Vanity Fair - Page 224/573

But it may be said as a rule, that every Englishman in the Duke of

Wellington's army paid his way. The remembrance of such a fact surely

becomes a nation of shopkeepers. It was a blessing for a

commerce-loving country to be overrun by such an army of customers: and

to have such creditable warriors to feed. And the country which they

came to protect is not military. For a long period of history they

have let other people fight there. When the present writer went to

survey with eagle glance the field of Waterloo, we asked the conductor

of the diligence, a portly warlike-looking veteran, whether he had been

at the battle. "Pas si bete"--such an answer and sentiment as no

Frenchman would own to--was his reply. But, on the other hand, the

postilion who drove us was a Viscount, a son of some bankrupt Imperial

General, who accepted a pennyworth of beer on the road. The moral is

surely a good one.

This flat, flourishing, easy country never could have looked more rich

and prosperous than in that opening summer of 1815, when its green

fields and quiet cities were enlivened by multiplied red-coats: when

its wide chaussees swarmed with brilliant English equipages: when its

great canal-boats, gliding by rich pastures and pleasant quaint old

villages, by old chateaux lying amongst old trees, were all crowded

with well-to-do English travellers: when the soldier who drank at the

village inn, not only drank, but paid his score; and Donald, the

Highlander, billeted in the Flemish farm-house, rocked the baby's

cradle, while Jean and Jeannette were out getting in the hay. As our

painters are bent on military subjects just now, I throw out this as a

good subject for the pencil, to illustrate the principle of an honest

English war. All looked as brilliant and harmless as a Hyde Park

review. Meanwhile, Napoleon screened behind his curtain of

frontier-fortresses, was preparing for the outbreak which was to drive

all these orderly people into fury and blood; and lay so many of them

low.

Everybody had such a perfect feeling of confidence in the leader (for

the resolute faith which the Duke of Wellington had inspired in the

whole English nation was as intense as that more frantic enthusiasm

with which at one time the French regarded Napoleon), the country

seemed in so perfect a state of orderly defence, and the help at hand

in case of need so near and overwhelming, that alarm was unknown, and

our travellers, among whom two were naturally of a very timid sort,

were, like all the other multiplied English tourists, entirely at ease.

The famous regiment, with so many of whose officers we have made

acquaintance, was drafted in canal boats to Bruges and Ghent, thence to

march to Brussels. Jos accompanied the ladies in the public boats; the

which all old travellers in Flanders must remember for the luxury and

accommodation they afforded. So prodigiously good was the eating and

drinking on board these sluggish but most comfortable vessels, that

there are legends extant of an English traveller, who, coming to

Belgium for a week, and travelling in one of these boats, was so

delighted with the fare there that he went backwards and forwards from

Ghent to Bruges perpetually until the railroads were invented, when he

drowned himself on the last trip of the passage-boat. Jos's death was

not to be of this sort, but his comfort was exceeding, and Mrs. O'Dowd

insisted that he only wanted her sister Glorvina to make his happiness

complete. He sate on the roof of the cabin all day drinking Flemish

beer, shouting for Isidor, his servant, and talking gallantly to the

ladies.