A Days Tour | Page 5

uncertain waters in 'all weathers,' as it is termed. When the night is black as Erebus, and the sea in its fury boiling and raging over the pier, the Lord Warden with its storm-shutters up, and timid guests removed to more sheltered quarters, the very stones of the pier shaken from their places by the violence of the monster outside--the little craft, wrapping its mantle about its head, goes out fearlessly, and, emerging from the harbour to be flung about, battered with wild fury, forces her way on through the night, which its gallant sailors call, with truth, 'an awful one.'
While busy with these thoughts I take note of a little scene of comedy, or perhaps of a farcical kind, which is going on near me, in which two 'Harrys' of the purest kind were engaged, and whose oddities lightened the tediousness of the passage. One had seen foreign parts, and was therefore regarded with reverence by his companion.
They were promenading the deck, and the following dialogue was borne to me in snatches:
First Harry (interrogatively, and astonished): 'Eh? no! Now, really?'
Second Harry: 'Oh, Lord bless yer, yes! It comes quite easy, you know' (or 'yer know'). 'A little trouble at first; but, Lord bless yer' (this benediction was imparted many times during the conversation), 'it ain't such a difficult thing at all.'
I now found they were speaking of acquiring the French language--a matter the difficulty of which they thought had been absurdly overrated. Then the second Harry: 'Of course it is! Suppose you're in a Caffy, and want some wine; you just call to the waiter, and you say--'
First Harry (who seems to think that the secret has already been communicated): 'Dear me; yes, to be sure--to be sure! I never thought of that. A Caffy?'
Second Harry: 'Oh, Lor' bless yer, it comes as easy as--that! Well, you go say to the fellow--just as you would say to an English waiter--"_Don-ny maw_"--(pause)--"dee Vinne."'
First Harry (amazed): 'So _that's_ the way! Dear, dear me! Vinne!'
Second Harry: 'O' course it is the way! Suppose you want yer way to the railway, you just go ask for the "_Sheemin--dee--Fur_." Fur, you know, means "rail" in French--Sheemin is "the road," you know.'
Again lost in wonder at the simplicity of what is popularly supposed to be so thorny, the other Harry could only repeat:
'So that's it! What is it, again? _Sheemin_--'
_'Sheemin dee Fur.'_
Later, in the fuss and bustle of the 'eating hall,' this 'Harry,' more obstreperous than ever by contact with the foreigners, again attracted my attention. Everywhere I heard his voice; he was rampant.
'When the chap laid hold of my bag, "Halloo," says I; "hands off, old boy," says I.
"'Eel Fo!" says he.
'"Eel-pie!" says I. "Blow your Fo," says I, and didn't he grin like an ape? I declare I thought I'd have split when he came again with his "Eel Fo!"'
He was then in his element. Everything new to him was 'a guy,' or 'so rum,' or 'the queerest go you ever.' One of the two declared that, 'in all his experience and in all his life he had never heard sich a lingo as French;' and further, that 'one of their light porters at Bucklersbury would eat half a dozen of them Frenchmen for a bender.'
This strange, grotesque dialogue I repeat textually almost; and, it may be conceived, it was entertaining in a high degree. _'Sheemin dee Fur'_ was the exact phonetic pronunciation, and the whole scene lingers pleasantly in the memory.

IV.
_CALAIS._
But it is now close on midnight, and we are drawing near land; the eye of the French phare grows fiercer and more glaring, until, close on midnight, the traveller finds the blinding light flashed full on him, as the vessel rushes past the wickerwork pier-head. One or two beings, whose unhappy constitution it is to be miserable and wretched at the very whisper of the word 'SEA,' drag themselves up from below, rejoicing that here is CALAIS. Beyond rises the clustered town confined within its walls. As we glide in between the friendly arms of the openwork pier, the shadowy outlines of the low-lying town take shape and enlarge, dotted with lamps as though pricked over with pin-holes. The fiery clock of the station, that sits up all night from year's end to year's end; the dark figures with tumbrils, and 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