxiety of his French neighbours, for he was constantly expecting that the district around his house would be included in the circle of the invasion, as eventually it was. First came Garibaldi and his army, a very unwelcome sight to the bishop and clergy, to whom the Italian hero seemed the very impersonation of evil. Then came the Prussians quite suddenly and unexpectedly; and naturally Mr Hamerton has very lively recollections of that day, which he spent in a garret of his house, surrounded by a bevy of ladies, reconnoitring the enemy through a very excellent telescope. Throughout the day he remained on the outlook, and when evening fell he went out into the birchwood above his house to bury a certain precious strong-box. When he had concealed his treasure, he returned home in the twilight, watching in the distance, as he descended from the wood, the red flashes of flame leaping from the cannon's mouths, and illuminating with their dusky glow all the surrounding scenery, and then – what does the reader think he did? Take refuge in immediate flight? He did no such thing; he went to bed, and had a comfortable night's sleep. The Prussians were still at the distance of a few miles, and there the armistice stopped them; peace soon followed; and the pleasant little house, which the Englishman had beautified and made comfortable and home-like, escaped the devastation which its occupation by a detachment of Uhlans would in all probability have entailed.

A CURATE'S HOLIDAY

IN FOUR CHAPTERS. – CHAPTER I

Fifteen years ago I was a slim, tolerably good-looking young curate, addicted to long coats and Roman collars, condemned by poverty to celibacy, and supporting myself upon the liberal salary of seventy pounds a year. I am now a Liverpool merchant in flourishing circumstances, 'fat and forty,' with a wife, lots of children, and religious views somewhat latitudinarian. 'What a change was there!' it may well be exclaimed. And indeed, when I look back upon what I once was, and compare my present with my past self, I can scarcely believe I am the same man. I shall, therefore, conceal my name, in relating, as I am about to do, certain occurrences accidentally connected with my change of state, and substitute for that of each person and place concerned in the little narrative, some fictitious appellation.

To commence then. I had been for three years curate of St Jude's Church, Ollyhill, a populous agricultural district in Lancashire, when one morning in Easter-week, as I was disrobing after an early celebration, I fell upon the vestry floor in a dead-faint. The sacristan, who fortunately was at hand to render assistance, after accompanying me home, and observing that I was still weak and indisposed, thought proper to convey intelligence of what had happened to the vicar. The result was that in the course of the morning I received a visit from that gentleman, the Rev. Fitz-Herbert Hastings. He found me stretched upon the typical horse-hair-covered sofa of a poor curate's lodgings, suffering from a severe nervous headache, and to judge from his exclamation of concern, looking, as I felt, really ill. Taking a seat by my side, he condoled with me very kindly, expressed his opinion that I had been overworking myself; and went on to prove the sincerity of his sympathy by offering me a fortnight's holiday, with the very requisite addition of a cheque for expenses. Most gladly did I hail his proposition, affording me as it did an opportunity for which I had just been longing, of getting away for a time from Ollyhill. But neither my desire for change of scene, nor my illness, arose from the cause to which the vicar attributed them. It was true that I had of late, during Lent, been working very hard, as also had Mr Hastings himself.

But in producing the state of utter physical and mental prostration in which I now found myself, these duties of my sacred calling had had little share. My malady, unhappily, was not the effect of any mere temporary reaction of overstrained faculties – its seat was the heart. In that tender, though not hitherto susceptible region, I had been sorely wounded – loath as I am to admit it – by the mischievous little god of Love. Six months ago, Lily, only daughter of Squire Thornton, our principal churchwarden and most wealthy parishioner, had returned home from her Parisian boarding-school a lovely girl of eighteen, with rippling auburn hair and distracting violet eyes, but with tastes and manners which I considered a little frivolous. Fenced about by celibacy, and little dreaming of any dangerous result, I had, from our first introduction, set myself to effect an improvement in her taste, and to take a general interest in her spiritual welfare. Only too abundant had been the success which rewarded my efforts. Lily had proved an excellent pupil, looking up to her self-elected monitor (at the superior but not altogether fatherly age of twenty-five) with the utmost reverence, and obeying with an unquestioning childlikeness eminently charming, my slightest wish or suggestion. Under my directions she had given up novel-reading, and had become an active member of the Dorcas Society, a teacher in the Sunday school, and a visitor of the sick. As a matter of course, her attention to these good works had involved frequent meetings and consultations; and the constant intercourse had by degrees proved destructive of my peace of mind. In vain had I, tardily awakening to a knowledge of the truth, made every endeavour to exercise self-discipline. The mischief, almost before I was aware of its existence, had gone too far for remedy. There had been nothing for it, as I had eventually seen, but to avoid as far as possible all further intercourse with my charmer; and upon that principle I had accordingly shaped my action. Then had followed a time of very severe trial. Unable to understand my coldness, Lily at first had treated me to reproachful glances whenever we chanced to meet; subsequently, growing indignant at the continuance of what seemed to her my unaccountable change of demeanour, she had scornfully seconded the avoidance. And finally, my breast had been wrung in perceiving that she too suffered, as was evidenced by her sorrowful air, and by the fact that she was becoming pale and thin.

For several days before that upon which my fainting-fit had occurred, I had missed her from her accustomed place in the church; forbearing, however, to make inquiries concerning her, I had failed to learn, as I might have done, that she had been sent for the benefit of her health to visit a relative residing at a sea-bathing place in North Wales. In ignorance of this, I set off on the morning following my vicar's visit, for the same country, bent upon a pedestrian excursion, and determined, during my absence from Ollyhill, to make vigorous efforts towards conquering my unfortunate passion.

About a week afterwards I found myself, at the close of a day's hard walking, at a small fishing village on the south-west coast, frequented during the summer season as I learned, from the cards in two or three lodging-house windows, by a few visitors. But as yet Lleyrudrigg was, I surmised, empty of all save its ordinary inhabitants. At anyrate, there appeared to be no other stranger than myself in the rather large hotel in which I had taken up my quarters for the night. It was a dismal dispiriting evening. The rain, which had been threatening all day, was now descending in torrents, beating against the windows of the coffee-room and swelling the gutters of the narrow street.

Not a living thing was to be seen; and the long, scantily furnished apartment of which I was sole tenant, looked very dreary as I turned away from the cheerless prospect. Its gloom was increased rather than otherwise, however, when presently that prospect was shut out and two uncompromising tallow-candles were set upon the table. On their appearance I drew a volume from my knapsack, and eliciting a feeble blaze from the smouldering fire, seated myself in front of it and commenced to read. But all endeavours to concentrate my attention upon the book failed; and at length, depressed by the solitude and my melancholy thoughts, I determined upon ringing the bell and begging the landlord to give me his company. I had just risen for the purpose of putting this resolve into execution, when my attention was arrested by the sound of approaching footsteps, and in another instant the door was unclosed and a gentleman entered the room. I say gentleman advisedly, although at a cursory glance there was little about the appearance of the new-comer to indicate his right to the title. He was a small spare man, with large features, and a head almost ludicrously out of proportion with his body. His dress, which was black, was of an unfashionable cut and very shabby, and he wore a voluminous white neckcloth. Pausing at a few paces from the door, he gave orders to the waiter for chops and tea. Then advancing towards the fireplace, energetically rubbing his hands together, he addressed me in perfectly good English, but with a strong Welsh accent, telling me that he had arrived at the inn some quarter of an hour ago, drenched through with the rain – having carried his own carpet-bag from a station distant about a mile – and that in consequence, he had been obliged to change all his clothes. 'And by the way,' he continued somewhat abruptly, 'I had the misfortune whilst doing so to drop my purse, and several pieces of money rolled out amongst the furniture of the room. I feel almost sure that I managed to collect all again; but if you would excuse me doing so in your presence, I should like to satisfy myself completely upon that point. The fact is,' he added with a frank smile, 'that the money in question does not belong to me, and I am the more anxious about it on that account.'

Whilst thus speaking, the little man had drawn from his pocket a huge wash-leather purse, and after waiting until I had bowed permission, he proceeded to empty its contents upon the table. They consisted of a large roll of bank-notes and a considerable sum in gold and silver – and as I watched him furtively over the edges of my book, which I had again taken up – I saw him carefully count and arrange the latter into heaps. A sigh of relief accompanied the announcement which he shortly made to me, that he had found the money correct; and he was in the act of opening his purse to replace it, when the landlord – a meagre, sharp-nosed individual – entered the room with a tray. Happening to glance at this man as he stood by cloth in hand, I detected a gleam of intense avarice crossing his face; and although the expression was but momentary – vanishing as the glittering piles were swept into their receptacle – it left me with the impression that the small Welshman's exhibition of his riches in the presence of strangers had not been an altogether judicious proceeding. No suspicion of its imprudence, however, appeared to disturb that gentleman's mind, and I soon forgot all about the little incident in the interest of the conversation which ensued between us.

From his dress and general appearance I had already conjectured my chance companion to be a Dissenting parson, and his first words as, having finished his tea, he drew a chair to the opposite side of the fireplace, confirmed my surmise. Throwing his eye over my attire, he remarked that he thought we were 'both in the same profession,' and inquired if I were not a 'minister of the gospel.' And upon my informing him that I was a clergyman of the Church of England, we were soon in the midst of a polemical discussion, which lasted a couple of hours and covered a large amount of ground; and which ended (at least as far as I was concerned) in producing feelings akin to sincere friendship.

The insignificant-looking, ill-formed, shabbily dressed Welsh minister had interested and attracted me more than any man I had ever met in my life. Endowed with a rich melodious voice, and with wonderful conversational powers, he was possessed also of an excellent memory and a keen intelligence. His reading, moreover, had been various and deep, as I found when, later on in the evening, the conversation turned upon other than ecclesiastical matters. But it was perhaps even more to his imperturbable good-humour, and to the singular innocence and candour which shone in his clear gray eyes and exhibited themselves in every word he uttered, than to his rare natural gifts, that he owed his ability to please. However that might be, I had certainly found the Rev. Peter Morgan a most charming companion, and when, just as we were about to separate for the night, I learned that he was going upon the following day to Twellryst, a town I was myself intending to visit, I eagerly proposed that we should make the journey together. The suggestion met with a ready and pleased acquiescence from my new acquaintance, and we then exchanged information as to the different objects which were taking us both to this rather out-of-the-way place.

Mine was a very simple one, that of examining the ruins of an ancient monastery in its vicinity. My friend's was a more business-like and, as he laughingly said, a more agreeable errand. It was to receive certain subscriptions which a friend of his, resident in the town, had collected on his behalf. These subscriptions were to be applied to the purpose of enlarging the chapel of which he was pastor at Pwlwyln, a rapidly growing village on the northern sea-board. The money which I had seen him count, the little man went on to state, was the fruit of his own labours for the same cause. He had obtained it by travelling about the country begging from town to town amongst the members of the denomination to which he belonged, and had been engaged in this manner nearly two months. The mission, he concluded, had been crowned with much greater success than he had anticipated. With the subscriptions he was to receive on the morrow, and those already in his custody, he expected to be able to return home (as he was intending to do on the day afterwards) with upwards of three hundred pounds in his pocket, which, together with another hundred raised by his own very poor congregation, would, he anticipated, be amply sufficient to cover all expenses of the alterations.

'And how, sir, do you propose to get to Twellryst?' I inquired. 'As you are no doubt aware, there is no railway line in that direction. I was intending to walk myself; but you surely were not thinking of doing so?'

'Indeed no, my friend,' he replied with the sunny smile which upon the slightest provocation would break over his large plain features. 'At upwards of sixty, one doesn't undertake a walk of thirty miles unless it be under the pressure of stern necessity. No, no; I could walk well enough at your age; but now, alas! the infirmities of age, &c. &c. So if you please, we will go by coach. I have ascertained that one runs twice a week from Abermeulth to Twellryst, passing through Lleyrudrigg. To-morrow will be one of its days, though I do not yet know at what hour of the morning it will arrive here. The landlord, however, will be able to tell us that; and if you will kindly ring the bell, which I see is on your side of the fireplace, we can make inquiries forthwith.'

In bending forward to obey this request, I noticed that a door immediately behind my chair stood a little ajar, and it at once flashed upon me that for some time I had been vaguely conscious of a slight draught. The bell still in my hand, I remained for a moment after ringing, with my eyes fixed upon the door. When last I had looked in that direction it had, I felt quite sure, been closed; and as an instant's reflection convinced me, no person had entered the room by it throughout the entire evening.

Prompted by an unpleasant suspicion which had suggested itself against my will, I advanced quietly, and throwing it more widely apart, peered through. It opened into a small china-closet, connected by another door with a long passage. Both passage and closet were flagged. I had heard no sound of footsteps, yet there, within the latter, stood the landlord. Upon seeing me, he looked, I thought, confused, but immediately recovering himself, stepped into the room, as though he had been coming that way in answer to the bell. I had certainly no proof that he had been listening, but I felt, nevertheless, a moral assurance of the fact, and wondering what could have been his motive in the act, I eyed him sharply whilst he gave a not very satisfactory reply to Mr Morgan's interrogations respecting the stage-coach. According to his account, the vehicle in question was a most irregular and unpunctual one, starting at hours varying from ten to twelve in the morning, and being even less reliable as to the time of its return. This report naturally was not agreeable to the minister; but expressing a hope that the coach would be upon its best behaviour next day, he requested that bedroom candles might be sent in; and the landlord departed to order them. In a few moments, however, he returned, and made us a proposition which had apparently just occurred to him. It was to the effect that we should hire a horse and dog-cart belonging to the hotel. The horse, its owner affirmed, was a splendid animal, and would carry us to Twellryst in half the time it would take the coach to get there. We should, moreover, he promised, have the conveyance for little more than the amount of our coach-fares, since not only did the horse need exercise greatly, but he had besides some business of his own in that town, which could be transacted for him by a cousin who would drive us. By adopting this plan, too, he concluded, we could see the Spike Rocks. Everybody who came to these parts in the summer-time went to see the Spike Rocks, and Jonathan should drive us round that way.