"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.
