内河航程 英文版 An Inland Voyage
罗伯特.路易斯.史蒂文森 Robert Louis Stevenson
ON THE SAMBRE CANALISED: TO QUARTES
About three in the afternoon the whole establishment of the GrandCerf accompanied us to the water's edge. The man of the omnibuswas there with haggard eyes. Poor cage-bird! Do I not rememberthe time when I myself haunted the station, to watch train aftertrain carry its complement of freemen into the night, and read thenames of distant places on the time-bills with indescribablelongings?
We were not clear of the fortifications before the rain began. Thewind was contrary, and blew in furious gusts; nor were the aspectsof nature any more clement than the doings of the sky. For wepassed through a stretch of blighted country, sparsely covered withbrush, but handsomely enough diversified with factory chimneys. Welanded in a soiled meadow among some pollards, and there smoked apipe in a flaw of fair weather. But the wind blew so hard, wecould get little else to smoke. There were no natural objects inthe neighbourhood, but some sordid workshops. A group of childrenheaded by a tall girl stood and watched us from a little distanceall the time we stayed. I heartily wonder what they thought of us.
At Hautmont, the lock was almost impassable; the landing-placebeing steep and high, and the launch at a long distance. Near adozen grimy workmen lent us a hand. They refused any reward; and,what is much better, refused it handsomely, without conveying anysense of insult. 'It is a way we have in our countryside,' saidthey. And a very becoming way it is. In Scotland, where also youwill get services for nothing, the good people reject your money asif you had been trying to corrupt a voter. When people take thetrouble to do dignified acts, it is worth while to take a littlemore, and allow the dignity to be common to all concerned. But inour brave Saxon countries, where we plod threescore years and tenin the mud, and the wind keeps singing in our ears from birth toburial, we do our good and bad with a high hand and almostoffensively; and make even our alms a witness-bearing and an act ofwar against the wrong.
After Hautmont, the sun came forth again and the wind went down;and a little paddling took us beyond the ironworks and through adelectable land. The river wound among low hills, so thatsometimes the sun was at our backs, and sometimes it stood rightahead, and the river before us was one sheet of intolerable glory.On either hand, meadows and orchards bordered, with a margin ofsedge and water flowers, upon the river. The hedges were of greatheight, woven about the trunks of hedgerow elms; and the fields, asthey were often very small, looked like a series of bowers alongthe stream. There was never any prospect; sometimes a hill-topwith its trees would look over the nearest hedgerow, just to make amiddle distance for the sky; but that was all. The heaven was bareof clouds. The atmosphere, after the rain, was of enchantingpurity. The river doubled among the hillocks, a shining strip ofmirror glass; and the dip of the paddles set the flowers shakingalong the brink.
In the meadows wandered black and white cattle fantasticallymarked. One beast, with a white head and the rest of the bodyglossy black, came to the edge to drink, and stood gravelytwitching his ears at me as I went by, like some sort ofpreposterous clergyman in a play. A moment after I heard a loudplunge, and, turning my head, saw the clergyman struggling toshore. The bank had given way under his feet.
Besides the cattle, we saw no living things except a few birds anda great many fishermen. These sat along the edges of the meadows,sometimes with one rod, sometimes with as many as half a score.They seemed stupefied with contentment; and when we induced them toexchange a few words with us about the weather, their voicessounded quiet and far away. There was a strange diversity ofopinion among them as to the kind of fish for which they set theirlures; although they were all agreed in this, that the river wasabundantly supplied. Where it was plain that no two of them hadever caught the same kind of fish, we could not help suspectingthat perhaps not any one of them had ever caught a fish at all. Ihope, since the afternoon was so lovely, that they were one and allrewarded; and that a silver booty went home in every basket for thepot. Some of my friends would cry shame on me for this; but Iprefer a man, were he only an angler, to the bravest pair of gillsin all God's waters. I do not affect fishes unless when cooked insauce; whereas an angler is an important piece of river scenery,and hence deserves some recognition among canoeists. He can alwaystell you where you are after a mild fashion; and his quiet presenceserves to accentuate the solitude and stillness, and remind you ofthe glittering citizens below your boat.
The Sambre turned so industriously to and fro among his littlehills, that it was past six before we drew near the lock atQuartes. There were some children on the tow-path, with whom theCigarette fell into a chaffing talk as they ran along beside us.It was in vain that I warned him. In vain I told him, in English,that boys were the most dangerous creatures; and if once you beganwith them, it was safe to end in a shower of stones. For my ownpart, whenever anything was addressed to me, I smiled gently andshook my head as though I were an inoffensive person inadequatelyacquainted with French. For indeed I have had such experience athome, that I would sooner meet many wild animals than a troop ofhealthy urchins.
But I was doing injustice to these peaceable young Hainaulters.When the Cigarette went off to make inquiries, I got out upon thebank to smoke a pipe and superintend the boats, and became at oncethe centre of much amiable curiosity. The children had been joinedby this time by a young woman and a mild lad who had lost an arm;and this gave me more security. When I let slip my first word orso in French, a little girl nodded her head with a comical grown-upair. 'Ah, you see,' she said, 'he understands well enough now; hewas just making believe.' And the little group laughed togethervery good-naturedly.
They were much impressed when they heard we came from England; andthe little girl proffered the information that England was anisland 'and a far way from here--bien loin d'ici.'
'Ay, you may say that, a far way from here,' said the lad with onearm.
I was as nearly home-sick as ever I was in my life; they seemed tomake it such an incalculable distance to the place where I firstsaw the day. They admired the canoes very much. And I observedone piece of delicacy in these children, which is worthy of record.They had been deafening us for the last hundred yards withpetitions for a sail; ay, and they deafened us to the same tunenext morning when we came to start; but then, when the canoes werelying empty, there was no word of any such petition. Delicacy? orperhaps a bit of fear for the water in so crank a vessel? I hatecynicism a great deal worse than I do the devil; unless perhaps thetwo were the same thing? And yet 'tis a good tonic; the cold tuband bath-towel of the sentiments; and positively necessary to lifein cases of advanced sensibility.
From the boats they turned to my costume. They could not makeenough of my red sash; and my knife filled them with awe.
'They make them like that in England,' said the boy with one arm.I was glad he did not know how badly we make them in England now-a-days. 'They are for people who go away to sea,' he added, 'and todefend one's life against great fish.'
I felt I was becoming a more and more romantic figure to the littlegroup at every word. And so I suppose I was. Even my pipe,although it was an ordinary French clay pretty well 'trousered,' asthey call it, would have a rarity in their eyes, as a thing comingfrom so far away. And if my feathers were not very fine inthemselves, they were all from over seas. One thing in my outfit,however, tickled them out of all politeness; and that was thebemired condition of my canvas shoes. I suppose they were sure themud at any rate was a home product. The little girl (who was thegenius of the party) displayed her own sabots in competition; and Iwish you could have seen how gracefully and merrily she did it.
comingfrom so far away. And if my feathers were not very fine inthemselves, they were all from over seas. One thing in my outfit,however, tickled them out of all politeness?
The young woman's milk-can, a great amphora of hammered brass,stood some way off upon the sward. I was glad of an opportunity todivert public attention from myself, and return some of thecompliments I had received. So I admired it cordially both forform and colour, telling them, and very truly, that it was asbeautiful as gold. They were not surprised. The things wereplainly the boast of the countryside. And the children expatiatedon the costliness of these amphorae, which sell sometimes as highas thirty francs apiece; told me how they were carried on donkeys,one on either side of the saddle, a brave caparison in themselves;and how they were to be seen all over the district, and at thelarger farms in great number and of great size.