From Orleans I started on foot for Tours on the fifth of October. October is my favorite month of the twelve. When I reflected that if I remained in Paris I should lose the only opportunity I might ever enjoy of seeing the centre of France in all the glory of the vintage and the autumn, I ‘shut the book-lid’ and took wing, with a little knapsack on my back, and a blue cap,—not exactly like Quentin Durward, but perhaps a little more. More anon of him. I had gone as far as Orleans in the diligence because the route is through an uninteresting country.
I began the pedestrian part of my journey on one of those dull, melancholy days which you will find uttering a mournful voice in Sewall's Almanack: ‘Expect—much—rain —about—this—time!’ ‘Very miscellaneous weather, good for sundry purposes,’ —but not for a journey on foot, thought I. But I had a merry heart, and it went merrily along all day. At sundown I found myself about seven leagues on my way and one beyond Beaugency. I found the route one continued vineyard. On each side of the road, as far as the eye could reach, there was nothing but vines, save here and there a
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of natural scenery.’
But when he finds himself among rural scenes, he has the delight felt by many an American boy since his days, as in the picture following:—
Boston and New York, Hougton, Mifflin and company, 1902.
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