I love these sweet, fiery pangs, but I will
not court them. The bulk of the time I spent in repeating as much
French poetry as I could remember to the horses, who seemed to
enjoy it hugely. And now it went -
"O ma vieille Font-georges
Ou volent les rouges-gorges:"
and again, to a more trampling measure -
"Et tout tremble, Irun, Coimbre,
Sautander, Almodovar,
Sitot qu'on entend le timbre
Des cymbales do Bivar."
The redbreasts and the brooks of Europe, in that dry and songless
land; brave old names and wars, strong cities, cymbals, and bright
armour, in that nook of the mountain, sacred only to the Indian and
the bear! This is still the strangest thing in all man's
travelling, that he should carry about with him incongruous
memories. There is no foreign land; it is the traveller only that
is foreign, and now and again, by a flash of recollection, lights
up the contrasts of the earth.
But while I was thus wandering in my fancy, great feats had been
transacted in the bar. Corwin the bold had fallen, Kelmar was
again crowned with laurels, and the last of the ship's kettles had
changed hands. If I had ever doubted the purity of Kelmar's
motives, if I had ever suspected him of a single eye to business in
his eternal dallyings, now at least, when the last kettle was
disposed of, my suspicions must have been allayed.
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