Too much riding for
him, and if we took a dogcart he'd have to take another one. But this
wouldn't be a very sociable way of travelling, and none of us liked it.
"Now," exclaimed Mr. Poplington, striking his hand on the table, "I'll
tell you exactly how we ought to go through that country - we ought to
go on cycles."
"Bicycles?" said I.
"Tricycles, if you like," he answered, "but that's the way to do it.
It'll be cheap, and we can go as we like and stop when we like. We'll
be as free and independent as the Stars and Stripes, and more so, for
they can't always flap when they like and stop flapping when they
choose. Have you ever tried it, madam?"
I replied that I had, a little, because my daughter had a tricycle, and
I had ridden on it for a short distance and after sundown, but as for
regular travel in the daytime I couldn't think of it.
At this Jone nearly took my breath away by saying that he thought that
the bicycle idea was a capital one, and that for his part he'd like it
better than any other way of travelling through a pretty country. He
also said he believed I could work a tricycle just as well as not, and
that if I got used to it I would think it fine.
I stood out against those two men for about a half an hour, and then I
began to give in a little, and think that it might be nice to roll
along on my own little wheels over their beautiful smooth roads, and
stop and smell the hedges and pick flowers whenever I felt like it; and
so it ended in my agreeing to do the Exmoor country on a tricycle while
Mr. Poplington and Jone went on bicycles. As to getting the machines,
Mr. Poplington said he would attend to that. There was people in London
who hired them to excursionists, and all he had to do was to send an
order and they would be on hand in a day or two; and so that matter
was settled and he wrote to London. I thought Mr. Poplington was a
little old for that sort of exercise, but I found he had been used to
doing a great deal of cycling in the part of the country where he
lives; and besides, he isn't as old as I thought he was, being not much
over fifty. The kind of air that keeps a country always green is
wonderful in bringing out early red and white in a person.
"Everything happens wonderfully well, madam," said he, coming in after
he had been to post his letter in a red iron box let into the side of
the Wesleyan chapel, "doesn't it? Now here we're not able to start on
our journey for two or three days, and I have just been told that the
great hay-making in the big meadow to the south of the village is to
begin to-morrow. They make the hay there only every other year, and
they have a grand time of it. We must be there, and you shall see some
of our English country customs."
We said we'd be sure to be in for that sort of thing.
I wish, madam, you could have seen that great hayfield. It belongs to
the lord of the manor, and must have twenty or thirty acres in it.
They've been three or four days cutting the grass on it with a machine,
and now there's been nearly two days with hardly any rain, only now and
then some drizzling, and a good, strong wind, which they think here is
better for the hay-making than sunshine, though they don't object to a
little sun. All the people in the village who had legs good enough to
carry them to that field went to help make hay. It was a regular
holiday, and as hay is clean, nearly everybody was dressed in good
clothes. Early in the morning some twenty regular farm laborers began
raking the hay at one end of the field, stretching themselves nearly
the whole way across it, and as the day went on more and more people
came, men and women, high and low. All the young women and some of the
older ones had rakes, and the way they worked them was amazing to see,
but they turned over the hay enough to dry it. As to schoolgirls and
boys, there was no end of them in the afternoon, for school let out
early. Some of them worked, but most of them played and cut up
monkey-shines on the hay. Even the little babies was brought on the
field, and nice, soft beds made for them under the trees at one side.
When Jone saw the real farm-work going on, with a chance for everybody
to turn in to help, his farmer blood boiled within him, as if he was a
war-horse and sniffed the smoke of battle, and he got himself a rake
and went to work like a good-fellow. I never saw so many men at work in
a hayfield at home, but when I looked at Jone raking I could see why it
was it didn't take so many men to get in our hay. As for me, I raked a
little, but looked about a great deal more.
Near the middle of the field was two women working together, raking as
steadily as if they had been brought up to it. One of these was young,
and even handsomer than Miss Dick, which was the name of the bar lady.
To look at her made me think of what I had read of Queen Marie
Antoinette and her court ladies playing the part of milkmaids.
