‘Yes,’ J. admitted, modestly. ‘But then, you know, English is sometimes spoken in our part of the world!’
All this made the fierce little cycler very friendly, and he next wanted to know where we were going.
‘To Canterbury,’ we said.
‘To Canterbury!’ he cried; and then, to give greater force to his words, he came and stood directly in front of us on the other side of the table. ‘To Canterbury! Well, then, my advice to you is, if you have no other object than pleasure, don’t go! No, don’t you go! I’ve been there, and I know what I say. It’s a rotten place. There’s nothing in it but an old cathedral and a lot of old houses and churches, and they charged me sixpence for keeping my tandem one night. I don’t like tandems-horrid things! Do you like tandems? Yes, it’s a rotten place, and if I had my way I’d raze it to the ground!’
I now understand why it is that Mr. Matthew Arnold thinks the average Briton so very terrible.
By this time we had finished our lunch, and were ready to start. The watchmaker and his wife had engaged in another battle. She did not agree with him in his opinion of Canterbury. Indeed I believe they did not agree upon any one subject, and the tandem had tried their tempers. They had both said they wanted to see us off, and to compare machines; but we, being modest people, thought we would as lieve escape without their comments and farewells. This seemed a favourable opportunity. In the heat of the argument we left the room and paid our bill, without their noticing our retreat; but just as we had mounted our tricycle, and were wheeling softly away, we heard a voice calling, ‘Oh, I say now! do come back a minute: I want to show you my machine!’ It would have been more than uncivil to have refused, so we sat patiently while the much-abused tandem was brought out. The owner, in his pride, rode out on it, pedalled by us, and then wheeled round and faced us with an abruptness that fairly took away our breath. It was the shortest turn I have ever seen, and I waited for the end with the same uncertainty with which one watches a trapeze performance. Then there was some little talk about bells and brakes, and tyres and saddles. In the meantime the landlady, with two or three of her friends, had come out, and was staring at us with a curiosity for which I could not account. But presently she said, ‘Are you going back soon?’ And then I knew she had heard we were Americans, and had come to have a look at these strange people who had sailed across the sea, apparently for no other reason than to test the cycling properties of the roads of Kent. After this exhibition was over we said good-bye very pleasantly, and rode off, followed by their wishes for our good luck, while the watchmaker called out encouragingly, ‘You Americans ride pretty well; but I don’t like tandems. Horrid things! Do you like tandems?’
A Farmhouse near Rochester.
But their wishes were the only good luck we met with. We had not gone far from Sittingbourne, when we admitted that the pilgrim we had met just outside of Chatham was no false prophet after all; for the road now began to be heavy with sand and rough with flints. And oh, the hills! They were not very steep, but I was a novice in cycling. No sooner were we on up-grades than I exhausted myself by my vigorous back-pedalling. I have heard the uninitiated say that tricycling must be so easy, just like working the velocipedes of our childhood.
