Sometimes I rode, for each tiny village nestled in a valley of its own, giving us a hill to coast as well as to climb. There were occasional windmills in the distance; and close to the road large farm-houses and barns, with high sloping red roofs and huge troughs in front, where we knew cattle would come in the twilight and horses would be watered in the morning. And when Calais, with smoking chimneys, was far behind and below, we came to black crosses by the wayside and better manners among the people. The peasants now wished us good day.
At this early stage there was nothing we looked for less than trouble with the tricycle. It had been carefully put in order by the manufacturers before we left London. But now already the luggage-carrier loosened, and swung around on the backbone of the machine. Do what we would, we could not keep it straight again. In Marquise we bought a leather strap, in hopes to right it, and there also ate our lunch.—From the window of the estaminet we could see that the men and boys who came up to examine the tricycle never once touched it, while a man with a cart of casks, though it was in his way, rather than disturb it, stopped a little farther down the street, and rolled the casks along the pavement. Inside the estaminet, the brisk, tidy woman who cooked and served our coffee and omelette, kept talking of the weather and France and the tricycle, and what a wise manner of travelling was ours. My faith! from the railway one sees nothing.
But, indeed, for hours afterwards we saw as little as if we had been in a railroad train. We were conscious only of the great hills to be climbed, and of our incessant trouble with the luggage-carrier. The new strap did not mend matters. Every few minutes the carrier with the bag took an ugly swing to one side.—We never began to enjoy a coast, we never got fairly started on an up-grade, that it did not force us to stop and push it straight. And then the lamp in its turn loosened, and every few kilometres had to be hammered into place.
The other incidents of that long afternoon I remember merely because of their association with hills. It was at the top of one, where I arrived breathless, we had our first view of the dome and monument of Boulogne; it was at the bottom of another that we came to the pavé of Wimille; it was half-way on a third, up which J—— worked slowly, standing up on the pedals and leaning far over to grasp the front handle bars, while I walked, that I was stopped by an Englishman and Englishwoman.——
“Oh,” said the man, as he watched J——, “you’re making a walking tour together, I suppose?”
“We’re riding!” cried I, aghast.