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An Inland Voyage-Part6_ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON(1850-1894)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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jugs with real water in them, and dinner: a real dinner, not



innocent of real wine. After having been a pedlar for one night,

and a butt for the elements during the whole of the next day, these



comfortable circumstances fell on my heart like sunshine. There

was an English fruiterer at dinner, travelling with a Belgian



fruiterer; in the evening at the CAFE, we watched our compatriot

drop a good deal of money at corks; and I don't know why, but this



pleased us.

It turned out we were to see more of Landrecies than we expected;



for the weather next day was simply bedlamite. It is not the place

one would have chosen for a day's rest; for it consists almost



entirely of fortifications. Within the ramparts, a few blocks of

houses, a long row of barracks, and a church, figure, with what



countenance they may, as the town. There seems to be no trade; and

a shopkeeper from whom I bought a sixpenny flint-and-steel, was so



much affected that he filled my pockets with spare flints into the

bargain. The only public buildings that had any interest for us



were the hotel and the CAFE. But we visited the church. There

lies Marshal Clarke. But as neither of us had ever heard of that



military hero, we bore the associations of the spot with fortitude.

In all garrison towns, guard-calls, and REVEILLES, and such like,



make a fine romantic interlude in civic business. Bugles, and

drums, and fifes, are of themselves most excellent things in



nature; and when they carry the mind to marching armies, and the

picturesque vicissitudes of war, they stir up something proud in



the heart. But in a shadow of a town like Landrecies, with little

else moving, these points of war made a proportionate commotion.



Indeed, they were the only things to remember. It was just the

place to hear the round going by at night in the darkness, with the



solid tramp of men marching, and the startling reverberations of

the drum. It reminded you, that even this place was a point in the



great warfaring system of Europe, and might on some future day be

ringed about with cannon smoke and thunder, and make itself a name



among strong towns.

The drum, at any rate, from its martial voice and notable



physiological effect, nay, even from its cumbrous and comical

shape, stands alone among the instruments of noise. And if it be



true, as I have heard it said, that drums are covered with asses'

skin, what a picturesque irony is there in that! As if this long-



suffering animal's hide had not been sufficiently belaboured during

life, now by Lyonnese costermongers, now by presumptuous Hebrew



prophets, it must be stripped from his poor hinder quarters after

death, stretched on a drum, and beaten night after night round the



streets of every garrison town in Europe. And up the heights of

Alma and Spicheren, and wherever death has his red flag a-flying,



and sounds his own potent tuck upon the cannons, there also must

the drummer-boy, hurrying with white face over fallen comrades,



batter and bemaul this slip of skin from the loins of peaceable

donkeys.



Generally a man is never more uselessly employed than when he is at

this trick of bastinadoing asses' hide. We know what effect it has



in life, and how your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating.

But in this state of mummy and melancholy survival of itself, when



the hollow skin reverberates to the drummer's wrist, and each dub-

a-dub goes direct to a man's heart, and puts madness there, and



that disposition of the pulses which we, in our big way of talking,

nickname Heroism:- is there not something in the nature of a



revenge upon the donkey's persecutors? Of old, he might say, you

drubbed me up hill and down dale, and I must endure; but now that I



am dead, those dull thwacks that were scarcely audible in country

lanes, have become stirring music in front of the brigade; and for



every blow that you lay on my old greatcoat, you will see a comrade

stumble and fall.



Not long after the drums had passed the CAFE, the CIGARETTE and the

ARETHUSA began to grow sleepy, and set out for the hotel, which was



only a door or two away. But although we had been somewhat

indifferent to Landrecies, Landrecies had not been indifferent to



us. All day, we learned, people had been running out between the

squalls to visit our two boats. Hundreds of persons, so said



report, although it fitted ill with our idea of the town - hundreds




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