“What about the river?” suggested Harris.
“We have had some pleasant times on that.”
George pulled in silence at his cigar, and I cracked another nut.
“The river is not what it used to be,” said I; “I don’t know what, but there’s a something—a dampness—about the river air that always starts my lumbago.”
“It’s the same with me,” said George. “I don’t know how it is, but I never can sleep now in the neighbourhood of the river. I spent a week at Joe’s place in the spring, and every night I woke up at seven o’clock and never got a wink afterwards.”
“I merely suggested it,” observed Harris. “Personally, I don’t think it good for me, either; it touches my gout.”
“What suits me best,” I said, “is mountain air. What say you to a walking tour in Scotland?”
“It’s always wet in Scotland,” said George. “I was three weeks in Scotland the year before last, and was never dry once all the time—not in that sense.”
“It’s fine enough in Switzerland,” said Harris.
“They would never stand our going to Switzerland by ourselves,” I objected. “You know what happened last time. It must be some place where no delicately nurtured woman or child could possibly live; a country of bad hotels and comfortless travelling; where we shall have to rough it, to work hard, to starve perhaps—”
“Easy!” interrupted George, “easy, there! Don’t forget I’m coming with you.”
“I have it!” exclaimed Harris; “a bicycle tour!”
George looked doubtful.
“There’s a lot of uphill about a bicycle tour,” said he, “and the wind is against you.”
“So there is downhill, and the wind behind you,” said Harris.
“I’ve never noticed it,” said George.
“You won’t think of anything better than a bicycle tour,” persisted Harris.
I was inclined to agree with him.
“And I’ll tell you where,” continued he; “through the Black Forest.”
“Why, that’s all uphill,” said George.
“Not all,” retorted Harris; “say two-thirds. And there’s one thing you’ve forgotten.”
He looked round cautiously, and sunk his voice to a whisper.
“There are little railways going up those hills, little cogwheel things that—”
The door opened, and Mrs. Harris appeared. She said that Ethelbertha was putting on her bonnet, and that Muriel, after waiting, had given “The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party” without us.
“Club, to-morrow, at four,” whispered Harris to me, as he rose, and I passed it on to George as we went upstairs.
CHAPTER II
A delicate business—What Ethelbertha might have said—What she did say—What Mrs. Harris said—What we told George—We will start on Wednesday—George suggests the possibility of improving our minds—Harris and I are doubtful—Which man on a tandem does the most work?—The opinion of the man in front—Views of the man behind—How Harris lost his wife—The luggage question—The wisdom of my late Uncle Podger—Beginning of story about a man who had a bag.
I opened the ball with Ethelbertha that same evening. I commenced by being purposely a little irritable. My idea was that Ethelbertha would remark upon this. I should admit it, and account for it by over brain pressure. This would naturally lead to talk about my health in general, and the evident necessity there was for my taking prompt and vigorous measures. I thought that with a little tact I might even manage so that the suggestion should come from Ethelbertha herself. I imagined her saying: “No, dear, it is change you want; complete change. Now be persuaded by me, and go away for a month. No, do not ask me to come with you. I know you would rather that I did, but I will not. It is the society of other men you need. Try and persuade George and Harris to go with you. Believe me, a highly strung brain such as yours demands occasional relaxation from the strain of domestic surroundings. Forget for a little while that children want music lessons, and boots, and bicycles, with tincture of rhubarb three times a day; forget there are such things in life as cooks, and house decorators, and next-door dogs, and butchers’ bills. Go away to some green corner of the earth, where all is new and strange to you, where your over-wrought mind will gather peace and fresh ideas. Go away for a space and give me time to miss you, and to reflect upon your goodness and virtue, which, continually present with me, I may, human-like, be apt to forget, as one, through use, grows indifferent to the blessing of the sun and the beauty of the moon. Go away, and come back refreshed in mind and body, a brighter, better man—if that be possible—than when you went away.”
But even when we obtain our desires they never come to us garbed as we would wish. To begin with, Ethelbertha did not seem to remark that I was irritable; I had to draw her attention to it. I said:
“You must forgive me, I’m not feeling quite myself to-night.”
She said: “Oh! I have not noticed anything different; what’s the matter with you?”
“I can’t tell you what it is,” I said; “I’ve felt it coming on for weeks.”
“It’s that whisky,” said Ethelbertha. “You never touch it except when we go to the Harris’s. You know you can’t stand it; you have not a strong head.”
“It isn’t the whisky,” I replied; “it’s deeper than that. I fancy it’s more mental than bodily.”
“You’ve been reading those criticisms again,” said Ethelbertha, more sympathetically; “why don’t you take my advice and put them on the fire?”
“And it isn’t the criticisms,” I answered; “they’ve been quite flattering of late—one or two of them.”
“Well, what is it?” said Ethelbertha; “there must be something to account for it.”
“No, there isn’t,” I replied; “that’s the remarkable thing about it; I can only describe it as a strange feeling of unrest that seems to have taken possession of me.”
Ethelbertha glanced across at me with a somewhat curious expression, I thought; but as she said nothing, I continued the argument myself.
“This aching monotony of life, these days of peaceful, uneventful felicity, they appall one.”
“I should not grumble at them,” said Ethelbertha; “we might get some of the other sort, and like them still less.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” I replied. “In a life of continuous joy, I can imagine even pain coming as a welcome variation. I wonder sometimes whether the saints in heaven do not occasionally feel the continual serenity a burden. To myself a life of endless bliss, uninterrupted by a single contrasting note, would, I feel, grow maddening. I suppose,” I continued, “I am a strange sort of man; I can hardly understand myself at times. There are moments,” I added, “when I hate myself.”
Often a little speech like this, hinting at hidden depths of indescribable emotion has touched Ethelbertha, but to-night she appeared strangely unsympathetic. With regard to heaven and its possible effect upon me, she suggested my not worrying myself about that, remarking it was always foolish to go half-way to meet trouble that might never come; while as to my being a strange sort of fellow, that, she supposed, I could not help, and if other people were willing to put up with