Sometimes in the middle of the days we would stop at a red-faced, ancient inn, with bowers whose tables almost had their feet dipped in the river, and there would eat a meal and linger on a pot of wine while our barge fell asleep at her tether and dreamt of the open sea. About us in these inns came the kind country-people and talked of trivial things for the mere sake of talking, because the weather was sweet and God so gracious; homely sounds would waft from the byres and from the barns--the laugh of bairns, the whistle of boys, the low of cattle.
At night we moored wherever we might be, and once I mind of a place called Andelys, selvedged with chalky cliffs and lorded over by a castle called Gaillard, that had in every aspect of it something of the clash of weapons and of trumpet-cry. The sky shone blue through its gaping gables and its crumbling windows like so many eyes; the birds that wheeled all round it seemed to taunt it for its inability. The old wars over, the deep fosse silent, the strong men gone--and there at its foot the thriving town so loud with sounds of peaceful trade! Whoever has been young, and has the eye for what is beautiful and great and stately, must have felt in such a scene that craving for companionship that tickles like a laugh within the heart--that longing for some one to feel with him, and understand, and look upon with silence. In my case 'twas two women I would have there with me just to look upon this Gaillard and the town below it.
Then the bending, gliding river again, the willow and the aspen edges, the hazy orchards and the emerald swards; hamlets, towns, farm-steadings, châteaux, kirks, and mills; the flying mallard, the leaping perch, the silver dawns, the starry nights, the ripple of the water in my dreams, and at last the city of Rouen. My ship of fortune went no further on.
I slept a night in an inn upon the quay, and early the next morning, having bought a pair of boots to save my red shoes, I took the road over a hill that left Rouen and all its steeples, reeking at the bottom of a bowl. I walked all day, through woods and meadows and trim small towns and orchards, and late in the gloaming came upon the port of Havre de Grace.