The food is
sometimes spare; hard fish and omelette have been my portion more than
once; the wine is of the smallest, the brandy abominable to man; and the
visit of a fat sow, grouting under the table and rubbing against your
legs, is no impossible accompaniment to dinner.
But the people of the inn, in nine cases out of ten, show themselves
friendly and considerate. As soon as you cross the doors you cease to be
a stranger; and although these peasantry are rude and forbidding on the
highway, they show a tincture of kind breeding when you share their
hearth. At Bouchet, for instance, I uncorked my bottle of Beaujolais,
and asked the host to join me. He would take but little.
'I am an amateur of such wine, do you see?' he said, 'and I am capable of
leaving you not enough.'
In these hedge-inns the traveller is expected to eat with his own knife;
unless he ask, no other will be supplied: with a glass, a whang of bread,
and an iron fork, the table is completely laid. My knife was cordially
admired by the landlord of Bouchet, and the spring filled him with
wonder.
'I should never have guessed that,' he said. 'I would bet,' he added,
weighing it in his hand, 'that this cost you not less than five francs.'
When I told him it had cost me twenty, his jaw dropped.
He was a mild, handsome, sensible, friendly old man, astonishingly
ignorant. His wife, who was not so pleasant in her manners, knew how to
read, although I do not suppose she ever did so. She had a share of
brains and spoke with a cutting emphasis, like one who ruled the roast.
'My man knows nothing,' she said, with an angry nod; 'he is like the
beasts.'
And the old gentleman signified acquiescence with his head. There was no
contempt on her part, and no shame on his; the facts were accepted
loyally, and no more about the matter.
I was tightly cross-examined about my journey; and the lady understood in
a moment, and sketched out what I should put into my book when I got
home. 'Whether people harvest or not in such or such a place; if there
were forests; studies of manners; what, for example, I and the master of
the house say to you; the beauties of Nature, and all that.' And she
interrogated me with a look.
'It is just that,' said I.
'You see,' she added to her husband, 'I understood that.'
They were both much interested by the story of my misadventures.
'In the morning,' said the husband, 'I will make you something better
than your cane.
