"All," said he. would you like to eat? are snails." "What As usual, there was no cause to regret obedience to the commands so tactfully expressed. The snails were delicious, but when they were finished there came the sad reflection that the afternoon was wearing on, the roads momentarily becoming worse, the rain was not stopping, and that we still had two hours to go. (Cretan journeys are measured not by their distance in miles but by the number of hours they take to accomplish, a system less misleading to the traveller.) Its hospitality was not new There to us, for this barrack at Daphnais was the fifth in which we had stayed, but wonder never died away at the warmth of welcome given to guests whose arrival meant that their hosts must sleep in the stable. For the bare boards of the upper storey, divided into two by a rough partition, and often with no glass in the windows, form the only living-room of the sergeant and his men, and the ground floor is given over to horses and occasional prisoners. Thither went the gendarmes, and thence would proceed, at the word of Monsieur Gallance, certain of life's necessaries, although even for him it was easier to procure wine than a washing-basin. So we took the road again, the more stout-heartedly for our entertainment. Daylight had been gone for an hour before we reached the village of Daphnais. So often had the gendarme declared, "Ten minutes more and we are there," that we seriously began to fear he had lost his way, but it was really the condition of the road which delayed us. Darkness hid it, but the weary effort of the mules to drag their feet from the terrible stiff clay showed clearly enough what it was like. At last the lights of the village shone through the driving rain, and we saw that we had separated and that Monsieur Gallance and the muleteers were not in sight. We rode up the narrow street until we saw against the sky the dim shape of a house, which we knew was probably the gendarmerie post, often the only two-storeyed building in a village. But when we arrived at Daphnais Monsieur Gallance was not with us, but somewhere in the rain and darkness which we had left behind outside, and we confronted our hosts alone. They were sitting, eleven of them, round a pot of charcoal when we burst into their midst. I have a dim impression of gigantio forms in blue uniforms hurling themselves upon us and seizing our wet coats, but the sudden light and warmth were confusing, and the first clear picture is of ourselves sitting over the charcoal, while its rightful owners busied themselves in the background with the preparing of supper-table and beds. Visions of food and rest were like dreams of paradise, though a little marred by the absence in of Monsieur Gallance, until The English answered most "Where have you been, it was indeed some little time Monsieur Gallance?" 'Behind, with the mules. They became troublesome in the dark. It was well I was there to help. As to my capote, see, it is ruined, and the joke of it is that it was a new one." That was the whole of his explanation, but later we made out with difficulty that there had been а great deal of trouble and some danger at a narrow part of the road when one of the mules had slipped, and Monsieur Gallance's horse, always very excitable, had become quite unmanageable. But his manner of describing it implied that the incident had been fraught with an exquisite humour which all should regret having missed. That evening was a merry one, perhaps because it was the last of all, for three hours' riding next day brought us to Candia and civilisation. Our hosts had some bottles of Malvoisie wine, which the sergeant brought out and poured into our glasses. "He would like to know if the English care for Malvoisie?" said Monsieur Gallance, smiling at the murmured question. since the thing had happened. "No matter," said the sergeant. "I have heard that there are others in England still, not unlike that Prince you tell me of." These gendarmes were shrewd observers, men of the hills mostly, keenly interested in the wider world beyond their mountains, and knowing not a little of its doings. Many an interesting conversation arose between them and Monsieur Gallance, after supper, when we shared coffee and cigarettes. Gossip and politics, questions about England, histories of Crete, tales of things seen and done by Turk and Christian,such were the topics of the talk. Often Monsieur Gallance would become too much absorbed to translate, until our impatient interruptions of "What does he say?" recalled him to his duties. Or the gendarme would be too anxious to finish his tale to wait till it was properly done into French. So the Babel of tongues went on, each night in a slightly different setting, yet the memories of all these hours are the same in their essentials of the group round the lamp in the THE TRAMP TRANSFIGURED.1 (AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF A CORN-FLOWER MILLIONAIRE. BY ALFRED NOYES. I. ALL the way to Fairyland across the thyme and heather, Thank you, sir, thank you, sir!) a blooming butterfly. II. Well, it happened this way! I was lying loose and lazy, Just as of a Sunday, you yourself might think no shame, Puffing little clouds of smoke, and picking at a daisy, Dreaming of your dinner, p'raps, or wishful for the same: Suddenly, around that ferny bank there slowly waddledSlowly as the finger of a clock her shadow cameSlowly as a tortoise down that winding path she toddled, Leaning on a crooked staff, a poor old crooked dame, Limping, but not lame, Tick, tack, tick, tack, a poor old crookéd dame. III. Slowly did I say, sir? Well, you've heard that funny fable Quite to size the memory up that bristled thro' my hair: Suddenly, I'd got it, with a nasty shivery feeling, While she walked and walked and yet was not a bit more near, Sir, it was the tread-mill earth beneath her feet a-wheeling Faster than her feet could trot to heaven or anywhere, Earth's revolvin' stair Wheeling, while my way-side clump was kind of anchored there. 1 Copyright, 1909, by Alfred Noyes, in the United States of America. |