Arthur O'Leary: His Wanderings And Ponderings In Many Lands. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ went forth to the-world with an air “mild,” or “military;” “feeble,” “fascinating,” or “ferocious,” exactly as the foreign office deemed it. It was in those days, I say, when, on entering the fortress of Valenciennes, the door of the “Diligence” was rudely thrown open, and, by the dim nicker of a lamp, we beheld a moustached, stern-looking fellow, who rudely demanded our passports. My fat companion, suddenly awakened from his sleep, searched his various pockets with all the trepidation of a new traveller, and at length, produced his credentials, which he handed, with a polite bow, to the official. Whatever the nature of the description I cannot say, but it certainly produced the most striking effect on the passport officers, who laughed loud and long as they read it over.

      “Descendez, Monsieur” said the chief of the party, in a tone of stern command.

      “What does he say?” said the traveller, in a very decided western accent.

      “You must get out, sir” said he.

      “Tare-an-ages,” said Mr. Moriarty, “what’s wrong?”

      After considerable squeezing, for he weighed about twenty stone, he disengaged himself from the body of the “Diligence,” and stood erect upon the ground. A second lantern was now produced, and while one of the officers stood on either side of him, with a light beside his face, a third read out the clauses of the passport, and compared the description with the original. Happily, Mr. Moriarty’s ignorance of French saved him from the penalty of listening to the comments which were passed upon his “nez retroussé” “bouche ouverte” &c.; but what was his surprise when, producing some yards of tape, they proceeded to measure him round the body, comparing the number of inches his circumference made, with the passport.

      “Quatre-vingt-dix pouces,” said the measurer, looking at the document, “Il en a plus,” added he, rudely.

      “What is he saying, sir, if I might be so bowld?” said Mr. Moriarty to me, imploringly.

      “You measure more than is set down in your passport,” said I, endeavouring to suppress my laughter.

      “Oh, murther! that dish of boiled beef and beet-root will be the ruin of me. Tell them, sir, I was like a greyhound before supper.”

      As he said this, he held in his breath, and endeavoured, with all his might, to diminish his size; while the Frenchmen, as if anxious to strain a point in his favour, tightened the cord round him, till he almost became black in the face.

      “C’est ça” said one of the officers, smiling blandly as he took off his hat; “Monsieur peut continuer sa route.”

      “All right,” said I, “you may come in, Mr. Moriarty.”

      “‘Tis civil people I always heard they wor,” said he; “but it’s a sthrange country where it’s against the laws to grow fatter.”

      I like Holland; – it is the antipodes of France. No one is ever in a hurry here. Life moves on in a slow majestic stream, a little muddy and stagnant, perhaps, like one of their own canals, but you see no waves, no breakers – not an eddy, nor even a froth-bubble breaks the surface. Even a Dutch child, as he steals along to school, smoking his short pipe, has a mock air of thought about him. The great fat horses, that wag along, trailing behind them some petty, insignificant truck, loaded with a little cask, not bigger than a life-guardsman’s helmet, look as though Erasmus was performing duty as a quadruped, and walking about his own native city in harness. It must be a glorious country to be born in. No one is ever in a passion; and as to honesty, who has energy enough to turn robber? The eloquence, which in other lands might wind a man from his allegiance, would be tried in vain here. Ten minutes’ talking would set any audience asleep, from Zetland to Antwerp. Smoking, beer-drinking, stupifying, and domino-playing, go on, in summer, before, in winter, within, the cafés, and every broad flat face that you look upon, with its watery eyes and muddy complexion, seems like a coloured chart of the country that gave it birth.

      How all the industry, that has enriched them, is ever performed – how all the cleanliness, for which their houses are conspicuous, is ever effected, no one can tell. Who ever saw a Dutchman labour? Every thing in Holland seems typified by one of their own drawbridges, which rises as a boat approaches, by invisible agency, and then remains patiently aloft, till a sufficiency of passengers arrives to restore it to its place, and Dutch gravity seems the grand centre of all prosperity.

      When, therefore, my fellow-passengers stormed and swore because they were not permitted to land their luggage; when they heard that until nine o’clock the following morning, no one would be astir to examine it; and that the Rhine steamer sailed at eight, and would not sail again for three days more, and cursed the louder thereat; I chuckled to myself that I was going no where, that I cared not how long I waited, nor where, and began to believe that something of very exalted philosophy must have been infused into my nature without my ever being aware of it.

      For twenty minutes and more, Sir Peter abused the Dutch; he called them hard names in English, and some very strong epithets in bad French. Meanwhile, his courier busied himself in preparations for departure, and the “Honourable Jack” undertook to shawl the young ladies, a performance which, whether from the darkness of the night, or the intricacy of the muffling, took a most unmerciful time to accomplish.

      “We shall never find the hotel at this hour,” said Sir Peter, angrily.

      “The house will certainly be closed,” chimed in the young ladies.

      “Take your five to two on the double event,” replied Jack, slapping the Alderman on the shoulder, and preparing to book the wager.

      I did not wait to see it accepted, but stepped over the side, and trudged along the “Boomjes,” that long quay, with its tall elm trees, under whose shade many a burgomaster has strolled at eve, musing over the profits which his last venture from Batavia was to realize; and then, having crossed the narrow bridge at the end, I traversed the Erasmus Plata, and rang boldly, as an old acquaintance has a right to do, at the closed door of the “Schwein Kopf.” My summons was not long unanswered, and following the many-petticoated handmaiden along the well-sanded passage, I asked, “Is the Holbein chamber unoccupied?” while I drew forth a florin from my purse.

      “Ah, Mynheer knows it then,” said she, smiling. “It is at your service. We have had no travellers for some days past, and you are aware, that, except greatly crowded, we never open it.”

      This I knew well, and having assured her that I was an habitué of the Schwein Kopf, in times long past, I persuaded her to fetch some dry wood and make me a cheerful fire, which, with a “krug of schiedam” and some “canastre,” made me as happy as a king.

      The “Holbeiner Kammer” owes its name, and any repute that it enjoys, to a strange, quaint portrait, of that master seated at a fire, with a fair headed, handsome child, sitting cross-legged on the hearth before him. A certain half resemblance seems to run through both faces, although the age and colouring are so different. But the same contemplative expression, the deep-set eye, the massive forehead and pointed chin, are to be seen in the child, as in the man.

      This was Holbein and his nephew, Franz von Holbein, who in after years served with distinction in the army of Louis Quatorze. The background of the picture represents a room exactly like the chamber – a few highly-carved oak chairs, the Utrecht velvet-backs glowing with their scarlet brilliancy, an old-fashioned Flemish bed, with groups of angels, neptunes, bacchanals, and dolphins, all mixed up confusedly in quaint carving; and a massive frame to a very small looking-glass, which hung in a leaning attitude over the fire-place, and made me think, as I gazed at it, that the plane of the room was on an angle of sixty-five, and that the least shove would send me clean СКАЧАТЬ