Roundabout Papers | Page 4

railways, and
the commerce and intercourse of men. From the northern gate, the iron
road stretches away to Zurich, to Basle, to Paris, to home. From the old
southern barriers, before which a little river rushes, and around which
stretch the crumbling battlements of the ancient town, the road bears
the slow diligence or lagging vetturino by the shallow Rhine, through
the awful gorges of the Via Mala, and presently over the Splugen to the
shores of Como.
I have seldom seen a place more quaint, pretty, calm, and pastoral, than
this remote little Chur. What need have the inhabitants for walls and
ramparts, except to build summer-houses, to trail vines, and hang
clothes to dry on them? No enemies approach the great mouldering
gates: only at morn and even the cows come lowing past them, the
village maidens chatter merrily round the fountains, and babble like the
ever-voluble stream that flows under the old walls. The schoolboys,
with book and satchel, in smart uniforms, march up to the gymnasium,
and return thence at their stated time. There is one coffee-house in the
town, and I see one old gentleman goes to it. There are shops with no
customers seemingly, and the lazy tradesmen look out of their little
windows at the single stranger sauntering by. There is a stall with
baskets of queer little black grapes and apples, and a pretty brisk trade
with half a dozen urchins standing round. But, beyond this, there is
scarce any talk or movement in the street. There's nobody at the
book-shop. "If you will have the goodness to come again in an hour,"
says the banker, with his mouthful of dinner at one o'clock, "you can
have the money." There is nobody at the hotel, save the good landlady,
the kind waiters, the brisk young cook who ministers to you. Nobody is
in the Protestant church--(oh! strange sight, the two confessions are
here at peace!)--nobody in the Catholic church: until the sacristan, from
his snug abode in the cathedral close, espies the traveller eying the
monsters and pillars before the old shark- toothed arch of his cathedral,
and comes out (with a view to remuneration possibly) and opens the

gate, and shows you the venerable church, and the queer old relics in
the sacristy, and the ancient vestments (a black velvet cope, amongst
other robes, as fresh as yesterday, and presented by that notorious
"pervert," Henry of Navarre and France), and the statue of St. Lucius
who built St. Peter's Church, on Cornhill.
What a quiet, kind, quaint, pleasant, pretty old town! Has it been asleep
these hundreds and hundreds of years, and is the brisk young Prince of
the Sidereal Realms in his screaming car drawn by his snorting steel
elephant coming to waken it? Time was when there must have been life
and bustle and commerce here. Those vast, venerable walls were not
made to keep out cows, but men-at-arms, led by fierce captains, who
prowled about the gates, and robbed the traders as they passed in and
out with their bales, their goods, their pack-horses, and their wains. Is
the place so dead that even the clergy of the different denominations
can't quarrel? Why, seven or eight, or a dozen, or fifteen hundred years
ago (they haven't the register at St. Peter's up to that remote period. I
dare say it was burnt in the fire of London)--a dozen hundred years ago,
when there was some life in the town, St. Lucius was stoned here on
account of theological differences, after founding our church in
Cornhill.
There was a sweet pretty river walk we used to take in the evening and
mark the mountains round glooming with a deeper purple; the shades
creeping up the golden walls; the river brawling, the cattle calling, the
maids and chatter-boxes round the fountains babbling and bawling; and
several times in the course of our sober walks we overtook a lazy
slouching boy, or hobble-dehoy, with a rusty coat, and trousers not too
long, and big feet trailing lazily one after the other, and large lazy
hands dawdling from out the tight sleeves, and in the lazy hands a little
book, which my lad held up to his face, and which I dare say so
charmed and ravished him, that he was blind to the beautiful sights
around him; unmindful, I would venture to lay any wager, of the
lessons he had to learn for to-morrow; forgetful of mother, waiting
supper, and father preparing a scolding;--absorbed utterly and entirely
in his book.
What was it that so fascinated the young student, as he stood by the
river shore? Not the Pons Asinorum. What book so delighted him, and
blinded him to all the rest of the world, so that he did not care to