Then behind us comes the honk of an automobile. Neither Dobbin nor madame seems to have heard. Their sang froid is in no wise disturbed by the speeding motorist or the cloud of dust in which he envelops our cart as he flies past. It is not until we turn off the main highway, where the catcher-up-of-dust motor
MANY OF THE SEATS IN THESE TINY
CARTS ARE BUILT UP, SO THAT THE
DRIVER SITS ABOVE HIS “HORSE”.
BAD ROADS, OR NO ROADS AT ALL,
NEVER BETRAY THE OX
INTO THE DITCH.
meant little more to madame than a summer whirlwind, that she and Dobbin rouse themselves to an interest in the road.
The road here does two things. It goes off into deep woods and it begins to climb up and up. Madame gets down on her side of the cart. Simultaneously we fall out of it behind. Dobbin gets a drink at a cool spring. We wash hands and faces.
The old woman cries “Allez, allez”, and Dobbin once more takes to the road, now leafy and sylvan but steep and winding, urged along with many an admonitory “marche donc” from madame. This shade is very grateful to both Dobbin and his mistress after the hot morning in town vending berries.
It is such a road as the motorist down there would never think of attempting. There is now a look about Dobbin at one end and madame at the other of the worn leather harness and reins, and a something about the lines of the old weathered cart which bespeak the satisfaction of the master. Down there, the Ford had the road to himself. He flew over it. But up here, this perpendicularity belongs to this trio of the old, belongs to the two-wheel cart and the old French market woman.