P R E F AC E

TH E fo llo wing pages are intended to s ho w how much can be done and seen in three weeks for twelve pounds . We started o n n o f A from London the ight ugust I , and were due back in England o n the morning o fthe 2 0 th 5 but within this short Space we were able to get to the very o f th e R source hine and back , mostly by o u r boat and bicycle . Nor did economy as s u compel us , a pessimistic friend g o n gested , to live sausage and sauerkraut , and sleepo ne night at the Hotel Norfolk

Howard , and the next at the Grosser ” a vo n Floh or the B cillus Deutschland .

Our quarters , however modest , were always o ur clean , and generally very roomy food was plentiful and good . Here and there I have altered names and ’ incidents for discretion s sake , and here and ’ there the reader s own judgment m ay s u g gest a pinch o fsalt ; but I have kept faith fully all through to my main purpose o f giving a j u st immes sion ofa Bohemian tour o n R - a the hine its charms and v ried chances , of and the beauty the river , the good nature vii P REFAC E

o fthe people . I have passed quickly over such well- known places as Cologne and

Heidelberg , to describe more fully other spots which are still less know n than they deserve . There will be found in the Appendix a fairly complete list of distances a nd ex h fo r penses , with a few ot er practical hints the journey . F ATH ER R H IN E

C H APTER I

Nil raetu lerim u c u ndo s anu s a ego p j mico . — C HORA E .

O N A 1 8 8 the night of the I st of ugust 9 , two cloaked horsemen might h ave been seen o n the platform o f the Parkeston n Quay Station , speaki g in commanding tones to the knaves and varlets who

pressed obsequiously round them , and a exhorting these rapsc llions , under peril o f their ears , to see the iron steeds safe fo r R on board the boat otterdam . The o f t taller the two , who twis s half a dozen links from the heavy gold chain round his

neck , and casts them among the rabble d a forgive me , dear rea er ; this str in is above me : I too k them o u t of my right c0 er s hand pocket , and they were only pp ; a but the porters , if not sl vishly deferential , o u r were at least civil and handy , and on machines were soon board . Let me introd uce you now to my travelling com panion and old college friend . A 2 F ATH ER RH I N E

Henry Schultz has nothing German about him but his name (and on this A I . n occasion , must add , his straw hat)

accomplished mathematician , he is also

familiar with the noblest poets , orators , and m historians of antiquity , and ore especially with such portions of them as are commonly s et fo r a Pass Degree at F either university . rench he will talk you a no t classic lly , if fluently ; but he never could bend his tongue to the rough Teutonic

idiom , any more than Mrs Battle could condescend to the ignoble phraseology of A o f was not I cribbage . cricketer fame (

myself present some ten years ago , when a public- school boy at the Cologne table ’ d hote asked him whether he was tbe

Schultz , and quite forgot the rest of his ice pudding o n receiving an affirmative a golfer of almost equal pro fi cienc a y ; a p infully energetic cyclist , as in — due time you shall s ee these are but a fe w fo r of his superficial accomplishments , I make no attempt here to catalogue his Yo u genuine virtues . will understand now why I chose this motto for my first chap fo r ter ; you doubtless remember , dear reader , that it is with reference to his own little tour with Virgil and Mzec enas that Horace tells us he knows nothing like an — old friend a sentiment which will be heartily echoed by all who have tried FATH E R RH I N E 3 travelling in the same way—uncondition and ally by the single , by the married with all proper m arital reservations . Our plan this time is ambitious— no less than to trace and retrace the whole course of the Rhi ne within the only eighteen clear a at a days we h ve our dispos l . We knew a it must needs be great rush , but the idea had fasci nated us ; we felt that even this dizzy succession o fch anging scenes would o w n have a charm of its , and that thus , in a of some ways , we should le rn more the characteristics and co ntrasts of land and people by a plan which e nabled u s to see

it all , as it were , at one sweeping glance . Nearly all of the route we had already seen in detail at other times the rest we k new by books ; and in these eigh teen days we

hoped rapidly to skim the cream of it all . That in this we succeeded to our own a complete s tisfaction , is my best excuse for publishing an account of our tour as a

guide for future tourists . We o u rselves o f s o far spent eighteen days bliss , only alloyed as to give it the necessary human ’ consistency . Yet , a mo n g one s later r a a memo ies of even the h ppiest holid y , few things stand out in brighter colours than those first moments of a nticipation ; and few men ever started with more con fident n hopes of e joyment than we , as the ship ploughed her way through the tran 4 F ATH E R RH IN E quil starlit s ea ; and we sat recalling memories o fformer holidays until prudence warned us to go below and snatch that some what unquiet sleep , which is the most that o n mortals dare hope for , even the most unruffled passage . CHAPTER II

h all u s N ow t e world is before .

Au . 2 1 8 8. g , 9 ’ TH E Hook of Holland : s ix o clock on a brilliant morning : a calm passage behind u s ! , and the whole Continent before us

Not even twenty years ago , when we first travelled together in our undergraduate days , did the world seem fresher to us , o r fuller of pleasant surprises . Here is

- the well ordered little station , with every as thing as trim and as Dutch can be , built and arranged for o u r exclusive use who have come over in the Great Eastern boat : here are the two trains snorting with im u s off patience , ready to hurry to Hanover o r n at o u r — Colog e choice nay , even to l wa Switzer and , if we care to make our y into the through carriage for Bale : but we ’ ” don t care , for we are going to do the

R a . fo r hine by bo t However , the moment we must desert the river , for our time is and a limited , this morning we must c tch the Netherlands Steamship Co . boat which R 0 starts from otterdam at seven . 8 we creep rather reluctantly into the train ; and n I , for my part , ca not help looking wist 6 F ATH E R RH IN E fully at the broad waters th at come down R a from otterd m , and thinking of the lazy voyages I have made on their bosom in all days gone by , after the perils of the An deep . d I see again that first cross a o — ing , nineteen years g how we passed a S teamer th at had been cast on the stone and bank , how the big waves raced along d and and her si es , swept her deck , lifted her and banged her down again on the stones ; and how our own c apt ai n hove- to b ar a outside the , and for ten mort l minutes a deb ted whether he dare risk to cross it , or whether we must put back again and pitch for a few hours more on the pitiless s ea that had tossed our souls o u t all that a and night ; and how at l st he risked it , a a we were soon in c lm water, and gradu lly the souls came back to o u r bodies ; and presently three p ale and h aggard brothers a a and st ggered shore upon a heaving quay , - - a crept wide legged , sailor fashion , long the n a n a and heavi g p veme t of the Hoogstra t , t at even par ook with some appetite , the o H tel St Lucas , of veal chops which bobbed up and dow n s o erratically b e fore our eyes that it seemed almost a miracle when we picked a bit up on our

. H o w forks often since , in peril of the d a I a eep , h ve thought of th t first crossing “ 1 8 a 0 in 79 , and s id to myself, passi gr av io ra F ATH E R RH I N E 7

’ And of then the last all , on New Year s 1 8 1 morning , 9 , when the whole broad river was f a s u n a mass of lo ting ice , and the rose like blood through hard lines of mist that a n looked like a prison gr ti g , until he gradually burst the bars and flamed up s k n over the whole y , and the thi threads of clear water made a wonderful arabesque of crimson and orange in and o u t of the - A d colder grey o fthe great ice Hoes . n up all we pushed among it , and jostled and charged and spli ntered through the heavy masses ; and at last , a mile or two from R fio e otterdam , behold one huge that stretched almost across the river ! Yet we at charged through it merrily enough first , but gradually the engines laboured more and and more heavily , it seemed as though a a the p nting ship could h rdly wag , and the trees all but stood still o n the bank ; and n a and then suddenly a great rendi g cr ck , the last hundred y ards o f the mass split in and front of our bows , the engines galloped o n a a I a g in , and was ble to catch my train and skate all d ay in the sunshine among - the holiday makers at Gouda , and reached E at mmerich night , to find the river frost bound at last into a solid mass . was But that in the old days , when there was no cause for hurry ; to - day we must press on to catch the Rhine boat . So we ffe get in , and take our morning co e cold 8 FATH E R RH I N E

E in the train , with chunks of real nglish - a ro holiday cake , prepared by the s me p vident mater nal hands that have stocked s o many school hampers in the old days . We press a slice upon a youth in the h ad l opposite corner , who produced a sma l dry bun from its paper bag ; he accepts it coyly , but eats it with the appetite of

. I sixteen years Upon my word , have the appetite of sixteen too ; give me another chunk , and let me have another a o f ff o f p nnikin co ee with plenty milk , and I’ ll drink to the health of those who ! A provided us with both German , our - n other fellow passenger , decli es the cake , but will not be outdone in politeness he offers us his one remaining peach out o f o f I a basket three . declined , prudent even in holiday time for my stomach ’ s sake and mine often infirmities ; but w Schultz accepted ith frank alacrity , and the German tried not to watch the J U ICC d o u t o f ripping of the corners his mouth , as Sir P . Sidney must have turned his eyes away from the cold water he had sacrificed .

Poor beggar , he was going to Cologne

Meanwhile we had hurried over the flat , fresh , dewy fields ; past Schiedam , girt with its great ring of windmills that stand and swing their arms on the ancient ram R parts ; and now we come to otterdam , and run for a few minutes level with the F ATH E R RH I N E 9

o f s ee second stories the houses , and the inmates as busy in their rooms as any colony o f working ants at the Crystal Palace ; and then the market- place heaped with cool green garden produce , and thronged with figures in the cleanest white : and blue linen and here is the station , and we must get out . A brief but bitter struggle with the porters , who know j ust enough English to be a nuisance to us ; and now at last we are allowed to carry o u r o wn modest luggage in peace to the boat . In ten minutes we are there ; our luggage is stowed in the cosy little cabin we had written to engage ; and we are free to stroll about the deck and take stock of our

- fellow passengers before the boat starts . — A double Dutch family by which I mean a grandmother with two daughters and two sets of grandchildren— with English books and magazines to read , and a healthy , pleas E fo r ant , nglish look about them all , ( we are both insular enough to find no word of — greater praise in all o u r vocabulary) a — honeymooning couple a clergyman in mufti with his wife— half a dozen second n — a class passe gers just enough , in f ct , to o f give life to the boat , but with plenty

- elbow room for us all . l Present y we cast loose from the quay , and steamed out of Rotterdam in the same steady sunshine ; and the ship turned her I o F ATH E R R H I N E

- head south eastward , and pounded up in s u n stream , straight the eye of the , while we fou nd a delicious shady nook for ourselves just in the stern , with no t and seats for two but for three , a a all “ and little round t ble to ourselves , the Netherl an d flag flapping lazily over our and R a heads , the hine water swirling aw y

m o ur . o u t al ost at feet We brought grapes , packed up for us by kind sisterly fore thought ; we brought o u t cameras and sketch- books and diaries ; the fragrant w as pipe of morn kindled , and a misan th ropic- looking waiter brought us coffee — ho w it must stir his bile to s ee our childish enjoyment of the journey ! Men came round our way , and looked , and de n : parted in e vy of us girls tripped round , and o ff : and looked , tripped again the honey - mooni ng couple mooned stealthily n round our cor er , scenting out a nest for a themselves , and turned aw y quickly like the

n o u r o fE . rest , e vying us in little nook den It is very pleasant to settle oneself into a corner like this , when there is none other so snug on board the whole ship ! We were conscious that this quiet retreat had been predestined for us from all eternity ; and it was for us , us alone , that the good ship was ploughing her way straight to a s u n and A and a w rds the the lps , the w ter was dancing s o merrily away from under FATH E R RH I N E I I o u r feet , and the sparkling waves faded into a thin white streak of foam th at seemed like the clue we were drawi ng En u s from gland behind . Dort with its

- square topped tower came and went , as sleepy - looking as its name seems to imply ; and the ship turned due east for a while a now ; but we lolled still in the sh de , ’ n n a thi ki g of th t old sketch of j ohn Leech s , “ and he artily pitying those pore nobs in ’ ” kerrid es o t . their g , this weather Those whom we had left in the trai n at Rotter — d am where were they now ? That pros n man pero s fat , with several pounds of gold chains and seals ; the whole flock of liberated schoolm asters whom I had a n watched into the B le carriage , thi king wi th moment ary envy that they h ad seven clear weeks of Switzerland before them ? where were they In what stifling heat ! a a a a what jar , wh t r ttle , wh t dust , wh t em amations ! what shifts to get away from the s u n that yet beats pitilessly through the thin and curtain , to make the most of the draught that is so hot and dry at the best ! Our own compassion ate German of the juicy n peach , what would he give at this mome t fo r a drop of Pilsener to wet the tip of his — tongue And we one word one no d a and to the mis nthropic waiter , he would ’ bri ng us gallons But we don t even want ff l it here are our grapes , our co ee , our coo 1 2 F ATH E R RH I N E breeze down the broad Rhine ; and this is o u r and the first day of holiday , everything is as bright and new as a shilling straight so from the Bank . The Dutch family looks fresh home from the wash , as if it had been laid up in lavender to be brought out a - d a fl s an ornament for to y . Bright ags all on the masts , and from cottage win dows ; and it was almost with a se nse o f disappointment that we learned this was in ’ R n honour of the Queen ege t s birthday , and not merely to grace the river for our journey . and Dort is far behind now , we have o f fiec ked passed the waste reedy waters , with white sails , that leads into Holland a Diep , and H ringvliet , and the vast mouths o f R n the greater hi e . We no longer coast o u r under the lee of long islands , where swell careers in miniature breakers over the tiny beach , or swishes among the and reeds , making them bow , jerk up a a n b ow g i , and once more , as if they enjoyed the fun . It is all one broad and are channel now , we in the midst of a rural Holland . Little vill ges glide past u s o n either hand , each with its little quay o n its own little creek , where the reeds and purple loose- strife die away for a a n moment , and leave narrow i let of a smooth water . The cott ges all look

- - clean and well to do , mostly with white

I 4 F ATH E R RH I N E

movable bed- testers of thatch ; for by this time the little village is growing small in

the distance , and we have flat green fields o f a n full lazy cows , almost as m ny wi d and a mills as trees , dist nt church towers now all round the horizon . But another r c eek , another village ; white and blue a and linen gain , a formal little summer a house , and masses of sc rlet geraniums and the pleasant music of the caulkers n mallets . Nay , eve the same sturdy woman — with her two pails and her muslin cap o r are we dreaming it all again ? fo r dreamily it all passes through the blue wreaths from o u r pipes , and time is only marked by the ’ - an ding dong of our ship s bell , and the swerin g bell over the water , that announce at wide intervals the approach of some - n o landing place . We bri g out ur chart to convince ourselves of the reality of it all , and pore over the queer old- world names a o f Z ltbommel , with its strange group ' Loves tein towers ; , whence Grotius was smuggled out of prison in a chest by his wife ; C orca m facing Wo rc u m across the river ; Heukelum and Gellicum , just away to the right and here some familiar string is touched , and Schultz begins to hum , in memory of college days

F u lu t o ll u n n t n l rom He ke m Ge ic m is i e ee mi es ,

m u to u u n n t n etc . etc Fro Gellic m He kel m is i e ee miles , .

1 6 FATH E R RH I N E and we feel to know no w at last why the absurd o ld refrain about Wimbledon and Wo mbledon used always to be chosen for a Dutch chorus in those convivial days Plan s when cu was consul . CHAPTER III

This hill is d an gerou s : t h e cyclis t is req u es ted to ” u s a au t n e ll possible prec io s . ’ R Y N T DI S Y STS O AL E HERLAN H C C LI U m o u .

UN H in L C came due time , and , after lunch , Nymegen ; and as by this time it was three ’ o clock , and we were sated with lotus eating , we made up our minds to leave the boat fo r a while and ride through Cleve to E mmerich . We photographed Nymegen with all its towers as we came up to the all quay , and sighed to think of the colour that the camera would fail to record— the rich crimsons and purples of o f wall and roof, and the forest gay

flags , and the fresh green woods that clothe the hill behind the town . We found the old church in its rich late gothic brick courtyard , with elaborate gateway of the same d ate : and then we rode up through the town , and on by a gradual ascent , through cool suburbs and woods ; wonderi ng at the neat villas and Chateaux whose garden s lay practically open to the road ; pelted with so- called confetti by a party o f girls and men in a -a— a char bancs , who painfully resembled B 1 7 I 8 FATH E R RH I N E

A crew of English b eanfeas ters . halt to “ ” drink spu itwater at a wayside cottage among the trees (it was plain u nalcoholic a seltzer, and cost but one halfpenny : bottle) presently the crest of the hill , with a large hotel in the wood by the o d and of - r adsi e , crowds gaily dressed ’ patriots celebrating the Queen Regent s s u itwater birthday with other than p , and the trees hung thick with paper l anterns ’ for the evening s da nce ; and then the a an n ro d beg to slope gently dow wards , n still through cool woods . Prese tly the n a and a trees thin ed way , we appro ched the brow of somethi ng like a real hill ; and o u r here, to surprise , we found this - and - n- a d startling red yellow cautio bo r . I n not i terpreted this to Schultz , a little pleased in my heart to think how much I and Dutch knew , how useful it might be in an emergency . He needed no warn ” a W a ing , for he rides hippet with free and rim c an wheel brakes , and therefore coast anywhere with his feet on the pedals ; but I was sufficiently impressed by the red and-yellow board to go on gingerly for the I next half mile , after which realized how o ff matters stood , and rattled half a dozen a - Dutch pl ce names to relieve my feelings , and put my feet up , and soon caught sight of Schultz again at the bottom of a delicious I slope some mile and a half long . have FATH E R RH I NE 1 9

read since that Nymegen is the only place in Holland (barring church towers) whence to s o a view is be obtained ; , as patriotism no doubt dictates th at there should be one - is danger board in Holland , that plainly the

right place for it .

I , who belonged to no cycling associa had a tion , my misgivings bout the German n fro tier , which we knew we were to cross

at a place called Wilde ; but , in fact , we l crossed it unawares , and were still ooking out for Wilde when we found ourselves at

Cranenburg , in undeniable German terri fi ne tory . Here we found a Gothic church o f brick and grey stone . On again over

level country , planted mainly with unripe and u n rye , with oats that compared very favourably with those I had seen between Newm arket and Bury ; enormous bushes of a wild chicory , with its h rd , blue flowers ,

among the roadside grass ; in front , a long fir— at sandy ridge covered with woods , the end of which we could already s ee the towers

of Cleve . Beyond , a distant fringe of trees marked the course of the Rhine ; and the two fine churches o f Elten and Eltenb u rg behind on and stood out , the side the summit o f a really respectable hill . Presently the road ran for two or three miles through an of avenue limes , still faintly fragrant with the relics o f their midsummer blossoms ; and here we felt j usti fied in stopping a 20 FATH E R RH INE few minutes for tea at a wayside garden n n All restaura t , under the sig of Heil — ’ the German cyclist s password . Hence we rode on , through delightful woods a A t again , to f shionable Cleve . Cleve we paused only to admire the s o - called ’ Lohengrin s tower , and to photograph that view of its reflection in the water which looks so fascinating to the traveller by And night from Cologne to Rotterdam . a then we started again , in the sl nting R evening sunshine , for the hine ferry , since we were anxious to get within sight of Emmerich while there was still light for the camera. The storks were already flappi ng homewards for the night ; o ne a o u r fine fellow got up lmost at feet , draggi ng his legs lazily between us and the great la zy sun ; but we could not get a a t i n our c mer s o u time . Presently we a a n c me mo g a network of old dykes , m arking the successive stages by which the backwaters o f the Rhine h ad been r e claimed century by century ; then the all and a a last bank of , h lf mile of rolling E waters , and mmerich , with its two fine churches and its line of purple - brown brick houses , on the other side . The - u s a and steam ferry soon brought cross , landed us where the river almost washes the buttresses of the minster , whose bell had been calling to us all this while over

2 2 F ATH E R RH IN E

R n - oma ism of to day felt ill at ease in the. presence of these memorials to men who lived and died centuries before Papal In n fallibility , in the days whe even com munion in one kind was only a pious

Opinion and a general practice , not yet made binding on the whole Church by the decrees of a Council which had deposed one Pope and was as yet in no special n hurry to elect his successor , fi ding how well they could regulate ecclesiastical affairs without one . Perhaps we need not have been s o scrupulous about copy ing the epitaphs , for those who stood in the doorway seemed bent rather on gossip o n than worship , and the more earnest passed through into the church without paying any attention to our strange garb and our unaccount able interest in tomb stones . But we thought it best to go away for the present : and meanwhile it so was very good time for supper , we o ur went back to the quay , where boat had been lying fo r the last hour or more . Here we ordered a steak and a flask of R s un henish , and sat watching the go down as the viands were prepari ng . It seemed as if the generous god had lingered awhile for our sakes ; he was still half an m hour above the horizon , just ping s k behind the minster spire , and gilding y and river with all the glories ofa lowland FATH E R R H I N E 23

sunset . Half a dozen ragged boys , who s at - and fished by the water side , were trans figu red into cherubim dippi ng their lines into liquid gold ; if they had drawn a n n nything from those e cha ted waters , it must have been the jewelled fishes of the A a N rabi n ights , that stood on their tails in the fryi ng- pan and spoke with a human and voice . The figures sauntering up down the western quay moved dimly in a in halo of light , like glorified spirits the Elysian fields ; and my mind went b ack n a to that seco d of j anu ry seven years ago , when I c ame dow n to this s ame quay after a breakf st , with the thermometer at some

twenty degrees below freezing , and found it crowded with hard- worki ng m en that

had no work to do , pinched and blue in their threadbare cotton clothes and their ff n a sabots stu ed with straw , tryi g to w rm i n their hands their breeches pockets , and w as chattering ith their teeth , they tried to find a mel ancholy distraction in watch ing the ga ng of r o admaker s break a — practicable cart road across the river , through the huge crags and hummocks of ice into which the Rhine had jumbled

itself as it froze . CHAPTER IV

s Ba v u a a n ta t a O cc u l ta e t ta ae q ed m vis i si err e .

TH E steak was passable , but the misan thropic waiter was so slow with it that we regretted the feeling o f loyalty which had brought u s back from the town on purpose ’ to patronise the cu irzne of the H ollandia . We sal lied forth again after our meal to h w as no w the minster , whic shut ; but the ’ s o n n sexton s took the keys and a ca dle , and showed u s all round . It is a very fine d church still , though its chancel was pulle down (he told us) i n the fourteenth cen R tury . He showed us a splendid oman esque crypt , which looked still more picturesque by the light o f our candle ; he was communicative about the special n service of that eveni g , which turned out to be a Plenary Indulgence in honour of the Po rtiu ncu la of Assisi . I am afraid to s ay how many years of purgatory were remitted to those who attended : let us h0 pe that good St Peter will spare a few even to those who stood and gossiped in — o u r the porch even to us , for heretical an interest in the fabric of the church , d FATH E R RH I N E 25 for the care with which (our su b s acris tan n holding the light in tolerant patie ce , for we had paid him liberally) we copied the inscriptions upon those outcast tombs by the door , and found them to commemorate former deans and dignitaries of the minster . Our English time- table had given us fair “ n E : warni g . mmerich German time and

customs . German time warned us now that it was an hour nearer bed time th an it would have been at home , while German customs were displayed in the multitude

a b eersho s . and popul rity of the p In fact , by this time there were no others open ; n so we had no farther i terest in the town . Fo r it had been one o f our first vows o n starting that we would steer as clear as o f n possible beer on this journey , dri king 0 it only at our evening meal . 8 we made our way now to another of the mouldering n old gates , and came out upo the river side , to find the full moon j ust risen upon a a a the Rhine . There was ple s nt old a inn f shioned close by us on the quay , a an a with the usual Germ n ver d h , and seats screened from the road by a row of laurustinus in tubs . The evening was delicious ; not a breath now to ripple the

swift oily stream ; the air warm , and the west still flushed with a dark red glow from the sunset ; just a doze n or s o of the brightest stars in the velvety sky ; the 26 F ATH E R RH I NE

w as too moon brilliant for the rest . We and s he stood and looked at her , seemed to ” sa Yes I me to y , , I would , if were you . “ ’ ’ ” It s ? a wonderful sight , isn t it said I ; n for and again , feeling very sentime tal , ( cer tainl I y this is a sentimental climate) , began , ” Ar t Yes thou pale for weariness , - interrupted Schultz absent mindedly , “ ’ ? ” I aren t you thirsty , old man could I only avow reluctantly that was not , “ ’ though I wished I had been . That s ! ” right , then cried he , tucking my arm under his in the old hearty undergraduate ’ ’ o way ; that s right , then we ll g in and have a glass ofbeer apiece The moon peeped in at us through the laurustinus leaves , and wove her track of fretted quicksilver across the . rushing waters ; the boats , dark and silent by the quayside , rocked their masts gently , as though they lay asleep ; the cries of our own men loading the H ollandia with bales for Cologne and Mainz sounded mellow in the distance ; the moon peeped in , and watched us approvingly as we sipped our beer . On such a night it was that Circe tempted Odysseus , and , but for b e his magic herb , he would have been ” a witched with the rest . T ke another , “ whispered the pale , pure temptress j ust w ho be look at that German is going out , ” has just paid for seven ! Fo r a moment F ATH E R RH I N E 27

’ met a Schult z s eyes mine gain , but he thought of his wife and five small bairns I at home , and thought of my liver . So n we o ly sat a few minutes longer , and watched the moonlight on the river and the nodding masts until we felt ready to nod I ourselves , and then called for our reckon i n - - g. Our business like , hard featured hostess came at the summons ; it was a

penny a piece , if we pleased . What was ? this No , no , thanks she never accepted tips . So Schultz took my arm again , and we strolled o fftowards the boat ; and then and there my heart o ver flo wed into song

’ Kno w s t t u the an t h e t n Run ho l d where wri i g is ic , A nd the sm ack of the sau sage is strong i n their speech , Bu t t n the n t a P n and M un heir dri k is ec r of ilse ich , S upplied at a price that t h e poo rest m ay reach ! ’ Kno w s t thou t he l and where t he tipis unk nown

I sa ! n y , easy all i terrupted Schultz ; those confounded Dutchmen will think

we are both drunk . There , indeed , stood

- two Germans , Open mouthed , one of them being he whom we had just seen pay his 0 o u t 7 Pfennige as he went . “ ” as I beg your pardon , said I , we passed ; this is the exhilarati ng effect of ’ the foreign air ; it quite gets into one s ” head at first . “ En I know it , he replied in fluent g “ lish ; I have felt the same myself in 28 F ATH E R RH I N E

En London . But then your glish beer is ”

and . stronger , you have also whisky I a o n a p ssed ab shed , knowing that he gave me credit for one or two dozen at a and glasses le st , that any further ex planation would only lower his estimate En a a of glish ver city . We c me on board , our little cabin looked very snug , and the berths very i nviti ng ; for we had no t slept i n our fill the night before , spite of the a a a c lm pass ge . The s ilors were quiet R enough over their loading , the hine murmured soothi ngly as it rippled along ’ and an the ship s side , there was a pleas t ’ u ndertone o f girls voices chattering and l in aughing Dutch next door . Schultz , who is a kittle sleeper , did indeed protest that he should never get to sleep while those girls were jabbering like that ; yet the voices soon sounded fai nt and distant to our drowsy ears ; then our eyelids a and closed gently of their own ccord , F R ather hine rippled us to sleep .

30 FATH E R RH IN E — fast a great improvement o n the coffee and felt very comfortable and very virtu o u s o ut o f , watching of one corner our eyes how the quiet landscape glided p ast the saloon windows , and with the other how rapidly ( almost as rapidly as ours) of the huge pots chocolate , and rolls and butter , disappeared before the healthy growing appetite of those Dutch families . It is one of the beauties of foreign travel that it makes one so contented with oneself. s ee I If I my neighbours unappreciative , hug myself with a happy sense o f superi o rit o n y ; if, the other hand , they seem n thoroughly to e joy everything , then their enjoyment doubles mine ; for we are all ’ o f us somewhat of S ganarelle s mind “ ’ et é e Quand j ai bien bu bien mang , j veux que tout le monde soit s o fil d ans ” n ma maiso . After breakfast we made and s at their acquaintance , all in the stern together for most of the morning . One of the mothers had married a Scotchman settled in Rotterdam ; the eldest daughter ’ was at Cheltenham Ladies College ; and all were as wonderfully well up i n all lan guages and all histories as the educated

Dutch always seem to be . They were greatly interested in the Emmerich inscrip tions which I had just been deciphering . “ ” Perhaps I began by po ntificating a “ a little . You would be amused to he r ZON S 32 FATH E R RH I N E

C . gassing away all this time to those ” Dutch people , records Schultz , who at that moment , treacherously hidden round the corner , was writing home to his wife . They remarked on some lin uis tic and g peculiarities of the epitaphs , I ’ quoted Grimm s law , adding , perhaps “ Lau tver with conscious dignity , the ‘

. es schiebung , you know Oh y , they w kne ; even Hannah , a little chubby crea o f ture eight or nine , with the plumpest little naked arms and knees , looked as if she had learnt about all that long ago ; and the healthy , sunburnt boys gave me n as a gloomy glance of recog ition , which sured me that they too , if they had been willing in holiday time to betray the secrets

- of the prison house , could have told me all “ a about the be stly Lautverschiebung . I made no further attempt to instruct our new friends , but listened with humble interest to what they had to tell me ; and presently Schultz came out of his hiding n place and joi ed us . They sympathised good- naturedly with our disappointme nt in the matter ofthe Royal Netherlandish d anger-board ; they took the intensest feminine interest in all that Schultz vouch safed to tell them about his five boys at home ; then the t alk c ame round to the young queen and her approaching corona I tion , and here at last got an innings again , FATH E R RH I N E 33

in A 1 8 1 for I was able to tell how , pril 9 , I went up the Rigi by the first train o f

that season , and travelled in the same car r ia e - g with a pretty , interesting looking girl of twelve or thereabouts , dressed in deep as mourning , were also her mother and the rest o f the party ; how the little girl had an held in her arms immense doll , to whom sh e communicated all the Bo mpar d es qu e information just as it was told to herself. “ Vous voyez a gauche le Finsteraarhorn e a ces la j ungfrau , dont j signale demoiselles les proportions é lé gantes ! etc . , etc . ; and how we found out later

. o f a that this was the young Queen Holl nd ,

staying incognita at Gersau . Our friends at once began complaini ng in chorus of an article they h ad just been reading about E Holland in some nglish magazine . The

ignorance of the writer ! said Eighteen . And s he laughs at things because she doesn’ t understand them ! chimed in Six n a teen . A d yet she professes to know ll about everything ! added Fourteen ; and she has even found— and here they all — s he joined in chorus yes , has even found a hu sband for our Queen ! She will not a F m rry yet pursued ourteen , in a tone of

the utmost decision . They did their best to explain to us the Dutch system of edu

cation , and we tried to palliate the short comings of o u r own ; and the time passed 34 FATH E R RH I NE

a very pleasantly till we re ched Dusseldorf,

where , to our great regret , the party

landed . We helped them to get their a and a 0 lugg ge ashore , c me back h ping that we might meet eq u ally pleas ant travel

ling acqu ai ntances l ater o n . The Rhine itself is no t specially in t eres tin Dii s s eld orf n g between and Colog e , but the easy motion o f the boat is always restful ; and we wrote up our diaries till

we came to the little town of Zons , whose picturesque towers we had admired and in former years , had long dreamed

of landing some day to explore . There is ’ no pier there , but the ship s bell sum mo ned o u r and in a boat to aid , we got safely with our bicycles and a clergyman and his wife who had resolved to explore a the town with us . The s ilors cast the at o ff the bo , and the stream swept us down at once ; we might h ave bee n three hu ndred y ards away from the shore on a and an st rting , , though the boatm tugged not e at his crazy old oars , he did r ach the slack water among the reeds till a good - quarter of a mile below our starting point .

Then he took to his punting pole , and we worked slowly up and landed at a little paved causeway th at sloped down into the stream . The town was all we had dreamed old brick walls with brick turrets and FATH E R RH I NE 35 great flanking towers o f black b asalt ; ’ walls th at had once stood at the water s a no w a edge , but oversh dowed with popl rs , and cut o ff from the river by half a a mile of meadows ; r gged , unpointed for l a the ast two hundred ye rs , but ripened into that deep crimson brown that comes only with centuries of exposure to wind and w weather , and overgro n with mosses - o w er and wall fl s . We passed through the main gate and down a little street between the town wall a nd a row of whitewashed houses with boldly project ing second stories . Here we found the n a o ak mai inn of the place , with fine a and a staircase , he vily balustraded her ldic ally carved . We were ravenous for lunch and by this time , made short work of the h am and and eggs , with bread butter , a n and salad , and half litre of white wi e a bottle of Apolli naris between the two of us .

n n a I s . d . The recko i g c me to just 3 apiece , and would have bee n less than a shilling A na h but for the polli ris , whic was by far I n the heaviest item in the bill . e ter into these details only because the meal was typical of wh at one fi nds everywhere in

- the small German towns . We looked a round the town fter lunch , and found the o ld tombstones again cast out from the and new church , which had been rebuilt and painted inside , looked as hopelessly 36 F ATH E R RH I N E

self- satis fied and tasteless as the show a - window of modern religious image shop .

Then we started for Cologne , regretting already even our very moderate indulgence had in wine , to which we been driven in - o u r self defence , for very delight in the old -world streets of Zons had inspired us

with a wholesome distrust of its water . O u r wheels drave heavily now ; the air

was sultry , and the roads deep in dust , t and not always of the smoothest . A Dormagen we stopped to look over the fine Romanesque church ; and soon after leaving the village the road rose a few

feet , and brought us suddenly to the side R of the hine , which here made a sweep a inwards in our direction . j ust ahe d , the road was shaded by a long avenue of w n hite poplars , and followed the ge tle bend of the river : the w hole view was its very grand in simplicity , with long sweeping curves th at blended together o n

the horizon , and a broad contrast between the dark green foliage and the gleaming t river . A Worringen we found a nice old church with tower and lych- gate o f brick ; then a picturesque old watermill ;

and then the spires of Cologne , which we had already j ust seen above the treetops , i came full in view . It was almost m ma possible to realise that the pwas right , l o I know and we were sti l five miles ff.

CHAPTER VI

Es s assen die alten Germ anen A n beiden U fern des Rhei n s ; U nd als nu t un n sie ge g ge r ke , Da riefen sie immer Noch B ins l ’ Ger m n s tu dentr n a s o g .

I LE FT Schultz with our bicycles at the ’ o l Eu rO e H tel de p, where the wise can enjoy their refreshments in a tiny but o f d n o f picturesque bit gar e , two sides which are bounded by the Gothic walls A ’ of St ndreas church . So , leaving him I there , took our two passports to the post -offic e fo r letters This was a slow was business , though the post only some o ff and two hundred yards ; , on rejoining m I s aw y friend , at once by a certain guilty look on his usually open cou ntenance that something had happened . My first idea was that he had drunk up all the first pot and of tea to his own cheek , sent for more . I was ready to pardon him , for had he not complained as we rode through the town that he was suffering from a sort of bilious headache ? and did I not know from my o wn thirst th at his must have been almost ? harder than he could bear But I was 38 FATH E R RH I N E 39

far from suspecting the real facts , which I transcribe here from the account sent th at night to the recording angel at home . Opposite me were three men drinking — beer , and one of them the middle one was my undoing . You must understand that beer is strictly forbidden by the Com a pany , except at the last me l of the day , ’ was and it as yet but four o clock ; but C . was away , and the exasperating way in which that red- bearded man drained his glass , sighed with supreme content , and — ordered another to s ay nothing o f the golden glint of the bright liquid in the

- and queer shaped glasses , a thirst that had been solidly growing along thirteen miles — of dusty road all these made me feel ‘ with Odysseus that it w as by no means ’ pleasant to refrain . So , casting away all I n shyness , summoned the bloomi g Kellner , ‘ ’ and demanded ein Schoppen Bier . C . sighed over my fall at his return ; but I I laughed softly to myself, while hugged — the memory ofthat cooling nectar an oasis ” ofs u n All in a burning waste and dust . this he told me in much the s ame words on my return , and showed me the very man

— - with his red beard a j udas face if ever there was o ne ! I bethought me again of

m - the warning on our ti e table , German ” . O tem or a o mor er ! Time and Customs p , ’ - a pint o f beer at four o clock in the 40 F ATH E R RH INE

n o f afternoo , by way medicine for a bilious as headache Yet , we strolled out arm in arm after tea to see a little of the town , I heard him again , with an unrepentant chuckle , quote Browning under his breath

How sad an d mad and b ad it was I Bu t ah ! how i t was sweet I

We had very little time for sight -seeing a proper , but we both knew the town f irly w as at well already . It very hot even half six past , when we took our cycles down to leave them o n board ; and I stopped to bathe by the way . Schultz declined ; he feared it might make his head ache again ; a a at which I , like true friend , excl imed , “ ” o u s o ! n in e I told y and the went , f el ff and o ld ing o ensively virtuous , renewed memories . of swooping down for eighty yards with all the Rhine current at my back , and then beating painfully up stream a - d a ag in . To y I was often tempted to a give up , and should certainly h ve done so but for the sight of two or three Germans who toiled up phlegmatically beside me ; for p atriotism urged that what a mere Dutchman with a beer E barrel under his belt can do , no nglish man must shrink from . I wish I had t aken a snapshot of all the bodies in that bath ; for wh at words can con vey any idea of such monstrous corporations ! F ATH E R RH I N E 41

After even a very short absence from ’ o ne Germany , is apt to think that one s memories must be exaggerated , and that one has got a sort of stage German into ’ one s head . But the stage German falls far short of the real native in these large n of towns , both in his co sumption liquor and in his manifest symptoms o f such in

d ul ence. g When , after the bathe , we walked down the bank to a modest little G arten - Restaurant where o ne can eat fresh fried fish and bread and cheese at o u r a nominal price , we found at table - old bour eoire a good natured g , evidently a n a sm ll shopkeeper , enjoying her eve n a ing meal and her eve ing gl ss withal . S chO en Schoppen after pp , during the t wenty minutes that we were privileged s it a n a to near her , dis ppeared be eath th t well- worn rusty black gown : s he shifted a few inches to make more room for us on a be nch that was built for five or “ ’ six Oh , no , we weren t crowding her ” all a was at , th nks ; and indeed there ’ I just room for the three of u s So s he l ff and smi ed a ably again , back went her and black bonnet , her many chins opened o u t n like an accordio , and her little eyes twinkled good- n aturedly at us through the bottom of the t ankard . She rose and waddled off a short time before we and had done , we made a hasty calcula 42 F ATH E R RH I N E tion : the first piece of ground s he could have seen must have been about four feet s e in front o f her toes . Probably h takes no exercise all day long but to waddle backwards and forwards to her supper ; and o ne may see hundreds like her among the sedentary populations of the towns . Yet it all seems natural enough here . — There is something in the climate z the warm evenings when one can s it for hours under the trees without fear of rheumatism , and watch the lights come as out the twilight fades , and follow fl their long re ections on the stream . Then also everybody is drinking round yo u ; and this is the mildest of all alco holic beverages , and the coolest to the a thirsty p late . The stars wink at you , the moon looks down with approval ; and o u you soon find that , however little y a may have pproached the local standard , yo u have taken more than you would n have dreamed of drinking in E gland . N o t that the actual days o n the Rhine are s o very much warmer than in England ; but between their nights and ours there is no comparison . We came back to the boat at about quite heated by the very mild exertion of rid ing up into the town and back again ; and o u r there were poor firemen , all begrimed with coal - dust and furrowed with perS pira F ATH E R RH I N E 43

tion , stretched upon the cotton bales that lay about the wharf, and trying to cool down a little before the boat should start And again . we who , from the standpoint o u r own of modest three glasses , had j ust been talking with some Pharisaical unction about German habits , felt now that many gallons o f the mild liquor might be par do ned of , in this climate , to such martyrs civilization as these . CHAPTER VII — Tacit e a s ilen ia un a V1RGIL . a per amic t l e .

ALTHOU GH I had seen the Seven Mountains was a often enough before , and the flesh gl d enough to lie down and rest , yet the spirit felt certain twinges of regret for all the beautiful scenery which was doomed to be and -o u t- wasted on mere stokers look men , before ou r own eyes opened to the mor ’ ’ ’ row s dawn . Still , one can t have one s so cake and eat it , even on a holiday ; I lay down with philosophic resignation . But , in the middle of the night , some kindly spirit woke me from my first sleep , and whispered in my ear to rise and look out of the little cabin window . We were just passing the Drachenfels the moon almost at her full , and the river flowing broad and strong , a mirror of grey polished steel , with just a thin line of silver at its edge , I went where it frayed along the shore . o n deck and looked round : no t another o n boat was in sight , nor any wave the o fo u r o w n whole stream , except the track on vessel . There were Rolandseck and N nenw er th d and ahea , Godesberg faint in 4 4

46 FATH E R RH I N E

flowi ng in far - o ffrecollections that throng to o a n thickly now for separ te recog ition , a mingled with vague hopes and ye rnings , and tender inarticulate regrets . There is no jarring note in all the harmony o f na of ture , but only whisperings divine comfort

S ur la a au x s u r la a nt f ce des e , f ce des mo s S u r le fleu ve a n té su r la et o u u rge , for ro le u n n n u u e n u a n C omme hym e co f s des morts q o s imo s .

M a u a u u u ant u b as m a t et is moi so s ch q e jo r co rb pl s e , J e p asse The very foretaste of eternity comes as a i ar e rem nder of our own littleness . Ye all of gods , and ye are the children the l Most Highest ; but ye shall die ike men , and fall like one of the princes . Drachen N o nnenw er th R l k fels , , and o andsec , little by little their long reflection shud dered and broke in the w ake of our boat ; two o’ clock chimed from some church th e tower across the water , and sound i brought me back to earth . An nvol u n tary shiver reminded me th at flesh was

a . a n flesh , fter all I lingered little lo ger , was and but the spell broken , the thought of the morrow’ s task became more and more importunate ; sixty miles to be ridden ’ at Schultz s pace , and under Heaven knows sk what burning y So I crept below , very T W B on S C C . HE ALL , A HARA H 48 FATH E R RH I N E grateful for the revelation which had been a vouchs fed to me , and in a few minutes the stokers and look - out - men were again the only waking beings on th at moonlit R hine . CHAPTER VIII

W t t at an n i h fields h promise corn d wi e .

S C H U LTZ woke me at sunrise ; he had a w as no t slept r ther feverishly , and in a mood to blame me for omi tti ng to wake him o n account of the moonlight . We n R were now close upo heinbrohl , where the volcanic hills suddenly hem the river into a narrow gorge until Andernach . was a The sky d ppled with soft clouds , heliotrope lined with peach- blossom ; but a and the colours soon f ded , we went down a again to dress and break our f st , since at Andernach we were to leave the boat an for the day . Th ks to supplies prud t o n a a n a en ly taken bo rd l st ight , we bre k and fasted luxuriously in our cabins , were a n soon o n d eck gai . There was a light no w n o f mist in the gorge , and every sig a hot d ay to come . The haze thickened as a A d we pproached n ernach , and , though s u n a the still struggled br vely through it , at n the lig ht was r her fai t for snapshots . The fine old church was full of wor ar n so n shippers morni g mass , we o ly n li gered outside to admire its sculptures , D 49 5 0 F ATH E R RH I NE and then on to the Francisc an church and and the ruined palace , then out upon the w a Coblenz road . The y was dusty , and R it soon parted from the hine , which disappeared altogether in the haze . We passed one fairly picturesque village , Weissenthurm ; but otherwise the ride was rather uninteresting . We quenched our thirst with a second editio n of coffee at a baker ’ s shop by the Moselle bridge

n and n o n . A at Coble z , the rode mile and a half beyon d Coblenz the road rejoins v and the ri er , never leaves it again till beyond Bingen . The s u n by this time m had burst through the ist , and flashed merrily on the waves of the Rhine by our side ; it was still early , and we had forty more miles o fthis scenery to look forward and and to ; castle rock , towns like A and n museums of the Middle ges , mou — tai ns and woods and terraces of vines the - a R n an n at much bused hi el d vi es , which least h ave fresh green leaves to show in w all the late summer , hen the woods are n t a bur t with he he t . The clouds rolled o n n up bigger as the day wore , givi g us exquisite contrasts of light and shade o n the hills and reflections o n the river At n Boppard we laid in provisions for lu ch , but Schultz was not yet Bohemian enough to approve of our cooking our lunch in s o public a place as that which I had F ATH E R RH I N E 5 1 chosen under the poplars at the end of few the quay , so we rode on a miles to

Salzig . On these Bohemian meals depended a o n much of the cheapness , and l ter , even h to Schultz , muc of the pleasure of our n s o tour . There are few Germa villages poor but that o ne can raise good bre ad and a ham at butter, cheese , and which , the n a a very worst , can be minced i to a ple s nt

flavo u ring for an omelette . If there is 0 n no sh p in the village , the in keeper is j ust as willing to sell the r aw materi als F at about the same price . resh milk ca nnot be cou nted on with the s ame cer a n t inty , though eve this can generally be

got ; but we mostly carried it with us , in a a tin bottle protected by a cloth c se . This we washed out well with a little Izal d a in from y to day , and spite of the heat and the jolting the milk was ge nerally and a a h quite right never ctu lly sour , thoug it had sometimes turned to honest curds E n and whey . ven the we found it a i n welcome addition to our tea , and , an n a a default of ything of the ki d , we lw ys

c ar ried a n . O ur n . lemo cooki g apparatus consisted of a light tin pint - and - a- half a l tin saucep n , into which fitted two arge and mugs , one inside the other , inside these a tin box for butter ; there w as room in the interstices for two smaller 5 2 FATH E R RH I NE

tins of salt and tea ; two deep tin dishes a fitted as lid to the saucepan , and the whole packed closely into a strong canvas bag which was strapped to one o f the

cycles . We were thus able to take all

our meals in the open air , by the water o r was side under the trees , and it only for supper that we condescended to fall

back upon the resources of civilisation . We took o u t with us half a pound o ffirs t

rate China tea , and there is no beverage s o really thirst - quenching and so s timu lating in the midst of hard work as weak

China tea , boiling hot , with a slice of

lemon in it . All this we unpacked under the trees at to n in Salzig , by the ferry side , the inte se t er es t of two damsels who were waiting u s to be carried over , and who watched o u r and break eggs and shred the ham ,

put in a lump of butter , and stir the whole together in one o f the tin dishes - t over the spirit lamp , wi h that compas sio nate amusement with which women always observe a man who ventures to trespass upon their Special domain . They ff o ered us their best advice , and shrugged — their shoulders how well I knew that — shrug to s ee that we persisted in fo l lowing o u r own rough - and - ready way for s At a n o u r own purpose . last Ch ro came w ai ted and them away , laughing and wish

5 4 FATH E R RH IN E

unripe still , that we left him money and and fruit with our blessing , mounted to w ride on ards . A heavy shower came on at Hirzenach and we had to take shelter in a shed in stead o f going in search o f the keys to look inside the fine old church . By St s k Goar, the y drew dark again , and the great bastions of Rheinfels stood o u t black

- against billows of silver lined clouds , and a a An h ndsbreadth of bright blue sky . other heavy sho wer overtook u s in the and a town , we stopped to m ke tea in the secularised crypt o f the great red ho sandstone church by the roadside , w se At open door invited us to shelter . Ober wesel it was bright sunshine again , and we had time to loiter round the old walls , and peep into the little gem of a chapel n that is built upo the very ramparts , in w as which some service then going on . We found the building full of white capped nuns , who huddled together like f at luttered doves our entrance , so that we hastened to relieve them of our sacri l i ff e o u s . O g presence , and rode on C au b , the shadow of the hills had already crept half- way up the walls of the Pfalz and at Bacharach we felt a healthy appe tite ; so I looked in and ordered supper at a the old famili r Hotel Bastian , and we spent the interv al in looking over the FATH E R RH I N E 5 5

and church , the Chapel of St Werner , most graceful and delicately- tinted of all Rhines ide o ld ruins , and the fascinating timber houses , covered with slates like ’ a t a dragon s sc les , tha are built out upon ’ the walls . Then back to Bastian s , where a so we found so good a dinner , and p id a a sm ll price for it , that we sighed again to think how impossible it is to travel like this in England . sit n a We could not lo g fter dinner , for it was evident that we should not be in ’ a H ollandza time to c tch the at Bingen , but must take the train from thence to Mainz ; and I wished to show Schultz a little of the Morgenb acher Thal o n the a way . Castles to right of us and c stles a to left of us gain , but looming dim and At a dimmer in the deepening dusk . l st the mouth o f the Mo r genb ac her Thal ; a merry party drinking beer in the verandah n and that overlooked the cor er , trolling a catch thereto , to which Schultz answered as we passed with a catch of his own , remembered from school cricket - suppers in bygone days

’

A nd to ou J n n . here s y , oh Brow ou t all a t To y wi h my he r , ’ A nd as i n an we re good comp y , ’ ” W l n a e l dri k before we p rt . The narrow road turns under the rui n of F alkenburg , and toils upwards between the 5 6 FATH E R RH I N E

a hills , mong whose irregular buttresses it has o f a to wind , by the side little brook that has worn itself a deep channel from a the livin cascade to c scade , down into g . s ee rock . We had no time to the finest o f part the valley , but stopped for a quarter of an hour to take a twilight photograph and to e njoy the perfect peace

th e . w as a of evening The air w rm , the n brook murmured ge tly over its rocky bed , was and there such a chorus of crickets , as far and near , in the silence of the dusk , had n ! we ever heard before . But the vi lage clock warned us that our time was growing short , so we mounted reluctantly and rode down again to join the high road ; and at and here we spun on full speed , up and down , betwixt wood water , the trees throwing a deeper and deeper shade as they overhung more closely from the rocks on R the right , the hine glimmering fainter and a o n f inter our left , with lights like glow worms from the houses o n the further At bank . intervals we run into warm d gusts of air , ed ying with midges almost in a solid mass , like the whirling drift of lovers among whom Dante saw his Paolo F o ur and rancesca , we shut eyes , and they patter like soft rain against o u r rushi ng faces . Still no Bingen ; it is further o ff than we had sanguinely hoped . At last R we come to that long island in the hine , FATH E R RH IN E 5 7 where the Mouse Tower just shows above the trees : a red moon looming o u t of the Riid esheim haze over , and creeping slowly along the black battlements , and in and out o n of the poplars , as we hurry ; not that o f lurid red , almost as a London suburban harvest moon , which we had noticed in her yesterday as she rose through the smoke Mii lheim of , but a tender tint of orange tha crimson , t went admirably with the faint blue haze over the upper reaches of and a the river , the dark green foli ge in the foreground . But there was no time to for linger , we knew that we must ride our h ardest for the train ; and in a moment the road had plunged again into a black tunnel o f trees , through which the moon fluttered in shreds and snippets at our side ; and then out upon the first p avements of the town , and blinding lights in the darkness ; and here we lost each other , and arrived a a separately at the st tion , bre thless , to find that the trai n fo r which we had been raci ng ran only on Sundays ! There w as a - sort of consolation train , however , half luggage and half passenger , for which we a - had to w it three quarters of an hour , and so w which even then crawled slo ly , and s o o ff stopped long , that we dozed , and only woke up at i ntervals to look feverishly o u r At a and at watches . last toothless palsied old peasant mumbled out to me 5 8 F ATH E R RH I N E

that it was no good being impatient . The train was timed to take an hour and a half over these twenty miles , and was generally “ ’ ” late at that ! What s that ? enquired “ Schultz ; is the old beggar saying that he hopes to get to Mainz before he dies n I explai ed the true state of the case , and we dozed o ffagain amid mutu al recrimina and k i n o f tions , wo e the glare the Mainz

- electric lights . Half asleep still , we trundled down a beautifully - paved sort o f a boulev rd to the quay , and got on board just as the clocks were striking midnight . CH APTER IX

Al t l r d u n Heide be g , fei e , D u S tad t an Ehren reic h l FF SCHE EL .

Augurt 5 . W E were not due at Mannheim till ’ eight o clock next morning , but we woke at seven to find our boat just coming up to the quay ; the s u n was already high and warm . We had comfortable time to — dress and pack our belongings p artly to be taken with u s and partly to be left at ’ the Company s warehouses and picked up — o n our return journey and to get our a o u r bre kfast before train for Heidelberg , where Schultz went to see the sights n an n again and I to call o old frie d . We met agai n at the station for lunch and took the train at about two o’clock for

Bruchsal . The train w as a nuisance in o f o ur itself, but a necessary part plan , since it was only thus that we could find and s ee n time to turn aside Maulbro n , one ofthe best-preserved mediaeval monasteries E a in urope . Schultz was jubil nt at lunch , he had thwart e d an attempt on the part o f the tramway - conductor to give him 5 9 60 FATH E R RH I N E

change for a two- mark piece as if it had n been a si gle mark . He described to me ’ ho w he had laid his hand on the man s

arm and fixed him with a glittering eye , and held up two fingers until the guilty wretch had pretended suddenly to under

and . stand , produced the missing coin The waiter stood by us and listened with

smiling interest . I beckoned to him to u s l bring our bill , whi e Schultz still

pursued his tale . ’ And the beggar didn t seem the least bit abashed about it either ! I ’ll tell you ’ a what , Kellner , they ren t a very honest ” lot on your tramways here . “ o f Oh , we none us are in Heidel berg ! answered the waiter with a shrug

of his shoulders and a cynical smile . see You , we have too many strangers H is ff and rich people. addition di ered by a mark in his ow n favour ; but he rectified the error very affably directly we o u t o n so pointed it , and rattled pleasantly as he counted out my change , that nobody

could have been angry with him . After

all , a poor man must live somehow , and wages were very low in Germany ; did be look fat on what he earned ? Fo r a

German he certainly did not , and I gave him a slight extra tip by way o f co m pensatio n for the mark ofwhich we had u b was l j st rob ed him , nor it unti we

62 F ATH E R R H I N E

Ach Gott “ — And the n when I want to put the ’ - and brake on , I ve only got to back pedal , it hooks o n to a sort of catch ; there Kolossal

And o n goes a rim break . “‘ Ach d u lieber Gott ! What is th at for a contrivance ! A brake like a real railw ay trai n “ Only you must take jolly good c are ” - a a not to back ped l too h rd . “ — — Kol oss al ! You can s t0 pit all ” o ne n and a n ! in seco d , h ve no accide t “ a and Or the be st stops dead , down ” o n n n you come your bloomi g ose . Ac h d u t lieber , lieber Gott Tha is the cycle for me ! What might be the price of such a machine ? ’ es m Oh y , we re pretty good at achines ’ o nly this idea is as old as the hills : it s he le m o r just the old C y s e clutch . The ” Ch e les mo r e ! y clutch he repeated , em phasis i ng his words with a slap on the shoulder , which the inspector took quite ’ in friendly part . Of course you don t understand a word of all this , old cock ; and s o but it amuses you to jabber , it does ’ me . You ve got a rascally lot of thieves on your trains and your Stations ; but I dare ’ s ay they re not worse than our directors . ’ ” t- And then you ve got a fir s class Emperor . The inspector saluted solemnly in answer TWILIGHT IN M O RGEN BAC H ER THAL 64 F ATH E R RH I N E to our bows ; and we heard him apo s tro phising his divinities and his colossi again o as we rode ff.

Bruchsal is a quaint old town , but sleepy in to the last degree . I went on the way a a - to buy che p hair brush , and found in the o r o f shop a girl of fifteen Sixteen , very singular beauty , with eyes like dark w amber , and hair to match , only tinged ith a darker shade ofchestnut , and a complexion

. At A of brilliant transparency the cademy , people would have turned round to look at her ; but here she k nitted quietly behind the counter , and sold me a fourpenny brush without any airs whatever ; and probably ’ Tu lliver s her Bruchsal friends , like Maggie n a a aunts , fear that her si gular ppear nce will stand in her way through life . We started up a valley that rose gently south- eastwards towards a ridge of hills o n the far horizon ;

- a green peaceful valley , with a trout stream winding down it , lively enough by nature , but dammed at every mile into sleepy mill pools : rich meadows re ady no w for the second harvest tilled land in strips of every o f — and variety crops corn , roots , coleseed , t - - il grea pink and white poppies for o . Tall poplars Stood in the moist land by the river n side , and fruit trees , of course , all alo g the - H d road . Sleepy old world villages , ei el sheim G andels heim , , Diedelsheim , with tall white gables jostling each other side by side , FATH E R RH I N E 65 and elaborate wrought - iron signs projecting o f ae l over the roadway , and relics medi va masonry ; great patient oxen in the carts ; sunburnt men and women ; children half naked in this almost tropical sunshine .

Gradually we parted from our little river , crossing a ridge into the next valley then n we coasted deliciously dow into Bretten , a l the birthpl ce of Me anchthon . We had come at the wrong time ; for the great man’ s house had been pulled down and o f not yet rebuilt , in honour the quater centenary o f his birth ; but we consoled ourselves with tea and rice- cakes in a de s erted A garden just outside the town . fter

Bretten , we crossed into yet another valley , o f to Knittlingen , most picturesque village all ; and hence the road rose steadily u p a wards , fetching wide compass to wind round the end o f the steep wooded ridge which we had seen from the first o n o u r a horizon . Just s we dismounted in the o f steepest part , a party Germans came “ All coasting down , with shouts of Heil

. F o u r as they swept by ive minutes later, o wn turn came ; for the road wound gently

round the end of the ridge , and we put up our feet and ran down a couple of miles

into Maulbronn , while the harvesters stood u s still among their corn to watch pass , and held up their sickles to shade their n eyes from the level su . E 66 F ATH E R RH IN E

Maulbronn lies in a fertile hollow b e o f — tween two ridges , one which that — which we had j ust turned is clothed to

the top with vines , all but the last twenty o f feet sheer rock , and the wood that a of crowns the ctual crest . Half the is o ld village inside the abbey walls , a a a gre t squ re moated enclosure , with

many of its towers still standi ng . The is h as abbey itself , and been ever since R the eformation , a seminary for Protest who ant clergy , occupy the conventual buildings proper ; while the rest are let o u t , apparently as ordinary dwelling E houses . xcept that one more of the has flanking towers disappeared , every thing stands now practically as it stood n in the sixtee th century . “ o u r We left cycles at the Post , just o u t outside the abbey gate , and strolled to look ro u nd and take o ne or two photo was graphs while there still light . Then

back to supper , which was so excellent as s o (and , we learned next day , cheap) that I cannot refrain from recording its An praises here . hour afterwards we were loitering arm in arm round the

precincts , in and out among the irregular deep - buttressed walls that loomed twice as big in the dusk ; then sitting to watch the bats flit about the lindens , picturing as ourselves students in these Cloisters , FATH E R RH IN E 67

and recalling o ld college memories o f o u r

own . Do you remember little Black ” and the stewed kidneys ? says Schultz ; an d I know now that he is happy . When ever Schultz’ s heart overflows with healthy

animal spirits , the first memory that comes to the surface is always that of Black and the stewed kidneys . CHAPTER X

Im Wi n terrefec to ri u m

Zu M au nn i n d em K t lbro los er, ’ D a t w as u m d en u geh Tisch her m , ” n Kli gt n ich t wie Paternos ter. SC HEFF EL .

Au t gur 6.

R EAKF AS TED a o u t s ee B e rly , and went to the Abbey . The church in itself would ’ have been worth a day s ride ; but far more unusual is the perfect preservation a of other arrangements for mon stic life . The cloisters are literally paved with effigies of knights and monks in lo w - insc ri relief, framed in deep cut Gothic p tions ; and the great fountain still spouts out water i nto its triple basin in the old a w pl ce Opposite the refectory door , here the monks used to wash their hands . The Chamber of Flagellation is still p ainted over in black and white with appropri ate “ texts If thine eye or thine hand offe nd thee Whom the Lord loveth , He

- etc . chasteneth etc . , ; the hot air bath looks ready for use at any moment . N o remains in England can give so vivid a as

70 F ATH E R R H I N E to Er o fArmeniu s go the way of , the son , and to stand among that multitude that no o u r man can number , and choose the lot of o n next life earth , it may be that we could do no better than take such a peasant ’ s life And as this . then the tourists of that new world will come hurrying through our little corner of the universe , and we shall meet o n them the road , and pass them with this same look of primeval indifference on o u r a brown wrinkled f ces , trudging steadfastly homeward with o u r impleme nts of labour and s u n over our shoulder, the setting in our eyes . By four o’ clock we had a still more definite notion of what it is to work through the heat o f the day under an A s u n R ugust by the hine , and we stopped at Ber sh eimer for tea in an orchard g . I had and no more spirit for my lamp , went into s hO a tiny pto get some , for nearly every in one Germany sells methylated spirit . I found two wrinkled o ld crones gossiping there , and a wizened girl of thirteen behind ff o r the counter , ready to o er me lemons penny whistles , stockings or cheese , any n l fl thi g I iked in a small , tarnished , y blown way . She went down into the and of cellar for my spirits , one the old women entered into conversation with me . Size knew what I wanted the spirits fo r ; they were to work the machine that made FATH E R RH I N E 7 1

? she my bicycle go . No Well , herself could never see what was the advantage o f ’ o ne that o ne had to work with one s o wn d a a legs . The other y , only , gentleman came riding through the village “ aber er hatte wirklich Pech H for it suddenly went crack , j ust by my door , and I was standing there ; and he took it up against ’ and d the stable wall there , woul n t let any A ! one else come near him . ch Gott what language he did use to the children ! and o ff he took the whole breeches the wheel , and blew it up with a great pump that he had a with him ; and then it went crack gain , ’ and he sat down and said to me , That s ’ to -da h e the fifth time y, says ; and now I must take the train ; ich habe doch wirklich Pech

The road was bad from here to Durlach , w as but there an excellent footpath , on A which we took the liberty to ride . mile o r so from the town an official road sweeper Stopped me , and threatened the ve ngeance of the law Possibly he hoped for a tip at any rate , he left me under the had w impression that I had a narro escape , and I Stopped fifty yards further on to be o f b obble ready to help Schultz out the , if necessary . But Schultz simply addressed the man in his best English : A hot day don’ t you find it dusty work ? rotten 1 It really was hard li nes on him ! 72 F ATH E R RH I N E

’ roads you ve go t here in Baden and the f A o ficial let him pass like a lamb . fter all , perhaps it is best not to know German in Germany I had bent o ne ofmy pedals by running o n carelessly against a post that footpath , and at Durlach I went into a shop to ask where I could get it put right A some - what over dressed German , who was talk n ing with the shopma , turned round at the o f En leesh sound my voice . You spik g

to o . I s w o I ho y u . I ride the ou t o f wheel . Then , as we went the door , he asked Where come you o u m ? Do y ean , where do I come from o r where am I going to

Y - A . e es . lright I Show you He had evidently not understood o f off a word my question , and he rattled as hard as he could down a lot of side Streets p aved with the most impossible cob bles . Respect for our o w n laden machines forbade ou r following at the same pace ; but presently we found him waiting at the door of a workshop , and I apologised for cob having kept him , explaining that the bles had been too much for u s . He looked so blank that I had to repeat it in German , in which language he told us that we i m ght get our machines mended here , and o rode ff. The smith had soon put me straight , and was much interested in FATH E R RH I N E 73

’ i Schultz s Wh ppet , which we had to ex plain again for his benefit . Towards the end , several other German cyclists came n in , and , after listening for a mome t , one of them said to Schultz Barlez - vran ais vous g , Monsieur ” Ma i s o u i , Mo n sie u r , answered a Schultz , delighted for once to find n stranger with whom he could co verse . l a The ittle man stood and hesit ted , and my friend added : Vous dé sirez quelque chose ? But the other was already at the end of his tether. He gibbered helplessly , and something like a blush struggled into his muddy cheeks ; so we saluted the a party , and hurried way to get a good A ’ laugh by ourselves . fter one s first surprise at the number of excellent lin u is ts g one meets in Germany , there is always room for astonishment at the brazen effrontery with which the rest n n plu ge into unknow tongues .

Durlach , when you have passed through the modern suburbs , is just such another o ld a quaint sleepy town as Bruchs l . We rode o u t through a medi aeval gate built over with houses , and crossed the first of F — a the real Black orest waters broad , clear trout - stream rippling swiftly over the brown stones , with gardens pressing down to its brink and fruit - trees dipping th e a into the water . Then over pl in 74 FATH E R RH I NE

s u n a towards the setting , the usu l chequer o f crops on either hand , the usual fruit trees all along the road , the first peasants n beginni g to come home from their work , a long line of woods in the distance mark o f R ing the course the hine . Twice we passed through such woods on ou r way ; thick masses of beech and firs , with a broad strip o f lawn on either side of the n s u n road , and just room for the sinki g n to sla t in and gild the trunks on our left . u s at s aw Hunger spurred on , till last we a group o ftowers above the trees then a third strip of forest , all dark by this time against the afterglow ; and thence we a emerged upon a bit of public g rden , a great grassy bastion standing in dark i a green aga nst an orange sky , a r ilway station , and a good modern hotel just out - R side the town gate . This was astatt , and here we sat down to a hearty supper was on the terrace , and felt that it good to have done ten hours ’ work in the open air before our evening meal .

We started again in the late twilight , meeting squads of weary soldiers trampi ng a and home to b rracks , listening to the far o ff chorus ! of innumerable frogs among the marshes by the Rhine . The air was delicious now ; to the eye , all was blurred together in the dusk , but the scent told “ us plainly here are pines , this field is FATH E R RH I N E 75

- clover , there is meadow sweet and new ” mown hay . Presently the moon rose in red behind one of the mountains of the F Black orest , and flamed for a few moments on the summit like a volcano ; but the roads were not good enough for

- night riding , even under her light , so we gave u pour purpose o f pushing o n to “ ” A n chern , and tur ed in to the Stern at 0 was a 0 3 . There a merry p rty in the o f great room , mostly peasants rejoicing o f in the freedom Saturday night . We were tempted for a moment to linger half an hour among them , but prudence prevailed , and we went straight to bed . CHAPTER XI

Dear lovely bowers of i n n ocen ce and ease MI GOLDS TH .

A ugw t 7 .

KE WO at 5 , out by bright sun shi ne ag ain . Two miles onwards we stopped by the side of a Black Forest a fo r a streamlet to m ke tea bre kfast . n Troops of wome , boys , and dogs passed a — us , pushing great h nd carts full of milk

- cans for Baden Baden , which lies close by among the hills s o we had our milk fresh no from the cow . But there was time to n li ger by the little stream , for we had to ff catch the from O enburg , and to stop for service somewhere o n the way if possible , and to pick up our heavier luggage A r e - at chern and direct it to Neuhausen . The road led us through neat well- to- do F villages , while the Black orest rose higher and higher o n our left the H o r nis grinde A 0 0 0 and by chern , nearly 4 feet high , many others that loomed scarcely less big n a out of the morni g h ze . j ust to our left a o ne an were terr ces of little hills , above u other , washed pthere in past times by the river , when it filled the whole bottom 7 6

7s F ATH E R RH IN E

o u r own get tickets ; yet , by a skilful o f division labour , we find even time to rush to the refreshment room as well , and “ ’ ” lay in belegte BrOdc hen and apricots and a bottle of red wine for o u r journey up the mountain railway . c an If you stand something of a crowd , there are few more cheerful places than a Black Forest train o n a fine Sunday morning in summer . These honest happy people have al l been working h ard from Monday to Saturday ; and to- day they six a a were up at , and h ve lready heard mass , and will spend the rest of the day to - in not o uproarious merry making . Here one may still see just the simple old - world prosperity that Goldsmith describes ; but a these are no deserted vill ges , for at every stoppage the platform is crowded with cheerful faces and picturesque costumes , and as many get in , while few yet go t am s aris o u . Trecentos inseris eheu j ” es t ! And yet how can one find fault with such a mass of happiness and good nature : here is toothless Darby Opposite E a o f to me , in an ton j cket dark blue broadcloth , and a scarlet waistcoat glit tering with gilt buttons ; there is tooth less j oan by his side , a thick double pigtail the am t he u t nt the van l p , before cycle is p i o . This seems absurd ; b u t it will be seen th at we fou nd a good reason for it at Rorschach .

80 F ATH E R R H I N E o f quite young brown hair escaping from under her Phrygian c apof gold-emb roid ered black silk ; a smart red lining to her black gingham jacket , the collar of her vest ff a a sti with overl pping sc les of silver . How s h e chatters and how She laughs till her nose almost touches her chin ! and the old man takes his great pipe o u t of his mo u th and laughs with her, while their honest brown eyes twinkle as merrily as the stream ’ a by which we breakf sted this morning . Tis merry in hall w hen the chins wag all ! Meanwhile the train leaves the broad v alley and climbs up into the hills ; the has river become a torrent , poplars give way to pines and beeches , with walnuts i n o f the fields and fruit trees , course , all along the roads . I believe we are an express train , but we Stop charitably at every station ; men dash out desperately w across the line as we dra up , and loiter fe w reluctantly back a minutes later , wiping their mouth with the back of their hand ; the guard is not hurried as o n - a o f week d ys , but gives them plenty time to get in before bawli ng out the “ Err r rr r which stands convention ally for Fertig (Right away Here comes one passenger bringing a foaming tankard for his wife , followed by a waitress in costume , with sleeves fit for Ach d u ! a bishop . , guter lieber Mann FATH E R R H I N E 81 exclaims the grateful spouse with her first breath ; and now the Episcopal waitress h may take back the empty vessel , wit an extra penny for her pains . We have worked hard all week , and heard mass at ’ and six o clock this morning , ours is no fi n-de - S ié cle liver to sicken at an honest draught of malt by the way

We are soon in the heart of the hills , ff o f among pine woods and cli s granite , with huge stray boulders lying about in At the meadows . Hornberg we are already 1 0 0 0 feet above the sea ; and now the train pants and winds along the hill a and side , vill ges farms scattered along - the torrent side below , and nothing but n u s pines and gra ite above . Triberg comes , and brings a longer halt than and usual , our old couple rise here from Ade their seats . says Darby to us all Ade a a collectively , and s ys j o n ; and r we watch them walking away , Shoulde to shoulder , through the crowd of bright Sunday scarlets and whites and greens that is thicker on Triberg platform than elsewhere ; but presently our attention is diverted to the episcop al handmaidens who come down the train with baskets o f fruit worthy of the Goblin Market , and ff at n o ered a less rui ou s price .

The train labours upwards again , crawl ing like a tortoise and doubling like a 82 FATH E R R H I N E

hare . We left Triberg ten minutes ago , suddenly it appears down below us on our left ; another quarter o f an hour and

is far o n . here it again , away the right We are more than 2 0 0 0 feet up by this time , and the scenery grows still wilder ; granite and pines still , but plenty of colour to relieve them ; masses of fox -ash glove , mountain , elder in profusion no t - our common dark berried elder , but loaded with bright scarlet fruit like bunches of coral—great sulphur butter in o u t o f flies flitting and the sunshine , and making more visible by contrast the darkness of the pines that run sharp up from the ridges into the sky . Our com par tment is nearly empty now ; only a ' u s and commercial traveller Opposite , a graceless youth reading Zola in German , and a young married couple in the far corner , who have just finished feeding d no w their baby , and have laid it own on a tiny little mattress brought for the purpose , and bend over in adoration to watch it sprawl its naked feet and clutch air in the with its fingers . The train at begins to quicken last , and we plunge into a longer tunnel than any before ; u hence we emerge pon Sommerau , the 0 highest point of the line ( 2 7 3 feet) . Here the way begins to Slope very gently o n downwards , and we speed through a FATH E R R H I N E 83 delicious cool breeze along the bottom of a shallow trough o f meadow land patched with long stripes of rye and potatoes , and rising gently on either side into dark n pineclad ridges . The lazy brooks wi d along through thickets of rush and purple

- loose strife , and the red roofs of St Georgen contrast vividly wi th the sub dued purple - grey shingles to which o u r eyes had grown accustomed all up the “ ” valley . This is very pretty country , a I remarked to the commercial tr veller , who had j u s t been explaining to me ho w a - the oil is extr cted from the poppy seeds . ” Yes , yes , he answered doubtfully ; “ ’ In but I don t want to live in it . ’ summer it s colossally ho t ; and the n ’ ” again , in winter , it s colossally cold .

‘ No doubt he w as altogether right ; but it is none the less a delightful country to travel through . CHAPTER x11

Ecce sub urb anu s clivoso trami te t o s tor Vol vitur i m m iss is ue secu ru s h ab enis , q pedes To lli t at hu nc fac ilis a t u n tu a ruen em : f lli p c r t . Rauciso nans lat at i n flari ue rec us at e crep , q P n u at u : S ili ces s ua sa n u ino lenta ue ata e m ic m hic , g q f ”

l n ar i nfes to s ue . crep , q deos O M K I Bicolico n vu P V . S . ER A ON . 47 .

W E at n alighted Donaueschinge , and s ee went to the source of the Danube, tantalisingly cold and clear in its deep basin of stone ; and then we started i n a ff intense he t for Scha hausen . The road led us gradually uphill towards the edge of the great plateau ; and at Behla , - woo d s I the last village before the pine , went into an inn to buy milk for our tea . I found mine host in a great room on the

- first floor , with the shutters half closed to keep o u t the heat ; and here sat all o f the fathers the village , assembled in their Sunday afternoon conclave round a huge oaken table that groaned with

flago ns o f beer . They were discussing some question of an acqu ed u c t o r irriga tion scheme , evidently the burning ques o f tion local politics , and I wished I could 84

86 FATH E R RH I N E

crowned like ours with sombre pines . s u d We turned our eyes that way , and — — de aly behold beyond ! There w as no thought in either of u s for a moment o ftheir being clouds . Infinitely beyond all that we had ever of thought or dreamed , the seen walls lost Eden could no t have been more beauti ful to us ; not more awful , round heaven , ” o f the walls sacred Death . There were the Alps as Ruskin s aw them for the first S chaflhau s en time from the terrace above , only dimmer in the heat , and with no tinge fo r was of sunset on them yet , it scarcely

- half past four . o u r We went back and cooked tea , and enjoyed our last look over the plateau we were about to leave . Vast undulations o f bright green pasture and yellow corn , dotted with brilliant red and white vil l ages ; a great gap in the hills through which the infant Danube flows ; we could see gleams and Ioops o f water here and there , that would never rest till they a reached the Bl ck Sea . The spin down to Zollhaus was de lightful ; in the Danube basin pastures had w as preponderated , but here it all as o ne corn , and such corn seldom sees for and o f - richness depth colour ; orange gold , with the dark blue o f the distant forests f w o r a background . The road as bordered F ATH E R RH I N E 87 by morella cherry trees and all the budd ing Roman senators of the next generation

were up among the branches , or eating the fruit out of their hats as they came along . A whole bevy o fyoung girls comi ng arm in- arm up the road , bareheaded and bare a rmed , in fresh pink Sunday gowns , scattered in well- feigned panic to let us 600 coast by . We ran down more than feet in about four miles ; but after Zoll a haus , the road mounted ag in , for there was that second ridge of 60 0 feet to be o u r crossed before final downhill began . We were glad to find that the road went up with uncompromising directness , at an angle down which I , at least , could not for - it possibly have ridden ; , though was ff a Sti bit of work for the time , we were soon at the top ; and then we laughed in our hearts to think that S c haflh au s en was o ff and 1 0 0 e only eight or nine miles , 5 fe t o n below us . Schultz , his Whippet , rode o n in front , coasting serenely with his feet the pedal s and his machine under perfect command . I followed him backpedalling , and here and there even putting on the brake for fifty yards ; plungi ng down a devious gorge among meadows and pine too A woods , busy to look out for the lps a o f gain , but delighting in the rush air and o f the rapid succession beautiful views , for the s u n was just at the right angle to give 88 FATH E R RH I N E

an us the happiest effects o f light d shade . a Bander , a pretty little vill ge between the ff w as a cli s and the torrent , pleasant sight to - day ; all h ad crept out by this time to n n make the most of the eveni g s u . Girls

- in- n - and arm arm agai , boys cherry Stained dishevelled ; the elders at their wi ndows o r inn tabled outside the . Not a trace of - e f the Custom hous o ficers , who should have been here to levy a duty on o u r ' bicycles ! So dow n we ran to Moris ' ’ as endzmanebe as hausen , pretty and as Bander ; but here o u r misfortunes b e

- gan ; for , alighting ill advisedly to doctor ’ a o r Schultz s le king tyre , we ( rather I , in my misplaced zeal) , burst it in the pump A a a ing up . symp thetic pastor ssured us that it was only about three- quarters o f a ” ff Stunde to Scha hausen , which , on the a analogy of previous inform tion , we took a to mean three miles . We were l te already , and it seemed quicker to walk s o short a distance ; but after walking three solid miles and then meeting a sign post that announced five kilometres more , Schultz saw that he had best patch u pand have done with it ; so he s et his bicycle and l his against a tree , stuck manfu ly to o f work , in Spite the flies , which had become appallingly aggressive in propor tion as the Sky grew overcast with every symptom of a thunderstorm . I had gone FATH E R RH I N E 89

' o n to find water and brew a j o ru m o f a Bovril , wherewith to st y our already clamorous appetites ; and I found him with his arms literally bleeding from the horse

flies , but just finishing , and triumphant . In five minutes we were able to go on n a again , and in twe ty more we c me down suddenly from our narrow v alley upon c ha S flhau sen and the Rhine . We had heard the waters long before we s aw : them and now a fresh breeze , with quite o f an unmistakable scent spray in it , came

to meet us like a gust from the s ea. n a Then , sudde ly , through a g pin the s aw houses , we the broad rapids of the A lpine river , here carded into long white

fleeces among the rocks , and there leaping high into the air ; but mostly sweeping a - n down in m sses of cool jade gree , with a as a steady roar th t resolved itself, we a listened , into something like the p tter of innumerable small feet and the babble s u d of innumerable voices . It was like a A a den plunge into a new world . sh rp n turn to the right , and the we followed ’ the raci ng waters to our n i ght s quarters

at Neuhausen , where we alighted very

hungry and tired , less from the distance a than from the he t . We secured a room from whose balcony we could catch a F glimpse of the alls below us , and were very glad to get o u r legs under the table 90 F ATH E R RH I NE

of at last , and feel that the labours the ' day were over . I shall not attempt to describe the Falls ; those who have seen them will always t e member , and those who have not will never know . We went down to them after dinner . An hour ago we had watched from o u r balcony how the thunderclouds were mass ing round the snow mountains ; and now and the sky was pitchy dark , big with

floods of rain . We scrambled down to the edge o f the Falls and drank in the sound , and cooled our faces in the spray ; there was b arely light enough to s ee the white masses tossi ng mountain- high E in that reverberating darkness . ven Nature generally does best by leaving something to the imagination ; and that roaring deluge seemed more prodigious under the inky thundercloud tha n I h ad e ever thought it by day . We climb d up again just in time to escape the first sullen o f splashes the storm , and slept once more o f like tired children , to the distant roar R the hine . CHAPTER XIII

u u t A g r 8.

WOKE at to the roar o f the Rhine F again . loods had fallen in the night , and ’ the s ky was Still overc ast ; but the sun s and heat beat through , presently the day grew as sultry as though no storm had F been . We were to look round the alls a and s ee o u r a ag in , after lugg ge , and then a o n Zii ric h tr in to , whence we hoped to ride to Arth and sleep the night on the R igi . But it was a day of muddles ; what between the Swiss station and the Baden a o f station , with mile and a half hilly a a ro d between them , and the Dou nier ’ who wouldn t leave his breakfast in time o u r to pass luggage through , and the ’ porter who wouldn t hurry him up , and my own dawdling in a shop over post cards and balsams fo r fly- bites : at any rate , the net result was that we ran our to o and train close , while I was fighting a a the b gg ge and bicycles through , Schultz , 9 ! 92 FATH E R RH I NE

commissioned to secure our places , had taken them by a natural error in the near es t train ; and when I had rushed into the w right one , and alked from end to end a o f a in se rch him , it bec me evident that , Zii ric h while I was travelling to , he was going in the Opposite direction to Schaff hausen . I managed to send offa telegram at o ur - first stopping place , addressed to “ The Englishman in light grey flannel n jacket and k ickers , Station Platform , ff o f Scha hausen , and spent the rest the morning at Zii rich h anging about the - e a post offic for reply from him . I imagined him infringing unconsciously some law of the Medes and Persians , o fli c io u s a and an gend rme , and my poor friend fighting desperately against fear ful odds on a foreign platform , and hauled o ff at last to some mediaev al dungeon ; but at the next train and brought him in safe sound , and we were too glad at meeting again to think more o f the hours that were gone . His only fight , it appeared , had been with a stou t Swiss who had good- naturedly tried to restrain him from j umping o ut when he found the train beginning to “ Start without me . I gave him a shove , and he doubled up into a corner ; but all our baggage went on to the floor ; and before I could pick it up again , the

94 F ATH E R R H IN E

he seized the next machine on the right , and with o ne mighty wrench sent the whole dozen o n th at side to the right o n about , flat the floor , jangling together like a cartlo ad o f old iron . We hastened o u r o ff to seize own and wheel them , but w s ee ere yet in time to him bend down , s et and grip the undermost , and the whole pack upright again with a second crash against the rest . The rain and the loss o f time had com pelled us to give up the Rigi ; and we determined to spend the night o n the U etlib er d a g instead , and ride on next y t ib e to Brun nen . The U e l rg rises 1 5 0 0 feet above Z u rich ; it w as i nteresting to watch our engine pant up through the steep meadows and pine- forest but little by little the rain thickened upon u s ; soon we were in a cloud ; before we reached the station it was almost dark , and no o f sunset to be thought , our only idea w a s to get to our inn as dry as might be . ’ We had boldly decided , for cheapness o n - ff sake , the Uto Sta el Hotel , five minutes further on , but very comfortable , as we n n were told . Those were five lo g mi utes , for we lost our w ay in the dark among o f a network paths through the wood , and toiled up braes and slid down banks , cycles and baggage and all , and the rain

96 F ATH E R RH I N E dripped double from the soaked pines over our heads ; and we fell i nto wrath and a mutu l recriminations , until one went for ou r ward to spy , and came upon haven of a o ff refuge not fifty y rds , and in a moment rain and depression were forgotten like a dream . On coming down to dinner we found that o u r places had been laid at one end of a long table , away from the half a

- dozen ladies who were our fellow guests . “ A tabby party ! ” whispered Schultz across to me , in a loud aside , as we sat down , and I really blushed for him ; mar ried men grow s o brutal in those w ays ! Personally I should have been very glad u fo r to move pand talk to them , they and seemed very pleasant , in one way at least o ne is always pretty s afe with a lady ’ n they don t talk golf over their di ner . A fter the soup , to my surprise and relief, Schultz himself moved up towards them and remarked in a firm voice that it was a n and a very r iny eve ing , hereupon the conversation became general . The ladies o u t n n went after din er , leavi g us to enjoy a a our wine and cig rs , and the ple sant mur mur of their chatter and laughter from the adjoining room . We went out for five a minutes upon the b lcony , the rain had and ceased , the clouds had broken enough to show a few stars here and there in the

93 FATH E R RH I N E accomplished enough to offer to turn over the pages for you ; and if yo u will ex cuse my going o n with my letter to my wife

Oh , they would excuse anything from a s o a man who showed pl inly , in polite and n e a co siderate languag , that he was ccus to med and to know what he wanted , to F o f get it . our the rest had come in and ' taken their seats by this time ; and no w w e heard a scurry down the passage , and a “ ’ — little gasp of Katie , you re wanted you And and your songs . in the twinkling of an eye Katie w as singing her heart out at ff the piano, while Schultz wrote , and pu ed , n for and stared up at the ceili g inspiration , and puffed and wrote again . Bravo ! Thank yo u thank you ! Won’ t you give us another ? From the ‘ ’ ’ h ? Yes Geis a , thank you ; I m very fond of that He resumed , even while i o f speaking , the nterrupted thread his And letter . yet I think he did really enjoy the music ; and I am sure they and enjoyed playing singing to him . My o wn poor words of studied and deferential appreciation were as dust in the balance ; neither did it profit me that I l aid aside my letter and put on my best concert

behaviour all the time . By the time they

had played their fingers into a palsy , and

sung themselves hoarse , he had finished F ATH E R RH I N E 99 his letter ; after which he unbent very prettily , and related my various crimes and misadventures with a v er v e which amused even me , who laboured under the double disadvantage of being the of victim , and knowing the bare truth these entertaining romances . If these pages should ever meet the eye o f any one of those kind and gracious ladies who were at the Uto Kulm on the even 8th A ing of this of ugust , I hope that , amid her pleasant recollections of the im periou s gentleman who elicited such a dis o f play her musical talents , and amused her with such lively pictures of my imbe Cilit s he one y , will spare sigh of pity for the retiring fellow- traveller who s at in the corner and was butchered to make her holiday . CH APTER XIV

n a u - l a u Seve we ry phi l le g es we sped , The sett ing s u n t o see ; u n and n t t o S lle grim he we bed , Su llen and grim we nt we . N n u n t a i e sleepless ho rs of igh we p ssed , The risi ng s un to see ; u l n and at la t S l e grim he rose s , u ll n and m S e gri rose we . ur e i i The L a ate aff/1c R g .

Augus t 9 .

WE had ourselves called at and , in spite of the unpromising weather , we rose doggedly by the cold glimmer o u r of approaching dawn , and packed luggage , and wheeled up a couple of hundred feet to the summit . The morn and a ing air was raw , the mount in wet under foot , with a strong wind from W a the S . . ; but we lingered ne rly an a ff hour on the summit , m king hot co ee o u r n to help out breakfast , and trotti g about from o ne point of view to another a in the f int hope o fa clearing . The lower heights were plain enough—Black Forest and Vosges , and hills beyond the lake of Zii ric h ; even Rigi and Pilatus were clear at first ; but before sunrise they too

1 02 FATH E R RH IN E

o n the sides , and pines the ridges ; beauti ful marsh plants in the flat fields by the — flo w erin streamlet g rush , and the pale - w scented marsh pink , and masses of meado sweet . Then , at Kloster , the road divided , leading to the right in zigzags over the of ridge , or following the gentle slope the valley to the left . We chose the left : and here we stopped for ou r second a - - breakfast , at a ch let farmhouse post o ffice- inn , where we found the quarters j ust tolerable until towards the end of o ur o ur meal , when host came in fresh - so from the cow stall , and painfully hos itable and a arlico s e p f miliar and g , that we hastened from his presence into the A t fresh air . s eepish climb brought us to o f Tu rl m n the shallow lake , whose argi , white with cotton - rush and grass o f Par nassu s l , we skirted for near y a mile ; after which the road began to dip , and ran plea s m antly down to Kappel . Here is an u usu ally tall church , rising above a picturesque group o f buildings on a knoll somewhat aside from the road ; and here the Swiss reformer , Zwingli , died fighting for his faith in battle ; but we had no time to look for his monument , for at this point the first shower came on . However , it o ff n l soon left agai , and we whee ed down wards once more , along a charming road into Zug . FATH E R RH I N E 1 03

Zug is a very pretty town—even since the great landslip of 1 887 that swept so — many o fits towers into the l ake and the view across the water to Rigi and Pilatus

must be magnificent on a finer day . But

with u s it was still chilly , and threatening rain : s o we only stayed to look round the n n o n tow , and the pushed again for

Brunnen . We skirted the lake , with cold grey w aves chasing each other to the and l shore , c ouds settling lower and lower At A upon the Rigi . rth we took in

water for lunch , but hardly had we begun to bivouac outside the village when the A drizzle began again . cellar under a n house , the ightly abode of goats , soon proved an impossible place of refuge ; and we were very glad to come across a little sort o f tavern some quarter of a mile further o n ff and and , where we ordered co ee bread n butter , and consumed therewith the to gue at which we had bought Zug . Hostess and guests were all definitely of the n labouri g class , but the whole place was clean and fresh ; o ne often finds this in a A t Switzerl nd and Germany . last a lull

came in the rain , and we started once more . We stopped presently to have a good look at the enormous masses of earth and boulders that swept down from the Ross berg and buried four villages in 1 80 6 ; and but the drizzle came on again , this 1 04 F ATH E R RH I N E

time for good . The clouds sank lower and lower , and our spirits with them ; a melancholy owl hooted at interv als down R from the forests of the igi , echoing dismally from cliff to cliff along the valley ; the water began to trickle down our necks , and our wheels dragged in Lo wert z the deepening slush . Near , we o n a overtook a little man a Bant m , after whom laboured a sorry parson o n a tricycle , with a dripping wideawake and drenched black clothes that clung to his skin . The little man raced us gallantly , and , misled no doubt by the Teutonic ’ a shape of Schultz s straw hat , c lled out i n a to h m i German as he p ssed . There was something familiar to me about the back and the voice , and Schultz looked hard at the speaker before answering “ ’ Yo u mustn t try me i n Greek ; I was ” a a mathematical schol r , you remember . Fo r an a it was none other th Bl ke , our o f senior tutor old ; Blake , most indolent n and sarcastic of Dons , to whom , twe ty a o a years g , steamed up our l mentation o f ex to r and our ancient tale wrong , of tio nate cooks and unappetising dinners in Hall , of dull lectures and dreary n chapels , while he lay beside his ectar and hurled his bolts , and found , no doubt , n n a music in our doleful so g . How ofte , a looking b ck on those times , Schultz and

1 06 FATH E R RH IN E column of the Time: with bated breath And ou every morning . y are doing well , no doubt , and married , by this time . ” o w n I have five boys of my , answered

Schultz with a touch of pardonable pride . F ! ive boys Why , there you have ’ plenty to do , if all else should fail . I m ’ always glad to hear of St Christopher s ” n men doi g well in life . “ to o u Well , be quite frank with y , Mr ow e Blake , I never reckon that we much of it to the College . The only tutor I can remember ever getting the least help from was the late Bishop of Wapping . The little man made a wry face for a his moment , but rugged features returned at once to their habitual ironical smile ; and he answered in his pleasant . pathetic Ah ! little voice , , yes , the Bishop You were a mathematical man , and of course the mathematical teaching of the College was under his especial supervision . I am glad to hear that you felt—as indeed I’ m — sure we all felt the better for his genial ” and manly influence . ’ That wasn t quite the way I put it . “ ’ ? s ee No But you ll it that way now , n my dear Schultz . Under the respo si b ilities o fso vigorous a family as you speak of, you yourself must have learnt by this time ho w hard it is for all of us to in flu ence - the young and may I add , the F ATH E R RH I N E 1 07 — thoughtless just as one would wish . ou d so But I am glad y are oing well , perhaps I may some day have the pleasure ofan introduction to Mrs Schultz .

I exchanged glances with my friend , and E n we understood each other . vide tly there was no getting the better o fBlake in these o fold n days , any more than , whe we were

a . And worms bene th his feet besides , we began to realise that this little grizzled o ld fellow on his bantam was quite keeping us o n the stretch ; and we remembered how his black coat used to keep up with us - o n down the towing path race days , and what trophies of past aquatic triumphs hung in his rooms among the Raphael s Mo rghen and the Aru nd els . There was a h - no qu rrelling with suc a case hardened , l imperturbable ittle Don , even though had no t And kinder memories intervened . suddenly another recollection came into ’ my mi nd : Oughtn t we to call you Mr ’ ’ a ? De n I asked didn t I see , a week o r two ago Oh you needn’ t be so formal with me no t for the present . I have yet entered o n into possession , and here , our holidays ,

to tell the truth , I have already had occasion to regret that they have found me o u t . at my hotel By the bye , he “ in are a broke , I am afraid we riding way ” a n from my comp nio . 1 08 F ATH E R RH I N E

We looked round . The dank and drip ping parson was a good quarter o fa mile n o n in the rear , struggli g along foot , so

as s ee th e . far we could , through rain “ ’ ” What s the matter ? shouted our co m panion , and turning to Schultz , he added , perhaps you c an shout louder than I ” c an. “ What’ s the matter ? ” bellowed

Schultz . The unhappy man made no d his answer , but seemed to be men ing “ ’ — ? ” pace . What s the matter No a n nswer agai , only by this time he was evidently trotting . Ah s ee , I he has plenty of work still left I n him ; perhaps we had better mount again , and give him a lead as before . There i s after all no tie between us b e o ur yond common cloth , and the persist ency w ith which he has fastened himself I s tar ted upon me at the hotel . this morn n R ing from Brunnen to ride rou d the igi , and I found it difficult to decline his com n h n pa y . But we had ardly mounted , whe we heard such a heartrending wail from the poor derelict that there was nothing for it but to dismount and wait for him . “ Well ? ” asked Blake with some im patience , as soon as he was within Speaking distance . “ ” an ! Oh , Mr De The poor wretch All had no breath for more . our machines

1 1 0 FATH E R RH I N E

’ now and Look here , that s the direction , ’ you can t miss the road without turning aside to ride up o ne o f these two moun ’ tains , which I presume you won t be Yo u tempted to do . pass through Schwyz , there in front of u s ; or rather through S eewis , which lies a little lower down ; h and then , I believe , you ave the choice of ’

. is two roads One long , and I m afraid it may be rather heavy in this weather ; the is other a short cut down by the river . ’ You ll have to ride through an inch or so t ’ of wa er here and there , but that s the road ’ a s o s ee a we are going to t ke , you you c n t ” miss the way . The other was profuse in abject apolo gies , and he could never forgive himself s o for having given Mr Dean much trouble . ’ Oh , don t mention it . If you find it v er o u y hard work , perhaps y had better stay at Seewis they are sure to be able to lend you dry clothes— they always do at And o these Swiss hotels . be sure y u take - something warm . Good bye ; God bless you ! ” He shook his victim affectionately by the as hand ; and we rode on , he turned to me his again , and murmured in pathetic little o f voice , with the lingering emphasis genuine emotion Sic me s ervavit Apollo ! ” Translate that to Schultz .

1 1 2 F ATH E R RH IN E

! ” Thank you replied Schultz , who knows his Horace pretty well by heart .

We all wheeled on together to Brunnen , a an and too chatting ple s tly the while , not conscious of th e rai n or of the few inches of water here and there across the lower r o u r oad . I think companion had spoken the truth ; he was glad to meet us again , if only for the salvation we had brought a o n a him . We p rted the qu y at Brunnen , knowing that he w as sure to be st aying at “ ' ” Wald s tatter the Hof, and explaining that this did not suit our pocket . No ; he had , indeed , been staying at the Wald ' starter Hof but he had m ade up his mind no w to go on to Bellinzona by the even ing train . He thought the air of Italy no w might suit him better j ust , he ex plained , with his gently ironical smile . o He was very glad to have met us . G od bye ! I think he would have added his benison , but perhaps he saw a twinkle in o ur eyes ; at any rate , he only repeated his

- good bye , and we went on to our humbler ” quarters at the Hirsch .

1 1 4 FATH E R RH I N E

ensations o n p of Providence , falling alike the j ust and the unjust—and the soup was undeniably good , to begin with ; and our - so fellow guests looked very happy , and by this time were we. My neighbours on the left were two m n - aiden ladies , jocu d and well liking in

- their middle aged Spinsterhood , of whom the elder was very voluble , while the n younger listened in dutiful sile ce , only assenting to every remark of her sister’ s with nods and wreathed smiles . I soon n in learned , amo g other information of teres t , that they came from Cambridge s o an shire , where there were not m y nor s o mountains as here , many mosquitoes . Miss was i nclined to co nnect the mosquitoes in some way with the moun e o f tains . Not that she had b en up any the mountains yet , but they looked as if they might breed mosquitoes . She had heard that bears and Chamois were no t yet wholly extinct . At the mention of mosquitoes , Schultz pricked up his ears . He gave an eloquent ’ — sketch of his own s u flerings described — the state of his ankles especially in lan o wn guage of vivid directness , but , I must , o f d stu ious propriety . He had a numer o u s audience here ; the subject lay near to his heart ; and I have seldom heard him s o

. n eloquent Why , he co cluded , should F ATH E R RH I N E 1 1 5

a all the flies of Baden and Switzerl nd ,

countries teeming with animal life , single his body ou t for torture ? and why in par ticu lar his ankles ? My neighbour was sympathetic and

motherly . She only feared it might have

some connection w ith his diet . Was it an n wise , for inst ce , to drink beer u der such circumsta nc e s ? (for the waiter had just brought us our third and final glasses) . Beer inflamed the blood ; beer was a slow o f i nfir mities poison , and the very root all . A bove all things , beer was rheumatic , and a rheumatism always flew to the nkles , as s he w herself had reason to kno , for But Schultz had not started the subject ’ of flies in order to hear about Miss s

rheumatism . He reminded her that we also h ad lived some time in the very o f capital Cambridgeshire , and had there

indulged moderately but regularly in beer ,

without being eaten up by mosquitoes . “ Oh , but you were younger then . n The argument was u answerable , and “ : I our neighbour pursued Well , never

take beer nowadays . Not that I have so very much to complain of myself from the ’ ’ flies after all : it s my poor sister who s such a m artyr ! And s he drew back an inch o r two to allow full sight of the

younger lady , who nodded and simpered

- assent , the incarnation of good tempered F ATH E R RH I N E

“ martyrdom . You see , continued the ’ l so rbe r e der , long as there , they never ’ so fo r care much me , and that s why we

always sleep together . But they do so ! plague her , poor thing I often wonder ” ho wsh e can bear it ! The remedy was ingenious and no ff doubt e ectual , but it was not within ’ everybody s reach ; and I could not help smiling inwardly to think how little the neighbourhood of my tough and u m appetisi ng carcase had availed to divert

the plague from my friend . By this time the discussion had become E general . ach complained of his own ff wounds , and each had a di erent remedy A o n to suggest . lady the other side ea u -de- eer irer suggested , she believed it w as called Kir cbw arrer in this part of — - was Switzerland not cherry brandy , that — quite different but a drop o r two o f ' ea u -de-eer zrer , now , on a lump of sugar whenever the bites were particularly s he irritating . In any case , also felt that beer could hardly be the right And thing . the kind advice poured l w as in from all sides , ti l Schultz a thou

sand times sorry to have spoken , and retired abruptly to smoke his cigar in peace . I joined him presently in the

r a . ve andah , soothed and chastened man The rain had ceased for a while ; the

CHAPTER XVI

Where t h e bleak Swiss t heir stormy m ansion s a spre d , A n d a u ant a force ch rlish soil for sc y bre d .

GOLDSMITH .

Augus t I o . U P again at raining hard ; to bed again for a while . I looked ou t at about again ; the mountains were still C s o louded , but no actual rain ; after a consultation we dressed more or less under protest , and Started without much enthusiasm , though the weather already looked more promising now than half an W . e hour ago rode half a mile , and then took o u r breakfast on the parapet by the roadside , dropping crumbs into the water for the fishes , and watching the wreaths o fcloud as they curled over the

Ro ths tock at the end o f the lake . Even o n this unpromising morning the grandeur o f ou r the view impressed dull souls , and our spirits rose rapidly as we bowled on again along that marvellous road between the precipice and the lake , gladdened first by o ne ray of sunshine and then by another , until , by the time we had 1 1 8 F ATH E R RH I N E

Fl uelen reached , the clouds promised to A F break for the d ay . rench Swiss o n accosted us the platform , grizzled

- and military looking , in great wide zouave knickers that reminded us painfully of a ” divided Skirt ; he had caught sight o f

- the two fellow bicyclists , and came over to tell us that we might effect a consider able saving by taking one ticket fo r the three machines ; would I do so ? We and were nothing loth I took the ticket , “ he looked at the amount . Pardonnez ’ ? Ah a ! moi , monsieur ; combien , c est c - six . a et et vingt sous Ca f it neuf, neuf, ” a . And huit ; voil , monsieur he handed me so ns o ff an his eight , and went with concealed delight at having scored a s o u o u t o f u s o u t o f , and several more the railway company ; we s aw him no more until he came to claim his machine under n n shelter ofmy ticket at G o esc he e . Our compartment was full of Roman — Catholic seminarists professors and pupils . To -day w as the feast o f St Lawrence the and Martyr ; Schultz , who had never been a in It ly , was especially amused to observe the na i ve simplicity with which they jumbled up breviary and Baedeker and

as . scenery , quite a matter of Course D ouee ponam inimicar tuor s cabellu m pedum ar a t aienre . u am . Voil la M u s ’ N on l u tOt le Kerstelenb ac h : re , c est p 120 FATH E R RH I NE gardez n u peu la carte ! dc tor r ente " ' in v ia bibet r o ter ea exaltabzt ca ut . Amen . , pp p We had e nough sunshine already for t e h foreground , but the higher peaks were still in the clouds , and we missed especially the sple ndid pyramid of the

Br is tens to ck from the end of the valley . Go eschenen Before we reached , it was n n unmistakable broili g sunshi e , and we had hard work pushing o u r laden machines ’ up to the Devil s Bridge . We lunched l A o n ha f a mile beyond ndermatt , a slope U rs eren that overlooked the whole valley , Fu rka and the three great passes of , St a n Gotthard , and Ober lp . It was after lu ch that the worst part o f the ascent began : we had come up 1 30 0 feet from Goes 000 chenen , and had still 3 more to climb in the seven miles that separated u s now a from the summit of the Ober lp Pass . But we trudged on manfully at nearly four miles an hour , with fresh glories as opening upon us we rose , and paced by a sturdy matron of fifty or sixty , bare - footed and heavy laden , who went straight Fo r o u r ff up by the short cuts . all e orts , the stout old dame never failed to appear u s just above again at each fresh zigzag , showing a not unshapely ankle and a s u n burnt calf which any athlete might have At envied . the top of the pass we found a barren passage between the rocks , a

1 22 F ATH E R RH I N E and drained it greedily to the dregs : tip w up your elbo , and never breathe till the is last drop gone , and then wipe your lips and thank God fo r the draught It is good to have cycled down an Alpine pass ! — We pass through fields of rye Chiamu t is the highest corn -growing village in all E — urope , says Baedeker and mark the of - great frames pine trunks in the fields , o n which the corn is hastily tossed to dry f o n be ore the early winter storms come . Then village after village of purple-grey timber , each nestling round a slender Spire ; gaunt weather beaten peasants whose voices sound strange and sonorous as they call to each other across the way ; for they still speak a Latin dialect . These of 1 are the descendants those who , in 799 , having surprised and c u t in pieces a body F a of rench invaders , decked their ltars l with the bloody uniforms o f the slain ; and whose very women , during the Thirty ’ a Years war , played the j ael by whole village at a time , and in one night cut the throats of some hundreds of Austrian soldiers who had come in all charity , with pike and musket , to lead the wan 2 d erers back into the Catholic fold .

1 . Zs c ho kke . z tt Au fla e H Die Schwei . Dri e g ,

1 8 1 . 6. 7 , p 3 2 ’ B u n t L tt tz an an See p. B r e s e ers from Swi erl d d ” ta rd c . R t t a d 1 68 . 0 . I ly , 3 , o erd m , 7 , p 7 FATH E R RH I N E 1 23

We turn a sudden corner and behold

a flock of goats right in o u r path . Must we dash into the midst of them and deal (or receive) death and destruction ? They skip aside under o u r very wheels ; in the twinkling of an eye they are dispersed to

the four winds , and next moment even the cries of the herdsman sound faint u s behind , as he calls back his flock from

the precipice and the forest . Masses of A — lpine flowers and fruit barberry , coral

like scarlet elderberry , the yellow fox

glove , Canterbury bells , monkshood , a — blaze o f crimson pinks just time enough

to mark each with fresh pleasure , as we A pass . sudden fragrance , laden with memories as sweet as itself ; a mile onward o u a y know that it was mount in thyme . But now the descent slackens percept ibl s u n y, and we become aware that the is u westering fast . The shadows creep p the hillsides ; the blue smoke of evening curls up from the villages below ; a glacier , seen for a moment in the opening o f the hills , shows cold and grey ; only the peaks At still catch the rosier light . Trons , sheer hunger compels u s to stop ; for the road o ur has become heavy , and this is last Chance of a square meal for some mil es is to come . But the landlady dilatory no r and exasperating ; do her viands , a when at last they ppear , come up to 1 24 F ATH E R RH I N E the ideal which our hungry fancy had et p ainted . The s u n s while we were at e dinner , and we had still twelv miles All further to ride . went well enough a its at first , and the v lley looked best in the early d usk ; but presently we crossed the river and came among the woods ; and a here we found the road not only gre sy , but badly cut up by the diligence and

. of other vehicles Schultz , straightest ‘ his riders , goes on gaily at usual pace , even in the dark while I can only bend and painfully over my lamp , bump along somehow among the hoof- tracks in the middle ; until suddenly some accursed h as cu t and wheel right across the road , sends me flying , with the precision of a “ ” railway switch , right among the laby r inth o f o ff ruts , where I scramble j ust in time to avoid plunging into the river o n the left o r charging the solid cliff o n the right . It gives one a strange feeling to a ride at ten miles an hour in the d rk , with ’ one s hind wheel curveting and caracoling all the time like a vicious horse ; and I c o uld not help thinking of poor Lucretius “ Bu t now i t seems some u nsee n mons ter lays a t and filt an u n vol/eel His v s hy h ds po my , Draggi ng i t b ackwards i nto his

s et But I my teeth , and gripped the handles e m till my wrists ached again , and strain d y eyes to catch the dim gleam o f the lamp

1 26 FATH E R RH IN E

amused to have been caught like this . she c an ! Why , certainly give us rooms and she names a price reasonable even to o ur modest purses ; and the tall , broad and shouldered host , with black eyebrows w t grizzly beard , sits do n to chat wi h us u s over our glass of beer , and shows with pardonable pride the silver cups won by his Choral Society ; after which he leads us up to a clean and spacious room that Fo r overlooks the Rhine . a few minutes we lean o u t of the window to look at the stars , and their reflection in the rushing grey waters , and the dim outlines of snowy peaks which we shall s ee i n purple and gold ’ at to - morrow s dawn ; then we lie down and sleep once more to the music o f the river , and the rustling of tall poplars by our window side .

CHAPTER XVII

t d a i So 000 1 a t Swee y , so c lm , so brigh The bridal of th e eart h and sky ! RBE T G . HE R .

d ugurt 1 I

KE six darsres WO at , and rose as fresh as to Salute the rising morn . The s u n w as

a - n alre dy over the hill tops , floodi g the whole valley with light ; silver mists and floated down the river , wove deli cate wreaths in and out of the forests - on the mountain side . We went down o and to the bridge bef re breakfast , saw in all its perfection the view at which we had only guessed the night before . Beyond and above all those pine - clad ridges that dovetailed into each other the towards head of the valley , cut ou t in sharp d azzling snow ag ainst the forget - o f me not blue the morning sky , stood

‘ ' tvvo o fBri elserho r n and o the fangs g T di , buttressed with purple masses of rock whose rugged outlines were softened here and there by faint lilac clouds— the whole so l and etherea , and yet so clear solid , as d can a only istant mountains ppear . Pre 1 2 8

1 30 F ATH E R RH I N E

a our faces . We greed that , if the Clerk of the Weather had spread out his whole n assortment before us , we could have chose no more delightful pattern than this for ’ - to . day s ride The views were charming , both up and down the valley , and the villages perfect ; each planted o n its o w n o f little eminence amid a mass fruit trees , and looking down over steepslopes of standing corn and meadows , to where the Rhine tumbled along between ragged preci

ices a . p , thinly clothed at interv ls with pines

Presently our road turned inwards , and dipped rapidly into a ravine deep in the a o f hillside , where single arch narrow stone spanned the torrent at a dizzy

. o ur U height We put feet p, and car eered o f a past a company soldiers in a c rt , o ne o f whom bawled o u t to u s that o u r wheels were going round ; at which the ff Cli s echoed with stentorian laughter , and we laughed ourselves to think that the time - honoured friends o fo u r youth should still be s o fresh in these Rhaetian fastnesses . o f We had a steep climb out the ravine , and stopped o n the way to drink at a little fo r Spring in a wood , and look back the last time at Ilanz and its two Silver pyra mids behind . It makes me thirsty again , here as I write , to think of that spring ; the mossy trough o f hollowed pine - log that might have grown thus , without axe F ATH E R RH I N E 1 31

o r o f hammer, for the free service the

- wayfarer ; the cool lush leaves , full fed its o ver flowin s from g , through which we — waded knee - deep to come at it wild

mint and marjoram , and all fragrant wild

herbs , steaming with morning dew like — incense in that tepid air and then the childish delight of drinki ng with mouth and n n and nose eyes , plu gi g face and all n n o u r i to the water , and fi ally very arms o f up to the elbows , coolest sedatives to the heated rider ! And yet the day had all o f the freshness early Spring , with something added from all the best o f the A air o f seasons ; an pril , the freshness A May in foliage and flowers , and utumn wher gossamer , frosted with silver dew , ever the day had not yet touched the meadows . The corn stood nearly ready for the sickle ; the second grass - crop was mowing all down the valley ; and the whole world was sce nted with standing

- clover , and new mown hay , and fresh t - c u pine logs by the forest side . We had come into another bend of the valley , and a downward road ; other masses of mountain opened o u t now in o ff front , lazily putting fold after fold of diaphanous cloud as the s u n climbed higher n i to the sky . Then the village of Versam , its prettier than all fellows , with taller spire and richer orchards on a more com 1 32 F ATH E R RH I N E

manding eminence ; and here again we turn sharply inwards into a deep and s avage a gorge . The road zigz gs rapidly down — the mou nt ain Side alternate glimpses of a Vers m spire , right , left , right , left , rising — higher and higher into the sky and then

the pines fall away , and we find ourselves l crossing a ight iron bridge , under which the torrent rushes 2 60 feet below u s to R join the hine , close by , but Still invisible - w as among its pine clad precipices . This the finest sight o f its kind that we had o n ever seen , and we lingered the bridge

to drink it in . The ascending zigzags were cut in the ’ a l ff aflo r d ed f ce of a Steep c i , and us several other splendid views o f the gorge behind u s ; then we rounded a corner and ran

downhill again , and the road itself became

more monotonous , though we had still an endless variety o f cloud and mountain in R the background . We come to eichenau ,

- refuge of Louis Philippe , where we cross the Hinterrhein and get a glimpse up its Via Ems valley towards the Mala ; then , with its ti ny church perched on a steep rock in the middle of the village ; then o n to Coire , where we rest for lunch . Schultz sallied forth after the meal to n who ff explore the tow ; while I , su er from a plusquam Virgilian inactivity at these s un times , took my siesta in the , on the

1 34 FATH E R RH I N E

stood motionless against the golden sky ; sunburnt peasants trudged homewards in ’ quiet content from their day s work ; the first peace of eveni ng was come upon the

valley . So we gave ourselves up to pure o u r enjoyment of the scene , and rode at

leisure to Sargans . Here we took the train R for orschach , enjoying a frugal meal of n bread and cheese on the way , and watchi g a buz zard wheeling in great circles up i nto s k the y , while the quiet shadows crept o f over the distant masses the Vorarlberg , of and , on our left , the snows the Sentis kindled into a sudden glow of crimson

that smouldered on , through dull reds

and purples , far into the dusk . We had taken o u r tickets for Rorschach

town , the main station , and had naturally had our bicycles labelled to Rorschach

. was simply What our surprise , then , on Off l enquiry at the luggage ice , to earn that the plain label of “ Rorschach ” did not n mean the main statio , but the harbour , where we should find our machines if we were lucky enough to get in before the

train had started . We rushed back and jumped in j ust as the train moved on ; the

guard came in due time to snip our tickets ,

and , after he and I had exchanged one or

- two sentences at cross purposes , I suddenly realised that we must have jumped into the

Zurich train . The guard , naturally mis F ATH E R RH I N E 1 35

interpreting my blank dismay , began to bawl louder and louder, by way of making this benighted foreigner understand that he wanted his ticket ; and a well- meaning native came across to explain that he could “ ” En lees h— ? spik g what want you , sir and my c upwas full ! I explained to

the guard , possibly with unnecessary heat , that most civilised persons who booked to plain Rorschach would assume their

tickets to be for the main station , and not for the harbour ; that my friend and I were d u e: Romani ; that wild horses should not compel us to buy tickets for this involuntary and preposterous journey— when luckily n al the trai stopped at Goldach , and he u s a lowed to light , though not without calli ng together his colleagues and thank ” ing God that he was rid of a knave . It transpired that there was no train back R to orschach for a couple of hours , but to Schultz , whose Spirits always rise an n emergency , o ly burst into a hearty laugh a at the sight of my dismal f ce for , in cold blo o d I , could not but see that it would have been wiser to make full enquiries

when I took the tickets . His laughter

was contagious ; after all , we had only a w as three miles to walk , and our b ggage small ; and here were the lights o f a Wir th shau s friendly , where we could wash

down our bread and cheese . So to the 1 36 F ATH E R R H I N E

and Lamm we went forthwith , sat down to our mug of beer ; and again he laughed out loud at the recollection of my helpless “ the n. fury in trai Upon my word , I thought you were going to slay old Gig l — lamps with his s pikengleesh and then adminis again , when you got up and began tering your best German in solid slabs to the guard ! ” The recollection inspired

him with fresh appetite , and he demanded “ m en a plate of sausage , like those are — eating in the corner o du r a merror um ilia ! n Twe ty minutes later , we were tramping under the cool canopy o f night to R orschach , where we put up at the ” Green Tree , and slept the sleep of the j ust . It was not until next morning that we found how Schultz ’ s handsome lamp had been stolen from his bicycle while we were wrestling with principalities and Zij rich i powers in the tra n .

1 38 F ATH E R R H I N E

“ : and said Do you know , this coin of yours has a very great defect What ” ? to defect I asked , fearing that he meant “ squabble over it again . Why , this ; ’ that there s not a word o n the whole coin ’ And to tell you what it s worth . yet you are a practical people We were forced to admit the j ustice of the criticism ; it could do no harm , and would at least have spared one poor steward many searchings of heart . From Friedrichshafen we followed an undulating road that ran mostly parallel to the lake , from half a mile to a mile o r distant , and one two hundred feet n above it . The country was like o e great orchard ; apple- trees with corn and roots growing beneath them , and vines A - on every slope . vine dresser with whom we stopped to chat , was delighted to hear o fthe fearful tempest of hail and thunder which had j ust ravaged the wine f districts o the middle Rhine . Our grapes have never done better than this ” “ year , he said ; and now they will be ” worth twice as much ! It reminded me of the French farmer’ s comment on the horrors of the Crimean war Que - ? il et voulez vous y a trop de monde , ’ n au rio ns nous autres , sans cela , nous pas de quoi vivre ! ” The villages were as - - pretty and well to do as the land , with FATH E R RH I N E 1 39 those tall white saddle - back towers that are so characteristic of this part of Switzer ’ At land . about ten o clock we came to

Meersburg , once an imperial city , but no w with a mere village , yet f—old gates and walls and a strong castle another of those living museums of which one finds so many in o ut-o f- the - way parts of Ger d many and Switzerlan . The upper town stands on a Steep height by the side of the lake , looking straight across to

- Constance . There was a nice looking ’ n butcher s shop just i side the gate , and to n we went in cater for lu ch . We “ resisted the temptatio n o f j u ngs tes Ochsenfleisc h a 5 4 and bought half o f a pound a very appetising ham . How ” ” F nf much ? ii und achtzig Pfennige . ’ ” n That s cheaper tha last time , remarked : Schultz at which the butcher , hearing him speak English and anxious to come o u r Ye- es F down to level , added ive - n A ve and eight pe nies . lright ! fi ” - n and eight pence , he repeated , shovelli g t he his coin into till , and vastly pleased to have Shown so intimate an acquaintance E with the nglish currency . We had a couple o f hours before the a fo r was bo t Constance due ; and , after we had wandered about a while , Schultz s at down by the lake side to write his letter home , while I prowled about again to 1 40 F ATH E R RH I N E

fi n d subjects for camera and pencil . Then I

went back to join him at lunch , which we o n ate his bench under the trees , while the pale green waters careered in tiny o f waves a few inches high , up a sandy

beach at our feet . Then to an inn by the quay where we could sit outside in the shade and take our refreshment at leisure

till the boat should come in . Presently we s aw her a mile and a half down the l l ake . How distinct y one hears her ” ! as paddles I remarked , and Schultz sented absent- mindedly ; and we watched the boat dreamily as it crept nearer and

nearer through the palpitating heat . Sud d enl y a whistle , a snort , a very loud — splash of paddles close by u s w e had not noticed till this moment how the first

sound of paddles , erst so strangely loud , a a A had lately died aw y ltogether . horrid light dawned upon u s ; we rushed rou nd

- the corner of the custom house , and there was our boat j ust cast o ff from the pier and sle wing round to paddle o ff fo r Con stance ! She had sneaked in behind our b acks from the other end of the lake ; hers were the paddles that had sounded o u r in ears as we watched the other boat , and now we had lost her ! Fo r the s ake of our national honour we put on a mask of stem indifference before the grinning a loafers on the qu y , and went slowly back

1 42 F ATH E R RH I N E

A a the riverside o n o u r right . fter few miles we came upon the river, which had widened out again by this time into a small lake ; and here the air was a th e lready fresher , and trees taller and cooler in shade ; rich crops , fine vil lages , and delightful glimpses over the w ater to the historic abbey buildings of R eichenau , with Hohentwiel and the great cones of the Hegau rising on the horizon n behi d , and , still far ahead , the castled hill that looks down from its 600 feet o f upon the little town Stein . It was just outside o ne of these pretty a villages that we halted to m ke tea , in a tongue of orchard that jutted out into the n o u r lake , sitti g on the grass with feet almost in the water, and watching the tiny waves swirling round the big black boulders that Show their heads in the was shallows . Here on our right the it s spire of Berlingen , with attendant o u t poplars , jutting on j ust such a little as promontory our own , framed into a o f picture by the branches our orchard , and reflected vaguely in the rippling water . We reached Stein at time enough to old admire the old towers , and the stately

- houses round the market place , with carved oriel windows and dim frescoes : but not quite enough to allow us to look round inside the secularized monastery of St FATH E R R H I N E 1 43

ae George , whose medi val gables and bright in colours , mirrored the rushing river , are s o conspicuous as you cross the bridge into th e town . is an Stein a beautiful old town at y time , and it looked its best as we left it in the t it s evening light , wi h long reflections of red and white and green in the clear

stream , and its grey castle of Hohenklingen o n h perched high the ill , and still higher ridges o f pine forest rising in the back I kno w so ground . nothing quite charm o w n ing in its way , on all the navigable R hine , as this stretch of fifteen or sixteen

miles between Stein and Schaffhausen . The river runs s o swiftly that the steamer takes twice as long over the up journey as

over the down the water , fresh from the is s o quiet lake , Clear that you can plainly s ee the bottom , fifteen or twenty feet

below ; only in one or two great holes , where the little steamboat reels and Stag

gers with the eddy , there is nothing but a vague green depth as far as the eye can

pierce . On this pellucid stream you are a borne smoothly long , but with sudden a i n c pric ous windings , betwee hills that come down at one moment to the very ff edge , in precipitous cli s fringed with an o r a a a overh ging woods , g in fall b ck a and Slope way , through rising terraces

of pasture land , higher and higher into 1 44 F ATH E R RH I N E

a the pines nd the clouds . Here and there and are villages , white walls purple roofs , n n a n with a ti y church spire o risi g knoll . O ne is built o n a n arrow level of meadow and orchard at the very edge of the water three girls in white linen stand up to their shoulders in the cool stream , not a dozen o w n and yards from their door , cling to branches of osier for support : one dips her a and head for moment , diamonds run from a a n her hair in the sunlight . Then g i a - n water mill , half hidde in poplars , where a little stream brings down its tributary R waters into the hine ; and one tiny town , d Diessenhofen , with its covered bri ge on oaken piles that seem to stagger in the

o f . At rush the current last , a castle , its white walls gleaming in the last rays of n o n su light , and perched a hill round whose base we sweep ; and here , at the

ff . a foot , lies Scha hausen We t ke up a hawser from the bank by way of pre caution ; fo r there are the rapids close u s below , with their tossing fleeces of s aw o u r foam , just as we them after ride in the Black Forest six days ago . Now a we drop gently down to the qu y , and o f here at last , on the very point leaving a n Switzerl nd , our cycles are pounced upo

a douanier . . . . by Schultz , armed with C T C

T. C . F . and tickets , is passed free ; I have

f. 0 to pay a deposit of 9 5 , which will be

1 46 F ATH E R RH I N E returned to me when I cross the frontier a again at B le . is Schaffhausen a larger Stein , with bigger towers , quainter and more numer o u s o fR oriels , a wilder rush hine beneath and in it walls , a great cathedral bell scribed with the mediae val legend

a nas l n l ra ra . b ites b ow , m ri pu ge, fn gn f ngo

We rode slowly throu gh the narrow streets , and then raced the river again to su n s et Neuhausen . The was by this time , and we went straight down to the F w as too alls . It late to cross over to the o f ff Castle Lau en , but we took the public path that leads by the northern corner o f the cataract , and there sat and watched ’ the waters to our heart s content . We ’ were healthily tired with the day s ride less from the distance than from the heat — and the sound o f the waters fell on our ears with so dro wsy a charm that it seemed quite an effort to us to climb up to our ’ early bed at nine o clock . Yet we stood for a while on o u r balcony to watch the coloured electric lights which F are flashed nightly upon the alls , in the season , for the benefit of hotel visitors ; not without a feeling of desecration at the ’ Sight , though in Schultz s case it was mingled with the softer thoughts of home . He wished he could have “ the kiddies ” FATH E R RH I N E 1 47

fo r here a few minutes , and hear their of clapping hands , and their cries of “ ’ R —I s a F m ipping y , ather , isn t it p ” ping ! a n d t h e a d m is s io n even from ” o f - - Sammy , most critical nine year olds , fo r w that , a German Sho , this was beastly decent ! ” CH APTER XIX

’ In t t h Och stem s teh t s Go es Tempel , ’ U nd ii ber schroffe F elsen geh t s nn t d er tz t Ta Es do er wie le e g, ” la auf a — B Sch g Schl g. HE EL .

Au u r g t 1 3. RO S E at jocund to drive our wheels afield in this fresh and dewy air, for we ’ - had sixty one miles ride before us . We a w breakfasted by the roadside , under ood , and within sight and hearing of the Falls not without some impatience on the part o f

Schultz , who finds it hard to realise that a bohemian meal can in fact be cooked with as little delay as at an hotel , and to whom motion is one o f the prime necessities o f n life . He can ever quite forgive Provi dence for having brought him prematurely into a world as yet unprovided with flying tea o ld machines . Sling the round , man ; never mind about the water boiling ’ s a ? I y, aren t those eggs done yet Con fou nd your Silly o ne- horse spirit - lamp ; what on earth c an be the matter with it this morning I attempted to distract his thoughts by quoting an apposite paragraph from o ne o fthe English papers we had found 1 48

1 5 9 FATH E R RH I NE

a l - o f fied , with a t l gate tower at each end the street : and inscriptions had been cu t o f on either Side the main arch , to record the price of corn and wine in 1 5 7 2 and 1 5 74 , perhaps the years in which the walls h a d been begun and finished . f . A o fter about five miles this plateau , we came among woods again , and dropped ic tu r down into Oberlauchringen , most p of esque small villages , with its trout F l of stream fresh from the orest , and c ump huge poplars by the wooden bridge , and rustic galleries to the houses , approached by stairs from the roadside . Then Thien en o n g , boldly planted a steep bank after which the road runs again between mea dowland and woods ; and , suddenly , at this s ee R n point , we the hine again , comi g to b e meet us , after all this interval , from — tween two leafy hills o n the left jade green , tantalisingly cool under this burn s u n ing , swift and deep and wrinkled into oily eddies . It comes and runs for a while l o u r c ose by side ; then we climb , and leave it gradually far below under o u r precipitous bank , but still visible at inter vals between the thick acacias that fringe the road ; then downward again , and here are the white towers and purple roofs o f ff Waldshut , standing on a cli over the fo r river , with a deep ravine further defence on one side , and a rapid Slope FATH E R RH I N E 1 5 1

i f beyond . This s a town o some import o ne ance , but it is all built practically in great street , like the main street of Berne ;

- broad , deep eaved , with many carved and a o f painted fount ins , and a runnel pure water at the edge of the footways , and a a - tall g te tower to close it at either end . We bought the materials for a luxurio u s lunch in the town , and ate it under the a trees in the r vine , not without some twinges of envy at the youthful Wald shu ters u s who strolled down past , with towels , for their midday bathe in the - a river . By half p st one we were well fed h and rested , and rode throug the town , and then down a delicious slope to the o f R F Bfile level the hine . rom hence to , fo r except a short space here and there , a we never lost sight o fit ag in . The pine clad mountains o f the Black Forest come down here almost to the water’ s edge on the other side , smaller hills rise rapidly to 1 0 0 about 5 feet above the river , which a 1 000 itself runs ne rly feet above the sea , a due westw rd , with gentle windings that follow the contours o f the greater hills . o f Albthal o ne We passed the mouth the , of the most beautiful of Black Forest gorges , and reached Laufenburg about ’ is so four o clock . Laufenburg not well to fo r is o ne o f known as it ought be , it the most remarkable little towns on the 1 5 2 F ATH E R RH IN E

whole course of the Rhine . Here the river bed contracts suddenly between lofty walls of rock that narrow it to less than it s — so n a quarter of former breadth arrow , a in in f ct , that times of flood the waters have been known to heap themselves up to sixty feet above their lowest level ; and eve n in its mildest moods the vast mass o f n a river , rushi g down alre dy at racing speed A a from the lps , and swollen near W ldshut Aar by the not less boisterous , thunders through these iron gates with a wild fury of disorder that is only less impressive than the c ataract of Neuhausen . In the later spring , when the first great meltings o fA n n h d lpine s ows have begu , I ave stoo for hours to watch the huge rafts of timber sent down and broken up in the rapids ; o ne of them j ammed for a mome nt at the a n n rrowest poi t , and suddenly huge trunks reared up thirty or forty feet from the and water , waved desperately in the air , a n and and plunged ag i , were whirled down as the whole obstacle was swept away . The town is built on the cliffs that overhang these seething waters roof above roof on the steep hillside ; with a o n and church spire high up either bank , a ruined castle looking down from its rock upon the Swiss town ; for the river is here a the boundary of two n tions , and the old irregular wooden bridge is guarded at one

1 5 4 FATH E R RH I N E

is ff w away , That the di erence bet een Switzerland and Germany ! ” We were a able , at this dist nce , to thank him in words , and hurried down , by common consent , among the rocks on the German o f shore . Here , by the side the wildest for o u r rapids , we dipped up water tea , and watched the labyrinth o frushing green o f waters , and the brilliant purple shadow the bridge across them , and the pigeons that flew out and circled round our heads , and then back to their perch among the beams . But at last we had o ur fill even o ftea 3 and with a sigh we packed up and o n n turned our backs Laufe burg , yet Still consoled by the thought o f Rheinfelden to come . CHAPTER XX

- F o r n t o n was n n et ever, my mi d , eve i g y ” Bu was fa a l t an ts d a t r be ut ifu ler h i y .

R Baowm no. .

TH E road was bordered still by typical Black Forest farms huge roofs that shelter house , barn , stable and sheds under o ne broad span . Nowhere had the country folk been so busy with their hay - harvest as ’ we found them on this afternoon s ride , and nowhere more happy and prosperous - look ’ a its ing . We rode through S ckingen with ff ’ twin abbey spires , the scene of Sche el s Brenner Trompeter through , and with in sight of the castled rock that guards the savage gorge o f Wehr a : Beuggen among the meadows by the water side , where stands an ancient Lodge of the Teutonic a knights , with g tes and towers and high stepped gables that gleam white in the evening sunlight against their dark green n background . A d now the road mounts steadily for a while : then a sudden turn to the left through the fruit trees , and we find ourselves looking down upon the rapids , and the irregular covered bridge , and the quaint roofs and towers o f Rhein rss 1 5 6 F ATH E R R H I N E

R n . felden , immortalised by Turner and uski We had often pored over those illustra tions in the fifth volume of “ Modern Painters and more than once I had a a been hurried p st the place in the tr in , c atching just o ne glimpse of the warm tiled roofs th at nestle cosily together like little birds under the shelter of their a — guardi n towers catching one glimpse , n e unable to stop , yet feeli g mys lf a bar barian for passing by . Now at last we were to s ee the town itself ; and we found all h ad it worthy of we dreamed , though V all still , of course , the best iew of is th at first sight from the Rhine bank which n a o Turner fou d out a century g . We a a hastened to the eastern g te , the Pe ce a n of that last ch pter in Moder Painters , R and there stood the tower , j ust as uskin ’ its drew it , with stork s nest and projecting n a n and S - woode b lco y , shaped iron braces to keep the old walls together . When we had n seen our fill of the town , we bega to think of dinner ; I had heard of a famous brewery here , and to this we asked our We way . found it in the main street , and passed through to the back of the house , where the tables were spread in n R n and a little garde by the hi e side , one on a balcony that jutted right out over the

n . stream , for our own special be efit There we laid down our healthily- tired limbs with

1 5 s F ATH E R RH I N E

which will linger nearly an hour longer fo r

them than for u s . But we shall soon be with them again ! a The omelette rrived , scenting the its evening air , and approach seemed to

wake Schultz from his reverie . I watched his face anxiously , but the first mouthful At reassured me . last he broke silence I should put the man into the lowest pit o fTartarus ? ” What man I asked in surprise . — That professor the fellow yo u were jawing about at breakfast . I should make s u n him bicycle all day in the , and then put him up to his waist in beer and kirsch and omelettes , they should turn to tabloids ’ when they touched his lips ! Wasn t it Tantalus’ crime that he had betrayed the secrets of Zeus to mortals ? After ” “ all , he added with a sigh , we are human ! How long do you think she would take to make u s another o f these ? ” o f Phyllis assured us her best speed , and s u n brought fresh beer unbidden . The had dipped under the bridge , and was half sunk behind the hills , quickening the pine ridges into millions o f needles of purple

. is light No doubt it not logical , but somehow the soul seldom feels so inde pendent of the body as when we are j ust satisfying o ur most clamorous bodily needs ; F ATH E R RH I N E 1 59 and at this moment it seemed to me as though there could be no fairer heaven o n earth than to sit at Rheinfelden and watch the sun go down , and let these living waters and ripple peace pardon through my soul .

The towers and gables rose in gold , to my ecstatic vision , against a golden afterglow , and a voice whispered down the river , is This the unregretful city , the home of is purified memories , over whose portal And o u : written , if y will , remember and ’ o u if you will , forget . Here y may live n in heave as in your own hired house , with o u — all your good friends around y , home all first of , with the beech woods , and the water , and the spring flowers in the grass under the trees—school and college churns - men colleagues , good and true , once as penniless as yourself, and now rich beyond ’ o ne their heart s desire , with but boy to teach among them all , and governors to and o run their errands black their b ots . and Here are all your books , no sacrilegious Yo hand to dust them . u may read for days and s weeks at elfish leisure , with your feet o n n do the fe der, and your g breathing hard o n ff - the rug , and a perennial co ee pot by ! n your Side Or , if ho ours have power o u to tempt you , and y would care to accept the Prime Ministership o f Rhein felden ? ”

The town , the red band of sunset , the 1 60 F ATH E R RH I N E

black bridge , looked infinitely small and distant through the hollow bottom of my o fco n glass ; and , from my lofty pinnacle t em latio n a p , all hum n greatness looked as a n small s they . Thi e honours perish with thee l I murmured i n my heart Give me j ust a cottage and an orchard out there — by the Rhi ne Side modus agri non ita — — m agnus j ust three acres and a cow and when I come to milk her , may she yield h ! E me suc milk as this Noch ins , ' F a E n r ulein , noch i s “ ’ That ll be your third ! rem arked

Schultz sternly but regretfully ; and , w ’ looking at his atch , he added , I m ” a a n afr id we shall h ve to be starting soo . s at n Yet we half an hour lo ger , looking up and down the river , and watching the

n . su set fade , and talking of home The clock struck a quarter to ni ne as we crossed the bridge again : and we had still ten miles to go . We rode on leisurely through the growing dusk , with the scent o f - n o u r new mow hay and clover in nostrils , and the chirrup of innumerable crickets in ou r a n e rs , and our eyes tur ed steadfastly n h a towards the eve ni g star . The last y carts were coming home we had met the

first as we rode away from Laufenburg . R a a The hine st rted with us , gle ming in n n the dusk , and murmuri g ge tly under its steep and shadowy banks ; the n gradually

1 62 F ATH E R RH I N E

as passionately as herself, others more m - echanically , and with side glances at the strangers in the roadway : but all in the same sonorou s cadence as o f a Gregorian F ar chant . and far away we heard their o n voices , rising and falling the quiet air , and the sound recalled o u r evening drives o ld to church in days , when the Methodists still held their o pen-air service o n the hill F side by Westacre ord , and the echo of a their he rty hymns , mellowed by distance , to h would follow u s even the churc porch .

The evening star sinks in a purple mist , and the last fai nt sounds o f human voices die away behind us ; only the melancholy hoot of an o wl echoes at intervals from F R the distant orest . Suddenly the hine u s to comes again to our Side , guiding wards a lurid glow that lowers o n the - south western horizon , and presently we catch the first outlying gaslights reflected o is a n his waters . This B le and here we find o u r way to my old quarters at the

Krone , and once again we lie down to s leep with the Rhine flowing under o ur window .

CHAPTER XXI

“ a : ll ll la g an u l o u ! l be e vi e de r de r de B ois B s ”e — M IG n T . enviro . ON A NE

Augus t 1 4 .

To a most people , B le means simply hot ff co ee at six in the morning , and the next train to Somewhere Else : they s ee the station and are carried on , and never dream n And of the real beauties of the tow . yet it would be hard to find anything finer in their way than the Cathedral cloisters , planted with trees and looking on the Rhine ; the museum contains an unrivalled collection of Holbeins ; grand relics of the o ld fortifications are still to be seen ; and a network of picturesque streets climb up and down a steep ridge in the centre o f n the tow , on whose brow stand the n church and Cloister of St Leonard , looki g out over roofs and churches below . We tried in vain to hear of an early service in E ’ nglish , and fell back upon St Leonard s ’ instead . By ten o clock the streets were crowded with people ; for this was a great — holiday in Bale a day of athletic sports and an evening of dancing , which we had 1 64

1 66 FATH E R RH INE

of the backwaters the river , and the great plain planted as thick as a cornfield with rank upon rank of Lombardy poplars those same backwaters and poplars that greet the waking eyes of the night-tra Bfile veller from Heidelberg to , and tell him that Switzerland is near . was It somewhere here that , climbing to among the vines take a photograph , I rashly left my machine for ten minutes so in the sun , and found the handles hot that I could sc arcely bear my hands o n the metal . I hurried onwards to catch up my ou t friend , and suddenly found him just a side a little vill ge , mending a puncture, with half a dozen children round him . ff To my intense relief, he declined all o ers of assistance ; and I lay down o n a bank o u r to watch the water at feet , transparent no h ad c ut o ff longer, for the drought it from the main current , but still green and - no t o f cool looking , and wholly forgetful its descent from mountain torrents ; with ’ golden masses of Aaron s rods grow its ing among the reeds at margin , and great granite boulders half sunk in the a sea shallow pools , and then the v st of o f poplars , and the summits the Vosges dimly visible through the throbbing heat mist heyo nd . The repair proved a tedious job ; and the village children began to a tr nsfer their attentions to me . They FATH E R RH I N E 1 67

a took stock of my bagg ge , my lamp , my tyres—and here a gimlet - eyed little girl o n and spied the number my Dunlop , w ! j umped to her o n conclusions . Du komm ’ mal her Herrje ! sieh ’ mal wasch ko schtet ! D reis z i ach nein dasch g , drei hundert vier und achtzig a fii nfz i ! t usend , sechs hundert zwei und g — An na “ ’ ” 1 S t u nmo glich objects a small sceptic by her side ; nor will he be c o n vinced even by her appeal to the written

word . “ ask . Well , just him , then But the village Didymus firmly declines to take

my word for such a fact , even supposing me to be civilised enough to understand

and answer a question in plain German . He would not even consent to the s u g gestion that the units represented only was Pfennige . It notorious that bicycles i d for 1 0 00 could be bought in B e marks , A ’ more or less . chorus o f shrill girls voices arose to rebuke his unbelief ; but here—fortunate diversion —Schultz began

to adj ust his pump . “ Sieh — sieh ! da will er aufblasen ! — — Lieschen Grethe Anna Ann nna ! Der Herr will aufblasen And up

runs Grethe , with a poultice under her

Chin , and Lieschen tottering under an 1 Impossible . 1 68 FATH E R RH I N E

and A n enormous baby , poor n a limping all i last of , with her club foot and w zened ’ - m a as has old wo an s f ce , j ust Schultz w as finished . Her look of disappointment so pathetic that he screwed on again , and professed to blow up for a few minutes ff more , with a pretence of enormous e ort , and o f violent contortions feature , which first alarmed and then delighted the chil as dren , the joke filtered slowly into the

Teu tonic brain . There s at two Bauers in the bow-window of an inn close by , looking over the river a k at I went to s them our way . Others s a behind in the sh de of the room , each with his great glass mug in front of him , stolid , o f monosyllabic , the picture ruminating

. w as content One of these latter , as I pressing for something more precise in w a the y of directions , called out from the darkness of a further corner , What does ’ he want Wh at s he doing here Those at the window made him no answer , and to o f me also only the curtest replies , dropped syllable by syllable with contemptuous ff “ All indi erence . the fellows want is , — to go riding abo u t all day what on earth does it matter which road they take What n a are they doi g about here at all , at time when all honest men , who have done their ’ s u n week s work under the , ought to be sitting indoors with their beer ! ” We

CHAPTER XXII

nt tz s hnak n — T Die e se lichen Rhein c e . GOE HE.

RI HT - G , left , right left , right , left good “ s u n ! fo r heavens , what a Water , o f ! to anguish the solstice and here , m be sure , is a village fountain , fresh fro ’ nature s granite vaults in the Black Forest ; and here again we drink with mouth and o ff - eyes and arms , and carry a kettle full fo r o u r tea under the cherry-orchard by

. A all one is the roadside fter , if to be ou t o f o n no doors a day like this , there is

. n cooler place than the saddle Here , eve in the shade , we sadly miss already the ten - mile breeze which we had made fo r ourselves as we rode : and then the flies ! For are great Beelzebub , the flies we R on the great hine plain again , where ffl these same harpies , a century ago , ru ed ’ even Goethe s Olympian composure , sting ing his young calves through the thin Silk Friderike stockings as he made love to his , and goading him even to injurious doubts ’ of b enefic ence theo lo the Creator s , and to gical controversy with his prospective -in- of was father law . The worst all a 1 70 FATH E R RH I N E 1 7 1

hor sefl kind of y , whose wounds ooze — blood after he has left you the ten- horse s u s power fly , as we called him , and half pec ted him of certain otherwise inexplic o f able punctures ia our tyres . One these to o n I now enticed settle my left hand , holding in my right a pill box which my nephew had given me at parting , for such as to rare insects I might be able catch him .

He was a magnificent beast , now that I came to look closer at him ; dark green on his the back , like an antique bronze ; and - of breastplate leg armour blue steel , all damascened with arabesques in bur nished gold . He fixed me with a million glittering eyes and I thought what a brute beast I was to plot the destruction of so ’ o f fo r superb a specimen God s handiwork , o f the mere amusement a scientific nephew , and to the further corruption of the air in his bedroom . But when the monster , after preliminary gestures as though he were his - tucking up shirt sleeves , began to let down his proboscis for the work ; and when ’ s aw I it made like a Shipwright s auger , at with a screw the end to penetrate , and a hollow edge all the way down , to scoop out the flesh— then my nerve failed me utterly , and I struck too soon . Next moment he was sitting Celaeno -like o n o u t of the edge of a leaf j ust my reach , droning o ut an angry chant as o f distant 1 72 FATH E R RH I N E

bagpipes , and only interrupting himself w at intervals to put his cla s to his nose . Even at this distance I could see his million eyes glittering with devilish malevolence my flesh crept with horror, nor could I relish my tea until I had driven him forth from my presence with clods of earth . R a ! F ight , left , right , left , gain latter co r nfields land now , all and orchards ; the Vosges and Black Forest stretching ahead o n either hand into the grey distance the s ame wilderness of poplars fringing river and backwaters as far as the eye can s ee . su n The sinks fast , but the air is scarcely cooler yet ; at every fountain we have stopped again for a moment to dip our face and hands but now the road runs straight on without heeding the villages ; and we s ee neither water nor immediate hopes of t supper without going o u of our way . The shadows of the poplars stretch to o u r very feet ; the whole v alley swims again in a golden haze here and there , on some a white tower , the l st light lingers still ; s u n but now the has touched the hills , and now the last thin edge of gold has dis appeared .

A whisper from the wes t t —J add t to th e t Shoo s his res , n r s t ! an t Take i t a d t y i t wor h here dies o her day .

Ye s its ! , take it and try worth Will it be put to our account in the end that

1 74 F ATH E R RH I NE

- f- - E among these out o the way villages . ven here we found , against the south wall of o f the church , an elaborate calvary the

fifteenth century , under its own little — o f vaulted roof the garden Gethsemane ,

- the olive trees , the disciples sleeping , and Christ wrestling in prayer with God ; while j udas and his band peep over the embattled wall to s ee whether their time is come , and one who mocks at the praying Christ is being pulled down from the wall All by a more reverent comrade . this we took in hastily , for the venom of the flies was beginning to work again in poor ’ n Schultz s vei s , and my ravenous hunger made me as impatient as he was ; and yet is is it just these glimpses , when the body so ill at ease , that leave the deepest (if not the distinctest) impressions o n the travel ’ — ler s mind the first sight of a foreign port — after sea sickness the dim landscapes that ’ greet one s eyes when the carri age window ” slowly glows a glimmering square , and when , after an unquiet night in the train , one would be ready to sell one’ s birthright fo r a cup o fhot coffee ! n G artenwirthschaft Unfortu ately , our did not belie its first promise . Our neigh bours at the next table were drunk , most to Teutonically drunk , burning know who we were and what we were doing here , and breathing forth beer and onions against u s FATH E R RH I N E 1 75

for o u r slowness to gratify their curiosity . The soup in which we had trusted was not forthcoming cheese and eggs o ne c an u R l generally reckon pon in a henish vi lage , yet here the omelette suggested the c on s u lshi Planc u s pof , and the cheese was as rich in saponaceous constituents as any A merican cheddar The veal cutlets , how ever repellent to the sight , turned out , to ’ a e our surprise , just eatable ; but one s pp tite for meat is easily quenched amid u n was savoury surroundings ; and I fain , after m all , to stay my hunger ainly with the solid rounds of black bread which had come up A I tho u ht of with the cheese . gain g that Celaeno- fly Sed vos dira fames no s traeque i njuri a caedi s Amb esas s ub iget malis ab sumere mensas — and , contrary to my wont , I was glad to leave the table and mount for our evening ride . There was still a crimson afterglow over the Vosges as we started , and glimpses between the trees o f the same warm tints upon the Rhine but this soon faded away and , though we made what haste we could w as in the dark , it late before we reached

Freiburg . My old comfortable friend the R heinischer Hof was quite full , and the hostess sent Boots with us in search o f other likely hotels ; but even s o s he feared ffi to we might have some di culty , since 1 76 F ATH E R RH I N E m A B V M orrow was the ssumption of the . . . a n This , I remarked , ccou ted for the quan tity of beer take n on board by o u r neigh

Kro tz in en. Yes s he n bours at g , a swered A d serenely , the ssumption of the Blesse Virgin was a great popular holiday ; we F might find it hard to get beds in reiburg . a However , we found room at last at the ' Mark rafler — no t g Hof good beds too , and clear D reisam too , with a branch of the rippling over its granite pebbles past the windows of o u r passage .

1 78 F ATH E R RH I N E changed agai n 1 nto a land of co rnfield s and orchards ; and the dull haze crept up into the sky , which grew grey and pale and a Vil with mist he t . The first two lages were full of worshippers waiting for church ; all the unmarried wome n dressed in bright blue , with wreaths of white o f flowers in their hair , in honour the was h Virgin . It a strange and pathetic t ing to s ee a young mistress , in black silk gown o ld and cap , followed by some wrinkled h andmaiden decked out like a child in a n a stari g blue frock , of generation ago , v isibly faded in spite of all the c are with which it had b ee n locked up fo r 364 days of a a every ye r , while the rtificial jasmine in her grizzled hair had t aken the tint o f d ol ivory . The men were all in Sunday a - bl ck mahogany complexioned , with keen features that looked more French than Ger man ; o ne of them with three medals on a - a - his coat , h wk eyed and h wk nosed , a

Splendid picture of a man . Schultz’ s tyre went seriously wrong again in the hottest part of the road ; and it was nearly midday before we Alt a o f reached Breisach , mass cathe dral towers and crumbling walls and steep red roofs crowded together on a rock by R n the side of the hi e . Here the tyre went wrong again ; and I had ample leisure to take stock of the town and FATH E R RH I N E 1 79

the river , and the soldiers coming in from their morning duty ; one party carried a man on a stretcher , who had just been - struck down by heat apoplexy . Neu o n a Breisach , the left b nk , is a cruel o f mass earthworks and brick walls , with half a dozen houses huddled together in a side , round tiny square that glows like a furnace ; every door and shutter closed to keep out the heat ; and indeed we find the same in all the villages now . The heat is probably responsible for a third bad breakdown of the tyre , of which I take advant age to creep under a tree and prepare lunch fo r the two of u s ; the n o n n agai to Colmar , whence we must now take the train for Strassburg . We had hoped to ride to Rappoltsweiler and see the three castles ; but these break downs have run away with all o u r spare time . There are beautiful old houses at C 0 ! o ne mar , and at least very fine church ; and there is the hottest railway- platform o n was which it ever my fate to broil . N o t that we could not find seats in the shade ; but the heat seemed to float in upon the air , and ooze up from the asphalt , and beat down from the roof. We called fo r ff fat co ee , and watched a man oppo site finishi ng his lunch ; he had got some e Gruy re , and called for butter . Butter 1 80 FATH E R RH I N E

ist keine da , answered the languid hand ma1den with a shrug of her shoulders ; ’ ' ’ ” 1 a And ia sie th t uns halt verlaufen . deed it was so ; the cheese ran grease upon F ff’ the plate , and our alsta s own too solid

flesh was melting visibly ; we ourselves , ’ o u r in spite of last fortnight s training , were poured o u t like water in that exceed in a g heat . It was lmost as hot , and a great stu ffier too deal , in the train ; and we were languid even to notice the three castles o f

Rappoltsweiler as we passed . Only o ne thing I remember ; half a dozen small children up to their necks in a running m brook , one of the with long yellow hair like a mermaid —the only creatures we had seen looking cool and comfortable since ’ about ni ne o clock this morning . We repaired at Strassburg to the well Klé b er remembered inn on the Place , and took the same upper room that looks out over treetops and houses upon the Cathe dral spire . Then tea under the awning a h outside on the Pl ce , and a chat meanw ile with the hostess— but a new hostess this time . By this time we had recovered energy enough for the Cathedral , where we found the evening shadows already creeping half way up the forest of statues dis on the western portals ; and , to our appointment , all services were over for the 1 ’ We a n t ot an —i r u S t a a h ve g y wo ld imply mel w y .

1 82 F ATH E R RH IN E

’ wonderful thing , and we aren t half grateful six enough for it . Here I am or seven m hundred miles away from ho e , and yet almost d aily I have the pleasure of le arning — every little thing that goes on there a b u dget worth all the printed stuff in the — world and all for twopence - halfpenny ! ! and s o I ave ber Hm , hm g war in rbe bar al a r een e n g ; . w y b mor e tr oubl tban fbe w a r o M on a e w r tb . d y v ry bot and ow cold a ai a ot c , n g n ; ll g old: gr eat deal of wear/er about now ; bope ou r : ’ w on t catcb tbem 4' q a fr igbt yester da te er at r e 1 0 oc y ! mp u 3. D tor my: a obi/l on e iv er - tb l . Hul lo ! ? ” Well , what I enquired , after a

pause .

Oh , never mind , he answered drily ,

folding the letter up . Sorry I didn’ t mean to pry into private ff ” a airs . “ ’ ’ Don t be an as s ! But I can t ’ o t an make u how it c be . Didn t I put stamps on that letter at Maul bronn ? ”

I supplied you with them . ’ And I don t think it can have been over fo r u and weight , I put do ble on it ; yet ‘ here my wife writes , We had to pay

eightpence for your last letter , and three ’ of the childre n s postcards have been five ’ n pe ce each .

1 84 FATH E R RH I N E I had been thinking it over after my ’ sister s letter ; we had evidently put o ur letters in at a Wii r ttemb erg post - office with stamps brought from Rhenish Prussia o n b e and Baden , relying the fact that all — longed alike to the German Empire a mistake which I ought to have remembered as and guarded against . Upon me , the now responsible person , Schult z opened the floodgates o f his wrath ; in vain I o r reminded him that , after all , a shilling two more or less would still be an absurdly small s u m for the multitude of o fli cials — whom he had j ust been reckoning up let alone the value of the budget received . He pocketed his letters moodily ; and this time , for once , it was he who first remem bered that it must be time to go and look for dinner . We took the tram to a garden t restauran by the river side at Kehl , where huge poplars stood dark between u s and was the afterglow , and the water shot with pinks and purples that lingered o n until the last colours had faded from the s ky . Even o u r convivial neighbours were charmed for a few minutes into silence by the faint tinkling o f a far off bell “ ” that squilla di lontano , whose sound Dante has connected for ever with the ’ traveller s thoughts of home . But the E d twilight is briefer here than in nglan ,

CHAPTER XXIV

A n or ut a M n n n are mo g Topics o w rd edici es, o e ” u t an —An om M el n bol at t a c . more precio s h B hs . a y of y

Au gurt I 6 . OOR i P Schultz slept but fever shly this night , Suffering worse agonies than ever from the Bfi e flies . The barometer at l had given us such certainty of fine weather , that we had sent o n our luggage straight to Worms ; his and , though he now realised that stock ings were far less protection to his ankles than a pair of loose trousers would have for been , there was for the present no help it short of buying a pair o f German pan — taloo ns a remedy from which his soul shrank . Meanwhile , his poor ankles were throbbing masses of swellings and irrita b a k o f c . tion , and the one hand showed such serious signs of festering that he accepted quite humbly a small bottle of - Izal which I produced from my tool bag , and forgot this once to chaff me about the ” White Knight . - n all The half clad misshapen scullio , head and no body , woke us punctually A M at 4 . . , and took our tip with a look 1 86 FATH E R RH I N E 1 87 — of grateful surprise ir is o ne o fthe plea sures of these unpretending hostelries , that the modest tip which one’ s slender purse is glad enough to spare for real services rendered , gives a genuine visible pleasure was to the recipient . The morning de licio u sl — in y cool fact , before we had finished our breakfast under the trees by the canal , we were glad to stamp about ’ s u n a little for warmth s sake , for the had even then only just begu n to peep out o f R the hine mists . We had tried to get on o ne something warm the way , seeing o r two early taverns open in the suburbs ; but all alike were deboshed and half- asleep of still , with the stale beer and schnaps ’ l in last night s orgie ppg about , and bar maids that only raised their heavy eyelids a little in dumb surprise , when we talked o f ho t coffee . The native goes to his o n o f work the strength of a glass schnaps . A or s o mile before the first village , we had to get off and walk among fresh-lai d u s stones , and here a man in black caught and n was up entered into conversatio . He old going to this village , his home , to arrange for the fu neral of the last of four ff - o . And sons , all carried by lung disease so this , the youngest , had always been — stout and healthy looking but he was too A n stout ; he had too much blood . sudde had t a bleeding at the lungs a t cked him , 1 88 FATH E R RH I NE

apparently in the midst of health , and in - twenty four hours he was dead . Perhaps ’ the baker s life had no t been favourable to was them ; yet he , the father , a baker , l ha e and hearty still . But his poor wife had died young . It is sad , all the same , n and to have had four great strong so s , no w to bury the last of them it is

s ad . a , all the same He p rted from us at a the entrance to the village , sh king our hands heartily as if to thank us for the sympathetic silence with which we had n — w e no liste ed to him could do more . The road led through frequent woods to Marienthal and Hagenau . The flies were worse than ever here u nder the — m trees not that they attacked me uch , but poor Schultz ’ s agony was almost greater than he could bear . This day we met more travelli ng apprentices than o on any other ; baref oted , with their boots slung over one Shoulder , and the scanty bandana bundle over the other , they trudged o n stolidly through the dust and n heat , seeki g work from town to town . We bought a pamphlet and some pewter tokens from the pilgrims’ booths at Marien th al ; but the spick- and - span church did no t tempt us to go in and look at the miraculous image of the Virgin . Hagenau is an ancie nt tow n on the edge of the great in forest , with walls built by Barbarossa

FATH E R ' RH IN E

s at a opposite the station , and there for h lf an hour drinking soda and milk , and gradu ally cooling down to something like mere -h old fever eat . We found the town pic tu res ue q even beyond our expectations , with crumbling towers and walls ; the river running through the streets , under " the irregular white gables of real mediaeval houses a magnificent Gothic church ofred sandstone , with ancient glass in the win dows and behind the town a spur o fthe a Vosges , whose forests come down lmost a w as to the w lls . It under cover of these woods that the Crown Prince’ s forces massed o n the night of the 3r d o fAugust 1 8 0 o u t 7 , and burst at dawn upon the too F confident rench , who were cooking their breakfast when the first shells fell into w as their camp . Here , since there a river , it must be possible to bathe again ; and in fact w e learnt that we had the choice of — two baths a public establishment close

o r o ne off. by , a private half a mile We elected the latter , and found a footpath A that led us up from the bbey church ,

- and past an old water gate , into the meadows above the town , where we pre s ently came across a Characteristic German - a - country inn , half mill , h lf hostelry , with a little shed for bathers near the dam . Here we paid only a penny each for o u r towel a a and priv te cell , all as ne t and clean as FATH E R RH IN E 1 9 1 c u a o ld be . No doubt they calcul te that he who comes to bathe remains to booze ; and it w as evident that this was usually the case ; but they made no attempt to

press drink upon us , and took it quite naturally when we gave up o u r towels a nd went straight away . Poor Schultz ’ s legs were a terrible and for sight in that cell , my heart bled him ; yet I hastened in self- defence to l plunge first into the water , est I should find it so many degrees the hotter after his entrance ; I fully expected to s ee it his hiss when he dipped ankles in , and o f indeed , at this distance time , I am not

all . at sure that it did not It was already , 1 ° Re they told us , at 9 aumur, which would correspond to about 75 ° Fahren all a heit ; but it was heavenly the s me , and we only mourned to think that in half an ’ hour s time we should be as ho t as before . Schultz went to get shaved after o u r '

fo r até . bath , and I to forage p de foie gras We had meant to allow ourselves this all extravagance at Strassburg , bu t the shops had been shut o n that holiday ff evening . Indi erent as a rule to the of needs the flesh , Schultz does frankly admit to a weakness for this particular and delicacy , exhorted me to leave no stone unturned while we were yet in A was a lsace , and there some ch nce of 1 92 F ATH E R RH IN E

. was success I enquired diligently , and directed at last to a certain confectioner’ s - one of those shops which still survive in Cathedral cities and s u chlike o ld -world to o places long established , proud to advertise themselves with new shop - front and big show windows , but supplying the best article at a not too extravagant price . So I went in and had a very pleasant chat with the presiding genii o f o f the establishment , a mother about o f sixty and a daughter about forty , h strikingly like eac other , with handsome low dark grey eyes and purring voices , l - and dignified o d world manners . They brought me up their smallest size o f pfité from s o cold a cellar that the case felt like a delicious lump of ice in my hands ; also , from the same storehouse , a bottle — “ o f kirsch le vrai kirsch de la Fo ré t ” Noire , which they bought every year in fo r considerable quantities , mainly the o f who ffi use their relations , were o cers F F in the rench army . They spoke rench , as the banker had done when he changed my 765 note : they evidently did not care to go into reminiscences of the war , but the younger lady explained to m e the direction of the Gei sberg—I could not fail to recognise it by the three poplars ’ mais c est une bien triste histoire s he

of . added , with a shrug her shoulders

1 94 F ATH E R RH I N E with a face like an enormous monkey ; as and n brown wri kled as a walnut , with

- broad cheek bones and enormous ears , and perfect white teeth in his wide and mouth , little eyes that puckered almost o u t of sight when he smiled . We asked him about the battle , and plied him — With cigars a rather small and dainty brand , which he accepted with great condescension , and despatched in half a ff dozen huge pu s , and accepted again o f his with a half shrug shoulders . But as to the battle he was commu nicative enough . Yes , that was the Geisberg , a where the thickest of the fight h d raged .

He had seen a good deal of it himself, from his o wn fields where he had just — gone o u t to work and the noise of the cannon ! Then he hadn’ t fought in it himself ? No ; he was already in the reserves by ’ a then ; but he h d fought in 66. In ’66 ? But where did the French fight in ’66 ? ’ F He wasn t a renchman , but a Bavarian ; his farm was over there , some two miles away from the frontier . This little stream here was the frontier . “ Then you had lots of French friends about “ es ! Oh y , plenty There was my sister, for instance ; she was married in F ATH E R RH I N E 1 95

o f Weissenburg , and course she was ” o Fre nch . L ok at this house now (a cott age some two hundred yards aw ay “ from the station) . I went there after a the b ttle , and saw the dead piled like logs o fwood in the garden and round the o ne house , on the top of another . And a that next f rmhouse , there ; they picked up t wo hundred Shakos in that farmyard alone ! Look at this great

flat field o u t towards the Geisberg . ’ That s where the Fre nch cavalry came across ; they c ame springing across dow n that gentle slope— but they had to go ’ back ; they could n t face the bullets F n I tell you , the re ch fought well , but the Prussians came down as thick as

a to o . snowfl kes , and they fought well ’

a o u t 66 . You found th t in , of course es made a wr Oh y , in He y face , and in two or three pu ffs the rest of the

a a . ff n cig r melted way I o ered him a other , but he thanked me and said the trai n w as j u s t at his station . He got out with a and n friendly farewell , left us to rumi ate o f on the life these border folk , who till their fields up to the very edge o fa little stream that separates them from another ‘ and o ne country , rise up morning as usu al ; and behold instead o f work a ’ a a b ttle , and a h rvest of dead men s Shakos in your neighbour’ s farmyard 1 96 FATH E R RH I N E

Three o r four others got into o u r stuffy little compartment at this station ; we found the heat stifling , and twice we had to change trains ; but we reached Speyer at ’ last , at about ten o clock . Here again , as F all at reiburg , we found the better inns crowded , and were fain to content Ourselves at last with a most unangelic ” En gel , and a bedroom exposed to such influences as old Burton reckons among a the prime causes of mel ncholy , viz stable ar d those of a y under the windows . Of all our cheap lodgings during the whole t w as tour , his alone in any degree nasty ; and even here , though we lay down in n some trepidation , and othing but extreme weariness had kept us from passing on to n try our cha ces elsewhere , yet the bed clothes were clean to the eye , and no hidden beasts o f prey fell upon us while we Slept .

1 98 F ATH E R RH IN E and several inches o f bare flesh also vis we ible . A little way before got to n Mannheim , a ative cyclist picked us up — and stuck close behind me for the road a was only practicable for one breast . He was s o anxious to get up a conversation that he kept overlapping my wheel , and once or twice even touched it , with his w as an n o w n . He e gineer in one of the l arge works at Ludwigshafen ; I need no t had speak German to him , for , though he En a never been in gl nd , yet he could spik en leesh a g little ; just as , without having a o ne learnt it since more th n month , he a could lready ride the wheel pretty well , o ne as we might s ee . I asked him or two a and questions about the ro d to Worms , had just begun to realise that it was hopeless to make him understand in Eng w n a a lish , he I heard great cl tter behind n to n me , and looked rou d see him grovelli g i n - an r u n the dust , and an old market wom ning to pick him up . We got our left luggage out of the f nn and a o fice at Ma heim , put it in ch rge a o fli c ials a of the bo t , who warned us th t the boat would start late to d ay ; then we A a started again for Worms . st ll in the market - place i nvited us to alight and drink milk and soda at about 1 5 d . a pint ; and here , with incautious forethought , I bought o ur eggs and butter for lunch at Worms , F ATH E R R H I N E 1 99 and tied the paper parcel behind my tool b a in g , feeling too lazy to pack it any other way . The ride to Worms is dull s a all enough ; we could only y that , after , it was a few degrees better than the train . n We went rou d the town , and then bought fruit and came down to the waterside to o u r n cook lunch on the grass , u der a great w as poplar avenue . Here , I more pained than surprised to find that my butter and eggs had been jolted and baked i nto a o f rudimentary omelette , part which had a- trickled down upon my camer case , but the greater part , fortunately , into the road . Schultz e njoyed the joke far too thoroughly to regret the loss of part o fo u r lunch and w as ho t indeed it almost too to eat , and we were in a hurry to get the luggage we ' had o n sent from Bale , whereby we might n a n e joy nother cha ge of clothes . I draw a veil here over my friend ’ s raptures at casting o f those Nessus - stockings and getting into cool clean flannel s that no longer left his ankles defenceless to every fresh torme ntor . It w as plain from what they told us at the office that our Netherlands boat would not bri ng us to Mai nz before the post o ffi c e closed ; so we made up our minds ' -Dii s seldOrfer was to take the Koln , which a A just bout due . fter waiting half an s o hour or , we began to doubt whether and even this would do , went along the 200 FATH E R RH I N E

ffi quay to make fresh enquiries at the o ce . The ginger- headed youth was sitting at a his a desk in shirt sleeves , with p pers spread in o f front him . Both windows were open , but his face and bare arms glistened with n and perspiratio , the smoke of his cigar a curled str ight upwards . I tapped at the little glass wicket to attract his attention ; his l fo r he turned head anguidly a moment , and then looked out of the window again , with a faint puff at his cigar . I tapped “ again . Wollen Sie so gut sein but he did not deign to look round this a time . I w s contemplating stronger mea

a . sures , when I heard voice behind me “ ’ ’ ? Won t come to the window , won t he can s ee E I he wants some plain nglish , he ” ! a does The words came from tall , sporting - looking you th in a very stiff straw hat and very high collars , and a n yellow homespu suit , with bright blue ’ - ffi bird s eye waistcoat . He Opened the o ce door and walked straight in , and I after him . ’ sa a I y , when s this D mp Ship of yours coming up for Mayns

- It is to start at two twenty . I know that ; but when is it going to ’ start that s what I want to know .

The boat is sometimes a little late . ’ a Well , look here , I ve missed one tr in already , counting on your Damp Ship

202 F ATH E R RH I N E

A ’ rgentina , I do ; and I guess I shan t be

no w . long getting back there , I like this ’ n n here beer , but I do t like their ightshirts ! and their other ways . Here , miss another ” glass of the same ! And William Bur ro ws j ackson wiped his mou stache with a sigh . ’ ’ E a But you re nglish , ren t you ’ Down to the backbone ; o nly I ai n t ’ Fa ever been over here before . ther s got a big ranche o u t there ; went out in 1 8 found there was nothing to do at home ; R a he bowled for ugby , f ther did , only he ’ didn t seem to fi nd anythi ng to do in Eng ’ s o he s o u t land , been there ever since , except when he came home to get m arried . ’ It don t do to marry those Spanish women . ’ a Yes , they re mostly Sp nish round ’ us ; but w e don t trouble ourselves about ’ ’ F I do n t tbem . ather don t talk Spanish ; n n either , except you must k ow a word or two for the cowboys and that sort o fthing . s he Mother , talks a little but when they u s E come to , they talk nglish fast enough a a k so they lw ys can if they li e , why the Dickens should we go and take the trouble ’ to learn theirs That s what I always s ay ’ n an find to the Spa ish chaps , and they c t n n a ythi g to say agen it . Look at that fellow in the o fli ce here ; what did yo u get o u t of him with your German Now , they under stand En glish , they do ; they know F ATH E R R H I N E 203

’ a that means business . I ve been bout a a n good de l these three months , and I ever c ared a blow about any foreig n langu age

n w as in a . except o ce , and that P ris I ’ s a a n y , you fellows ren t getti g on with ! ! ” your liquor Here , Miss We assured him that he mustn’ t mind u s ; and I asked him ho w he had liked

Paris . ’ a Oh , middling ; that in t half a bad ’

n of a . tow theirs , if it w sn t for the foreigners ’ I don t like foreigners . But I chummed up one d ay with a young chap that had been in — England j ewls D ewb o y his name was h e gave me his c ard and wanted me to go and put up at his hotel in the Quarter — Lati n I came across him outside the Pal lyro yl and stood him a deej ewner . F Oh yes , I do talk a little rench some ’ times ; that pleases them ; it s like with ’ tbat the cowboys . Besides , ain t any meal that yo u can call with a decent English ’ n d ee ew ner — a ame , a j isn t s me as this — ’ Damp Ship you can t c all it like an honest steamboat ! So we arra nged to meet again and have din ner at the s ame place ; and he turned up right enough and an other fellow with him , that he called ee Ash l . He had a cycle with him this and see time , and wanted me to look what was the matter with it and I said I’ d never And a been on one . they s id they thought 204 FATH E R RH I N E

‘ E 8 0 every nglishman could ride . he ’ ‘ ’ an can , says I , if he w ts to . You may ’ bet your boots I was n t going to give the old country away like that ! They only a ewl s laughed , and I s id to j Look ’ I ‘ ’ here , says , I ve never had my legs across one of them machines in my life ; ’ ’ but what ll you bet I do n t get straight up ’ on yours and ride a hu ndred yards ? He a only laughed gain , and said something in F As heel and a s o rench to , he l ughed too ; n and I up and caught hold of the ha dles , shinned up somehow , and the brute shied and ran right across the road all among the cabs and buses ; but I stuck on by the skin of my teeth , and it landed me a good way n down on the other paveme t , with the drivers pulli ng up their beasts right o n n at their haunches and yelli g m e like mad . So now I knew a bit how it worked ; and a a n I got up g i , and kept the whole thing well in hand this time , and came back to fat the proper side , and right into a foreigner that was slinking along close his by the pavement , and buckled up front wheel and came right o ff again my at self. He looked his wheel and began ‘ a to jabber ; and I said , Wh t the were you doing on your wrong side and then ewl s Asheel and j and came up , I said , Ask him what the he was doing on ’ ’ his wrong side ! They said he wasn t ;

206 F ATH E R RH I N E everybody kept to their right in France ; a and the fat begg r grabbed me by the arm , and shook his fist in my face - regular — I’d blubbering , he was have given him a couple of quid and welcome if he’ d been w so civil , but he ent on cussing at me , I said I’ d be shot if I would ! j ust then there came a big crowd all down the street , shouting and waving flags and hustli ng the people all o ff the road ; and ’ n I k ew what that was , because I d seen it every day in Paris , and read all abou t it in m the papers . So j ust as they ca e up to ’ n o ff us , I shook the old fellow s ha d , and ‘ yelled out C o ns pew ey Dreyfus ! Con ’ s pew ey Dreyfus ! and knocked his hat o i t ff. One of the beggars trampled on and caught the o ld fellow by the collar ; o n I u st and I saw the fat was the fire , so j shi nned o ff round the corner as fast as I ’ could . To tell the truth , I didn t feel very comfortable j ust then they did go for him n somethi g cruel , and I thought they might find out their mistake and go for me in stead ; so I took c are to get on a good was way before I stopped . There a sort o ne of square , with a railway station at a n end , and big statue of a woma with a ribbon bonnet on her head The Statue o f Strassburg Ah ! sat , then that explains it all I down outside a hotel there , and had a good F ATH E R RH I N E 207

’ honest dinner ; and the w aiter d just gone o ffto get me change for half a s ov whe n ewls n who should I see but j , sneaking i to the other cor ner of the squ are with one of F those rench bobbies after him , and look ’ b in all n . n e g rou d They could t see me , cause I was in a corner behind one of those tubs ; but they went i nside the first hotel

they came to , and then out I slipped , just — ’ across into the station ir wasn t two steps — and stuck down a fiver and s aid to the a n ticket clerk , Ch ri g Cross ; first single a Well , the fellow j bbered at me ; but I ‘ to n F stuck my gu s , and said , irst single t o n Chari g Cross , and look sharp, please fo r all and the bells were ringing , fellows nn n t a ru i g through wi h b gs in their hands , and I was afraid every moment of seei ng

j ewls after me . So at last the clerk d shrugged his shoul ers , and gave me a ticket and a whole lot of change ; and I ’ a n all n h d t hardly scooped it up , whe a fellow comes and catches me by the arm and bundles me into the trai n and then I k new I was safe enough at Here we are last , cried Schultz ,

rising from his seat ; and there , sure a n enough , was our bo t comi g round the W corner . illiam Burrows j ackson clung to me and besought me to t ake his ticket “ — ’ for him . Look here I ve got a pocket chock full of money that none of these F ATH E R RH I N E

’ beggars will look at -I don t know how the deuce I came by it all ! They ’ re most awful liars and swi ndlers out here ; they almost beat the Spaniards for that . j ust fancy their saying that this Damp Ship was ” goi ng to st art at I

2 1 0 F ATH E R RH I N E when we cleared out ; the cellar seemed a m — ile long , and all up and down they said — it r an right under the Cathedral but I ’ couldn t stand th at sort of thing every day ; you want to be a German fo r that ! And o n then Karl he went to Heidelberg , ’ a a and I wen t with him . Th t s ripping

can . . place , I tell you Look here t But while we were all atten ion , he broke in with sudden caution , Have you ever been at Heidelberg

I lived there for a year and a h alf. Ah I he replied and as it was evident that he meant to spare u s further revelations about that ripping town , Schultz asked him how he h ad found his way hither . “ ’ a . Well , th t s just it Karl , he had to u a lo t o f get up early , and go ro nd to little ’ places ; s o I said I d come o n quickly and

n Ma ns . meet him this eveni g at . y But ’ o u I when I d got into that train , I tell y ’ w as well- nigh smothered ! It wasn t so bad at first , but we stopped at two big tow ns and took crowds of people on board ; and they all came squeezing into my car And a riage . then at last we c me to this o u t s ee place , and I looked to whether we ’ a u and s aw a weren t at M y s , there I a gre t

WORMS written up . So I said to the fel ’ lo w n a ext me , That s a queer n me for a ’ station that s worse than round us , where ’ ‘ ’ A they re all Saints and ngels Well , he F ATH E R RH I N E 2 1 1 was too lazy to let o n that he k new ; but a there was a little black , h iry fellow , like a n and monkey , in the other cor er , he said , ‘ ’ ‘ s i en leesh . I pk g So , I said , Why do ’ they call this pl ace Worms ? They ’ ’ ‘ ’ don t , says he ; they call it Warms . ’ ’ Well , says I , you don t need to tell me ’ why they call it w arms (for it w as fit to split the roof o f the carriage in that station) ; ‘ ’ so I said , Here s for something wet , or ’ ’ else I Shall choke in here . You ll miss ’ ‘ ’ ’ a . the tr in , says he Well , says I , I ve n and missed better thi gs before , never cried over it So I came along and got ’ a glass of beer ; and I h adn t got it half down before the guard came in and reeled o ff a whole list of stations , and then he shook me by the arm and pointed to the ’ door . You go to j ericho ! I says ; for I’ d got my legs well under the table by ‘ then ; I mean to punish this here beer ’ ’ n considerable before I ve do e with it , and o u t he we n t and I made the w aiter bring

. a E me something to eat He t lked nglish , he did and he told me I might go by water ’ if I liked ; I d only got to come down to — the river and ask after the Damp Ship s o ! a here I am Look here , wh t are you going to have aboard here Won’ t you ? then I will He entertained us with m any stories of A a rgentina on the way down to M inz . 2 1 2 F ATH E R RH I N E

He was pretty well sick o f Germany at a l st for one thing , he wanted his luggage , which ought to be in London by no w he h ad sen t word to his hotel in Paris from

Strassburg . Meanwhile he had bought a new dressing- bag ; and every day he got and fresh linen left the old behind . It no t a a w a o f was che p y travelling , but ’ father did n t s o much mind what he spent s o long as he kept his eyes open and

o u t . Fo r looked for business the present , his main business ideas seemed to be that ’ German nightshirts were n t fit for a do g to

sleep in , but their beer was ripping , and no w mistake . Ho ever , he was about sick

and a . was of it all , w nted to go home It was jollier at home than it here . Look ? here , would Schultz go with him He his would pay passage out , meals and all , o n and give him champagne Sundays , and any other wine he chose to name on week it a ? And days . Was a barg in when he Schultz declined , fell back even on w as me . He sick of finding nobody to talk real English to ; even Karl now ’ w ell E , it wasn t the same as a real nglish

man . We must positively come and dine

with him and Karl at Mainz . We explained s ee that we had to go to the post , and the o f Cathedral , and lots things which would have no interest for him ; but nothing availed u s until at last we promised to

2 1 4 F ATH E R R H I N E

men nightshirts , and two or three to talk ” to all day . “ ’ ’ H e s No , that s not it . a sociable ’ ’

. Yo u beggar , and you re not don t ’ ho w know homesick I ve been getting , these last few days I’ ve never been s o a long aw y since we were married . ’ ” Yo u I don t know , old man I did no t k now ; but I listened reverently to all that my friend had to s ay under the I silent stars , reflecting all the while that even Solomon had found three things that

pu zzled him , yea four that he never could make out The boat came in about and we went i nto the saloon to write up our diaries

and letters . j ust as we were thinking of o n bed , a Scotchman came board with his n bag , and , after observing us for a mome t , said that he believed he had a message for

us . He had met at a restaurant a Mr A j ackson from rgentina , who had insisted n n on entertai ing him at din er , together with o f a many other guests various nation lities , and had fi nally offered to all and sundry

a free A . of them . passage to rgentina , etc , F etc . inding that our Scotchman was going ak to t e the Dutch boat , he had sent a mes ’ sage to u s ; he could n t leave Karl that a night , because Karl was jolly good fel Io w ; but he would go o n by train next

n . day , and catch us up at Colog e F ATH E R RH I N E 2 1 5

” Did he tell you any o fhis adventures ?

I enquired .

Well , if ye ask me , I think the young in man is just a wee bit touched the head . ’ But he gave us a g ude dinner for a that ; ’ ’ though I m no t s a sure that ye ll find him ” - at Cologne to morrow . CH APTER XXVII

— ra n a t u a n an C . L MB . The b i of r e C ledo i . A

Augu s t I 8 . WO KE to find the boat j ust dropping from her moorings at Mainz ; the sun s hinmg through a bright haze that deepens as an we proceed , and softens all the l d scape i nto charming silver greys ; no chance of snapshots , however , though we h ave a whole-plate camera planted

o n a a . a ready deck after bre kf st B charach , Bo art Oberwesel , pp glide past us between ten nine and , looming faintly through the mist which h as thickened sudde nly again n n n in the gorge of Binge , and o ly begi s to clear away a little when we emerge

n . E upo Coblenz ven Schultz , for the n has n prese t , had enough of cycli g in the sun ; and we loll together at the stern and feel very grateful again to our o ld slow , comfortable , Dutch ship . Not

- that she is very slow either, to day ; for she Spins down on this curre nt at a good n an n fiftee miles hour , sweepi g round the corners with a swish of her great 2 1 6

2 1 8 F ATH E R RH I N E

n before , fi ishing a late lunch and lost in hearty admiration of the Seven Mountains , which looked twice their u su al size in the silvery haze . “ ’ D ye know Ar r rrrrr rn he said to me . “ No , replied I , never suspecting for the moment that he could be referring to that picturesque island in the Firth of is Clyde which , even in its native wilds , usu ally contented with a less extravagant ’ rfl i t s u pe u y of R s . “ ’ Weel , there s something in the con ’ fo rr matio n 0 these lines that always r e minds me of Goat Fell and a little v eelage o n at its fute , as ye see them the way to Ar r rr r rrr n Rothesay . Only of course n is the fi er view . Now that we were in the F irth of

Clyde , I knew that the anecdote of the minister o f Great and Little C u mb rae was inevitable , and that I must prepare myself to express an Opinion on the statue o f ’ ’ Hielan Mary at Dunoon . Our friend s own opinion was that Burru s was a good — deal overrated in comparison with other

Scotchmen , that is ; for of course there was no question of his superiority to mere n Souther poets . This reminded us of his compatriot who thought that Shakes ’ peare s ab eelity might warrant the s u p ” po s eetio n of his being a North Briton ; FATH E R RH I N E 2 1 9 and we ge ntly led him o n to express an opi nio n o n the works of the national bard .

Well , he liked them well enough to read , but he thought some of them were a bit too depressing to see acted— too many

and . murders , suchlike When he went ’ n to the theatre , he didn t wa t to be “ ” raxed all over ; that was waste of tissue and waste of money at the same an time . On the stage he preferred Sherid ” n She stoops to Co quer , Lady Teazle , — ” and a . all that but bove all , Our Boys “ ” ? Had we ever seen Our Boys Well , ’ he d been to s ee it ten or a dozen times E and in dinburgh , mind you , with the best of actors and scenery And once he had “ t aken his wife and his aunt let me see a t — now , what ye r would hat be and they — ’ were so amused although I d explai ned it all beforehand with the most exact pre — c ees io n but they were just as amused as if it had been quite a differe nt play He paused here to rectify a trifling a a omission . The l dy bove referred to n a n was not , strictly Speaki g , his u t , but ’ o f a the second wife his f ther s brother , who had been a minister of the Established H is o w n a Kirk . h lf of the family had stuck to b ees ines s ; but this uncle and bis sons had preferred the lear ned professions — a meenis ter a , a headmaster , contributor

t o E etc . . the Britannica ncyclopedia , , etc 220 F ATH E R RH I N E

men and They were learned , therefore at so - unpractical ; and , the best , the called n H er e I professio s were miserably paid . in n joined with him heartily , explaini g with some warmth how m any years I had sp ent in teaching the youth of Great a h n Brit in , and w at was my prese t balance at . n the bank Schultz , on the other ha d , took strong exception to the assumptio n that idealists were necessarily unpractical ; but here we came to Bonn , and I ran ashore to buy milk , postcards , etc . , etc . I came back half an hour later to find l f n them sti l at it , Schultz pu fi g at his cigar with con temptuous violence ; the North Briton clenching his fists in a ff desperate e ort to remain calm , but foam ing at the mouth as he exhorted my frie nd “ ’ to j ust tak a b raad view of the question ” at ees su e ! I feared imminent personal a Mac violence , and h stened to divert Mr ’ Ewan s thoughts by asking him to give me n change for ten m arks . The ti kle of the siller soothed him ; he too had had o ne a o ff n at outlandish coin p lmed upo him , the fresh sight of w hich he bega n to inveigh against German waiters and Ger man - and so ticket clerks , the bitter dispute ” u lv eris exi u i ac t u was assuaged p g j , as

I thought to myself, and chuckled over my successful diplomacy . a We rrived late in Cologne , and could

222 F ATH E R RH I N E vivo s r . My pen shrinks from betraying co nfid enc es o r family , I could record very ’ exactly the ups and downs o fj anet s first love , and the gradual downward steps by A at - fi ve h ad which leck , the age of twenty , already accumulated debts to the amount of more than seven pounds sterling . CHAPTER XXVIII

E t n o n om nia pertus um congesta q uasi i n v as C o mm oda perflu x ere atiqu e ing ratum i nteriere . LUC RETIUS .

Augus t 1 9 . WE woke again among the flat banks and great white poplars and brick churches o f n the Lower Rhi ne . Bright su shine again ; we had grown to look upon that as a matter a of course . We found our old pl ce in the and n stern , placidly the whole skei of pleasant memories u nwou nd itself once E more . mmerich , broiling now in the n t morning su shine ; Nymegen , wi h its warm purple brick- tints and fresh green a foli ge ; Heukelum and Gellicum , Wor cum and G o rc u m ; Holland Diep dotted a in with white s ils , and Dort asleep again - - d a the heat haze . But to y we sweep down on a flowing current ; no time now to ex n s o cha ge greetings with the Shipwrights , a a a a swiftly do the trim little vill ges p ss w y , and . a a are gone Hardly , fter Dort , h ve we stepped below to pack up our belong R a in ings , and here already is otterd m sight Again we load our p atie nt m achi nes and walk them across to the Station again 2 2 3 224 F ATH E R RH I N E we beat off the swarms o f porters who gather round to hinder us and to collect baksheesh ; and now our good steeds are registered through to their destin ation and a a a and our lugg ge s fe in the clo kroom , we have more than five Clear hours to h enjoy Rotterdam . We loiter throug the an crowded , cheerful market , and buy excellent little hothouse melon for four Mac Ew an pence . We meet our friend

B . . a a a A . C g in , and pilot him to sort of in aa a ff the Hoogstr t , where he studies the t ri W 1th a n the deliber tio of his race , and finally ” Ko fli e R and elects met oom , makes no attempt to disguise his disappoi ntment R when the drink is brought , and oom a turns out to be mere cre m . Then we a n a loafed bout the tow again , and w tched the preparations for the approaching cele ’ bration of the Queen s majority and finally came to anchor at a restaurant where we could eat our dinner and look out upon the throng of cheerful Dutch faces that At streamed by us along the paveme nt . last the hand of our restaurant clock creeps and w a on to ten , we have to make our y a n back to the st tio ; and , as we squeeze ourselves and o u r luggage into the already a a n somewh t crowded tr i , and cockney voices force themselves again upon our is ear , we feel that our holiday really drawing to a close .

226 F ATH E R RH I N E

En fi shin - flitted Spire , and glish g boats about n us in the thin mor ing mist . The ship and was a little late , we found our trains already s norti ng to be o ff s o here on the pl atform we parted with a hurried word of farewell , Schultz to London , and I to the ’ North ; but to meet agai n in a few weeks t i me .

And now we have traced the Rhine from mouth to source , from Source to mouth again : day by day we have watched the changing faces o ffresh lands and fresh people , drinking at the same stream , but Fo r strangers to each other . these three weeks the waters h ad seemed to be our n a o u r very own , flowi g to gr ce summer holi d a a a and y . We h ve p rted from them now , the mere memory is a reminder of man’ s transience in the face of Nature . a — L bitur et labetur . Thousands of years o u r hence , when bones are fossilized , and o ur future students Shall pore over skulls , wondering that such an antiquated build o f can a man ever have existed , and future his torians shall rack their brains to piece together some sort of patchwork idea of — nineteenth century civilisation thousands of years hence , those clear green waters will flo w as fresh from the mountains as ran A they for us this ugust , and as we hope they will some day run for us again . F ATH E R R H I N E 227

Yet , whether we visit them or whether w e forbear , none the less will they flow as n a on , e r an example of eternity as any

n s ee o n . And thi g that we can earth , to those who have once lingered by the upper o f R waters the hine , the memory remains from that time forth as an u nfading posses n m a sio . Negretti and Zambra y mark ° 90 in the shade ; we may creep out to n s it lu ch , and despondingly in face of the liquefied butter ; and crawl back again along the shady side of the street , de vo utly hopi ng that the man who first i nvented the silk hat is at present wearing o ne o f red- hot steel ; but we c an n never be utterly forlor , with this memory i n our soul . Some trifle suddenly rec alls — the old days if only the t wo wizened laurels in tubs , as unhappy in their exile ’ a as Tartarin s baobab , that st nd by the an a door of some tavern , under dvertise — ment ofMunich beer ifonly some glaring railway advertisement of Swiss tours— some n and thi g is sure to strike the right cord , then it all comes flooding back upon o u r soul ; the colour, the rush of it , the cool o n a spray the breeze , and the d rk pines , and blue distance , and faint white peaks among a the clouds , and the ple sant , friendly , sun — burnt people and we know once more that b alm there is in Gilead . Do I view this as ? Ah world a vale of tears , reverend 2 28 F ATH E R RH I N E sir l see Glar nisch , not I I Sentis and , a a and the gre t l kes ; the falls , the rapids , the thousand quaint old towns ; I hear the murmur of the river as it lulled me to sleep night after night ; amid these crowded Streets and ungrateful occupa tions the memory has suddenly welled up again as fresh and green and cool as ever ; the very wilderness of London blossoms as the rose

ri t u a u n L t u r l B gh vol mes of v po r dow o hb y g ide , " A nd a fl n t u h th e al a river ows o hro g v e of C he pside .

230 AP P E N DIX

R On the hine boats we travelled first , and had a very comfortable little cabin and with two berths a couch .

1 s . d Our cheapest beds were at Ilanz ( 3 . o u r d ff each) , and earest at Scha hausen ( 2 s .

6d . each) . By asking prices and looking o ne can an at rooms beforehand , find cle and cheap rooms at all but the most tourist

h aunted places . The above stateme nt accounts for every o n thing spent the tour , except stamps a and postcards , photogr phs , cigars , and

presents . i ce —F n t (3) D stan s . rom Lo don o Mann a 80 0 heim and b ck is roughly miles , and we did a further 60 0 miles by rail and and 1 boat , 5 9 by bicycle (of which about 0 as 9 covered the same ground the boat) . m I subjoin detailed bicycle measure ents , carefully recorded at the time from the cyclometer ; the discrepancy between these details and the total gives a measure ofthe extra work we did in wa nderi ng about

fo r . etc . towns , turning aside views , etc , extras amounting sometimes to 8 miles a

d ay . - E 2 2 - C o Nymegen mmerich , ; Zons lo ne 2 A - n g , 5 ; ndernach Binge , 5 9 ; Bruch sal- 1 - 0 0 s Maulbronn , 9 ; Maulbronn , 47 ; Oo s - ff 2 8 O enburg , Donaueschingen 2 8 U etlib er - 6 Neuhausen , ; g Brunnen , 3 ; - Flu elen 8 G o eschenen- Brunnen , 3; Ilanz , AP P E N DIX 231

2 a - a an F n 4 ; Il nz S rg s , 39 ; riedrichshafe 1 2 - 1 8 Meersburg , ; Constance Stein , ; ff - n a Scha hausen Neuhause , 3 ; Neuh usen Bfile 6 2 i - F 1 F , ; B le reiburg , 4 ; reiburg 2 - n 1 Colmar , 9 ; Strassburg Weisse burg , 4 - 2 8 . Speyer Worms , We very seldom found the roads really fi r s t- bad , but equally seldom really rate , ’ from a bicyclist s point of view .