Whereas I have been
vindictively wishing that those Calais burghers who came out of their
town by a short cut into the History of England, with those fatal ropes
round their necks by which they have since been towed into so many
cartoons, had all been hanged on the spot, I now begin to regard them as
highly respectable and virtuous tradesmen. Looking about me, I see the
light of Cape Grinez well astern of the boat on the davits to leeward,
and the light of Calais Harbour undeniably at its old tricks, but still
ahead and shining. Sentiments of forgiveness of Calais, not to say of
attachment to Calais, begin to expand my bosom. I have weak notions that
I will stay there a day or two on my way back. A faded and recumbent
stranger, pausing in a profound reverie over the rim of a basin, asked
me what kind of place Calais is? I tell him (Heaven forgive me!) a very
agreeable place indeed--rather hilly than otherwise.
So strangely goes the time, and on the whole so quickly--though still I
seem to have been on board a week--that I am bumped, rolled, gurgled,
washed, and pitched into Calais Harbour before her maiden smile has
finally lighted her through the Green Isle. When blest for ever is she
who relied On entering Calais at the top of the tide. For we have not to
land to-night down among those slimy timbers--covered with green hair as
if it were the mermaid's favourite combing-place--where one crawls to
the surface of the jetty, like a stranded shrimp; but we go steaming up
the harbour to the Railway-station Quay.
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