and we rode, as in the morning, with heads down and thoughts fixed upon
the pedals.--At Briare--you may despatch it in a word: ’tis an
uninteresting town!--we had our first view of the Loire. For the rest of
the day the river was always on our right; sometimes far off, and only
indicated by its rows of tall trees; sometimes near, a line of grey or
silver, as the wind drove the clouds above or beyond it.--We met the
_Café of the Sun_, travelling on wheels.
We were some little time in Bonny. Every one came out to watch J----, as
he opened his sketch-book, and in a minute we were surrounded.
“Is _Monsieur_ making plans for houses?” asked one old woman.
--But the event of the day was in Neuvy. There we found a great crowd in
the narrow street, and in the midst stood a tricycle. A Frenchman in
flannel shirt, grey linen, and gaiters, with a handkerchief hanging from
his hat over his neck, at once made his way through the crowd and came
towards us.--At last we were to have a proof of the freemasonry of the
wheel. But he introduced himself with a circular, and was friendly in
the interests of the manufacturers for whom he travelled. He did not
think much of the “Humber;” its wheels were so small. He knew all the
English makes, because he had an English brother-in-law who lived in
Portsmouth. Look at his machine, now; it had a wheel of a pretty
height.
[Illustration]
We must try it, as he was sure we should once we read the circular, and
give up the “Humber.”
Our tandem, with its symmetrical parts and modest coat of varnish well
covered with mud, was indeed insignificant compared with the
nickel-plated glory of his three wheels, no two of which were of the
same size, the largest being as tall as a bicycle.[A] At all events the
people of Neuvy, most of whom were armed with circulars, thought so.
They looked at us, because a meeting of tricyclers was not an everyday
occurrence in their town, but we gathered no crowd of admirers.----
“How many kilometres do you make in a day?” asked the Frenchman.
J---- said that we had left Montargis, and were going on to
Cosne--seventy kilometres in all.
“Seventy kilometres! It is too much for _Madame_,” said the Frenchman,
with a bow.
--In my heart I was of the same opinion. But I declared the ride to be a
mere nothing, and almost apologised for not making it longer.
He rejoiced in the exercise, he declared with enthusiasm. It was a
little fatiguing sometimes, but what would you have? And it seemed that
his love for the sport occasionally carried him to the excess of thirty
kilometres in a day. At La Charité, between Cosne and Moulins, he had
met two Englishmen who were riding safety bicycles with an interpreter.
We asked him if he had ever ridden in England. He said No; French roads
were so good, and French country so beautiful.----
“Ah, _Madame_”--with his hand on his heart of course--“I adore the
France!”
--Then we shook hands, to the visible delight of the lookers-on, and,
with another bow, he told us we had nothing but great beauty from Neuvy
to Cosne, a distance of fifteen kilometres.--The whole town watched our
start, and, I think, in our shabbiness we must have served the agent’s
purpose even better than his circular.
As we wheeled on we saw his tracks, making a zig-zag course along the
road, with little credit to his steering. And in front of a lonely
farm-house a small boy at our coming drew a long sigh.----
“But here is another!” he called to some one indoors.
--The country really was beautiful. But I was so tired! Every turn of
the pedals I felt must be the last. And the thought that we should reach
Cosne but to begin the same battle on the morrow, did not help to keep
up my spirits. In vain I tried to be sentimental. For the hundredth
time I admitted to myself that sentiment might do for a post-chaise, but
was impossible on a tricycle.--And all the time J---- kept telling me
that if I did not do my share of the work I should kill him. Certainly
seventy kilometres against the wind were too much for _Madame_.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
A GOOD SAMARITAN.
A long, ugly, stupid street leads to the principal _Place_ of Cosne. Its
_pavé_ is surely the vilest to be found in all the length and breadth of
France.--When we came into the town it was full of slouchy, disorderly
soldiers. We pushed the tricycle to the Hôtel d’Etoile, which the
commercial gentlemen of St. Just had praised. We should forget the
miseries of the day over a good dinner.--The landlady came to the door
and looked at us. She had no room, she declared, and could do nothing
for us. Her house was full of officers and _gentlemen_. J---- asked what
other hotel she would recommend.
She pointed to an _auberge_ across the street. It was small and mean,
with soldiers standing in the doorway and at the windows. She could not
in words have said more plainly what she thought of us.----
Was there a _table d’hôte_ over there?
She did not know, with an indifferent shrug of her shoulders.
If we could not sleep in the Etoile, could we eat in it?
“No, that is altogether impossible,” and she turned her back upon us and
went into the house.
--I could have cried in my disappointment.
The landlady of the Grand Cerf received us with smiles.----
Had we both travelled on that one little velocipede?
--But J---- was in no humour for compliments.----
Could she give us a room?
There was not one in the house, she said; these autumn manœuvres had
brought so many people to town. She had just that moment given up hers
to two gentlemen who had telegraphed that they would arrive by a late
train, and she and her daughter must spend the night in a friend’s
house.
--She must have seen the despair in our eyes, for, before we had time to
speak, she added, that she would send to a neighbour’s to see what could
be done for us there.
Her messenger, however, came back to say there was not one room to
spare. But suddenly, with a happy inspiration, the landlady bade us
come in, and suggested that if we were willing to wait, and would be
satisfied with makeshifts, she could put up two beds in a small
dining-room so soon as dinner was over.--Makeshifts indeed! She was
offering luxuries.----
In the meantime, since the two gentlemen had not arrived, we could use
her room to prepare for dinner.
[Illustration]
--Though the Grand Cerf was not the commercial house of Cosne, it was
that night full of commercial gentlemen, ready for friendly talk. After
dinner in its _café_ J---- asked the waiter what there was in the
town?----
“_Mais, Monsieur_, there are many officers and soldiers.”
That was not what he meant, J---- explained. Was there a castle or a
fine church, for example?
--At this point the commercial gentlemen at the nearest table made bold
to interfere. There was nothing in Cosne, they said, and were for
sending us off on a castle hunt to Touraine at once. They had the map
out in a trice, and during the next few minutes sent us flying from one
end of it to the other.----
They will give us no rest, thought I.
--But presently one of the company asked how we liked Paris compared to
London?----
“London is a great town, is it not?” said he, looking to us for support,
so that we could do no less than agree with him. “But then, if you want
coffee or something else to drink on the Sunday, what is to be done?
Syrups are sold in the pharmacy, and the pharmacy is closed. The
beer-houses are shut till one, and even after that hour, you go in, you
are asked what you will have, the beer or the brandy is poured out, you
drink it, and then you go at once. It is always like this, every day.
You drink and you go.”
“But that it is _bizarre_!” said a young man opposite, who had never
been in England.
“I think well that it is _bizarre_!” continued the other; “but you do
not know what it is to live there in a family hotel. No shops are open
the Sunday, and the landlady must buy everything the Saturday. What does
she do? She buys a piece of _rosbif_. She gives it to you hot the
Saturday, and cold for breakfast, dinner, and supper the Sunday; and the
butcher, he never brings fresh meat the Monday, and you eat your
_rosbif_ cold again for dinner. And then you have a gooseberry tart. _My
God_, how it sticks to your teeth! It is like this one eats in England.”
“It is not astonishing,” thought a serious, elderly gentleman on his
right, “that the rich English come to France to dine.”
--At an early hour we went to the room which the landlady promised
should be ours once dinner was well over.--The beds were not yet made,
though mattresses and bedclothes were piled in one corner. The landlord
and a lady and gentleman we had seen at the _table d’hôte_ sat by a
table. They invited us politely to be seated.----
“I should like to go to bed,” said I, in the language of our country.
“We cannot send them away,” said J----.
--And so, making the best of the matter, we sat down with them, and
talked about travelling and Italy and snoring and velocipedes and Mount
Vesuvius, and, I think, of some other things which I have
forgotten.--_Monsieur_ and _Madame_, who had voyaged much, also urged a
journey to Touraine to see the castles.----
“Bother the castles,” thought I to myself.
“Hang ’em,” said J---- audibly, but in American.
--But the landlady, just then coming in, asked if we should like to see
our room.----
[Illustration]
“It is here,” said we.
“It is on the other side of the hall,” said the landlady, and she led
the way without more ado. “See the two little iron beds,” she cried on
the threshold, “and the tiny toilet table! ’Tis like a prison cell;” and
nothing would please her but she must bring _Monsieur_ and _Madame_ and
her husband and daughter to look.
--In the morning, in her bill, however, it was no longer a prison cell,
but a best bedchamber. But if a Good Samaritan does overcharge you, what
can you do?
BY THE LOIRE.
We rested so well in our little iron beds that in the morning we took a
long walk through Cosne before we went back to work. We found it chiefly
remarkable for its high sweeping roofs and striking weather-vanes.
[Illustration]
The ride from Cosne was very much like that from Montargis, only,
fortunately, there was less wind, and the wide poplared Loire was on our
left from our start. Between us and it, however, were the pleasant
fields and meadows through which Mr. Evelyn, with Mr. Waller and some
other ingenious persons, footed it, and shot at birds and other fowls,
or else sang and composed verses during
[Illustration]
their voyage up the river.--Though we never dropped into poetry or song,
with us, as with them, nothing came amiss. Everything was a pleasure,
from the clouds chasing each other lazily above the Loire and
occasionally uncovering the sun, showing us how hot the day might be, to
the old women and little girls in blue skirts and sabots, each watching
one cow or a couple of white turkeys or geese, whom we met at intervals
all day long; from the seemingly endless kilometres of level white road
between poplars to the too short down-grade between vineyards into
Pouilly. The only incident throughout the morning was the discovery of
two men stealing grapes from a vineyard. We took them to be its owners,
and would have offered to buy their fruit had they not at once looked to
us for sympathy with a friendly smile that showed they had no right to
be there.--It was just after Pouilly, we passed a little solitary inn
that facetiously announced on its sign: “To-day one pays money;
to-morrow, nothing.”
[Illustration]
At noon we climbed into La Charité, though I think we might have been
spared the climb had we followed the road on the river-bank. As it was,
we entered the town at the upper end, under its old gateway, topped with
grey stone figures, and had a good view of its massive walls and
fortifications. Within the ramparts we found a winding street descending
precipitately towards the Loire, a church in ruins, and people with
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
absolutely nothing to do. As if glad of an occupation, they gathered
around the tricycle and examined it with their eyes and hands; and while
a waiter in a _café_ bestirred himself to overcharge us, and a man in a
cake-shop, with unlooked-for energy, sold us his stalest cakes, they
even went so far as to roll it up and down to test the tyres.--Nor was
this curious idle crowd to be got rid of so long as we were in La
Charité, and our stay there was not short; for as we followed the
[Illustration]
windings of the street, just as it widened into a _Place_ before turning
to take a straight course towards the river, we came out upon the old
church doorway, its countless niches empty, or filled with headless
statues. Grass-grown steps led up to it, and one tall tower, with carven
decorations half effaced, but rows of low arcades uninjured, rose at its
side from the top of a small house; on its lowest arch was a staring
announcement of _Le Petit Journal_. But of church walls, or of door to
open or close, there was no sign. The arched entrance gave admittance
into a large court. We stopped at the opposite corner, and J---- had his
sketch-book out in a minute, to the evident satisfaction of the people.
But a woman from a near _café_, as idle but more friendly than the rest,
came over to say it was a pity _Monsieur_ could not get a photograph of
the ruin; a photograph was so much prettier than a drawing. J----jumped
at this sensible suggestion, and she sent him to a notary on the fourth
floor of a house in a back street. But this gentleman was out; and as
the photographer of La Charité, apparently, was the last person to be
applied to, J---- had to content himself with a sketch after all.--While
he was at work the same woman, whose only duty seemed to be to do us the
honours of the place, showed me the old church.
When I went back J---- was still struggling with the sketch, and with
small boys who could not keep their hands off the machine. Women stood
around him in a semicircle, passing a baby, which they called _cher
petit chiffon_, from one to the other, and only leaving space for an
inner ring of workmen. Before I heard the words of the latter
[Illustration]
I knew by their gestures they were discussing the famous velocipede with
the tall wheels.--We asked them about the race won by the
Englishman.--It was no great thing, one said. The weather had been
against it, and there was not much of the world there. Some people
started to come from other countries in the cars. But the porters and
conductors told them there were no races at La Charité, and so they went
on or back, he was not sure which. The Englishman had gone away again,
he did not know where.--I suppose the mistake was natural. Few tourists
who travel by rail stop at La Charité, though it is a pretty town, as
Mr. Evelyn says.
[Illustration]
Following the Loire, the sand-banks in its centre widening, the green
wilderness growing greener and wilder, the town on the far hilltop
fading softly into blue shadow, we came, in the middle of the afternoon,
to Pougres-les-Eaux, a fashionable invalid resort.
--After this, there was but a short way to go by the river. And though
the little safety-wheel now worked loose from no possible cause, unless,
perhaps, because it had not been used once in all our ride; and though
the rubber fastening in the lamp needed attention every few minutes, we
reached Nevers--entering by the gate where Gerars so cunningly played
and sang--early enough to see the town and the cathedral.
[Illustration]
THE BOURBONNAIS.
The next morning when we awoke it was pouring; but, the shower
moderating into a drizzle, we made an early start after
breakfast.--_Monsieur_, the landlord, was distressed when he saw both
lamp and little wheel tied on with pink string. He hoped the velocipede
had not been injured in his stables.--_Madame_, in white cap and blue
ribbons, with her babies at her side, was so sorry for me when she heard
we were to ride all the way to Moulins that day--fifty-three kilometres,
_Mon Dieu!_
I felt sorry for myself before the morning was over. The road was
sticky, the wind and the rain--for it rained again once we were out of
the town and had turned our backs upon the Loire--were in our faces, and
the up-grades were long and steep.--In all the villages through which we
passed people laughed and dogs barked at us.--The trees were yellow and
autumnal, and the road was strewn with leaves. A grey rainy mist hung
over the fields.--The country was dreary, and in my heart I could but
rue the day when sentiment sent us on this wild journey. My legs and
back ached; every now and then I gasped for breath, and all the blood in
my body seemed to have gone to my head, since it was impossible to sit
upright in the face of such a wind. Truly it was a pitiful plight!
[Illustration]
But all this was changed at St. Pierre, where the sun came out, and the
road turning, the wind was with us.
Gone were the troubles of the morning, forgotten with the first
kilometre. And the country was as gay and smiling as at an earlier hour
it had been sad and mournful.--We were travelling through “the
Bourbonnais, the sweetest part of France,” and for the first time since
we had left Paris we could look to Mr. Sterne for guidance.--But it was
not for us to see Nature pouring her abundance into every one’s lap, and
all her children rejoicing as they carried in her clusters, though for
the Master, in his journey over the same road, Music beat time to
Labour.--’Tis pretty to write about, and there is nothing I should like
better than to describe here all flesh running and piping, fiddling and
dancing, to the vintage. But the truth is, we saw but one or two small
vineyards in the Bourbonnais, and the heyday of the vintage had not yet
come.--With the best will in the world our affections would not kindle
or fly out at the groups before us on the road, not one of which was
pregnant of adventure. There was just its possibility in a little Gipsy
encampment in a hollow by the roadside, but after my misadventure near
Boulogne I fought shy of Gipsies.
[Illustration]
And now that we had got within the neighbourhood where Maria lived, and
having read the story over but the night before, it remained so strong
in our minds, we could not pass one of the many little rivers without
stopping to debate, whether it was here Mr. Sterne discovered her,--her
elbow on her lap, and her head leaning on one side within her hand. And
as there were many poplars by every turn of every stream, this was no
easy matter to decide.----
[Illustration]
“It must be here,” said we, when the river, after running under the
road, danced out in delight. But the next minute----
“No, it is here!” we cried, when, having lost its way in a thicket, the
stream suddenly wandered back to the poplars and the open sunlight.
--In this manner we lingered lovingly in the sweet Bourbonnais; and it
so happened that when the cathedral spires of Moulins came in sight we
had settled upon a dozen resting-places for poor Maria, who has long
since found her last; in fancy had a dozen times wiped her eyes with Mr.
Sterne, and felt the most indescribable emotions within us, and had made
a dozen declarations that we were positive we had a soul.--It was a
serious tax upon sentiment. But when we entered Moulins----
[Illustration]
“At least now,” we said, “there can be no doubt that just here they
walked together, her arm within his, and Sylvio following by the
lengthened string.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
MOULINS.
Moulins is a stupid town with a very poor hotel and an American bar. It
is true there is a cathedral, and a castle also. But, for one reason or
another--perhaps because ’tis so monstrous high there was no avoiding
taking notice of it--we only looked at the clock-tower.
However, we made a show of interest in the large _Place_ in front of the
hotel, deciding to our own satisfaction that it was the market-place
where Mr. Sterne stopped to take his last look and last farewell of
Maria.----
“Adieu, poor luckless maiden! Imbibe the oil and wine which the
compassion of a stranger, as he journeyeth on his way, now pours into
thy wounds. The Being who has twice bruised thee can only bind them up
for ever.”
“And so we have done with Maria,” said J----, shutting up the book in a
business-like manner.
The only people we met in Moulins were at the _table d’hôte_.
One man told tales of gore terrible to hear in such peaceful
surroundings. After his coming the dining-room smelt like a perfumery
shop, so that we thought he must be in the perfumery line. But as he
talked he launched us all upon a sea of blood. He in fancy fought now
with men, now with beasts. He defied us to our faces. Give him a horse
he couldn’t subdue, indeed! And with knit brows and clenched fist he
struggled again for our benefit with a famous steed, the officers in his
regiment called _un vrai diable_.----
“I will master it if I pay with my life. The blood flows from my ears,
my eyes, my nose, my mouth! I faint. A man, who sees me fall, cries,
‘There lies a corpse!’ I am in bed for a week. But, _Dame_, now a child
can ride that horse.”
--- His next battle we had the awful pleasure to witness was with the
landlady. It was in the morning. She sat in the court-yard; he brushed
his hair at an upper window. She had forgotten to call him. Here was a
pretty state of things; he would miss his train. Well, if he did, he
would come back, and---- We lost the rest as he disappeared towards his
dressing-table. We thought of the mastered horse, and shuddered. But the
landlady bore it calmly.----
_Et bien!_ what was to be done with a man who, when he was called,
turned on his pillow and went to sleep again? she wanted to know.
--He tore out, his cravat in one hand, his coat in the other, scenting
the air in his flight.--Ten minutes later, as we waited by the railroad
for the train to pass, we saw him at a carriage window adjusting his
cravat, and we knew the peace of Moulins would not be disturbed that
day.
THE BOURBONNAIS AGAIN.
[Illustration]
There was nothing from which we had painted out for ourselves so joyous
a riot of the affections, as in this journey in the vintage through this
part of France. But the absence of vineyards was an obstacle to the
realisation of the picture. From Moulins to La Palisse, and indeed to La
Pacaudière, we saw not one. Instead there was a rich green meadowland,
or a desolate plain, with here and there a lonely pool. Under the hedges
women knit as they watched their pigs. Donkey-carts rattled by, huge
hay-carts lumbered along at snail’s pace, and from the fields came
voices of peasants at work.--“Sacred name of Thomas!” we heard one call
to his oxen.--Now and then the Allier, with its poplars, showed itself
in the distance. Far in front were low green hills, and beyond them rose
the pale blue range of the Cevennes.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Three several times we loitered _terribly_. Once at St. Loup, where we
ate an omelette. The second time at Varennes, where the river, with its
border of white-capped washerwomen, made a pretty picture. The third, by
a field where oxen were ploughing, and on the farther side of which we
could see a tiny village with a church steeple spiring above its
cottages. A ploughman, in short blue jacket and low wide-brimmed black
hat, left his plough to come and look at us.----
“_Dieu!_ but it’s a fine machine!” he said, after he had walked all
around it. And where was it made? for in France he knew there were only
velocipedes with two wheels. He at least had not seen the French
tricycler. And it must have cost a good deal--two hundred francs, for
example?
“More than that,” J---- told him.
“Name of a dog! ’twas a big price!” But if he’d only the money he’d buy
one just like it. Then he called a friend from a near field.--If it was
not asking too much, the latter said, would we tell him where we came
from? Ah, from America! And was it better there for the poor? Did the
rich give them work? When they saw the sketch-book they pointed to the
church and said it would be pretty to draw. And were we travelling for
pleasure? they asked as J---- offered them cigarettes, and they in
return gave him a light.