on the outer doorstep, and M. Hector, whistling cheerily, arranged
some small goods for the day's campaign in a portable chest of

drawers, which formed a part of his baggage. Meanwhile the child
was letting off Waterloo crackers all over the floor.

I wonder, by-the-bye, what they call Waterloo crackers in France;
perhaps Austerlitz crackers. There is a great deal in the point of

view. Do you remember the Frenchman who, travelling by way of
Southampton, was put down in Waterloo Station, and had to drive

across Waterloo Bridge? He had a mind to go home again, it seems.
Pont itself is on the river, but whereas it is ten minutes' walk

from Quartes by dry land, it is six weary kilometres by water. We
left our bags at the inn, and walked to our canoes through the wet

orchards unencumbered. Some of the children were there to see us
off, but we were no longer the mysterious beings of the night

before. A departure is much less romantic than an unexplained
arrival in the golden evening. Although we might be greatly taken

at a ghost's first appearance, we should behold him vanish with
comparative equanimity.

The good folk of the inn at Pont, when we called there for the
bags, were overcome with marvelling. At sight of these two dainty

little boats, with a fluttering Union Jack on each, and all the
varnish shining from the sponge, they began to perceive that they

had entertained angels unawares. The landlady stood upon the
bridge, probably lamenting she had charged so little; the son ran

to and fro, and called out the neighbours to enjoy the sight; and
we paddled away from quite a crowd of wrapt observers. These

gentlemen pedlars, indeed! Now you see their quality too late.
The whole day was showery, with occasional drenching plumps. We

were soaked to the skin, then partially dried in the sun, then
soaked once more. But there were some calm intervals, and one

notably, when we were skirting the forest of Mormal, a sinister
name to the ear, but a place most gratifying to sight and smell.

It looked solemn along the river-side, drooping its boughs into the
water, and piling them up aloft into a wall of leaves. What is a

forest but a city of nature's own, full of hardy and innocuous
living things, where there is nothing dead and nothing made with

the hands, but the citizens themselves are the houses and public
monuments? There is nothing so much alive, and yet so quiet, as a

woodland; and a pair of people, swinging past in canoes, feel very
small and bustling by comparison.

And surely of all smells in the world, the smell of many trees is
the sweetest and most fortifying. The sea has a rude, pistolling

sort of odour, that takes you in the nostrils like snuff, and
carries with it a fine sentiment of open water and tall ships; but

the smell of a forest, which comes nearest to this in tonic
quality, surpasses it by many degrees in the quality of softness.

Again, the smell of the sea has little variety, but the smell of a
forest is infinitely changeful; it varies with the hour of the day,

not in strength merely, but in character; and the different sorts
of trees, as you go from one zone of the wood to another, seem to

live among different kinds of atmosphere. Usually the resin of the
fir predominates. But some woods are more coquettish in their

habits; and the breath of the forest of Mormal, as it came aboard
upon us that showery afternoon, was perfumed with nothing less

delicate than sweetbrier.
I wish our way had always lain among woods. Trees are the most

civil society. An old oak that has been growing where he stands
since before the Reformation, taller than many spires, more stately

than the greater part of mountains, and yet a living thing, liable
to sicknesses and death, like you and me: is not that in itself a

speaking lesson in history? But acres on acres full of such
patriarchs contiguously rooted, their green tops billowing in the

wind, their stalwart younglings pushing up about their knees: a
whole forest, healthy and beautiful, giving colour to the light,

giving perfume to the air: what is this but the most imposing
piece in nature's repertory? Heine wished to lie like Merlin under

the oaks of Broceliande. I should not be satisfied with one tree;
but if the wood grew together like a banyan grove, I would be

buried under the tap-root of the whole; my parts should circulate
from oak to oak; and my consciousness should be diffused abroad in

all the forest, and give a common heart to that assembly of green
spires, so that it also might rejoice in its own loveliness and

dignity. I think I feel a thousand squirrels leaping from bough to
bough in my vast mausoleum; and the birds and the winds merrily

coursing over its uneven, leafy surface.
Alas! the forest of Mormal is only a little bit of a wood, and it

was but for a little way that we skirted by its boundaries. And
the rest of the time the rain kept coming in squirts and the wind

in squalls, until one's heart grew weary of such fitful, scolding
weather. It was odd how the showers began when we had to carry the

boats over a lock, and must expose our legs. They always did.
This is a sort of thing that readily begets a personal feeling

against nature. There seems no reason why the shower should not
come five minutes before or five minutes after, unless you suppose

an intention to affront you. The CIGARETTE had a mackintosh which
put him more or less above these contrarieties. But I had to bear

the brunt uncovered. I began to remember that nature was a woman.
My companion, in a rosier temper, listened with great satisfaction

to my Jeremiads, and ironically concurred. He instanced, as a
cognate matter, the action of the tides, 'which,' said he, 'was

altogether designed for the confusion of canoeists, except in so
far as it was calculated to minister to a barrenvanity on the part

of the moon.'
At the last lock, some little way out of Landrecies, I refused to

go any farther; and sat in a drift of rain by the side of the bank,
to have a reviving pipe. A vivacious old man, whom I take to have

been the devil, drew near and questioned me about our journey. In
the fulness of my heart, I laid bare our plans before him. He said

it was the silliest enterprise that ever he heard of. Why, did I
not know, he asked me, that it was nothing but locks, locks, locks,

the whole way? not to mention that, at this season of the year, we
should find the Oise quite dry? 'Get into a train, my little young

man,' said he, I and go you away home to your parents.' I was so
astounded at the man's malice, that I could only stare at him in

silence. A tree would never have spoken to me like this. At last
I got out with some words. We had come from Antwerp already, I

told him, which was a good long way; and we should do the rest in
spite of him. Yes, I said, if there were no other reason, I would

do it now, just because he had dared to say we could not. The
pleasant old gentleman looked at me sneeringly, made an allusion to

my canoe, and marched of, waggling his head.
I was still inwardly fuming, when up came a pair of young fellows,

who imagined I was the CIGARETTE'S servant, on a comparison, I
suppose, of my bare jersey with the other's mackintosh, and asked

me many questions about my place and my master's character. I said
he was a good enough fellow, but had this absurdvoyage on the

head. 'O no, no,' said one, 'you must not say that; it is not
absurd; it is very courageous of him.' I believe these were a

couple of angels sent to give me heart again. It was truly
fortifying to reproduce all the old man's insinuations, as if they

were original to me in my character of a malcontent footman, and
have them brushed away like so many flies by these admirable young

men.
When I recounted this affair to the CIGARETTE, 'They must have a

curious idea of how English servants behave,' says he dryly, 'for
you treated me like a brute beast at the lock.'

I was a good deal mortified; but my temper had suffered, it is a
fact.

AT LANDRECIES
AT Landrecies the rain still fell and the wind still blew; but we

found a double-bedded room with plenty of furniture, real water-