"Please don't," she cried, "it is cruel;" and I saw that her eyes were indeed glistening with tears.
"But, of course," I continued, to give a slight turn aside in our talk, "it is very wrong of us to have such sophisticated tastes. We ought to love these lonely hills and meadows far more. The natural man revels in solitude, and wants no wittier company than birds and flowers. Wordsworth made a constant companion of a pet daisy. He seldom went abroad without one or two trotting at his side, and a skylark would keep Shelley in society for a week."
"But they were poets," retorted Rosalind; "you don't call poets natural. Why, they are the most unnatural of men. The natural person loves the society of his kind, whereas the poet runs away from it."
"Well, of course, there are poets and poets, poets sociable and poets very unsociable. Wordsworth made the country, but Lamb made the town; and there is quite a band of poets nowadays who share his distaste for mountains, and take London for their muse. If you'll promise not to cry again, I'll recall some lines by a friend of mine which were written for town-tastes like ours. But perhaps you know them?"
It will gratify my friend to learn that Rosalind had the verses I refer to by heart, and started off humming,—
"Ah, London, London, our delight,
Great flower that opens but at night,
Great city of the midnight sun,
Whose day begins when day is done...
Like dragon-flies the hansoms hover
With jewelled eyes to catch the lover;"
and so on, with a gusto of appreciation that must have been very gratifying to the author had he been present.
Thus perceiving a taste for a certain modern style of poetry in my companion, I bethought me of a poem which I had written on the roadside a few days before, and which, I confess, I was eager to confide to some sympathetic ear. I was diffident of quoting it after such lines as Rosalind had recalled, but by the time we had reached our coffee, I plucked up courage to mention it. I had, however, the less diffidence in that it would have a technical interest for her, being indeed no other than a song of cycling a deux which had been suggested by one of those alarmist danger-posts always placed at the top of the pleasantest hills, sternly warning the cyclist that "this hill is dangerous,"—just as in life there is always some minatory notice-board frowning upon us in the direction we most desire to take.
But I omit further preface and produce the poem:—
"This hill is dangerous," I said,
As we rode on together
Through sunny miles and sunny miles
Of Surrey heather;
"This hill is dangerous—don't you think
We'd better walk it?"
"Or sit it out—more danger still!"
She smiled—"and talk it?"