L'homme qui rit. English

  CHAPTER I.

  THE TADCASTER INN.

  At that period London had but one bridge--London Bridge, with housesbuilt upon it. This bridge united London to Southwark, a suburb whichwas paved with flint pebbles taken from the Thames, divided into smallstreets and alleys, like the City, with a great number of buildings,houses, dwellings, and wooden huts jammed together, a pell-mell mixtureof combustible matter, amidst which fire might take its pleasure, as1666 had proved. Southwark was then pronounced Soudric, it is nowpronounced Sousouorc, or near it; indeed, an excellent way ofpronouncing English names is not to pronounce them. Thus, forSouthampton, say Stpntn.

  It was the time when "Chatham" was pronounced _je t'aime_.

  The Southwark of those days resembles the Southwark of to-day about asmuch as Vaugirard resembles Marseilles. It was a village--it is a city.Nevertheless, a considerable trade was carried on there. The long oldCyclopean wall by the Thames was studded with rings, to which wereanchored the river barges.

  This wall was called the Effroc Wall, or Effroc Stone. York, in Saxontimes, was called Effroc. The legend related that a Duke of Effroc hadbeen drowned at the foot of the wall. Certainly the water there was deepenough to drown a duke. At low water it was six good fathoms. Theexcellence of this little anchorage attracted sea vessels, and the oldDutch tub, called the _Vograat_, came to anchor at the Effroc Stone. The_Vograat_ made the crossing from London to Rotterdam, and from Rotterdamto London, punctually once a week. Other barges started twice a day,either for Deptford, Greenwich, or Gravesend, going down with one tideand returning with the next. The voyage to Gravesend, though twentymiles, was performed in six hours.

  The _Vograat_ was of a model now no longer to be seen, except in navalmuseums. It was almost a junk. At that time, while France copied Greece,Holland copied China. The _Vograat_, a heavy hull with two masts, waspartitioned perpendicularly, so as to be water-tight, having a narrowhold in the middle, and two decks, one fore and the other aft. The deckswere flush as in the iron turret-vessels of the present day, theadvantage of which is that in foul weather, the force of the wave isdiminished, and the inconvenience of which is that the crew is exposedto the action of the sea, owing to there being no bulwarks. There wasnothing to save any one on board from falling over. Hence the frequentfalls overboard and the losses of men, which have caused the model tofall into disuse. The _Vograat_ went to Holland direct, and did not evencall at Gravesend.

  An old ridge of stones, rock as much as masonry, ran along the bottom ofthe Effroc Stone, and being passable at all tides, was used as a passageon board the ships moored to the wall. This wall was, at intervals,furnished with steps. It marked the southern point of Southwark. Anembankment at the top allowed the passers-by to rest their elbows on theEffroc Stone, as on the parapet of a quay. Thence they could look downon the Thames; on the other side of the water London dwindled away intofields.

  Up the river from the Effroc Stone, at the bend of the Thames which isnearly opposite St. James's Palace, behind Lambeth House, not far fromthe walk then called Foxhall (Vauxhall, probably), there was, between apottery in which they made porcelain, and a glass-blower's, where theymade ornamental bottles, one of those large unenclosed spaces coveredwith grass, called formerly in France _cultures_ and _mails_, and inEngland bowling-greens. Of bowling-green, a green on which to roll aball, the French have made _boulingrin_. Folks have this green insidetheir houses nowadays, only it is put on the table, is a cloth insteadof turf, and is called billiards.

  It is difficult to see why, having boulevard (boule-vert), which is thesame word as bowling-green, the French should have adopted _boulingrin_.It is surprising that a person so grave as the Dictionary should indulgein useless luxuries.

  The bowling-green of Southwark was called Tarrinzeau Field, because ithad belonged to the Barons Hastings, who are also Barons Tarrinzeau andMauchline. From the Lords Hastings the Tarrinzeau Field passed to theLords Tadcaster, who had made a speculation of it, just as, at a laterdate, a Duke of Orleans made a speculation of the Palais Royal.Tarrinzeau Field afterwards became waste ground and parochial property.

  Tarrinzeau Field was a kind of permanent fair ground covered withjugglers, athletes, mountebanks, and music on platforms; and always fullof "fools going to look at the devil," as Archbishop Sharp said. To lookat the devil means to go to the play.

  Several inns, which harboured the public and sent them to theseoutlandish exhibitions, were established in this place, which keptholiday all the year round, and thereby prospered. These inns weresimply stalls, inhabited only during the day. In the evening thetavern-keeper put into his pocket the key of the tavern and went away.

  One only of these inns was a house, the only dwelling in the wholebowling-green, the caravans of the fair ground having the power ofdisappearing at any moment, considering the absence of any ties in thevagabond life of all mountebanks.

  Mountebanks have no roots to their lives.

  This inn, called the Tadcaster, after the former owners of the ground,was an inn rather than a tavern, an hotel rather than an inn, and had acarriage entrance and a large yard.

  The carriage entrance, opening from the court on the field, was thelegitimate door of the Tadcaster Inn, which had, beside it, a smallbastard door, by which people entered. To call it bastard is to meanpreferred. This lower door was the only one used, It opened into thetavern, properly so called, which was a large taproom, full of tobaccosmoke, furnished with tables, and low in the ceiling. Over it was awindow on the first floor, to the iron bars of which was fastened andhung the sign of the inn. The principal door was barred and bolted, andalways remained closed.

  It was thus necessary to cross the tavern to enter the courtyard.

  At the Tadcaster Inn there was a landlord and a boy. The landlord wascalled Master Nicless, the boy Govicum. Master Nicless--Nicholas,doubtless, which the English habit of contraction had made Nicless, wasa miserly widower, and one who respected and feared the laws. As to hisappearance, he had bushy eyebrows and hairy hands. The boy, agedfourteen, who poured out drink, and answered to the name of Govicum,wore a merry face and an apron. His hair was cropped close, a sign ofservitude.

  He slept on the ground floor, in a nook in which they formerly kept adog. This nook had for window a bull's-eye looking on the bowling-green.