A Days Tour | Page 2

supremely
happy. It is next in interest to the play. The carriages are marked
'CALAIS,' 'PARIS,' etc. It is even curious to think that, within three

hours or so, they will be on foreign soil, among the French spires,
sabots, blouses, gendarmes, etc. These are trivial and fanciful notions,
but help to fortify what one has of the little faiths of life, and what one
wise man, at least, has said: that it is the smaller unpretending things of
life that make up its pleasures, particularly those that come
unexpectedly, and from which we hope but little.
When all these thoughts were thus tumultuously busy, an odd bizarre
idea presented itself. By an unusual concatenation, there was before me
but a strictly-tightened space of leisure that could not be expanded.
Friday must be spent at home. This was Wednesday, already
three-quarters spent; but there was the coming night and the whole of
Thursday. But Friday morning imperatively required that the traveller
should be found back at home again. The whole span, the irreducible
maximum, not to be stretched by any contrivance beyond about thirty
hours. Something could be done, but not much. As I thought of the
strict and narrow limits, it seemed that these were some precious
golden hours, and never to recur again; the opportunity must be seized,
or lost for ever! As I walked the sunshiny streets, images rose of the
bright streets abroad, their quaint old towers, and town-halls, and
marketplaces, and churches, red-capped fisherwomen--all this scenery
was 'set,'--properties and decorations--and the foreign play seemed to
open before my eyes and invite me.
There is an Eastern story of a man who dipped his head into a tub of
water, and who there and then mysteriously passed through a long
series of events: was married, had children, saw them grow up, was
taken prisoner by barbarians, confined long in gaol, was finally tried,
sentenced, and led out to execution, with the scimitar about to descend,
when of a sudden--he drew his head out of the water. And lo! all these
marvels had passed in a second! What if there were to be magically
crowded into those few hours all that could possibly be seen--sea and
land, old towns in different countries, strange people, cathedrals,
town-halls, streets, etc.? It would be like some wild, fitful dream. And
on the Friday I would draw my head, as it were, out of the tub. But it
would need the nicest balancing and calculation, not a minute to be lost,
everything to be measured and jointed together beforehand.

There was something piquant in this notion. Was not life short? and
precious hours were too often wasted carelessly and dawdled away. It
might even be worth while to see how much could be seen in these few
hours. In a few moments the resolution was taken, and I was walking
down to Victoria, and in two hours was in Snargate Street, Dover.

II.
_DOVER._
Dover has an old-fashioned dignity of its own; the town, harbour, ports,
and people seem, as it were, consecrated to packets. There is an antique
and reverend grayness in its old inns, old streets, old houses, all
clustered and huddled into the little sheltered amphitheatre, as if trying
to get down close by their pride, the packets. For centuries it has been
the threshold, the _hall-door_, of England. It is the last inn, as it were,
from which we depart to see foreign lands. History, too, comes back on
us: we think of 'expresses' in fast sloops or fishing-boats; of landings at
Dover, and taking post for London in war-time; how kings have
embarked, princesses disembarked--all in that awkward, yet snug
harbour. A most curious element in this feeling is the faint French
flavour reaching across--by day the white hills yonder, by night the
glimmering lights on the opposite coast. The inns, too, have a nautical,
seaport air, running along the beach, as they should do, and some of the
older ones having a bulging stern-post look about their lower windows.
Even the frowning, fortress-like coloured pile, the Lord Warden, thrusts
its shoulders forward on the right, and advances well out into the sea,
as if to be the first to attract the arrivals. There is a quaint relish, too, in
the dingy, old-fashioned marine terrace of dirty tawny brick, its green
verandas and jalousies, which lend quite a tropical air. Behind them, in
shelter, are little dark squares, of a darker stone, with glimpses of the
sea and packets just at the corners. Indeed, at every point wherever
there is a slit or crevice, a mast or some cordage is sure to show itself,
reminding us how much we are of the packet, packety. Ports of this
kind, with all their people and incidents, seem to be