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Updated: June 29, 2025
Must we continue to muddle along in the old ruts, gazing rapturously at an impotent ideal, until the works of the scientists are matured? It would indeed be an intolerably pedantic performance for a nation to sit still and wait for its scientists to report on their labors.
Except the ruts of the road, deep in places as the axles of a cart, or the turbid waters of the Loire, treacherous in the darkness and swollen by heavy rains in the upper reaches, travelling was as safe by night as by day, and Commines met with no delays but those at all times inseparable from such a journey. Tristan's forethought, as it proved, had provided no accident.
Two days later the road was ready for the first sleigh, its surface of thick, glassy ice, beautiful to behold; the ruts cut deep and true; the grades sanded, or sprinkled with retarding hay on the descents. At the river the banking ground proved solid. Radway breathed again, then sighed. Spring was eight days nearer. He was eight days more behind.
The idea of connecting Sylvia, even in the most remote way, with that period, was abhorrent to him. "Why not?" she asked defiantly. "Well, for one thing, the roads are awful. This combination in March of melting snow and mud is worse than anything I know of ruts and holes and slush. It would take us over an hour to get there."
The party arrived in the afternoon of the twenty-sixth day of the month, all of the colour of saffron from the dust-clouds the car had raised, and Hillyard so stiff and bruised with the intolerable jolting over ruts baked to iron, that he could hardly climb down on to the ground. He slept that night amidst such a music of birds as he had never believed possible one country could produce.
It degenerated indeed very rapidly after losing sight of the town, and soon was no more than a collection of holes strung on ruts, that made travel in perambulators tiring alike to body and soul. At last, after five miles of floundering, it gave up all pretence at a wheel-way, and deposited us at a wayside teahouse at the foot of a little valley, the first step indeed up the Arayama pass.
Reise! travel!" cried this extraordinary girl; and away we went, over rocks, into ruts, against roots and bushes; bouncing, springing, splashing, and dashing through mud-holes; down hill and still down; whirling past terrific pits, jagged pinnacles of rock, and yawning gulfs of darkness; through gloomy patches of pine, out again into open spaces, and along the brinks of fearful precipices; over rickety wooden bridges, and through foaming torrents that dashed out over the road, the wild girl clinging fast behind, the little pony flying along madly in front, the cariole creaking and rattling as if going to pieces, myself hanging on to the reins in a perfect agony of doubt whether each moment would not be our last.
So the morning odds and ends were done up quickly at Cross Corners and at the Old House, and then Faith and Glory set forth together the latter in as sublime a rapture as could consist with mortal cohesion. The common roadside was an enchanted path. The glittering rime transfigured the very cart ruts into bars of silver; and every coarse weed was a fretwork of beauty.
By degrees, however, he became more expert in avoiding pitfalls and in keeping both wheels in the ruts, and he turned to Allyn expectantly. "Well, Allyn, what was it?" For two days, Allyn had been preparing himself on various circuitous routes by which he might approach his subject and slowly prepare his father's mind for the plea he wished to make.
Between unbridged streams with high banks, ditches, and deep ruts which caught our wheels and would not let them go, our progress was much impeded; but we toiled on. At one place we were happily helped by a company of Sepoys, whose medical officer was a dear Christian friend. In other places we were extricated by the help of villagers.
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