Part 37

I leave you to conjecture why we deemed a picnic an essential stroke of policy. I assure you it was a question well and maturely discussed in our cabinet We knew it to be a measure from which there was no retreating when once entered upon; we also knew that the governor's return would utterly render such a course impossible. It was now or never with us. Would that it had been never! But to proceed. Everything, even from the start, promised badly; the day broke in torrents of rain; it was like one of those days of Irish picnic at the "Dargle," where a drowned family squat under a hedge to eat soaked sandwiches. We set out, in bad humor, determined to "take our pleasure excursion" under difficulties; a proceeding about as sensible as that of a man who, having sprained his ankle on his way to a ball, still insists upon waltzing. At Eberstein, where we had purposed to dine, they would not admit us. It is a royal residence, and although usually there was no permission necessary for parties wishing to pass the day there, an order from the court had closed the castle against all picnicaries,--a fact not made more palatable to us by the information that it was the misconduct of some interesting individuals of the family of the Simkins, the Popkins, or the Perkins, which had provoked the edict in question. And here I must say, Bob,--and I say it in deep sorrow,--that we are either grossly calumniated abroad, or else very grievous faults attach to us, since every scratched picture, every noseless statue, every chipped relic, and every flawed marble is sure of being assigned to the work of English fingers. I repeat, I have no means of knowing if the accusation be wrongful or not; at all events, I conclude it to be greatly exaggerated beyond truth. If scratching and mutilating, "the chalking and maiming acts" against works of art, be popular practices of travellers generally, it follows that, as we English supply a very large majority of the earth's vagabonds, a vast number of these offences must fall to our share; but I sincerely hope we do not deserve our wholesale reputation, nor possess any exclusive patent for barbarism. I argue the point as the priest used to do at home about Catholics and Protestants, when he triumphantly asked, "Why white-faced sheep eat more than black-faced:" and having puzzled us all, answered, "Because there are more of them!" And that's the reason the English commit more breaches of decorum than their neighbors. Rely upon it, Bob, the simple illustration is very widely applicable; and whenever you hear of our derelictions abroad, please to remember it.

As we could not gain admittance to Eberstein, it became a grand subject of debate what to do. The prudent said, "Go back." Is it not strange, Bob? but there is an almost stereotyped uniformity in wise counsellors, and that whenever a difficulty arises in life, they all cry out, "Go back!" I conclude that this is the whole secret of the Tory party, and that all the reputation they have acquired of "safe," "prudent," and so forth, has no other basis than this simple maxim. Upon the present occasion, "the Progresistas" carried the day,--we went on!

A little wayside inn--the resort of a few summer visitors--was to be our destination; but when we arrived there, it was to find the house crammed with a most motley rabble,--a set of those wandering artisans which, from some singular notion of her own upon the virtues of vagabondism, Germany sends forth broadcast over her whole land; the law requiring that each tradesman should travel for a year, or, in some states, two years, before he can obtain permission from the municipality of his own town to reside at home. Now, as these individuals are rarely or never persons of independent fortune, but rather of scanty and precarious means, the "Wander-Jahre," as the year of travel is called, is usually a series of events vibrating between roguery and begging, and at all events little conducive to those habits of orderly, patient industry which, in England at least, are deemed the highest qualities of a laboring man.

Wherever you travel in Germany you are certain to find droves of these people on the road, their heavy knapsacks covered with an undressed calf-skin, and usually decorated at either extremity by a Wellington boot, "pendant," but not "proper," their long pipes and longer beards, their well-tuned voices,--for they always sing,--and, lastly, their unblushing appeals to your charity, proclaim them to be "Lehre-Junge," or apprentices. But you must not fall into the absurd mistake of one of our well-known English writers on Germany, who has called them travelling students, and thereupon moralized long and learnedly on the poverty of life and the cheapness of education in that country. Occasionally, it is true, a student of the very humblest class will associate himself with the "youths;" but even he will be the exception, and the university to which he belongs one of the very lowest in rank. I should ask your forgiveness for this long and wide digression, my dear Bob, were it not that I know that whenever I speak of matters which are new and unfamiliar to you, I am at least as interesting as by any purely personal history. You would like to hear a thousand traits of foreign life and manners, far better than I am capable of communicating them.

Our inn, as I have said, was full of these "gents," and no persuasion of ours, no threats, nor any flatteries, could induce them to vacate the territory in our favor. In fact, they presumed to reason upon the case, on the absurd presumption that rain would wet and wind chill them, and positively resisted all our assurances to the contrary.

We ended by a compromise; they gave us the parlor, and retired to the kitchen, we purchasing the concession by sundry articles of consumption, such as fowls, ham, preserves, and a pasty, to be by them devoured as their own proper and peculiar prog. The selection, which was made by a special commission named by both sides, was rather an amusing process, though probably prolonged a little beyond the limits of ordinary patience. At length the treaty was concluded, the price paid, the territory evacuated, and we sat down ourselves to table, I will not say in the very happiest of humors, for throughout the whole of the negotiation our pride and self-esteem were at each moment receiving the very rudest buffets, princes, dukes, counts, and barons as we were! It was a sore lesson we were acquiring; and as a great man of our party remarked, "The canaille had apparently been taught little or nothing by the last two years,"--a fact not so difficult to entertain when one remembers that those whose education is conducted by grape and musketry are seldom left to evidence the advantages of the system, and the survivors are the "naughty boys who have learned nothing."

Our first disappointment was rather a laughable one, though certes in itself a bore. In the hurry of leaving Baden, a selection of the town band of musicians was made, as we had not carriage-room for the whole; but by ill-luck it was the rejected we had taken, and there we were with drums, cymbals, trombones, and an ophocleide, but not a flute, flageolet, or a French horn! You may fancy the attempt to perform the overture to "William Tell" with such appliances. Crash after crash it went, drowned in our own uproarious laughter, or louder cries of horror and disgust. We had scarcely rallied, some from the amusement, others from the annoyance produced by this event, when a tremendous uproar outside the door attracted our attention. It sounded like an attempt being made to establish a forcible entry into our apartment, and vigorous resistance offered. So it proved, by the account of certain wounded and disabled who fell back to tell us of the affray. "The Trades" were in reality in open insurrection, and marching upon us, "headed," as the trombone said, "by a stout, elderly man of savage appearance." To organize a resistance would have been impossible, with countesses fainting on every side, duchesses in hysterics. The men of our party, too, avowed that without an armory of guns, pistols, and cutlasses they were powerless. As to smashing up a chair, or seizing a table-leg, they had no idea of it; so that I saw myself the only combatant in a room full of people, who, by way of fitting me for my task, threw themselves around my neck and on my back in a fashion far more flattering than favorable.

By great exertions I wrested myself free from my "backers," and, bounding over the table with a formidable old tongs in my hand, I reached the door just as it gave way to the assaulting party, and came flat down off the hinges, discovering the forlorn hope of the enemy led on by--oh, shame and disgrace ineffable!--no other than my father himself! There he was, Bob, without his coat, with a large saucepan in one hand for a shield, and a kitchen cleaver in the other. He vociferously cheered on his followers to the breach. I own to you that, what with his patched and poor attire, his long beard, and his moustaches, I scarcely knew him. His voice, however, there was no mistaking; and, at the first word he uttered, I grounded my arms in surrender.

It turned out that some infernal device in pastry had communicated to him the intelligence that it was Mrs. D. was the entertainer of the gorgeous company, the crumbs from whose sumptuous table he and his friends were then consuming. Maddened with the indignity of _his_ position, and outraged at _her_ extravagance, he tossed off two tumblers of sherry to give him courage, and cried out to his partisans "to charge!" I have often heard that no description can convey even the faintest notion of the horrors of a town taken by assault. I now believed it. For the same good reason, you will not expect of me to portray what I own to be beyond my pictorial powers. I can, it is true, give you the ingredients, as Lord Macartney did those of a plum-pudding to the Chinese cook, but you must yourself know how to mingle and combine them. Take thirty ladies of various ages, from sixteen to sixty, and of all nations of Europe, with gents to match; throw them into strong convulsions of fright, horror, fun, or laughter, amidst smashed crockery, broken glass, upset viands, and drinkables; beat them up with some ten or twelve travellers of unwashed appearance, neither civil of speech nor ceremonious in conduct; dash the mixture with Dodd père in a state of frenzied passion, to which he gave short and _per saltum_ utterance in such phrases as "Spitzbuben!" "Coquins!" "Canaille!" "Scoundrels!" "Gueux!" "Blackguards!" &c,--a vocabulary that, even without a labored context, seemed sufficiently intelligible. The company took Lady Macbeth's hint; they did n't stand upon the order of their going, "they went at once." I do not believe that a party ever separated with greater despatch and less useless ceremony. A few of the "greatly overcome" were, indeed, led out between friends, "unconscious;" but the mass fled with a laudable precipitancy, leaving the field to my father and the rest of the Dodd family,--a group, I beg to say, that nothing but a painter could properly render. That it may one day be thought worthy of a fresco, let me record it.

Foreground, and principal figure, Dodd père, seated Marius-like amidst the ruins, cravat in one hand, turban of a spoiled countess inadvertently grasped in the other; countenance strongly marked with intense perplexity, a kind of universal doubt of everything; prevailing impression of the figure, power, but power weakened by incredulity.

[Illustration: 436]

Middle distance, Mary Anne Dodd, dishevelled and weeping, gracefully draped, and the attitude well chosen.

Extreme distance, Dodd mère, seated on the floor, with a student's cap stuck on over her own toque, evidently horror-struck and unconscious, as seen by the wild stare of her eyes, and the half-open lips. Dodd fils, dimly detected in the shadow of left foreground, mixing brandy-and-water.

There's the tableau; the smaller details are, a universal smashery, with occasional vestiges of that part of the creation consigned to hairdressers, tailors, and milliners, of which the ground displays various curious specimens, in scalps, fronts, ringlets, and tufts, scraps of lace, tuckers, and trinkets, with skirts of coats, cravats, and a false calf! Had these been all that the company left behind them, Bob, it might have been bearable; but, alas! they had bequeathed to us other relics,--their contempt, their very lowest contempt. Even my father's French was intelligible enough to show what he claimed, and what we could not deny him, to be. You can fancy, therefore, the impression they must have conceived of us!

One of the worst features of this unlucky occurrence was that it happened at Baden. Baden is, so to say, one of those great banking-houses at which a note is sure to be presented at some period or other of its circulation, and here we were now,--declared a "forgery," pronounced "not negotiable."

These were the bitter thoughts which each of us had now to revolve in secret, tormenting our several ingenuities to find a remedy for the evil. The governor was apparently the first of us to rally, for he turned round at last to the table, cleared a small spot for his operations at a corner, helped himself to some of a game pie, and began to eat like one who had not relished such delicacies for some time back.

"May I give you a glass of champagne, sir?" said I, seeing that he was "going in" with an air of determination.

"With all my heart," responded he; "but I think you might as well open a fresh bottle." I did so, Bob, and followed it by another, of which I partook also.

"There are some excellent fellows out there in the kitchen," said the governor. "There is a little lame tailor from Anspach, and an ivory-turner from the town of Lindau, both as agreeable companions as ever I journeyed with. Take them out that pie, James, and let the waiter fetch them half a dozen bottles of this red wine. Pay Jacob--he 's the tailor--four florins that I borrowed from him; and beg of Herman, a little Jewish rogue, with an Astracan cap, to keep my tobacco-bag, out of remembrance of me. Tell the assembled company that I 'll see them all by and by, for at present I have some family affairs to look after. Be civil and courteous with them, James, they all have been so to me; and if you 'll sit down at the table for half an hour, and converse with them, take my word for it, boy, you 'll not rise to go away without being both wiser and humbler."

I set about my mission with a willing heart. I was glad to do anything which should give the governor even a momentary satisfaction; and I was well pleased, also, to mark the calm, dispassionate tone of his language.

The "Lehr-Jungen" received me with a most respectful courtesy, in which, however, there was not the very slightest taint of subserviency or meanness. They showed me that they really felt kindly, and even affectionately, towards my father, who had been their companion for the last nine days on foot. They enjoyed in a high degree the dry humor which he possesses, and they relished his remarks on the country, and the people, through which they travelled, savoring as they did of a caustic shrewdness perfectly new to them. In fact, I soon saw that his frank temperament, enriched by that native quaintness every Irishman has his share of, had made him a prime favorite with them, and they were equally disposed to be flattered by his acquaintanceship as attached to himself. I sat with them till past midnight. Indeed, when I heard that our family had ordered bedrooms and retired for the night, I was not sorry to dissipate my cares, even in much humbler society than I had left home to foregather with.

It is not necessary I should make any confession to you of my unlettered ignorance, nor own how deplorably deficient I am in every branch of knowledge or acquirement. I was a stupid schoolboy, and an idle one, and the result is not very difficult to imagine; and yet, with all these disadvantages, I have a lazy man's craving for information, if I only could obtain it easily. I 'd like to be cured, if the doctor would only make the physic palatable. Now, will you believe me, Bob, when I say that these poor travelling tradesfolk, patched and threadbare as they were, talked upon subjects of a very high character, and discussed them, too, with a shrewdness and propriety perfectly astonishing? I had been living in Germany for some six or eight months, and yet now, for the first time, did I hear mention made of the popular literature of the day,--who were the writers most in vogue, and what modifications public taste was undergoing, and how the mystical and the imaginative were giving way before a practical common-sense and commonplace spirit more adapted to the exigencies of our age. This, I must observe, they entirely ascribed to the influence of England, which they described as being paramount on the Continent since the peace. Not alone that the vast hordes of our nation flooded every land of Europe, but that our mechanical arts, our inventions, and our literature pervaded every nook and crevice of the Continent.

As the tailor said, "It is not alone that we conform to your notions in dress, and endeavor to make our coats loose and square-skirted, to look English, but there is an Anglomania in all things, even where we will not confess it. Our novelists, too, have followed the fashion, and instead of those dreamy conceptions, where the possible and impossible were always in conflict, we have now domestic stories, ay, even before we have domesticity itself."

I do not quote my friend Jacob for anything remarkable in the sentiment itself, though I believe it to be just and true; but to show the general tone of a conversation maintained for hours by a set of poor artisans, not one of whom would not be well contented could he earn a shilling a day.

Perhaps you will ask me, if, in their several trades, these fellows were the equals of our own? In all probability they were not. The likelihood is, they were greatly inferior, as in every detail of the useful and the practical Germany is far behind us; but it is strange to speculate on what such a people may or might become, if their institutions should ever conform to the development of their natural intelligence. This, again, is the tailor's remark,--and I could "cabbage" from him for hours together.

I thought a hundred times of _you_, Bob. How _you_ would have enjoyed this strange fraternity. What amusement--not to say something better and higher--you would have abstracted from them. What traits of native humor,--what studies of character! As for _me_, much, by far the greater part, was lost upon me for want of previous knowledge of the subjects they discussed. Of the kingdoms whose politics they canvassed I scarcely knew the names; of the books, I had not even heard the titles! I have no doubt many of their opinions were incorrect; much of what they uttered might have been illogical or inaccurate; but making a wide allowance for this, I was struck by the general acuteness of their remarks, and the tone of moderation and forbearance that characterized all they said.

This brief intercourse has at least taught me one thing,--which is not to look down with any depreciating pity on the troops of these wayfarers we pass on the road, still less to ridicule their absurd appearance, or make a jest of their varied costume. I now know that amidst those motley figures are men of shrewd intelligence and cultivated minds, content to follow the very humblest callings, and quite satisfied if their share of this world's good things never rises higher than black bread and a cup of sour wine. I should like greatly to see something more of the gypsy life they lead, and if ever the opportunity offer, shall certainly not suffer it to escape me.

We left the inn of the Moorg Thal at daybreak, my mother and Mary Anne in one carriage, the governor and myself in a little open calèche. He spoke little, and seemed deep in thought all the way. From an occasional expression he dropped, I dreaded to surmise that he had resolved on returning to Ireland. One remark which he made of more than ordinary bitterness was: "If we go on as we are doing, we shall at length close every town of Europe against us. We left Brussels in shame, and now we quit Baden in disgrace: the sooner this ends the better."

We did not proceed the whole way to Baden, but stopped about a mile from it, at a village called Lichtenthal, where we found a comfortable inn, with moderate charges. From this I was despatched to our hotel, after nightfall, to arrange our affairs, settle our bill, fetch away our baggage, and make all necessary arrangements for departure.

I am free to own that I entered on my mission with no common sense of shame. I knew, of course, how our story had by this time become the table-talk of Baden, and how, from the prince to the courier, "the Dodds" were the only topic. Such notoriety as this is no boon, and I confess, Bob, that I believe I could have submitted my hand to the knife with less shrinking of the spirit than I raised it to pull the door-bell of the Hôtel de Russie.

When a man has to encounter an anticipated humiliation, he usually puts on an extra amount of offensive armor. I suppose mine, on this occasion, must have been of unquestionable strength. None seemed willing to put it to the proof. The host was humble,--the waiters cringing,--the very porter fawned on me! The secretary--at your flash hotels abroad they always have a secretary, usually a Pole, who has an immense estate under sequestration somewhere,--this dread functionary, who, in presenting you the bill, ever gives you to understand that he is quite prepared to afford you personal satisfaction for any item in the score,--even he, I say, was bland, courteous, and gentle. I little knew at the moment to what circumstance I owed all this unexpected politeness, and that this silky courtesy was a very different testimony from what I suspected; it being neither more nor less than the joyful astonishment of the household at seeing one of us again, and an amazement, rising to enthusiastic delight, at the bare possibility of our paying our bill! Already in their estimation the "Dodd family" had been pronounced swindlers, and various speculations were abroad as to the value of the several trunks, imperials, and valises we had left behind us.