A July Holiday in Saxony, Bohemia, and Silesia

This scene bursting upon me all at once made me stand for a minute in doubtful astonishment, half dazzled by the sudden light, and half choked by the reeking atmosphere, while I looked round to discover the trencher-capped Wirth. If The Sun had no room, what was to be hoped for here? However, the landlord, after a consultation with his wife, assured me of a chamber to myself; and placing a chair at the only vacant end of one of the tables, professed himself ready to supply "anything" for supper. He rung the changes on beef, veal, and sausage, with interpolation of roast goose. The meats were good, but the goose was prime; he could recommend that "vom Herzen," and he laid his hand on his heart as he said it. So I accepted roast goose; and presently a smoking dish of the savoury bird was set before me, with cucumber salad and rye bread. The landlord had not overpraised his Bohemian cookery, for he gave me a most relishing supper.

As my eyes became accustomed to the smoky atmosphere, the forms and features of the company came out more distinct than at first. Among the wagoners and rustics who made up the greater number, I saw two or three heads of a superior cast—unmistakable Czechish heads—in marked contrast to the rest. A gentleman with his wife and brother, travelling to their estates, preferred quarters in the Herrnhaus to a midnight stage, and sat eating their supper, apparently not less pleased with their entertainment than I was. By their side sat half a dozen tramping shoemakers, each busy with a plate of roast goose; and next to them, in the narrow space between the stove and the wall, lay a woman and her two children, sleeping on straw. The musicians came round for a largesse, and, reanimated by success, played a few tunes by way of finish, which made sitting still almost impossible. Every one seemed inclined to spring up and dance; and the host and his servants ran to and fro quicker than ever, under the new excitement. No sooner was a tankard emptied, than, following the custom of the country, it was caught up by one of the nimble attendants and refilled, without any asking leave or any demur, except on the part of one of the guests. Trencher-cap would by no means believe that I could be satisfied with a single measure, and I had to compromise for a glass of wine, which, when brought, he assured me proudly was genuine '34 Adelsberger. Whether or no, it was very good.

Presently he asked for a sight of my passport, that his son might enter my name with those of the other travellers. I spread the document before him on the table; he bent down and examined it curiously, as an antiquary over a wormeaten manuscript, but with a look of utter bewilderment, for he had never before seen an English passport. He turned it upside down, sideways, aslant, back to front, every way, in short, in his endeavour to discover a meaning in it; but in vain. He caught eagerly at the British Minister's eagle, and the German visas, yet found nothing to enlighten him therein. His son then took a turn in the examination; still with no better result; and the two looked at one another in blank hopelessness.

Presently the father, recollecting himself, beckoned secretly to one of the soldiers, who came to help solve the mystery. Taking the passport, he held it at arm's length, turned it every way as the Wirth had done before, brought it close to his eyes; but could make nothing of it. Then, as if to assist his wit, he hooked one finger on the end of his nose, spread the mysterious document on the table, and pointing to the first paragraph, which, as tourists know, stands printed in good round hand, he began to read at all hazards:

"Vill—Vill—Vill—yam. Ja, ja. Villyam. Ah! that's English!" Then he attacked the second word—"Fre—Fre—Fre—Fredrich. Ja, ja. That is English!"

The next word, Earl, looked awkward, so, skipping that, he went on with many flourishes of his forefinger, "Cla—ren—don. Ja, ja. Clarendon. That's English!"

Encouraged by success, he made a dash at the following word, "Baron," and stopped suddenly short, hooked his finger once more on his nose, stood for a minute as if in deep study, then repeating slowly, "Villyam Fredrich Clarendon, Baron," he gave the passport back into the landlord's hands, and said in a whisper, pointing slily to me, "He's a Baron."

Hereupon the son, with nimble pen, entered me in the book as "Villyam Fredrich Clarendon, Baron."

"You have made a pretty mistake," I interposed. "See, that's my name, written lower down, quite away from the titles of our Foreign Minister." But it was in vain that I spoke, and argued, and protested, the opposite party would not be convinced, and Trencher-cap, folding up the passport, looked at me with that expression which very knowing folk are apt to assume, and said, as he replaced it in my hand, "Ja, ja. We are used to that sort of thing. You wish not to travel in your real name. Yes, yes, we know. Herr Baron, I give you back your passport."

I reiterated my protest, and vehemently; but all in vain. "Herr Baron" I had to remain for all the rest of the evening. Trencher-cap made a bow every time he addressed me, and went among his guests, telling them he had caged an English Baron. One and another came and sat near me for awhile, and talked with so much of deference, that at last I felt quite ashamed of myself—as if I were an accomplice in a hoax. The talk, however, was very barren; the only items of real information it brought forth were, that a good many needles were made in the neighbourhood, and that Buchau could muster ninety-nine master shoemakers.

So it went on till eleven o'clock, when mine host, approaching with another bow, said, "Herr Baron, are you quite sure that it is a cold foot-bath you want?"

"Quite."

"I told the maid so," he replied; "but she says she cannot believe that a Herr Baron will have cold water, and thinks it should be lukewarm."

Satisfied on this point, he summoned the incredulous maid to light me to bed. She stooped low with what was meant for a curtsey, and would on no account turn her face from me, but went backwards up the stairs, holding the candle low, and begging me at every step not to stumble.

"Verily," thought I, "the whole household joins in the conspiracy."

She carried the candlestick delicately, as if it were of silver and not mere iron, placed it on a little deal table in the bedroom with a ceremonious air, made another low curtsey, and retreated to the door.

Then, with one hand on the latch, she said, after a momentary pause, "Herr Baron, I wish you a good night;" and withdrew, leaving me alone to sleep as best I might under the burden of an unexpected title.

CHAPTER VIII

Dawn—The Noisy Gooseherd—Geese, for Home Consumption and Export—Still the Baron—The Ruins of Hartenstein—Glimpses of Scenery and Rural Life—Liebkowitz—Lubenz—Schloss Petersburg—Big Rooms—Tipplers and Drunkards—Wagoners and Peasants—A Thrifty Landlord—Inquisitorial Book—Awful Gendarme—Paternal Government—Fidgets—How it is in Hungary—Wet Blankets for Philosophers—An Unhappy Peasant.

Neither nightmare nor anything else disturbed me till the wagoners, hooking on their teams amid noisy shouts, filed off in two directions from the square, at the earliest peep of dawn. The quiet that returned on their departure was ere long broken by a succession of wild and discordant cries, which, being puzzled to account for by ear, I got out of bed and used my eyes. The gooseherd stood in the middle of the square, calling his flock together from all quarters, with a voice, as it seemed to me, more expressive of alarm and anger than of invitation. However, the geese understood it, and they came waddling and quacking forth from every gateway and lane, and the narrow openings between the houses, till some hundreds were gathered round the herd, who, waving his long rod, kept up his cries till the last straggler had come up, and then drove them out to the dewy pasture beyond the village. A singular effect was produced by the multitude of long necks, and the awkward movements of the snow-white mass, accompanied as they were by a ceaseless rise and fall of the quacking chorus. Such a sight is common in Bohemia; for your Bohemian has a lively relish for roast goose, regarding it as a national dish; and mindful of his neighbours, he breeds numbers of the savoury fowl for their enjoyment. Walk over the Erzgebirge in September, and you will meet thousands of geese in a flock, waddling slowly on their way to Leipzig, and the fulfilment of their destiny in German stomachs, at the rate of about three leagues a day.

I doubted not that when the landlord had a fair look at me by daylight, he would recall the title conferred amid the smoke and excitement of the evening before. But, no! he met me at the foot of the stair with the same profound bow; hoped Herr Baron had slept well; and would Herr Baron take breakfast; all my remonstrances to the contrary notwithstanding. I drank my coffee with a suspicion that the sounding honour would have to be paid for; but I did the worthy man injustice, for when summoned to receive payment, he brought his slate and piece of chalk, and writing down the several items, made the sum total not quite a florin. Not often is a Baron created on such very reasonable terms.

Even after I left his door, the host continued his attentions: he would go with me to the edge of the village, and point out the way to the castle, and the shortest way back to the main road. He must tell me, too, that the church was dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel; and of a spring not far off, known among the visitors as the "iron spring." Then, as we shook hands and parted, he made another low bow, and hoped I would recommend all my friends to seek for entertainment under his sign. It would be ungracious not to comply with his wish; so should any of my friends have the patience or courage to read these pages, and an inclination to visit Buchau, I hereby counsel them to tarry at the Herrnhaus.

The castle, or rather the ruin, rises on the summit of a rounded hill about a mile from the village. There is but little in them to charm either the eye or the fancy, for their name and place recall nothing that lingers in the memory. A few words suffice to tell that here once stood the castle of Hartenstein, otherwise Hungerberg, sheltering knights as lawless as any reiving Johnstone, till King George Podiebrad, intolerant of their wild ways, rooted them out in 1468, and knocked their stronghold to pieces. He showed them the less mercy, from having had, the year before, to lay siege for twelve weeks to a castle near Raudnitz, held by conspirators who set him at defiance. Engelhaus, as is believed, felt the first touch of ruin some fifty years later.

Nevertheless, the half-hour spent in the excursion is not time lost, for the spiral path that winds round the hill is well-nigh hidden by wild flowers—a right royal carpet, and perfumed withal, swept by all the breezes. And then there is always the view while you scramble about among the broken walls and bits of towers, getting peeps at parts of the landscape framed by a shattered window. It is something to note how unvarying is the scenery: hills shaped like barn roofs; the same undulations; vast fields; a few ponds; dark masses of firs, lacking somewhat of cheerfulness notwithstanding the sunshine; and the village in the midst of all, an irregular patch of gray and white. Far as eye can reach it is the same, and so shall we find it all the way to Prague.

The wind increased mightily while I was on the hill, and as it swept coldly over the broad slopes of grain and clover, the whole landscape seemed to become a great, green, rippling sea.

My recollections of this day include—a flock of geese grazing on a bit of common about every league; men leading oxen by a strip of hide to pasture on the roadside grass; women cutting fodder in nooks and corners; shepherds, whose booted legs gave them anything but a pastoral appearance; rows of cherry-trees, and the guards in straw huts keeping watch over the fruit; and miles of road irksomely straight between plum-trees.

Here and there you come to a homestead or Gasthaus, surrounded by a high and thick whitewashed wall, with one or more arched gateways, as if the inmates could not give up the mediæval habit of living within a fortress. On approaching Liebkowitz, the pale colour of the land changes to a warm red, and fields of peas which seem endless, and small plantations of hops, diversify the surface, and contrast with the village, where the clean white pillars of the gateways, the red roofs, topped here and there with a purple ball, engage your eye.

At Lubenz, where the main road, with its bordering of tall poles and telegraphic wire turns aside to the Saatzer Circle, I struck into the direct route for Prague, and keeping on at an easy pace, getting a passing view of Schloss Petersburg on the right—a factory-like building—I came at eventide to the Gasthof zum Rose at Willenz.

There is many a chapel in England smaller than the common room at the Rose, and the same may be said of nearly every roadside inn at which I stayed. Large as the rooms are, it is sometimes difficult to find a seat among the numerous guests; and on Sundays especially they are overcrowded. Here in one corner stood the stove enclosed by a dresser, on which all the preparations for cooking were carried on; and, in the opposite corner, the bar behind a wooden fence, running up to the ceiling. Bread, smoked sausage, schnaps, and liqueurs, are served from the bar; beer is fetched directly from the cellar.

The host was thrifty, and kept his four daughters busy in waiting on customers. The eldest presided at the stove, and the other three went continually to and fro, refilling the tankards of beer-drinkers, or dealing out delicacies from the bar. Comely damsels they were, dressed in purple bodices, and pink skirts that trailed on the floor in all the amplitude prescribed by the milliners at Paris. I could not fail to be struck by the frequency of their visits to the cellar to supply the demands of about twenty men, who, seated at one of the tables, appeared to have been making a day of it. Tankard after tankard was swallowed with marvellous rapidity, and still the cry was "more." For the first time, in my few trips to the Continent, I saw drunkards, and these were not the only sots that came before me during the present journey: all, however, within Bohemia.

Casual customers would now and then drop in, call for beer, drink a small quantity, and leave the tankard standing on the table and go away for half an hour, then return, take another gulp, and so on. One of the tables was covered by these drink-and-come-again tankards, and though all alike in appearance, I noticed that every man knew his own again. Among these bibbers by instalments the landlord was conspicuous, for he took a gulp from his tankard every five minutes, and never left it a moment empty.

Now and then slouched in a troop of dusty-booted wagoners, who drank a cup of coffee, and went slouching forth to their wearisome journey. At times a half-dozen peasants strode noisily in, and refreshed themselves with a draught of beer for their walk home; and sausage and little broils were in constant request. The host rubbed his hands, and well he might, for trade was brisk; and when he brought me a baked chicken—which, by the way, is another favourite dish in Bohemia—for my supper, and heard my praise of his beer, he told me that he brewed his own beer and grew his own hops. "You will see two big pockets of hops on the landing when you go to bed," he added, with the look of an innkeeper thoroughly self-satisfied. And then he sat down and gave his two sons a writing-lesson.

After supper, one of the pink-robed damsels placed a wooden candlestick, nearly a yard in height, on the table, and brought the inevitable book—that miscellaneous collection of travellers' autographs, kept for the edification of the Imperial police. More inquisitorial than any I had yet seen, this book contained three columns, in one of which I had to note whether I was married or single; "Catholic or other beliefed;" acquainted with any one in any of the places I intended to visit, or not!

Having entered the required particulars, the damsel leaning over the page the while, I asked her what use would be made of them?

"The gendarme comes to look at the book," she answered, "and if he found the columns empty, so would he blame my father sorely, and wake you up with loud noise to ask the reason. Ah! sometimes he comes before bedtime; sometimes not till midnight, when all folk are asleep. Then must doors be opened and questions answered; and if he discovers some one in bed whose name is not yet in the book, then he makes great outcry, and my father must pay a fine, and the stranger must to the guard-house if he have not good passport. Truly, the law is strong over the book."

Happy land! Paternal government is so careful of the governed, so anxious to encourage sedentary virtues, that no one is allowed to go more than four hours, about twelve miles, from home without a passport or ticket of residence (Heimathschein); and should any one not quite so tame as his fellows wish to overpass the prescribed limit, paternal government not unfrequently keeps him waiting three days for the precious permit, or refuses it altogether. In a town which we shall come to by-and-by, I saw a poor woman, who begged leave to visit one of her children some fifteen miles distant, turned away with an uncompromising denial. Think of this, my countrymen!—Islanders free to jaunt or journey whithersoever ye will: be ye mighty or mean—even ticket-of-leave holders.

Whatever the cause, the regulations concerning passports are in Bohemia very rigorous. It may be that the people have not forgotten they once had a king of their own, or that a remarkable intellectual movement is taking place among the Czechs, or that a simmering up of Protestantism has become chronic within the ring of mountains; whatever the cause, the pressure of authority's heaviest hand is manifest. For my own part—to mention a little thing among great things—I was more fidgetted about my passport in Bohemia than ever anywhere else.

It is worse in Hungary. In that province the burden of oppression is felt to a degree inconceivable by an Englishman. Passports for France or England were peremptorily refused to Hungarians of whatever degree during the year 1855; and in 1856, when the rigour was somewhat relaxed, leave was granted for three months only. And should any one be known to have paid a visit to Kossuth while in London, even though he might believe the exile to be a better orator than ruler, he would find the discipline of imprisonment awaiting him on his return home. Think of Albert Smith, or any other enterprising tourist, having to ask Lord Clarendon's permission to steam up the Rhine, ascend Mont Blanc, or travel anywhither! 'Tis well the Magyars are not a hopeless race.

The members of the Hungarian Academy at Pesth are not allowed to hold their weekly meetings unless an Imperial Commissioner be present to watch the proceedings, and stop the discussion of forbidden subjects. Not a word must be spoken concerning politics, or liberty in any form. History is tolerated only when she discourses of antiquities—urns, buildings, dress and manners, philology, or art. Science even must wear fetters, and preserve herself demure and orthodox. A speculative philosopher might as well attempt to utter high treason, as to read a paper demonstrating by geological proofs the countless ages of the earth's existence, or to quote a chapter from the Vestiges of Creation. This work is included among the prohibited books, of which a list is sent to the Academy once a week. One copy of the Times—a solitary feather from Liberty's wing—finds its way into Pesth: a rare indulgence for the Englishman who reads it. Imagine Sir Richard Mayne sitting at meetings of the Royal Society, with power to stop Sir Roderick Murchison in his Silurian evidences; or the Rev. Baden Powell in his speculations and inferences concerning the Unity of Worlds; or the utterance of Professor Faraday's opinions concerning gravitation; and telling them they shall not read Hugh Miller's Testimony of the Rocks!

But to return. Among those who dropped in was a tall, grizzly peasant, who presently began a talk with me about what he called his sad condition. His lot was a hard one, because the country was kept down; and hoping for better times would be vain while France and England maintained their alliance. All who felt themselves aggrieved—and their number was great—saw no prospect of redress but in a new outbreak of strife between those two nations; let that only come, and from the Rhine to the Vistula all would be in revolution, wrong would be punished, and the right prevail. He knew many a peasant who was of the same way of thinking.

Not being able to flatter him with hopes of a rupture between the Lion and the Cock, I suggested his taking the matter into his own hands, and making the best of present circumstances. Thrift and diligence would do him more good than a revolution. Whereupon he told me how he lived; how hard he worked to cultivate his plot of ground; how rarely he ate anything besides bread and potatoes; and as for beer, it was never seen under his roof.

"Do you think it fair, then," I rejoined, "to sit here drinking? Why not carry home a measure of beer, and let your wife share it?"

He made no answer; but rose from his seat, shook me by the hand, and walked heavily away.

CHAPTER IX

The Village—The Peasant again—The Road-mender—Among the Czechs—Czechish Speech and Characteristics—Crosses—Horosedl—The Old Cook—More Praise of England—The Dinner—A Journey-Companion—Famous Files—A Mechaniker's Earnings—Kruschowitz—Rentsch—More Czechish Characteristics—Neu Straschitz—A Word in Season from Old Fuller—The Mechaniker departs.

A hilly site, gardens, orchards, and green slopes, houses scattered at random among chestnuts and elders, and a general suspicion of Czechish carelessness, give to Willenz a touch of the picturesque: at least, when seen as I saw it, with the morning dew yet glistening on thatch, and flowers, and branches. Cherry-trees form a continuous avenue up the hill beyond, and here and there huts of fir branches were built against a stem, to shelter the guard set to watch the ripened fruit, and gatherers were busy aloft. You may pluck a cherry now and then with impunity; but not from the trees marked by a wisp of straw twisted round a conspicuous branch, for of those the fruit is sold, and the watchman eyes them jealously.

Coming to the brow of the hill, I saw what seemed a giant standing on a high bank above the road. It was the grizzly peasant magnified through a thin haze. As soon as he saw me he came plunging down the bank, gave me a cheerful "Gut' Morgen," seized my hand, and said, "I have been waiting long to see you. I talk gladly with such as you, and could not let you go without asking whether you will come back this way. If so, then pray come to my house for a night. It is not far from Schloss Petersburg. We will make you comfortable."

To return by the same road was no part of my plan, and when I told him so, the old man's countenance fell; he pressed my hand tighter, and cried, with a tone of disappointment, "Is it true? Ah! my wife will be so sorry. I told her what you said, and she wanted to see you as much as I."

As there was no help for it, we had another talk, he all the while holding my hand as if fearful I should escape. The burden of his discourse was "a good time coming," mingled, however, with a dread that when it came it would not be half so desirable as the good old times, and between the past and future his life was a torment.

"Whether you shall be miserable or not," I answered, "depends more on yourself than on the rulers of Bohemia. Why should a man grumble who has a house, and food, and land to cultivate? Only carry your enjoyments home instead of consuming them by the way, and cheerfulness will be there to gladden your wife as well as you."

"Yes; but in the old times–"

I bade him good-bye, and pursued my walk. Turning round just over the brow of the hill, I saw him still in the same spot, gazing after me. "Farewell, good friend!" he shouted, and strode away.