A Days Tour | Page 6

a stray
coach waiting; the yellow gateway and drawbridge of the fortress just
beyond, and the chiming of carillons in a wheezy fashion from the old
watch-tower within, make up a picture.
[Illustration: HOGARTH'S GATE (CALAIS)]
[Illustration: HALL OF THE STAPLE, (Calais)]
Such, indeed, it used to be--not without its poetry, too; but the old
Calais days are gone. Now the travellers land far away down the pier, at

the new-fangled 'Calais Maritime,' forsooth! and do not even approach
the old town. The fishing-boats, laid up side by side along the piers, are
shadowy. It seems a scene in a play. The great sea is behind us and all
round. It is a curious feeling, thinking of the nervous unrest of the place,
that has gone on for a century, and that will probably go on for
centuries more. Certainly, to a person who has never been abroad, this
midnight scene would be a picture not without a flavour of romance.
But such glimpses of poetry are held intrusive in these matter-of-fact
days.
There is more than an hour to wait, whilst the passengers gorge in the
huge salle, and the baggage is got ashore. So I wander away up to the
town.
How picturesque that stroll! Not wholly levelled are the old yellow
walls; the railway-station with its one eye, and clock that never sleeps,
opens its jaws with a cheerful bright light, like an inn fire; dark figures
in cowls, soldiers, sailors, flit about; curiously-shaped tumbrils for the
baggage lie up in ordinary. Here is the old arched gate, ditch, and
drawbridge; Hogarth's old bridge and archway, where he drew the
'Roast Beef of Old England.' Passing over the bridge into the town
unchallenged, I find a narrow street with yellow houses--the white
shutters, the porches, the first glance of which affects one so curiously
and reveals France. Here is the Place of Arms in the centre, whence all
streets radiate. What more picturesque scene!--the moon above, the
irregular houses straggling round, the quaint old town-hall, with its
elegant tower, and rather wheezy but most musical chimes; its
neighbour, the black, solemn watch-tower, rising rude and abrupt,
seven centuries old, whence there used to be strict look-out for the
English. Down one of these side streets is a tall building, with its long
rows of windows and shutters and closed door (Quillacq's, now
Dessein's), once a favourite house--the 'Silver Lion,' mentioned in the
old memoirs, visited by Hogarth, and where, twenty years ago, there
used to be a crowd of guests. Standing in the centre, I note a stray
roysterer issuing from some long-closed _café_, hurrying home, while
the carillons in their airy _rococo_-looking tower play their melodious
tunes in a wheezy jangle that is interesting and novel. This chime has a

celebrity in this quarter of France. I stayed long in the centre of that
solitary place, listening to that midnight music.
It is a curious, not unromantic feeling, that of wandering about a
strange town at midnight, and the effect increases as, leaving the place,
I turn down a little by-street--the Rue de Guise--closed at the end by a
beautiful building or fragment, unmistakably English in character.
Behind it spreads the veil of blue sky, illuminated by the moon, with
drifting white clouds passing lazily across. This is the entrance to the
Hôtel de Guise--a gate-tower and archway, pure Tudor-English in
character, and, like many an old house in the English counties, elegant
and almost piquant in its design. The arch is flanked by slight
hexagonal tourelles, each capped by a pinnacle decorated with niches
in front. Within is a little courtyard, and fragments of the building
running round in the same Tudor style, but given up to squalor and
decay, evidently let out to poor lodgers. This charming fragment
excites a deep melancholy, as it is a neglected survival, and may
disappear at any moment--the French having little interest in these
English monuments, indeed, being eager to efface them when they can.
It is always striking to see this on some tranquil night, as I do now--and
Calais is oftenest seen at midnight--and think of the Earl of Warwick,
the 'deputy,' and of the English wool-staple merchants who traded here.
Here lodged Henry VIII. in 1520; and twelve years later Francis I.,
when on a visit to Henry, took up his abode in this palace.
[Illustration: BELFRY, CALAIS.]
Crossing the place again, I come on the grim old church, built by the
English, where were married our own King Richard II. and Isabelle of
Valois--a curious memory to recur as we listen to the 'high mass' of a
Calais Sunday. But the author of 'Modern Painters' has furnished the
old church with its best poetical interpretation. 'I cannot find words,' he
says in a noble passage,' to