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"I am glad to get them below, Amos," said he, "for I fear that we may have trouble yet." "And how?" "You see the white road which runs by the southern bank of the river. Twice within the last half-hour I have seen horsemen spurring for dear life along it. Where the spires and smoke are yonder is Honfleur, and thither it was that these men went.
"It is the very best in my cellars, and not to be matched between Rouen and Paris. Drink, sir, and be happy! There are cold joints below. There are two lobsters, fresh from Honfleur. Will you not venture upon a second and more savoury supper?" The German officer shook his head. He drained the glass, however, and his host filled it once more, pressing him to give an order for this or that dainty.
Early in the sixteenth century, indeed, the Sieur Gonneville, skipper of Honfleur, sailing round the Cape of Good Hope, made his way right across the Southern Ocean to some vague point of South America where he found the people still just in the intermediate stage between the use of natural vessels and the invention of pottery.
In the days of the French emigration, when highborn ladies escaped on board friendly vessels in the harbor of Honfleur, many of them had on the long-waisted and full-skirted overcoats of their husbands, who preferred to shiver rather than endure the pain of seeing their wives suffer from cold.
The white whales floundering in the Bay of Tadoussac, and the wild duck diving as the foaming prow drew near, there was no life but these in all that watery solitude, twenty miles from shore to shore. The ship was from Honfleur, and was commanded by Samuel de Champlain. He was the AEneas of a destined people, and in her womb lay the embryo life of Canada.
In the evening, there was a fete prepared by the merchants, at which the First Consul remained for half an hour; and on Monday, at five o'clock in the morning, he embarked on a lugger for Honfleur. At the time of his departure the weather was a little threatening, and the First Consul was advised not to embark.
Early in the morning of the third day they set out again in a rude cart, called a Berlin, drawn by two cart-horses. They had many strange adventures and narrow escapes, even performing a portion of their journey on foot. At length they reached the sea-coast at Honfleur, near the mouth of the Seine, on the southern bank. Here they embarked, still under the assumed name of Mr. and Mrs.
Madame Chapdelaine announced in a tone mingling pleasure and astonishment. Maria also arose, agitated, smoothing her hair with unconscious hand; but it was Ephrem Surprenant of Honfleur who opened the door. "We have come to pay you a visit!" He shouted this with the air of one who announces a great piece of news. Behind him was someone unknown to them, who bowed and smiled in a very mannerly way.
She approached the edge of the hill, where there is a little platform, from whence the people of Honfleur look out for the approach of vessels. Here she stood for some time waving her handkerchief, though there was nothing to be seen but two or three fishing-boats, like mere specks on the bosom of the distant ocean.
There are but few of the old streets left to crowd about the shipping life that still floats here, as in those bygone days of Honfleur pride; when Havre was but a yellow strip of sand; when the Honfleur merchants would have laughed to scorn any prophet's cry of warning that one day that sand-bar opposite, despised, disregarded, boasting only a chapel and a tavern, would grow and grow, and would steal year by year and inch by inch bustling Honfleur's traffic, till none was left.
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