“Oh, very well,” said Railsford, to whom the temptation of a walk with Grover was even greater than that of a tête-à-tête ride with Arthur Herapath; “but can you manage it?”
“Manage it?” exclaimed they, in tones as if they could scarcely believe they heard aright, “rather, sir.”
“Well,” said the master, tickled with the evident delight of the pair to be together, “take care how you go. You had better take the Grassen Road, so as to avoid the hill. Come along, Grover.”
So these two artful young “naturalists” had it their own way after all.
“Come on, sharp,” said Arthur, “and get out of the ruck.”
“Jolly good joke telling us not to go by Maiden Hill,” said Digby; “that’ll be the best part of the lark.”
Luckily a tandem tricycle of the type provided for them is not a machine which requires any very specially delicate riding. Had it been, Arthur and Dig might have been some time getting out of the “ruck,” as they politely termed the group of their pedestrian fellow-naturalists. For they were neither of them adepts; besides which, the tricycle being intended for a pair of full-grown men, they had some difficulty in keeping their saddles and working their treadles at one and the same time. They had to part company with the latter when they went down, and catch them flying as they came up; and the result was not always elegant or swift. However, they managed to pass muster in some sort, as they started off under the eye of their master, and as speedily as possible dodged their vehicle up a side lane, where, free from embarrassing publicity, they were at leisure to adapt their progress to their own convenience.
It wasn’t quite as much fun as they had expected. The machine was a heavy one, and laboured a good deal in its going. The treadles, as I have said, were very long; the brake did not always act, and the steering apparatus was stiff. Even the bell, in whose music they had promised themselves some solace, was out of tune; and the road was very like a ploughed field. The gaiety of the boys toned down into sobriety, and the sobriety into silence, and their silence into the ill-humour begotten of perspiration, dust, fatigue, and disappointment. Their high old time was not coming off!
At length, by mutual consent, they got off and began viciously to shove the machine up the hill.
“They’ll all be there already,” said Arthur, looking at his watch. “We’ve been two hours.”