United States or Mongolia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The bee, of course, had gone. I looked for that cyclist, but he was already out of sight as we came into the Upper Sandgate Road or hidden from us by traffic; the char-a-banc, however, with its people now all alive and stirring, was clattering along at a spanking pace almost abreast of the nearer church.
"Do you think I've not kept my ears open, and reflected about how we stand? Send to Pere Cognette for a horse and a char-a-banc, and say we want them instantly: they must be here in five minutes. Pack all your belongings, take Vedie, and go to Vatan. Settle yourself there as if you mean to stay; carry off the twenty thousand francs in gold which the old fellow has got in his drawer.
I was going fast all over. My heart, for example, was beating a thousand times a second, but that caused me no discomfort at all. I looked out of the window. An immovable cyclist, head down and with a frozen puff of dust behind his driving-wheel, scorched to overtake a galloping char-a-banc that did not stir. I gaped in amazement at this incredible spectacle.
So it goes here: we are gasping and sweltering one hour, and plunging through snow banks the next. After breakfast, we entered the char-a-banc, a crab-like, sideway carriage, and were soon on our way. Our path was cut from the breast of the mountain, in a stifling gorge, where walls of rock on both sides served as double reflectors to concentrate the heat of the sun on our hapless heads.
We had a substantial breakfast of soup and bread before we started; and then drove in state to M. Bourdinave's door, where I sprang out to help the smiling girls into the char-a-banc. I would gladly have had Madeleine next me, but, as ill-luck would have it, M. Bourdinave placed himself at my side, and my father just behind; so that I was completely shut out from her, to my great chagrin.
To those who have never crossed a greve; who have had no jolting in a Normandy char-a-banc; who, for hours, have not known the mixed pleasures and discomfort of being a part of sea-rivers; and who have not been met at the threshold of an Inn on a Rock by the smiling welcome of Madame Poulard all such have yet a pleasant page to read in the book of travelled experience.
Now a char-a-banc passed by, jogging along behind a nag and shaking up strangely the two men on the seat, and the woman at the bottom of the cart who held fast to its sides to lessen the hard jolting. In the market-place at Goderville was a great crowd, a mingled multitude of men and beasts.
The archway darkened the sod for an instant; the next we had passed out into the broad highway. Jean, in his blouse, with Suzette beside him, both jolting along in the lumbering char-a-banc, stared out at us with a vacant-eyed curiosity.
"Do you think I've not kept my ears open, and reflected about how we stand? Send to Pere Cognette for a horse and a char-a-banc, and say we want them instantly: they must be here in five minutes. Pack all your belongings, take Vedie, and go to Vatan. Settle yourself there as if you mean to stay; carry off the twenty thousand francs in gold which the old fellow has got in his drawer.
"Is Anna Ivanovna well?" "Thank you. She sends her kindest regards, and has sent you some preserves, also some peaches out of the orangery, and mushrooms. They are in the char-a-banc." "It is very good of her. We have no peaches. I have put aside for her some of the tea that Borushka brought with him." "Many thanks." "How could you let your horses climb the hill in such weather?
Word Of The Day