The sun shone overhead with the
fierce heat of a British July; and to make matters worse in my
case, I seemed to be the loadstone of what traffic was in progress
on the highway. A load of hay stuck to me with obstinate
determination; if I walked slowly, the hay lagged beside me; if I
quickened my pace, the hay whipped up his horses; when I rested
and mopped my brow, the hay rested and mopped ITS brow. Then there
were tramps of various kinds: a Punch and Judy show on the march;
swift silent bicyclists who sped past in a flurry of dust; local
gentry riding cock-horses (no doubt to Banbury Crosses); local
gentry in dogcarts; local gentry in closed carriages going to a
funeral, and apparently (as seen through the windows) very hot and
mournful and perspiring; an antique clergyman in an antique gig
who gave me a tract and warned me against drink; a char-a-bancs
filled to bursting with the True Blue Constitutional Club of East
Pigley--such at least was the inscription on a streaming banner--
who swung past waving their hats and singing "Our Boarder's such a
Nice Young Man"; then some pale aristocratic children in a sort of
perambulating clothes-basket drawn by a hairy mite of a pony, who
looked at me disapprovingly, as though I hadn't honestly come by
the volcano; then--but why go on with the never-ending procession
of British pilgrims who straggled out at just sufficient intervals
to keep between them a perpetual eye on my movements and prevent
me from celebrating the birth of freedom in any kind of privacy.
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