In two days he had so mastered this fearsome contrivance that he decided to start, and did so, in the evening. He had not gone more than a mile or two when he met a butcher standing in the middle of the road, who continued to stand there until he was run into, when both were upset. The bicyclist was pitched over the handles and cut his knee, and the butcher abused him until the cyclist—I mean the bicyclist—showed fight, when he made off. By the time this early wheelman had reached Bromley he was almost exhausted, and realised that he, at any rate, was not a fourteen-mile-an-hour rider. There was also, he discovered, an undue proportion of hills to be climbed—a discovery still being re-discovered daily by thousands of his descendants in straddling two wheels. [Illustration: RIVER HILL AND THE KENTISH WEALD] At Bromley he rested and refreshed; and again, at 9 p.m. at Sevenoaks, where his exertions had given him such an appetite that, when he had finished discussing the cold beef, he dared not look at the waiter. At River Hill—even in these days to be descended with extra caution—the rough road broke his primitive brake, and then at last—oh, happiness!—he found himself going fourteen miles an hour—and a bit over. There was no stopping, and the only thing to be done was to keep in the middle of the road, continually shouting, and in the hope nothing was in the way. Not even nowadays would a cyclist care to descend River Hill in this manner, in the dark, brakeless; but this adventurous one found the level, and, passing through Tunbridge Wells, at last reached his destination with only an incidental attack upon him by a foxhound on the way. The view from River Hill is delightful, ranging across the wooded valley of the Medway to the heights where Tunbridge Wells is situated. So wooded is it that even Tonbridge itself, near at hand, is invisible, and the little village of Hildenborough—with scarcely more houses to it than there are letters in its name—might be non-existent. A green, smiling woodland vale: just that. Not a profound, romantic depth, but a widespread, all-embracing view of meadows, corn-fields, parks, and hop-gardens: suave, well-ordered, appealing even more to the farmer than to the landscape-painter. Such is the Weald of Kent. Remote from the vulgar herd, who— “Gawblimee!” “What was that? Hark! there it is again.” “’Strewth! ’Fyaint leff me blooming pipe beyine.” “Leavyer bloomined beyine nex’ time, fatted.” “Garn, fatted yer bloomin’ self.” Hop-pickers, tramping and quarrelling their way down to the Kentish hop-gardens. And not always quarrelling, for their moods are even as those of an April day, wherein sunshine and clouds are for ever alternating. Listen to them as they go “piping down the valley wild, singing songs of pleasant glee”: Skoylork, skoylork, upin ther skoy so oi, If ermong ther aingils muvver you should see, Awsk ‘er if she’ll come dahn agine To pussy, daddy, an’ me.