A FAGGOT OF FRENCH STICKS.

THE START.

Ar eleven o'clock of the night of the 29th of April, A.D. the London train, after two or three rejoicing whistles, reached Dover, and, in a few minutes, I was on the threshold of one-I know not which-of that long list of “excellent hotels" whose names, the instant I stepped out of the train, had been simultaneously dinned into my ear by every description of voice, from squeaking treble, apparently just weaned, to a gruff hoarse double-bass, compounded in about equal parts of chronic cough, chronic cold, chronic sore throat, gin, rum, hollands, bitters, brandy, hot water, and filberts.

The narrow outline of the house-lad who, walking backwards, had been elastically alluring me onwards, and the bent head of the sturdy house-porter, who, with my portmanteau on his back and my blue writing-box pendant in his right hand, was following me, so clearly explained my predicament, that, on entering a large coffee-room full of square and oblong mahogany tables, an over-tired waiter, in a white neckcloth, dozing in an arm-chair, no sooner caught a glimpse of the approaching group, than with the alacrity with which Isaac Walton would have twitched at his rod the instant his colored goose-quill bobbed under water, whirling a white napkin under his left arm, he shuffled on his heels towards a large tawdry chandelier, twisted with his right hand three or four gaslights to their maximum flare, and then, with the

jabber of a monkey, repeating to me the surnames of a variety of joints of cold meat, he ended by asking me "What I would please to take?" In reply to his comprehensive question, I desired him to screw back all those lamps which were nearly blinding me, and, as soon as I had returned to the enjoyment of comparative darkness sufficient to be able to look calmly at his jaded face, in three words I withered all his hopes by quietly asking him for the very thing in creation which of ali others he would have plucked from my mind-" a bedroom candle."

After turning on his heels and walking like a bankrupt towards the door, without the addition or subtraction of a single letter, he telegraphically repeated my words; and accordingly in less than a minute a very ordinary sort of a chambermaid, with a face and brass candlestick shining at each other, conducted me up two or three steps, then up about half a dozen more-of the exact number in both instances she carefully admonished me-then along a carpeted passage that sounded hollow as I trod upon it, then sharp to the left, and eventually, after all this magnificent peroration, into a very little room, almost entirely occupied by a large family four-post bed, the convex appearance of which corroborated what was verbally explained to me-that the feathers were uppermost. As soon as my conductress had deposited her candle on a little table, which, excepting a tiny washingstand in the corner, was the only companion in the way of furniture the bed had in the room, she wished me good night; in reply to which I asked her to promise me most faithfully that I should be called in time to "cross" by the first packet. "I will go and put it down on the slate, Sir !" she replied; and as she seemed to have implicit confidence as to the result, I soon divested my mind and its body of all unnecessary incumbrances, and, in a few minutes, lost to the world and to myself, I sank into oblivion and feathers.

I had been dead and buried for an unknown period, when I was gradually and rather uncomfortably awaked by the repetition of an unpleasant noise, which, on opening my ears. and eyes, I discovered to be the pronunciation at intervals, from the mouth of a short, thin, pale, wiry young man, on whose pensive face, jacket, and trowsers were various little spots of blacking, of the words "Four o'clock, Sir !"

As the packet was not to sail till five, I had plenty of time to prepare, and yet I should have preferred to have been more hurried. As long as I was employed in washing I got on very well; but when in my secluded little aerial chamber I sat down to whet my razor, soap my chin, brush it, turn it all white, and then look at it in a small swing-glass, I could not help feeling that the next time those serious operations were performed, I should be out of old England, vagabondizing in a foreign land!

It was as dull a morning as I ever remember to have beheld, and every thing seemed to be conspiring to make it so. From the chimneys of the diminutive houses that appeared before me one, if possible, more insignificant-looking than the other-there exuded no smoke. At the Custom-house there was nothing to cheer or excite me; nothing in my baggage that elicited the smallest remark. The searcher looked as if he knew it would be perfectly uninteresting, and it was There was no sunshine, rain, hail, or sleet; only a very little wind, and that foul.

SO.

On stepping on board the packet, the deck of which hav ing been just washed was shining with wet, I found it contained four passengers besides myself. There was no calling, hallooing, taking leave, or crying, but a few minutes past five the paddles began to move slowly; revolve; splash. Without any one to watch us, follow us, or even from a little window wave a handkerchief at us, we glided away from the little houses, through the little harbour, alongside of the little pier at the end of which stood a little man with a large spy-glass under his arm-and thus, taking leave of Great Britain, in a few minutes we were in the Channel.

The water and the clouds were slate-colour; there were no waves, no white breakers, no sign of life in the sea except a sort of snoring heaving movement, as if, under the influence of chloroform, it were in a deep lethargic sleep. My fellowpassengers, I saw at a glance, were nothing in the whole world but two married couples; and as I paced up and down the deck, while, on the contrary, they took up positions from which during the passage they never moved, I vibrated between them. One young woman, apparently the wife of a London tradesman, sat on the wrong side of the vessel in the wrong place. Her little husband kept very kindly advising

her to move away from the sprinkling of the paddle-wheel. She would catch cold;—she would get her bonnet wet;-she would be more comfortable if she would sit anywhere else. She looked him full in the face, listened to every letter, every syllable, every word as he pronounced it: but no, there she sat, with red cheeks, bright eyes, and curly hair, as inanimate as a doll. My other compagnons de voyage were a pair of well-dressed young persons of rank, apparently but lately married. On all subjects they seemed to think exactly alike, and on none more so than in being both equally uncomfortably affected by some slight smells and movements which assailed them. For a short time the young bride sat up, -then reclined a little, then a very little more,-thenwith a carpet-bag as a pillow-lay almost flat on the bench; her well-formed features gradually losing colour until, shrouded by a large blue cloth cloak, for the rest of the passage they disappeared altogether from view. The husband in a mute silence sat sentinel over her; but, long before her face had been hid, not only had his mustachios assumed a very mournful look, but his face had become a mixture of pipe-clay and tallow.

As, without a human being to converse with, I continued walking backwards and forwards a small circular space round the engine was the only dry spot on the deck-assailed sometimes by a hot puff, then by a cold one, then by a smoky one, and then by one rather warm and greasy, I observed, lying perfectly idle and close to the cabin stairs, a pile of about a dozen white washhand-basins, one placidly resting in the other. Pointing to them, I thought it but kind inquisitively to look at the young sentinel; and although with a slight bow he faintly and apparently rather gratefully shook his head, there was legibly imprinted on his countenance the answer which, in the Arabian Nights, the slave Morgiana gave to the question of the forty thieves,-" Not yet, but presently."

In the brief fleeting space of three quarters of an hour, diversified only by the few events I have recorded, we had quietly scuffled as nearly as possible half way across the defensive ditch on which Old England so insecurely rests for protection from invasion. Our course was here enlivened by small flights of wild fowl flying but a few inches above the water, with necks outstretched, as stiff as if they had been

spitted; indeed, so straight was their course and so regular was the flapping of their wings, that a tiny column of smoke from each would have given them the appearance of flying by steam.

The little low sand-hills which, in contradistinction to the chalky cliffs of Albion, form the maritime boundaries of France, were now clearly delineated. In about ten minutes the church and lighthouse of Calais became visible, and in a few more we approached the extreme point of the long pier. On entering the harbour we passed a few soldiers and pedestrians so rapidly that, as they dropped astern, they appeared, although evidently leaning forwards, to be in fact stepping backwards. The steep roofs and upper windows of houses were now to be seen peeping over the green ramparts that surrounded them; and I had hardly time to look at them, and at the picturesque costumes, strange uniforms, and foreign faces above us, when the words were given"Ease her-stop her-back her;" a rope coiled in the hand of one of our sailors was heaved aloft, secured round a post, and thus in exactly one hour and forty-five minutes we made our passage from the pier of Dover, to that from whence a number of bearded and smooth-chinned faces were looking down upon us. Although some twenty feet beneath them, it is the property of an Englishman, as it is that of water, to find his own level, and, accordingly, no sooner was a long wooden staircase lowered from the pier to the deck, than I slowly ascended, until I found first one foot and then the other firmly planted on the continent of Europe and in the republic of France.

I was returning as well as I could the momentary glance of a great variety of eyes, and was trying to satiate my curi osity by looking at them all at once, when I observed approaching me a venerable-looking gentleman, as grey-headed as myself, who, in a confidential tone of voice, amounting almost to a whisper, delivered himself of a speech which, coming out of him with the utmost fluency, appeared to explain most clearly the innumerable little advantages I should derive by giving over to him immediately, all my English gold in exchange for French money.

The bold comprehensive view he took of the whole subject was quite unanswerable. There was, however, uppermost