“If the road’s right,” cried he, “we’ll have the wind behind us all the way,” and we dressed with a will.
We were off, flying with the hurricane down the hillside towards the valley.—A storm had burst over the hills, only to be driven onwards by the wind. As we rode we saw it relinquish one post after another. On the nearest hilltop a little white village shone in clear sunlight, a bright rainbow above it; over the second the clouds were breaking, while the third was still shrouded in showers.—Before us was greyness, the Cevennes lost in blue mist; behind, a country glowing and golden. The early morning air was cold, but sweet and pure, and almost all the way our feet were on the rests, and we had but to enjoy ourselves. For another such ride I would willingly spend ten days fighting the wind.
By nine we were in Roanne, a town remarkable for nothing but dust and delicious peaches and grapes.
The road crossed the Loire, and went straight through the valley to the Cevennes.—The peasants we met were blown about by the wind, turning their backs to each strong gust, that almost blinded them, but drove us on the faster.—At the very foot of Mt. Tarare, closed in with high hills, was an old posting village, with four or five large hotels falling to ruin. It was hereabouts a shoe came loose from the fore-foot of Mr. Sterne’s thill-horse. But we met with no accident, nor, for the sake of sentiment, could we invent one.—The road began to go over the mountain; and we wound with it,
between high cliffs on one side and an ever-deepening precipice on the other. We left the river and the railroad further and further below, until the latter disappeared into a tunnel and the former was just indicated by its trees.
At St. Symphorien we stopped for lunch. At the café-restaurant we were refused admittance. This turned out to be in a measure fortunate, for at the hotel we were taken in; and there, as it was an old posting-house, the court-yard, with its stables and old well, and the enormous kitchen hung with shining coppers, were worth looking at. Bicycles were always passing that way, the landlady assured us. Therefore, it seemed, it was our looks, and not the tricycle, that shut the door of the café in our faces, and I began to wonder how we should fare in Lyons.—The landlady, with an eye to profit, thought we ate too little, but her daughter understood: it was not good to eat too much in the middle of the day when you were taking exercise. A gentleman on a walking tour once came to their hotel for his midday meal, but would have only bread and cheese. And yet she knew he was a gentleman by the diamond on his finger and the louis in his purse.—We thought of Mr. Stevenson—it would have been pleasant to have him, as well as Mr. Sterne and Mr. Evelyn, for fellow-traveller over Mt. Tarare—but at once we remembered he wore a silver ring like a pedler; and, besides, if you will look on our map you will see that, though we were in the Cevennes, we were not in the Cevennes made famous by Modestine and Camisards.—The landlady, who liked the sound of her own voice, went on to say that we had twelve kilometres to climb before we should come to the top of the pass, and that a good horse leaving St. Symphorien early in the morning might get into Lyons by evening. There was small chance, she thought, of our reaching that city until the next day.
But we hurried away to make the best of the wind while it lasted.—With every mile the view back upon the mountains widened. When we looked behind, it was to see a vast mass of hills, some green or red, with a touch of autumn, others deep purple or grey; over them the clouds, hunted by the wind, cast long trailing shadows, and in and out and up and up wound the white highway.—One or two tumbled-down posting hotels and forlorn farm-houses, sheltered under friendly hills, were scattered by the way. Probably in one of these Mr. Sterne sat at his feast of love; in front of it, watched the dance in which he beheld Religion mixing. But they were desolate and deserted. I fear, had sentiment sent us walking into them, we should have found no honest welcomes, no sweet morsels, no delicious draughts.—At this height children and stone-breakers were the only beings to be seen on Mt. Tarare.
Not far from a lonely, wind-bent black cross, that stood on a high point in the moorland, we reached the summit, and looked down and not up to the winding road.—When you have gained the top of Mt. Tarare you do not come presently into Lyons; with all due reverence for our Master’s words, you have still a long ride before you.—However, the wind now fairly swept the tricycle in front of it, as if in haste to bring us into Tarare.—The road kept turning and turning in a narrow pass. A river made its way, no longer to the Loire, but to the Rhône. But we rode so fast, we only knew we were flying through this beautiful green world. The clear air and cold wind gave us new life. We must keep going on and on. Rest seemed an evil to be shunned. For that afternoon at least we agreed with Mr. Tristram Shandy, that so much of motion was so much of life and so much of joy;—and that to stand still or go on but slowly is death and the devil. We said little, and I, for my part, thought less.