Lesbia Newman (1889)/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III.
Bill and Joe
The incident in the road was soon followed by improving the acquaintance, and by our heroine’s admission into the Frogmore bicycle club. Mr Lyttelhurst, its promoter, who had picked up the fallen machine on the occasion mentioned, was a married solicitor of repute, living in the town. Within a fortnight afterwards, during which the young girl practised alone and tumbled about for an hour or two every day, an arrangement was made that Mr Lyttelhurst should call at Dulham with some of the other members, and take her for a short ride of some dozen miles.
Her uncle, of course, came out to see them go off, and the two elder ladies, who disapproved of the whole proceeding, peeped nevertheless from a bedroom window above. Lesbia, a little nervous at first, soon began to enjoy the ride, the men having chosen the most level among their regular routes, so that she had no occasion to dismount, and already she was able to run ‘legs over’ down some easy slopes that occurred now and then. ‘Their road took them right through Frogmore, the main street of which was macadam, in fairly good order. Lesbia kept her place steadily and carefully amid the traffic, which happened to be pretty thick, it being market day.
‘Capital, Miss Newman!’ exclaimed the man who had ridden next in rear of her through the town; ‘you got throught it all like an old Londoner. Half-an-hour in a town is worth half a day in the country for steadying you.’
‘Yes; you can’t sleep on your machine like an albatross on the wing, when an omnibus is skinning you on one side and a coal waggon on the other,’ replied Lesbia. ‘Which way are we going? I don’t know this side of Frogmore so well.’
‘Northward for the present,’ said Mr Lyttelhurst, who had dropped back to her side for a moment. ‘We shall pass through Wisprill, and then by Poplars Weir, where we shall find means of ferrying over the river, and so approach Dulham again from the north side.’
‘How far shall we have ridden altogether?’ she asked.
‘Nearly seventeen miles. That will be about enough for your first day.’
The road soon became continuously level as it ran along the side of a sparsely-wooded shallow vale, in the middle of which the gleam of water could be seen at intervals; further on, its course was marked by a series of clumps of poplars. The pace now increased, and in about three-quarters of an hour after clearing Frogmore, they passed through the little hamlet of Wisprill, and turned direct on the river where it was at its broadest, near the cascade of Poplars Weir. By so doing, they left the main road, which followed the stream, and made for one on the other side, which turned southwards toward Dulham. There was no bridge at or near this part, nothing but a huge antiquated covered barge, long disused for traffic, which lay fastened to the rail of the weir cascade. It was the summer abode of two watermen of the old stamp, who, when they could get nothing better to do, picked up coppers by ferrying people, and now and then a horse, over from one road to the other. For this purpose they had a couple of roomy but heavy punts, both of which, with their owners, happened to be on the opposite side when our bicyclists arrived and dismounted. Mr Lyttelhurst hailed them, and the two men, who were dozing in their respective punts, started to their feet and pushed off in such haste that as they shoved away with their backs to each other, the lumbering punts collided in midstream and both bargees were thrown off their feet, one so forcibly that he not only let go his pole into the water, but went partly in after it. Recovering himself and his pole with a struggle, he turned to his comrade a visage flaming with wrath, and out of the fulness of his heart spake unto him winged words.
‘Come, you fellows, I say, stop that now, can’t you?’ called out one of the bicyclists. ‘We're waiting to cross; you can have it out between you afterwards. Please look sharp!’
The two bargees, by no means in a hurry now, began to punt on slowly towards their fares, still keeping their scornful countenances half turned to each other, and resuming the dialogue, during which Lesbia kept her little red silk pocket-handkerchief pressed upon her mouth, choking with laughter. Some of her companions were at first inclined to feel annoyed on her account; but so far from looking uncomfortable and keeping in the background, the young girl was first to wheel her bicycle into the nearer of the two punts as they at last touched the bank. She then held out a shilling to each of the controversialists, saying,—
‘There, boys, that’s to drink to your next bit of friendly chat. You’ve given me a good shillings’-worth each, I can tell you.’
The two hulking men took the money with a look of wonder at the girl, somewhat shared, to tell the truth, by her companions.
‘Thankee, my lord,’ said one of the bargees, completely quieted down.
‘Yes, my lord, we'll drink your ’ealth and a pleasant ride to you,’ said the other. ‘Oi saay, Bill, oi vote we go and take the pledge in a gallon apiece at the White Cow, ah?’
‘Roight, Joe, oi’ll pledge yer,’ answered his partner.
And having got twopence from each of the other fares, making a nice little catch in all, the illustrious pair went off together to their beer, as good friends as if not a word had passed between them.
‘What a queer child she is!’ observed the man next him, in an undertone to Mr Lyttelhurst, as the group advanced to a spot suitable for re-mounting.
‘Very!’ was the reply. Then aloud to Lesbia:—‘I am glad, Miss Newman, that at all events you were not annoyed by the bad language of those two roughs.’
‘Annoyed!’ she exclaimed. ‘Bless you, I was delighted. Quite a treat to come across such refined sarcasm—the real Attic salt, you know. The only pity is we hadn’t a short-hand reporter to take it down word for word. But I’m thirsty with laughing. Is there any pub near?’
‘Yes, there’s the White Cow, where Messrs Bill and Joe are gone. But you needn’t follow them into the bar; the landlady will give you tea or beer or what you fancy in her private room.’
The ride home was pleasant; a light breeze at their backs and a smooth though narrow road helped the pace materially. The young men now felt that Lesbia Newman was a companion for them with whom they could be as much at ease as with each other, not a mere blush-and-simper sample of young-lady-stuff, keeping them in continual gêne. In little over an hour they reached Dulham, and as her friends declined to stop at the vicarage again that day, Lesbia entered the drawing-room just as her relatives were finishing afternoon tea.
‘Well, Lesbie, what sort of a ride, how far, and how did you perform?’
‘Jolly ride; about seventeen miles, Uncle Spines. I did as well as the rest, and we had a rare bit of fun at Poplars Weir. We were ferried over the water by Demosthenes and Cicero in person.’
‘Eh? How?’
Lesbia then gave extracts from the bargee record, which much amused the vicar, and much scandalised her mother and aunt.
‘This is your system of training girls, Theo, it seems!’ said his sister. ‘To send her out skylarking astride of a bicycle with a pack of roystering boys to hear bad language.’
‘I must tell Mr Lyttelhurst that you consider him a roystering boy,’ said the vicar, smiling.
‘But about the profane swearing, Theo,’ said his wife.
‘Oh, I assure you, Aunt Kate,’ said Lesbia suavely, ‘that the profane swearing was merely supplementary and ornamental—I should have just liked you and mamma to have heard the epithets those two bestowed on each other.’
‘Thank you kindly, Lesbia,’ said her mother; ‘I’d rather not.’
‘After all said and done,’ observed the vicar, ‘hard words break no bones. But when spoken before girls, they do break something else which it is most desirable should be broken.’
‘You mean their womanly delicacy,’ said Mrs Newman.
‘No, not quite that,’ he replied. ‘Not if you mean that delicacy which ought to be common to both sexes. But if you mean the prudish affectation which young ladies of the received pattern are taught to cultivate, then I say let it be annihilated at all costs—broken to atoms.’