Leaving the tavern again at 2 o’clock, I jogged along for 1 h.
over a good gravel pike to the r.r. station at
Brumfield,
4 m.; and then another ½ h. over a rougher road, 1 ½ m., to
the toll-gate, where a heavy shower compelled a definite halt. There was a
slight drizzle of rain when I mounted again at 4.30 and rode with great
difficulty, over a muddy and stony track, for about 2 m. Then followed a
similar distance of alternate walking and riding, during which several
showers rained down upon me, without causing me to halt; and the 1 h. from
the start, I reached a hill where I definitely abandoned all pretense of
attempting any further progress in the saddle. For the next 7 or 8 m. I
continuously dragged my machine through deep mud or clambered with it over
rough rocks, — stopping once in a while to dig the clay out from the
forks, when it clogged them sufficiently to prevent the revolution of the
wheels, — and on two occasions I was forced to wade through wide
brooks, with the bicycle lifted high above my head. Even the brake-strap of
my Lamson luggage-carrier was cut in two by the action of the grit and mud
on the tire, and thenceforth my bundle bobbed up and down in a most
exasperating manner at every stone and jolt. Finally, however, my sorrows
began to be lightened a little by encountering some goodish bits of road;
and, spite of the darkness, I did considerable riding during the last 4 or
5 m., ending at Lebanon, which I knew to be my only attainable refuge for
the night, when once I had turned my back on Perryville. It was while
riding slowly up-hill in the dark, over some rough macadam, that a loose
stone stopped my wheel and pitched me over the handle-bar. I alighted
squarely on my feet, however, and my bicycle stood up squarely on its head,
uninjured; and this was the only fall that either of us had during the
fortnight wherein we traveled 415 m. together. The clock struck 9 when I
entered the Norris House, in
Lebanon,
and though this was a newer and larger and better-equipped establishment
than any of the other hotels as yet encountered by me in Kentucky, I was
told that the time was too late for the supplying of anything whatever to
eat. A half-hour later, therefore, having made sure of the refreshment
supplied by a bath and a dry suit of clothes, I sallied out on the street
in pursuit of eatables. The most nourishing substances I could secure were
crackers and cookies and ginger-snaps, which I found at the chief
“grocery and dry-goods store” in the place, and which I managed
to wash down by deep potations of soda-water. Supplementing this luxurious
repast by a dessert of confectionery, I felt sufficiently invigorated to
clean off from my wheel all traces of its 21 m.s’ hard traveling from
Perryville; though I cannot pretend that wheelmen in general would accept
as a satisfactory sequel to so hard a jaunt as that, so slim a supper as
that, even though it was the very best which money could buy in “the
court-house town of Marion county” at 9 o’clock of a Saturday
night in June.