The Indianapolis journal., 1895-09-29

suit pre-Raphaelite painter and for once
in her life she was proud OF It, So / put
her on the bar before me and started on
Then / asked her where she lived and
having the right direction shot off down a
zigzag street. rounded a corner and so
escaped. landing ny little red-headed
princess with beaming face at the door
of her thafched cottage close by "the sweet
waters of the Avon
The roads are delightful everywhere
They are as smooth as a floor, with gentle
undulations, now and then steep grade
requiring a few minutes walk, then a
broad view over green fields and blooming
gardens and whitewasfed. thatched cot
tages and herds of sheep. before you mount
for the long coast that repays you a
hundredfoId for the walk up grade. At al
most every turn of the road you wheel
through some little hamlet, with its
thatched cottages covered with roses and
green ivy. and are sure of wayside inn
where they serve your tea and bread and
butter on a beautiful old china and seat
you in an antique chair which belongs to
some generation back of the present CEN
tury. Once out Of London you are sure of
sweet-voiced women, gentle manners and
charming simplicity And it is not the
politeness of the shop towards strangers
simply. The manners of the commonest
people, at least i'm southern England to-
ward each other are very charming. We
were off the beaten paths of travel and /
took the pains TO make observations where
l was not observed myself In the stores,
at the postoffice, on the street, even in the
public houses there was never any buffoon-
cry mo exchanges of vile epithets. l never
heard an obscene or profane word and
never saw a man spit on the sidewalk.
OF course these simple villagers are dull
and have no racy stories to tell you. and
would not understand yours if you told
them; have no rich oaths, do not know
how to spit at a crack and lack many other
of our picturesque American habits. 1t is
all different in London. When your cock
ney approaches, wearing glass screwed
in one eye and talks to you about the
NASTY American rilewys. don't you know"
you feel like punching him. But If you
get out of London into the out-of-the-way
villages among the common folk you can
not help but admire their sincerity. the
gentleness Of their manners and the sim
plicity of their lives. .
1 am sure that after the memory OF the
minds we will delight in the recollection
of bicycle rides over the English roads.
The whole country seems like a park
Every field looks as if it had been combed.
Every road is a boulevard. How 1 wish
the Board of Works could have travelled
as we did day after day over macadam-
ized roads as smooth as floor Dustless,
noiseless, sanitary. 1t certainly cannot be
f1r
are the ordinary roads of the country dis
tricts, and / have ridden over them for
five miles at stretch where there would
only be moorland on either side Here
and there every mile or two was pile
OF broken stone, and now and then you
came upon a laborer who was pounding
a few pieces of stone into rut to repair
1t. The heaviest kind of teams and wag-
ons travel over it everywhere, and yet
the roads are smoother than -our as
phalt. Given a good foundation only two
conditions seem necessary to maintain
such roads: l. A pile of broken stone. 2.
A man with FOUNDER. But | am afraid
1 getting into politics, which is more
distracting than cathedrals.
GRANDFATHER'S CLOCK.
After Chester we ran up to Liverpool
to look at the shipping and buy macintosh
es, as the rainy season had set in. While
there our proximity to ireland occurred to
us and our duty to set the Irish free. So we
slipped out one night by boat from Liver
pool, which landed for breakfast. In a
few hours we ran out TO the Giants Cause
way, solved the mystery of that hitherto
freak of nature, talked few minutes with
an intelligent Irishman. and learned that
the people of the north of Ireland are for
union with England ard do not wish to be
set free. BY evening we were on the Irish
sea, bound for Glasgow. where we break
tasted.
We were too busy with the antiquary
shops. 1t is the most hopeless fever; far
more wasting than the Roman fever which
is so much dreaded. To get into an anti
quarry shop and go over the old spoons ana
china and clocks and armor and kitchen
utensils. and to learn the exact history of
each piece, and to pine for the possession
of an old pewter teapot whica belonged
to the first cousin of Oliver Cromwell is ex-
actly like going to an opium joint. You get
under a feverish hallucination Everything
old and stained and wormeaten is precious
to you and all the fresh products of the
other shops are coarse and vulgar. L had
q Sloicnl dltdCh the ltNcI early III our
trip at Stratford ard bought a carved oaken
grandfather's clock, which the dealer SOL
emnly assured me was over 25c years old.
and a carved table of CromwelIs time and
at Edinboro / bought other things heavy
with age as 1 fondly believed at the time
Now that am convalescsnt
recall with some wonder
the avidity with which I snatched UP the
trst oak clock as though it were
the only one in Europe, when in fact 1t
would be difficult to find enough grand
fathers to watch all the clocks have been
offered since. We have only one thing to
boast. We have not bought souvenir
spoons-except one from Coventry. While
was still suffering with the antique fever
l did buy spoon with the classic figure
of Lady Godiva engraved on it. Not for
the figure much as because it was
marked 1873 AS / recall the circumstances
/ do not remember asking the dealer
whether he had engraved the date or not.
II is no matter. / am better now.
Wei. at Edinboro we saw all the usual
objects OF interest and were In at the birth
of the Scotch plaid craze. which is sweep
ing Europe and will no doubt reach Amer
lea this fall We tried TO master the his