The Headsman | Page 2

town, the
whole scenery resembling a fairy picture rather than a portion of this
much-abused earth; "it blows sometimes at this end of the lake in a way
to frighten the gulls out of it. We shall see no more of the steam-boat

after the last of the month."
The American cast a glance at the mountain, drew upon his memory for
sundry squalls and gales which he had seen himself, and thought the
boatman's figure of speech less extravagant than it had at first seemed.
"If your lake craft were better constructed, they would make better
weather," he quietly observed.
Monsieur Descloux had no wish to quarrel with a customer who
employed him every evening, and who preferred floating with the
current to being rowed with a crooked oar. He manifested his prudence,
therefore, by making a reserved reply.
"No doubt, monsieur," he said, "that the people who live on the sea
make better vessels, and know how to sail them more skilfully. We had
a proof of that here at Vévey," (he pronounced the word like v-vais,
agreeably to the sounds of the French vowels,) "last summer, which
you might like to hear. An English gentleman--they say he was a
captain in the marine--had a vessel built at Nice, and dragged over the
mountains to our lake. He took a run across to Meillerie one fine
morning, and no duck ever skimmed along lighter or swifter! He was
not a man to take advice from a Swiss boatman, for he had crossed the
line, and seen water spouts and whales! Well, he was on his way back
in the dark, and it came on to blow here from off the mountains, and he
stood on boldly towards our shore, heaving the lead as he drew near the
land, as if he had been beating into Spithead in a fog,"--Jean chuckled
at the idea of sounding in the Leman--"while he flew along like a bold
mariner, as no doubt he was!"
"Landing, I suppose," said the American, "among the lumber in the
great square?"
"Monsieur is mistaken. He broke his boat's nose against that wall; and
the next day, a piece of her, big enough to make a thole-pin, was not to
be found. He might as well have sounded the heavens!"
"The lake has a bottom, notwithstanding?"

"Your pardon, monsieur. The lake has no bottom. The sea may have a
bottom, but we have no bottom here."
There was little use in disputing the point.
Monsieur Descloux then spoke of the revolutions he had seen. He
remembered the time when Vaud was a province of Berne. His
observations on this subject were rational, and were well seasoned with
wholesome common sense. His doctrine was simply this. "If one man
rule, he will rule for his own benefit, and that of his parasites; if a
minority rule, we have many masters instead of one," (honest Jean had
got hold here of a cant saying of the privileged, which he very
ingeniously converted against themselves,) "all of whom must be fed
and served; and if the majority rule, and ruled wrongfully, why the
minimum of harm is done." He admitted, that the people might be
deceived to their own injury, but then, he did not think it was quite as
likely to happen, as that they should be oppressed when they were
governed without any agency of their own. On these points, the
American and the Vaudois were absolutely of the same mind.
From politics the transition to poetry was natural, for a common
ingredient in both would seem to be fiction. On the subject of his
mountains, Monsieur Descloux was a thorough Swiss. He expatiated on
their grandeur, their storms, their height, and their glaciers, with
eloquence. The worthy boatman had some such opinions of the
superiority of his own country, as all are apt to form who have never
seen any other. He dwelt on the glories of an Abbaye des Vignerons,
too, with the gusto of a Vévaisan, and seemed to think it would be a
high stroke of state policy, to get up a new, _fête_ of this kind as
speedily as possible. In short, the world and its interests were pretty
generally discussed between these two philosophers during an
intercourse that extended to a month.
Our American was not a man to let instruction of this nature easily
escape him. He lay hours at a time on the seats of Jean Descloux's boat,
looking up at the mountains, or watching some lazy sail on the lake,
and speculating on the wisdom of which he was so accidentally made
the repository. His view on one side was limited by the glacier of Mont

Vélan, a near neighbor of the celebrated col of St. Bernard; and on the
other, his