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.

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.

’Twas in the road between Varennes and La Palisse, but nearer La Palisse, where there was a steep hill to be coasted, that we began to meet a great crowd of people;—men in blue and purple blouses, wide-brimmed hats, and sabots; and women in sabots and frilled white caps, with fresh ribbons at their necks. A few trudged on by themselves, but the greater number led cows, or sheep, or calves. Sometimes one man followed half-a-dozen cows, sometimes one cow was followed by half-a-dozen men.—In donkey-carts women rode alone, the men, whip in hand, walking by their side; and in waggons drawn by oxen were young pigs, or else an old woman and a refractory calf sitting together on the straw.—On footpaths across the fields, or on distant roads, more peasants were walking away, cattle at their heels.—The nearer we came to the town, the greater was the crowd. The worst of it was, the people were surly; not one would get out of our way until the last minute, and many pretended not to see us coming, though the machine, held in by the brake, squeaked a pitiful warning.

Finally, in the street of La Palisse, we could hardly get on for the cows and oxen, and donkeys and people.

“’Twas no great thing,” said an old man in blouse and sabots of whom we asked what was going on.

“’Twas no great thing!” repeated a stout manufacturer in frock-coat and Derby hat, adding that it was merely the yearly fair. A tricycle that stood in his front-yard served as introduction.

“Tricycling is no way to get fat,” he remarked, looking critically at J——, and as he was very stout, we fancied this was his reason for riding. And what time did we make? It takes a peasant to understand riding for pleasure. He had a friend who rode two hundred kilometres in a day, going backwards and forwards between La Palisse and Moulins.

—Now, as we never made any time worth bragging about, and as we had a climb of nineteen kilometres to St. Martin still before us, we waited to hear no more of the feats of French champions.

We left La Palisse, and rode up a narrow pass, hills, now bare and rocky, now soft and purple with heather, on every side, in company with peasants going home from the fair.——

“Is there a third seat?” asked one.

“It walks!” cried another.

—The ascent was so gradual and the gradient so easy that only once was I forced to get down and walk.—But what’s wrong now? The lamp of course. Three times did it fall on the road just as we were going at good pace. Once J—— picked it up quietly; next he kicked it and beat it in place with a stone; the third time, “Let it lie there!” said he. A peasant stopped to get it, examined it, and—put it in his pocket.—The road wound slowly up to St. Martin.—La PacaudiÈre, the next village, was seven kilometres farther on, and there was but one short hill to climb on the way, a boy told us. And so to La PacaudiÈre we went.

In a few minutes we were at the top, and far below, a broad valley, well wooded and now bathed in soft evening light, stretched to hills we knew were the Cevennes we must cross on the morrow, no longer blue and indistinct, as in the morning, but green and near.—We let the machine carry us, flying by pretty sloping orchards and meadows when the descent was steep, creeping between them when it was but slight.—The sun was low in the west, and the evening air deliciously cool. We had left the peasants many kilometres behind, and we had no company, save once when a girl in a scarlet cloak walked along a footpath on the hillside, singing as she went.