Up and up mounted our road, cresting green billows of rolling mountain
land. We were running towards the boundary of Savoie, into Dauphine, a
country which I had never seen. The Boy and I had talked of entering
it together and visiting its Seven Marvels, the very possession of
which made it seem in our eyes alluringly mediaeval. Had he been my
companion still, we would have been travelling some hidden side-path,
where doubtless Joseph and Innocentina, chaperoned by _les animaux_,
were happily straying at this moment. I could almost hear the
donkey-girl's mechanically constant, warning cry, "Fanny-anny,
Fanny-anny! Souris-ouris!" like a low undertone of accompaniment to
the thrum of the motor.
The fancied sound smote me with homesickness, and to coax my mind from
the disappointment which still rankled, I asked Jack when he would let
me try my hand at driving.
"Not here," said he with a smile, which was instantly explained by an
abrupt plunge from the top of a long hill down into a cutting between
lichen-scaled rocks, tracing with our "pneus" as we went a series of
giddy zig-zags. We had hardly twisted one way when lo! the time had
come to twist in the opposite direction, and nowhere had we a radius
of more than twenty yards in which to perform our tricks.
"I couldn't have done that as well as you did it, I confess," said I,
with becoming modesty.
Pages:
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367