BECAUSE of our sight-seeing we made a late start from Abbeville.—But then we determined to go no farther than Amiens that day. It was a good ten minutes’ walk over the pavÉ from the hotel to the end of the long Rue St. Gilles, where it is crossed by the railroad.—Here we were kept waiting another five minutes, in company with a carriage and two covered carts, while the woman in charge, who had shut the gate, put on her official hat and cape. Presently a faint whistle was heard.——

“Hold!” said one of the drivers, “I think he comes.”

—And so he did, and at last we were allowed to pass and go our way.—Another weary kilometre of pavÉ, and then we were on the highroad between the poplars.

But when we had got off the stones there was still the wind to fight. It blew in our faces with never-relaxing vigour, rushing through the trees and over the plain as if in haste to reach the sea. To make matters worse, the road was bad. The cavalry had ruined it, a stone-breaker said. We were soon riding on the side-walk.—The few white-capped, blue-skirted pedestrians we met went obligingly into the road to let us pass.——

“Pardon, ladies,” said we.

“Of nothing,” said they.

“The road is so bad,” we explained.

“You have reason. Au revoir,” cried they.

—The road ran straight along the edge of the upland. Below, a pretty river wound among reeds and willows, overtopped by tall trees shivering in the wind. But hard work gave us little chance for pleasure in the landscape, until at Pont Remy we stopped on the bridge to take breath.

We went back to the pedals with sad misgivings, like people who know that the worst is still to come. Just beyond, we left the Route Nationale for a by-road and unmitigated misery. Here we were led to believe there was no other road between Abbeville and Amiens. Amiens, “the very city where my poor lady is to come,” we could not miss. And yet Italian experience made us doubt the advisability of turning off the highroad.

The wind was now directly in our faces, and the road was deep with sand and loose with stones, and we had not gone a mile, a mile but scarcely one, when we lost our tempers outright and sent sentiment to the winds. First we climbed a long up-grade, passing old crumbling grey churches decorated with grotesques and gargoyles like those on St. Wulfran’s, in Abbeville, some perched upon hillocks, with cottages gathered about them, others adjoining lonely chÂteaux; and riding through forlornly poor villages full of houses tumbling to pieces and vicious dogs. Hills rose to our left; to our right, in the valley below, were wide marshes covered with a luxurious green growth, and beyond, the river, on the other side of which was a town with a tall church rising in its centre.

Once we got down to drink syrup and water at an inn where a commercial traveller catechised us about America.——

“And the commerce, it goes well there? Yes?”

—I suppose he took us for fellow-drummers; and I must admit the idea of our travelling for pleasure over such roads was the last likely to occur to him.

Then we went down hill for some distance, but we ran into ridges of sand and brought up

suddenly on a stone pile at the bottom. On the level the road became a shady avenue. But it grew worse as it increased in beauty. We wheeled first to one side, then to the other. We even tried the grass close to the trees. But soon we were down and walking, and pushing the wretched machine through the sand. And now riding was out of the question, it began to rain. When we came into Hangest——

“We’ll take the train,” said J——.

—But we had first to wait for two hours, during which we ate a lunch at the “Sign of the Duck,” and sat at the station watching the passing trains and the signals.—In his demoralisation J——asked at the office for tickets for la treiziÈme classe, and then a man joined us and told us of the fine roads in his country, so that we wished we were there. Finally our train came.—J—— had some trouble with the machine. At the first baggage-car the conductor declared there was not room for it. The second was full and no mistake. He went back to the first, and while the conductor remonstrated, pushed it in with the help of a porter. He then had just time to jump into the nearest carriage, which happened to be the same in which I had already found a seat, and the train started. The carriage was full.——

“C’est complet, Monsieur,” screamed a little man, in a passion.

“Certainly, Monsieur” said J——, as he fastened the door with a click behind him.

“I tell you it’s full,” repeated the little man, in his rage dancing to the window and calling the conductor.

—It was too late. All he could do was to return to his seat and glower at J——, who calmly sat in the window.——

“We must not make the war,” said a good curÉ next to him, patting him gently on the shoulder.

—He restrained his anger with a comforting drink of brandy. Monsieur le CurÉ fell to saying his beads, covering his mouth with his wide-brimmed hat, while all the other passengers laughed and nudged each other. A man in the corner, carrying a genuine American carpet-bag, drank something from a gingerbeer bottle, and asked us in good American what we knew of the hotels in Paris.

At the next station J—— got out, and the man from the country of beautiful roads, who had been sitting in the adjoining compartment, met him at the door.——

“I render to you my place, Monsieur,” said he.

—And so in perfect peace we made all possible speed to Picquigny, and from Picquigny to Amiens; not, however, before we saw from the carriage windows that the road, now running alongside of the railway, was smooth and hard, that the sun shone, and that the wind blew but mildly.

At Amiens the conductor was waiting on the platform full of apologies. He had really thought there was no room for the velocipede. Monsieur must pardon him.

The French have a charming way of putting you in a good humour. We forgot the attack of the irascible traveller, as, let us hope, he forgave the enormity of J——’s crime.