An Inland Voyage

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Роберт Стивенсон. An Inland Voyage

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

TO SIR WALTER GRINDLAY SIMPSON, BART

ANTWERP TO BOOM

ON THE WILLEBROEK CANAL

THE ROYAL SPORT NAUTIQUE

AT MAUBEUGE

ON THE SAMBRE CANALISED: TO QUARTES

PONT-SUR-SAMBRE

WE ARE PEDLARS

THE TRAVELLING MERCHANT

ON THE SAMBRE CANALISED: TO LANDRECIES

AT LANDRECIES

SAMBRE AND OISE CANAL: CANAL BOATS

THE OISE IN FLOOD

ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOÎTE

A BY-DAY

THE COMPANY AT TABLE

DOWN THE OISE: TO MOY

LA FÈRE OF CURSED MEMORY

DOWN THE OISE: THROUGH THE GOLDEN VALLEY

NOYON CATHEDRAL

DOWN THE OISE: TO COMPIÈGNE

AT COMPIÈGNE

CHANGED TIMES

DOWN THE OISE: CHURCH INTERIORS

PRÉCY AND THE MARIONNETTES

BACK TO THE WORLD

Отрывок из книги

We made a great stir in Antwerp Docks. A stevedore and a lot of dock porters took up the two canoes, and ran with them for the slip. A crowd of children followed cheering. The Cigarette went off in a splash and a bubble of small breaking water. Next moment the Arethusa was after her. A steamer was coming down, men on the paddle-box shouted hoarse warnings, the stevedore and his porters were bawling from the quay. But in a stroke or two the canoes were away out in the middle of the Scheldt, and all steamers, and stevedores, and other ‘long-shore vanities were left behind.

The sun shone brightly; the tide was making – four jolly miles an hour; the wind blew steadily, with occasional squalls. For my part, I had never been in a canoe under sail in my life; and my first experiment out in the middle of this big river was not made without some trepidation. What would happen when the wind first caught my little canvas? I suppose it was almost as trying a venture into the regions of the unknown as to publish a first book, or to marry. But my doubts were not of long duration; and in five minutes you will not be surprised to learn that I had tied my sheet.

.....

It was a fine, green, fat landscape; or rather a mere green water-lane, going on from village to village. Things had a settled look, as in places long lived in. Crop-headed children spat upon us from the bridges as we went below, with a true conservative feeling. But even more conservative were the fishermen, intent upon their floats, who let us go by without one glance. They perched upon sterlings and buttresses and along the slope of the embankment, gently occupied. They were indifferent, like pieces of dead nature. They did not move any more than if they had been fishing in an old Dutch print. The leaves fluttered, the water lapped, but they continued in one stay like so many churches established by law. You might have trepanned every one of their innocent heads, and found no more than so much coiled fishing-line below their skulls. I do not care for your stalwart fellows in india-rubber stockings breasting up mountain torrents with a salmon rod; but I do dearly love the class of man who plies his unfruitful art, for ever and a day, by still and depopulated waters.

At the last lock, just beyond Villevorde, there was a lock-mistress who spoke French comprehensibly, and told us we were still a couple of leagues from Brussels. At the same place, the rain began again. It fell in straight, parallel lines; and the surface of the canal was thrown up into an infinity of little crystal fountains. There were no beds to be had in the neighbourhood. Nothing for it but to lay the sails aside and address ourselves to steady paddling in the rain.

.....