Of the halting places on this pilgrimage along the British front, I
should best have liked to be with Brian and Father Beckett at Arras.
Brian and I were there together you know, Padre, on that happy-go-lucky
tramping tour of ours--not long before I met Jim. We both loved Arras,
Brian and I, and spent a week there in the most fascinating of ancient
hotels. It had been a palace; and I had a huge room, big enough for the
bedchamber of a princess (princesses should always have bedchambers,
never mere bedrooms!) with long windows draped like the walls and stiff
old furniture, in yellow satin. I was frightened when an aged servant
with the air of a pontiff ushered me in; for Brian and I were travelling
"on the cheap." But Arras, though delicious in its quaint charm, never
attracted hordes of ordinary tourists. Consequently one could have
yellow satin hangings without being beggared.
Oh, how happy we were in that hotel, and in the adorable old town! While
Brian painted in the Grande Place and the Petite Place, and sketched the
Abbey of St. Waast (who brought Christianity to that part of the world)
I wandered alone. I used to stand every evening till my neck ached,
staring up at the beautiful belfry, to watch the swallows chase each
other back and forth among the bells, whose peal was music of fairyland.
And I never tired of wandering through the arcades under the tall old
Flemish houses with their overhanging upper storeys, or peeping into the
arcades' cool shadows, from the middle of the sunlit squares.
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