We had hoped to stay at Felton, a romantic little village on the river. Partly in a deep dell it lies, partly on a hill; rocks and wooded knolls with shady walks by the streamlet-side make it well suited for a summer resort, but it is hardly known. Not to Londoners, certainly.
Stabling we could have here, but so hilly is the place that a flat meadow was looked for in vain. After spending a whole hour searching for accommodation I returned to the glen where I had left the Wanderer, and our poor tired horses had to go on again.
Hills, hills, hills, that seemed as if they never would end; hills that take the heart, and life, and spirit out of the horses and make my heart bleed for them. The beauty of the scenery cannot comfort me now, nor the glory of the wild flowers, nor the blue sea itself. We but lag along, hoping, praying, that a hostelry of some sort may soon heave in sight.
I am riding on in front, having often to dismount and push my cycle before me.
All at once on a hilltop, with a beautiful green valley stretching away and away towards the sea, I come upon the cosiest wee Northumbrian inn ever I wish to see. I signal back the joyful tidings to the weary Wanderer.
Yee, there is stabling, and hay, and straw, and everything that can be desired.
“Hurrah! Come on, Bob, I feel as happy now as a gipsy king.”
July 15th.—The drag began this morning in earnest. We were among the banks of Northumbria. (Bank—a stiff hill.) With a light carriage they are bad enough, but with a two-ton waggon, small in wheel and long ’twixt draughts, the labour, not to say danger, reaches a maximum. The country here is what a cockney would term a mountainous one, and in some parts of it even a Scotchman would feel inclined to agree with him. At one time we would be down at the bottom of some gloomy defile, where the road crossed over a Gothic bridge, and a wimpling stream went laughing over its rocky bed till lost to sight among overhanging trees.
Down in that defile we would eye with anxious hearts the terrible climb before us.