Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/104

94

knows that on the Crapaudian side of the salt-water ditch (called in that language the Sleeve), which divides the two mighty empires of Fogland and Crapaudy, stands the famous little town called Cigogne.

A famous town in every respect. Without going further into antiquity, it was here that Cossikin the First, that puissant little conqueror, posted his army of observation, and day after day mounted the heights, telescope in hand, to scan the white cliffs of the opposite coast. The phlegmatic Foglanders did not appear greatly troubled at his threats of invasion, but proceeded quietly with their sea-bathing as if nothing were going to happen. And nothing did happen to them; but as for poor little Cossikin, he came to grief, and passed his latter days on a rocky island, assiduously guarded by a gentleman whom he found an extremely disagreeable specimen of Fogland breeding. All this is matter of history, and nothing to my present purpose. Let me return to Cigogne.

To describe the town of Cigogne would be deemed an intolerable impertinence. Cigogne is as well known to the Foglanders as their own gigantic smoke-begrimed metropolis of Troynovant. It is their principal port of entry when they wish to escape from the forest of factory chimneys with which their native country is known to be covered, or when they desire to see the blue sky, and behold that luminary which warms and lights the world, but seldom discloses his glorious face to their gaze. This is what the Crapaudians say. Moreover, a good many Foglanders remain permanently in Cigogne. Formerly hosts of disreputable persons from that island made this town their abode, and amused themselves (so it is traditionally rumoured) by watching the bailiffs through exceedingly powerful telescopes, as they stood waving their writs in agonies of despair on the chalk cliffs opposite. This is no longer the case. Owing to a barbarous international arrangement, Fogland debtors can be arrested even in free and happy Crapaudy. Consequently they stay at home, or fly across the western waves to the shores of what was the Lincolnian Republic.

The Foglanders who at present inhabit Cigogne are, as a rule, a harmless, respectable race, who pay their bills weekly, and are not ashamed to look any man in the face. They go there to economise, though their economy is doubtful; for it is a singular fact, that wherever a Foglander sets his foot the market-price of all commodities immediately rises. Still Foglanders are fond of Cigogne. It is one of the few places out of Fogland where a man can live comfortably without being bothered to acquire the lingo. By this epithet contemptuous Foglanders are apt to style all other tongues but their own. Numbers of elderly persons dwell there for years without learning a dozen sentences of the Crapaudian language. They live on beef and mutton cooked in the Fogland style, keep Fogland servants, receive the “Daily Jupiter” (the great Troynovant newspaper) by the post, and interchange visits with none but natives of their own land. Indeed, the more aristocratic Cigognards still look rather shyly on natives of Fogland. They have not forgotten the seedy, swaggering generation of billiard-playing, debt-contracting, bailiff-shunning islanders, which used to patronise their town.

I have said that Foglanders frequently will not take the trouble to acquire the Crapaudian language. Here is a specimen. Look at Joe Batters, who keeps the Cherry Tree, a little public-house near the beach. He is eighty years old, and has lived thirty years in Cigogne. His house is chiefly frequented by Fogland sailors. Well, regard old Batters as he sits by his stove, with a glass of Hollands in his hand, looking, in that curious skeleton suit of velveteen, which it is his fancy to wear, like an immensely exaggerated and ancient charity boy. “I’ve been thirty year in the country,” he says, “and I don’t know a word of the language.” Just then a cow saunters leisurely in front of the house, and gazes contemplatively in at the door, probably to see what Joe Batters is like. These cows are the pest of Joe’s existence. They are the thorns in his sleek flesh. He rushes to the door. “Alley,” he roars, “why” (here understand a number of Fogland adjectives and substantives of an emphatic character) “don’t you alley.”

So Joe Batters was wrong after all, and he does know one word of the language. But he is mightily proud of his stupendous ignorance, far prouder than Cardinal Mezzofanti was, or Elihu Burritt is, of their respective linguistic acquirements. These Foglanders are certainly a curious race. At another port in Crapaudy (not Cigogne) I once saw a poor woman paddling her boat-load of fruit and vegetables under the stern of a Fogland steamer. She addressed the mate, who was leaning over the taffrail, in the Crapaudian tongue. He retorted, “Where’s the use of talking that gibberish; speak plain Foglandic, can’t yer?” The woman with some difficulty obeyed the injunction. I could not help admiring the “cheek” of the honest seaman, who, being in Crapaudy, styled Crapaudian gibberish.

Then there is another Foglander who keeps a tavern of somewhat higher pretensions than old Batters’s, namely, Mr. Winskip. Mr. Winskip has seen better days, and talks with affectionate regret of Mayswater, and a “trap” in which he used to drive a famous trotting mare along the Ducksbridge Road. At present he appears to be a gentleman of strong theatrical tendencies, and regales a select company of Foglanders, who assemble in the parlour every evening from eight till eleven, with songs, sentiments, and recitations. The choruses make a good deal of noise, and the Crapaudian police authorities have a constitutional objection to noise. Noise, they argue, leads to contention; contention blossoms into riot, riot ripens into revolt, revolt becomes revolution. So they come to Mr. Winskip’s door, and send in messages of a threatening character. It is reported that they may be occasionally rendered amiable by the exhibition of absinthe. One can conceive the administration of a judicious glass of ale to a Troynovant Peeler, with his citizen-like hat and long overcoat; but to offer