It must have astonished the people to see a canoe thus suddenly appearing on their quiet pavement. They soon crowded round and bore her to the hotel, which was a moderately bad one. Next morning the bill was twelve francs, nearly double its proper amount; and thus we encountered in one day the only two extortionate innkeepers met with at all.[XXIII.]
[XXIII.] However, I made the landlord here take eight francs as a compromise.
This quaint old place, with high walls and a foss, and several antiquities, was well worth the inspection of my early morning walk next day, and then the Rob Roy was ordered to the door.
Hunger--Music at the mill--Sentiment and chops--River Limmat--Fixed on a fall--On the river Aar--The Rhine again--Douaniers--Falls of Lauffenburg--The cow cart.
The wetting and excitement of yesterday made me rather stiff in beginning again; and anon, when a rushing sound was heard in front I was aware of a new anxiety as to whether this might not mean the same sort of rough work as yesterday's over again, whereas hitherto this sound of breakers to come had always promised nothing but pleasure. However, things very soon came back to their old way, a continuous and varied enjoyment from morning to night.
The river was rapid again, but with no really difficult places. I saw one raft in course of preparation, though there were not many boats, for as the men there said, "How could we get boats _up_ that stream?"
The villages near the river were often so high up on lofty cliffs, or otherwise unsuitable, that I went on for some miles trying in vain to fix on one for my (No. 1) dinner. Each bend of the winding water held out hopes that down there at last, or round that bluff cape at farthest, there must be a proper place to breakfast. But when it was now long past the usual hour, and the shores got less inhabited and hunger more imperative, we determined to land at a mill which overhung the stream in a picturesque spot.
I landed unobserved. This was a blunder in diplomacy, for the canoe was always good as credentials; but I climbed up the bank and through the garden, and found the hall door open; so I walked timidly into a large, comfortable house, leaving my paddle outside lest it might be regarded as a bludgeon. I had come as a beggar, not a burglar.