All of which things we most faithfully performed, and yet we got no nearer that day than "about eight miles farther to Concord."
In circling about we came quite unexpectedly upon the old "Red Horse" tavern, now the "Wayside Inn." We brought the machine to a stop and gazed long and lovingly at the ancient hostelry which had given shelter to famous men for nearly two hundred years, and where congenial spirits gathered in Longfellow's days and the imaginary "Tales of a Wayside Inn" were exchanged.
The mellow light of the setting sun warmed the time-worn structure with a friendly glow. The sign of the red horse rampant creaked mournfully as it swung slowly to and fro in the gentle breeze; with palsied arms and in cracked tones the old inn seemed to bid us stay and rest beneath its sheltering eaves. Washington and Hamilton and Lafayette, Emerson and Hawthorne and Longfellow had entered that door, eaten and drunk within those humble walls,—the great in war, statecraft, and literature had been its guests; like an old man it lives with its memories, recalls the associations of its youth and prime, but slumbers oblivious to the present.
The old inn was so fascinating that we determined to come back in a few days and spend at least a night beneath its roof. The shadows were so rapidly lengthening that we had to hurry on.
Crossing the Charles River near Auburndale a sight of such bewitching beauty met our astonished gaze that we stopped to make inquiries. Above and below the bridge the river was covered with gayly decorated canoes which were being paddled about by laughing and singing young people. The brilliant colors of the decorations, the pretty costumes, the background of dark water, the shores lined with people and equipages, the bridge so crowded we could hardly get through, made a never-to-be-forgotten picture. It was just a holiday canoe-meet, and hundreds of the small, frail craft were darting about upon the surface of the water like so many pretty dragon-flies. The automobile seemed such an intrusion, a drone of prose in a burst of poetry, the discord of machinery in a sylvan symphony.
We stopped a few moments at Lasell Seminary in Auburndale, where old associations were revived by my Companion over a cup of tea. A girl's school is a mysterious place; there is an atmosphere of suppressed mischief, of things threatened but never quite committed, of latent possibilities, and still more latent impossibilities. In a boy's school mischief is evident and rampant; desks, benches, and walls are whittled and defaced with all the wanton destructiveness of youth; buildings and fences show marks of contact with budding manhood; but boys are so openly and notoriously mischievous that no apprehension is felt, for the worst is ever realized; but those in command of a school of demure and saintly girls must feel like men handling dynamite, uncertain what will happen next; the stolen pie, the hidden sweets, the furtive note are indications of the infinite subtlety of the female mind.
From Auburndale the boulevard leads into Commonwealth Avenue and the run is fine.
It was about seven o'clock when we reached the Hotel Touraine, and a little later when the machine was safely housed in an automobile station,—a part of an old railway depot.
A few days in Boston and on the North Shore afforded a welcome change.
Through Beverly and Manchester the signs "Automobiles not allowed" at private roadways are numerous; they are the rule rather than the exception. One young man had a machine up there, but found himself so ostracized he shipped it away. No machines are allowed on the grounds of the Essex Country Club.