A Mad Tour: or, a journey undertaken in an insane moment though central Europe on foot

Front matter

A MAD TOUR OR A JOURNEY UNDERTAKEN IN AN INSANE MOMENT THROUGH CENTRAL EUROPE ON FOOT BY CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH L. RIDDELL AUTHOR OF 'GEORGE GEITH,' (THE SENIOR PARTNER,' etc. LONDON RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON •JJublisluts in ©rom-w*} to $er jjtajcstg th* <S}uetn 1891 [All rights reserved] Peiitcateb TO ARTHUR HAMILTON NORWAY, Esq., BY HIS FRIEND THE AUTHOR. Upper Halliford, 1891. CONTENTS. :HA1'TER GEAf I. THE BEGINNING OF IT - - I II. HOW IT WENT ON - - - 1 8 III. A SUNDAY AFTERNOON - - - * 45 IV. THE RHINE - - - - - 62 V. WE PUSH FORWARD - - - "79 VI. STILL FORWARD - - - - 96 VII. TO BADEN - - - IIO VIII. OUR FIRST DAY - - - - 1 33 IX. STILL OUR FIRST DAY - - - 164 X. OUR SECOND DAY - - - - - 1 83 XI. MY TRIUMPH - - - 224 XII. WE DRIFT ------ 239 XIII. A LONG SUNDAY - - - 26 1 XIV. WE ECONOMIZE - - - - 284 XV. AT SCHAFFHAUSEN - - - 312 XVI. TO GOARSHAUSEN ----- 353 CONCLUSION - - - -

Chapter I. The Beginning Of It

' How many miles can you walk a day ?' It was Robert — Robert, whom I trusted — Robert, whom I thought without guile, harmless as a lamb and almost as foolish — that trapped me with this apparently innocent question, not to be forgotten after many moons ! It is un christian to exult, yet still Had the inquiry been addressed to a criminal, Policeman X would have prefaced it with a caution, and the reply proved guarded accord ingly ; but in the ease of private life, in the familiarity of fireside conversation, who dreams of any statement one makes being used per fidiously ? I, at all events, did not then, and answered rashly off-hand : ' Twelve,' a number there was certainly no ground for naming, for the good reason that many a long day, full of work and sorrow, had passed since I walked any distance at all.

Bobby — we had fallen into a bad habit of so abbreviating our young friend's name — received this statement in silence. He could sometimes be very nice indeed. I thought he was very nice at that moment, for he seemed to believe me ; at all events, he did not express any incredulity, and, as before observed, I was considering that Bobby really had many good points, when he broke in upon my reverie with the further inquiry : ' Do you think you could walk eighteen ?' As it seemed to me quite certain that if I could walk twelve I could walk eighteen or eighteen hundred, I said, ' Perhaps I might,' which, in my then state of mind and body, was equivalent to uttering a most flagrant untruth. Unless a miracle were wrought on my behalf, how could I, after so many sedentary years, after a long and wearing illness, after finding the grasshopper a burden, and stairs a curse too heavy to be endured, hope to return to the time when distance was, as the advertisements say, ' no object ' to limbs once tireless and a heart once light ? ' Because if you could ' began Bobby. ' Yes ?' I asked, as he paused, for I felt really curious. ' It would make all the difference in our expenses.' I do not know what I answered, or whether I answered at all.

I have no memory of any thing which happened after that shell burst at my feet. If every sin were punished as quickly as mine, there would not be many left to punish. Of course, it was open to me then and there to make a full confession of my iniquity. Had I done so, Bobby could not have been un generous, but such confession was beyond my strength. Already the boy had scored one trick against me, and I determined he should not score another. If there were one special thing over which I shook hands with myself, it was a knowledge of the Scriptures ; yet when Bobby, who did not believe that I knew anything (familiarity had bred contempt), asked me suddenly one day, ' Who was Hadassah ?' I found myself com pletely at fault. For ever after he had crowed over me about Esther, till I grew absolutely to hate the name of that young woman, and, therefore, the moment I grasped whither his questions had been tending, I determined to do or die.

I could but die ; and never, never should he know I felt it would be impossible for me to walk the miles he mentioned and live. Why should he triumph ? Thus I argued — I knew him to be lazy as he was high. He loved his ease ; he would give in first ; he would never walk eighteen, or twelve, or six, or three miles a day if he could help it. Ah ! there were depths still for me to sound in Bobby. Poor me ! I had given a bond to Fate, and Fate generally contrives to exact the uttermost farthing. It was with no good will of mine we ever started on our crazy tour. From the very first, even when no question of walking was involved, I set my face against it. What I felt I wanted was a hut on the York shire Moors, where I could sleep undisturbed, say, for a fortnight. I understood exactly the frame of mind of that maid-of-all-work who, having asked for a holiday, went to bed to enjoy it.

Absolute rest seemed to me the greatest boon fortune could offer. For a long time — years — I had been deadly tired ; like the cab horse in ' Pickwick,' the shafts only kept me up. To get out of the shafts and lie down would have realized my ideal of happiness ; but it was not to be — Bobby had decided other wise. It was in the autumn of a certain year of grace he first mooted the notion of ' going abroad.' He began by mildly insinuating Brittany, but something or some one throwing cold water on that scheme, he turned with rapture to the Black Forest, through which he gave me to understand he once during his holidays walked with a friend, doing thirty miles a day. I have my doubts — I think it must have been the friend who tramped the thirty miles, while Bobby ate strawberries in the shade ; anyhow, as I subsequently ascertained, the walking tour only lasted for three days.

What he was doing during the remainder of the three weeks he spent abroad it might be injudicious to inquire. On one point, however, there could be no doubt. He had made up his mind we (not he alone, remember, but we — he and I) were to repair to Germany for the benefit of our joint healths, and all the objections I raised only confirmed him in his determination. In the days when I was young — younger even than Bobby was when we first met — my mother frequently thought it incumbent upon her to invite the small child of a dear friend to spend the day under our roof. That small child (I wonder where he is now) was quite a study in human contrariness. Nothing in the house was too great or too little for him to desire — vases and silver thimbles, watches and reels of cotton, became in turn objects of longing, and, when refused, causes of weeping and wailing.

At length we discovered the moment anything was given to him he ceased to value it, and from that fortunate hour we had peace. During the course of a day we were wont to endow him severally and collectively with all our worldly goods — our clothing, our furniture, our ornaments ; in fact, the whole of our pos sessions — and he never cared to take an article away. I often thought Bobby resembled that child ; he was always wanting change of some sort, and if one demurred to his suggestion, rested not by day or night till he carried his point. On the other hand, when one yielded in stantly, throwing up the sponge before a single round had been fought, he usually forgot all about the matter. This peculiar idiosyncrasy may perhaps account for the fact that, in spite of my flat refusal even to think of ' taking a run to foreign parts,' Bobby decided he could know no happiness till he had dragged me across the Channel.

He spoke of the matter to others (not before me) as a settled affair ; I received letters from several friends full of rejoicing that at last I had ' been persuaded (!) to give myself a holiday, which I should be certain to enjoy, with so intelligent and sensible a companion.' Yes, Bobby ; they said you were intelligent and sensible and a great many other things, which, indeed, you may have been, for aught I know. To these letters I replied with a celerity and decision foreign to my character. I said I was not going abroad ; had never thought of going abroad, never meant to go abroad; had no money, no time, no health, no spirits, to go abroad; that the whole idea emanated from the fertile brain of my ingenious young friend, for whose statements and fancies I was no more answerable than I should be for his future debts.

That was checkmate, I thought, to Bobby. For a long time, like ' Brer Rabbit,' he ' lay low and said nothing ' ; then again he took up his parable, not because he ever thought I would go, or wanted me to go, but just from the spirit of opposition. All my objections, and they were many, were combated by my pleasant young friend, who could, and often did, find arguments to prove black was white. According to his statement, springs of youth and health, waters of Lethe, rivers of enjoyment, and streams of energy, were all to be found in the Black Forest. Photographs representing dark and gloomy scenery, with a few white and gray stones thrown in for foreground, were produced, to prove how ' grand ' the country, through which he proposed to be my guide, really was. He proudly exhibited interiors and ex teriors of cathedrals, and the chilling remark that I never wished to see another cathedral while I lived did not daunt him in the least.

Constant dropping, however, wears away a stone, and, accordingly, at length it came to pass that one evening I said, ' Very well, then, I will go,' and left Bobby limp with astonishment. There never was anybody so astonished as Bobby. He was horribly dismayed ; but having insisted on the medicine, he had to swallow it. From that hour he set his mind at work to consider how best he could serve me out. With unseemly exultation he drew attention to the fact that I should be dependent on him for everything — a reversal of our relative posi tions which afforded him the keenest pleasure. Malignantly he stated, for the benefit of many persons whom the question did not at all concern, that I should have to ask him to supply my wants. He was wont to gloat over the notion that I should have no water, no Bass, no tea ; only such food, such coffee, and such light wine of the country as he felt pleased to ask for.

All the grievances he had for long been storing up against me were to be amply revenged ; nevertheless, there were times when he relented, and held out promises of extraor dinary feasts. Among other delights we were to revel in whortleberries, and when I objected that whortleberries were not at all likely to be ripe early in June, he pooh-poohed my remark, and said something extremely nasty about Hadassah. Nothing seemed impossible to his too active imagination. It occurred to him that, as he might not be always at my elbow, it would be desirable for me to ' brush up my German ' — that was how he politely put it ; and fired with this notable project, he brought me an old and exceedingly badly-printed dictionary, in which all the letters looked exactly alike. But for this slight drawback something would probably have come of his courteous attention.

Even as matters stood, we lived in a German atmosphere. The air was thick with gutturals ; we pronounced the unholy names of out-of-the way villages as though native-born ; Bobby took the stiffest verbal fences with elegant ease ; no number of consonants daunted him ; he had foreign money at his fingers' ends ; there was nothing connected with Continental travel (according to his account) he could not and would not dare — nay, that he had not dared. He was always talking to everybody about Routes — he came home with a fresh route in his head each day ; the plan he decided on one hour he changed the next ; he pored over Baedeker ; he found places on the map and lost them again ; he produced old hotel bills to prove on what a small sum of money we could see the world ; he anxiously inquired if I minded travelling third-class.

On the score of expense, he cut off article after article of luggage, till he reduced it to nil ; we were to take what we could carry — nothing more. He hunted out an old knapsack, which had done duty on that previous expedition afore honourably mentioned, and having packed it with as many things as he thought I ought to want, insisted on my trying if the straps galled. Little did I imagine whither all this was tending. That one so young could be so treacherous may seem terribly sad, but it is literally true. Course by course he was silently laying the foundation for a walking tour, and when he trapped me into it as de scribed he was happy. He was all the happier because, as the days slipped by, he began to entertain grave doubts concerning my pedestrian powers. I often caught him eyeing me askance, as one might a horse, to see if its knees were going over or its wind sound.

He wanted a vast amount of information, and once actually suggested, in a populous if unfashionable part of London, that we should try how fast we could walk. 'You see, if I knew how many miles you could do in an hour, I could arrange our routes better,' he remarked. But I was too wise to commit myself again. ' A burnt child dreads the fire ' — Bobby was not going to catch me with my fingers near the bars a second time. ' Wait till we get to Germany,' I said, with diplomatic haziness, in answer to his suggestion. ' Well, it might not be fair,' he hesitated. ' You have been out of practice lately ; you do not walk much.' ' I never walk at all, if I can help it.' ' Do you not think it would be better to begin to go out a little each day now,' ventured Bobby, with a certain helpless hope lessness which was very touching. ' Certainly not; I have something else to do.' That, at all events, he knew was true, and, with a sigh, which indicated he did not think the chances of a pleasant walking tour looked promising, Bobby collapsed.

They certainly did not look promising. Time kept creeping on, and I was as busy and as tired as ever. At last the matter grew very serious. It had not seemed so bad when I first agreed to tramp through a strange land with my young com panion. Then weeks and weeks, even months, stretched between sentence and execution ; many things might happen to prevent our going. I had fully believed something would. Unfortunately, however, nothing did. That was the worst of it. Bobby's health kept aggravatingly good. Nobody fell ill, no body died, no disaster was reported from the Black Forest, no fire came down from heaven ; sunshine flooded the earth — never was seen such an April. Unless a miracle intervened, there seemed no escape possible, and all the while I was secretly hoping for plague, pesti lence and famine, thunder, lightning, hailstorms, earthquake — everyone who heard me speak must have believed I liked the idea of that Awful Tour. ' I do not think I should care for a walking tour,' said a lady friend. 'Oh, it will be delightful!' I replied; 'no way of seeing a country so good as on foot.

We shall have all sorts of adventures ;' but eventually we found it necessary to abandon this airy cheerfulness, which at length proved so infectious that hints began to be thrown out of a desire to join our party. Then Bobby's face became a study. In his heart he believed he should have a heavy load of trouble with me, and if to me were added other incapables, what might the result not prove ? ' We won't have it,' he said querulously ; 'they would be wanting to go to all sorts of places, and to live expensively and hire carriages, and perhaps stop in the towns. We want to get out of the towns, and besides, it is impossible we can take our holiday abroad at all, unless we go to work in the most economical manner.' Very true — too true, Bobby. And there was one of us, at all events, who wished it had been wholly impossible to go abroad, whether economically or not. ' By-the-by,' asked a visitor about this period, ' who is Bobby ?' ' Well, he is Bobby, that is all,' I replied. ' But he must have some other name ?' ' Of course — Short.' ' Good gracious !

Bobby Short !' ' Why good gracious ? The lad must be called something. Short is as useful a surname as any other; and for Robert, there have been many Roberts aforetime, and there will be many Roberts in time to come. Think of Robert the Bruce, Robert Burns, Robert le Diable ' ' And why is he living here ?' ' He is living here because he has nowhere else to live that he likes so well. There is a fiction that I take care of and look after him, but it is quite a mistake. I could not if I would, and he would not let me if I could ; we rarely quarrel, however, though he is always trying to get me to do things I do not want to do.' And I thought sadly of the tramp abroad. ' But I should not like that.' ' I do not mind — much ; on the contrary, his fads amuse me generally. No two human beings could be more diametrically opposite.

There are very few questions on which we agree (not,' I thought, ' on the Black Forest, anyhow !) ; yet when in the future marriage or any other misfortune separates us, I shall miss him greatly.' This, at least, was true. There were not many subjects on which we agreed. He had his views and I had mine, and those views were different. Such as we were, however, we got along very comfortably, even when a spirit of contrariness took possession of Bobby, and the demon of literary irritability entered into me — he steadily climbing up the hill of life, and I as steadily jogging down. But, as when I agreed to go with him to Germany I agreed also to jog downhill at the rate of eighteen miles a day, it seemed ex tremely probable that I should reach the bottom long before our tour was ended. [ x8]

Chapter II. How It Went On

When I sold myself into slavery, when I agreed to be led by Bobby, and to become the victim of his whims, eternity could not have seemed much more remote than that evil thirty-first of May when we were to start on our travels. But the days had fled as such days always seem to do, and it was the thirtieth of the fair spring month. Merry my friends had made themselves, very merry, and I joined in their laughter ; but if they had only known what I felt, the most callous amongst them might have been moved to tears. Bobby was chaffed unmercifully. Surely, no one ever looked less fit to guide himself, to say nothing of another person, than did he. People came to tea and stayed for supper simply to listen to Bobby's programme. It was a joy even to hear him speak. ' By the end of next week,' said he, with the calm modesty of conscious power, ' we shall be at Constance.' ' I shan't,' I thought ; ' I shall be in the next world.' ' But you do not mean to say you will have walked there ?' suggested a sceptic. ' Yes,' Bobby replied firmly ; ' with the exception only of that little bit of mountain railway to Triberg.' ' I would rather you did than I, then,' was the sensible answer. ' I wish there were any " rather " in my case,' I mentally considered.

In the whole range of useless articles this world contains, there was scarcely one that Bobby had not been advised to include in his outfit. Materials for lighting fires in the event of being benighted, a small cooking battery, a lantern, the ' Art of War,' a pocket-compass, firearms, Liebig's extract, a tent, a hammock, a fishing-rod, a reading-lamp, were amongst the items suggested, but he rejected them all. ' We are going,' he said firmly, ' only to take a knapsack and a waterproof each — so much, and no more.' ' And where do you intend to get your waterproofs ?' Bobby did not know, and neither did I ; but meeting on our way Cityward a gentleman who volunteered as guide, we surmounted that difficulty, and became the legitimate possessors of a rain-proof coat and a rain-proof cloak. It was such lovely weather — such perfect weather — that really, as Bobby remarked, it seemed almost a useless expense, but he thought we had better be on the safe side. ' There might be a shower,' he added, a sudden and not lying spirit of prophecy entering into him.

On my own account I further bought a game-bag instead of a knapsack, two pairs of boots, and, by the advice of Bobby, a soft tweed hat, the ugliest headgear man or woman ever donned ;' yet it had advantages — truth compels me to confess so much. My young friend committed another ex travagance, but he did not tell me this until we were proceeding up the Thames on a penny steamer. I noticed he was very silent, and had evidently something on his mind; but I had so much on my mind that I did not inquire into the cause of his gloom. He did not leave me long in ignorance, however. ' I am afraid I have spent some money that I ought not,' he began. ' How have you spent it ?' I asked ; not because I cared in the least, but merely to seem sympathetic. He hesitated, coloured, and then came this confession : ' I have bought a pair of razors.' ' Well,' I said, and I did not laugh — I was too sad to laugh — 'it is not money lost.

You will want them some day.' ' I want them now,' he answered, with plaintive indignation ; ' only I do not think we can afford the expense.' As I felt I should soon have done with all things mundane, the spectre of poverty thus conjured up did not affect me as it might under other circumstances ; and finding that his extravagance was viewed leniently, Bobby immediately waxed cheerful, and treated me to a dissertation on razors in general, and the pair he had purchased in particular, which lasted till we reached Lambeth. It was the thirtieth — the last day in England ! How dear England seemed ! Never before had London appeared so charming, my own house so comfortable, my own neighbourhood so desirable. ' Eighteen miles a day !' the hansom cabs rattled out, ' eighteen miles a day !' while the railway screamed the same words. ' To-morrow night we shall be on our way,' said Bobby blithely, as we parted in the morn ing.

I was going out to dinner, and did not expect to be back in time to see him again before the next day. With a ghastly smile I assented. ' I hope we shall have a fine passage.' 'I do not care whether it is fine or not!' I replied, which was a truly unkind speech, for Bobby cared very much. That evening I imitated the behaviour of the reckless Larry who played cards on his coffin the night before he was stretched. To hear the cheerfulness with which I spoke of tramping through the Black Forest, no one would have supposed I was a woman ' left for execution,' without the faintest hope of a reprieve. Yes, it was true the hangman and the chaplain and the gallows were looming at no remote distance, and all because of one false step ; but keeping up my deception to the last, I bade my friends farewell with a jocund hflarity which hid a sad heart, and left them, feeling that good-bye under such circumstances was like a farewell spoken on the eve of battle.

When I reached home I found Bobby still up, very wide awake indeed, with a general effect of having had his hair brushed the wrong way by machinery. There was an unkempt and distracted look about him, un usual in a person prone to devote a consider able amount of thought to the details of his toilet. On the diningtable lay a slip of paper, ostentatiously placed so as to immediately catch my eye. On it was written : ' If you please, ma'am, Mr. Robert wants to see you to-night. Something about pass bords, I think he said.' 'Something about what?' I asked. ' I am awfully sorry,' began Mr. Robert, ' but I shall have to ask you to go into town first thing to-morrow morning.' ' Go into town,' I repeated ; ' what for ?' 'It was very stupid of me,' getting more and more apologetic ; ' but I never thought of our passports till to-day.' ' We don't want passports,' I answered ; ' no one wants passports now.' ' Oh, but we do !

We must have them, if we get into any scrape.' ' Are you going to get into any scrape ?' I asked severely ; ' because / am not.' ' You can't tell what may happen ; besides, they won't give us any registered letters unless we produce our passports.' ' You told me we were not to have any letters at all, registered or otherwise.' * I know I did, but, still, we had better have passports. They are a sort of certificate of character ; we ought to take them. We are going into a strange country, and among strange people ' ' We are, indeed,' I assented. ' And so I went to a place where they told me I could not possibly get them, as they must lie for a night at the Foreign Office.' ' Then, that is an end of the matter.' 'No; by dint of a little diplomacy' — I smiled, and Bobby plunged on desperately — 'I filled up my own all right ; and I hope you don't mind, but I signed your name to the other ' ' I shall have the pleasure of seeing you in the dock yet, my good youth,' I observed, ' though you do look so like a seraph or a fledgling chorister.' ' And if you will come up with me in the morning to some banker, and get him to fill up whatever may be necessary, we can have our passports at one o'clock.' I groaned — I had not a thing ready.

I could have found employment for every minute of the next day, and here was I asked to go on a ridiculous chase after a passport which I did not want. As usual, however, Mr. Short carried his point ; but when, armed with ' whatever was necessary,' we arrived at our destination, we were informed that we could not have the papers till Tuesday, the 3rd of June. The Foreign Office had most properly re turned Bobby's audacious signature with a query and a refusal. Blank despair on the part of Bobby was the result — a disposition to find fault with all existing institutions, all Government offices, all Government clerks, all rulers and persons placed in authority over him — all living beings, in brief, except himself. He looked so young and innocent as he babbled on, so like a child who has lost a toy, that a compromise was at last effected.

The papers — some papers had lain for a night at the Foreign Office. An effort was made, or, as Bobby phrased it, a ' spurt was put on,' that enabled him finally to return late in the after noon with a marvellous document, which set forth the following : ' We, — Granville George, Earl Granville, Viscount Granville, Baron Leveson, a Peer of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, a Member of Her Britannic Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and Constable of Dover Castle, Her Majesty's Principal Secre tary of State for Foreign Affairs, etc., ' Request and require, in the Name of Her Majesty, all those whom it may concern to allow ' Mr. Robert Short, British subject, travelling on the Continent, to pass freely, without let or hindrance, and to afford him every assistance and protection of which he may stand in need. ' Given at the Foreign Office, London, the 3 1 st day of May, 1 8 — . ' Granville.' With humble pride, Bobby requested me to read this production, of which my own pass port was almost a facsimile.