Droving

“ A vigorous driving-power was there at work, forcing out the tale, red-hot and throbbing, full of discrepancies and the strangest contradictions; and the nature of this driving-power I first began to appreciate when they had lifted him into the circle of firelight and I saw his face, grey under the tan, terror in the eyes, tears too, hair and beard awry, and listened to the wild stream of words pouring forth without ceasing. ”

“ A horseman, who looked like a drover just returned from a big trip, dropped into our dusty wake and followed us a few hundred yards, dragging his pack-horse behind him, but a friend made wild and demonstrative signals from a hotel verandah―hooking at the air in front with his right hand and jobbing his left thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the bar―so the drover hauled off and didn't catch up to us any more. ”

“ Wind of the upper spaces. Snuff it deep, drink in the intoxication of our speed. Hark how the music swells and rings. . . . sphery music, music of every vagabond planet, every rooted star; sound of winds and seas and all the simmering millions of life. Moving, singing . . . so with a roar and a rush round we go and round, for ever whirling on a ceaseless Bank Holiday of drunken life and speed.
But I happened to look inwards among the machinery of our roundabout, and there I saw a slobbering cretin grinding at a wheel and sweating as he ground, and grinding eternally. ”

“ In teaching any one to drive, particularly children, this point cannot be too much emphasized. The eyes, so to speak, should be in the boat, or in equine parlance on the horse, the whole livelong time,—from the moment you take up the reins till some one has the horse's head at the end of the journey. Lacking this fundamental axiom of all driving, everything else goes for nothing. ”

“ Every detail comes back to me now; the clanging bell, the hoarse whistle sounding croupily across the water, the great boat coming buoyantly on, its busy decks, the passengers standing by, the gurgling water, the swash of the wheels, the rhythmic music of the exhaust, the black smoke trailing on behind, and, most striking of all—so simple are the impressions of youth—the letters painted in vivid plainness on the surface of the rounded wheelhouse. ”

“ A lad who understood navigating the ocean much better than land travel, on seeing a man driving a wagon in the street, expressed his surprise at his being able to drive so straight without the assistance of a rudder. ”

“ Jogs through the lazy noon,
While hobble-chains and camp-ware
Are jingling to a tune.
An hour has filled the heavens
With storm-clouds inky black;
At times the lightning trickles
Around the drover's track ”

“ Birds, with ugly, tuneless notes that were not songs but cries, flitted in the trees, and the rumble of traffic on the road came up in the evening air, broken occasionally by the shrill persistence of an exhaust whistle or the clamour of a motor-horn, and above all other sounds the long-drawn, occasional hoot from a ship anchored in the river highway. ”

“ Like the sough of a wind that is caught up high in the mesh of the budding trees, A sudden car goes sweeping past, and I strain my soul to hear The voice of the furtive triumphant engine as it rushes past like a breeze, To hear on its mocking triumphance unwitting the after-echo of fear. ”

“ As for driving a smart pair of roadsters, it’s a screech. And how many of you husky lads, hell-scooting on the bay in your speed-boats, can take the wheel of an old-time sloop or schooner, without an auxiliary, and get out of your own way in her? ”

“ Travellers in North America descant gloriously on the joys of their first sleigh-ride—the bright day, the brilliant sky, the sparkling snow, the excitement of the delighted rider, shared by the equally delighted horse, who finds he has exchanged the heavy draught of the wheel carriage for the scarce perceptible weight of the skate-borne berline or cutter. ”

“ A drover, caught between two horns—luckily well separated—and tossed into the air, has but one thought when he picks himself up after falling to the ground—a thought so surprising as not to be ridiculous: to rearrange his breeches and readjust his belt. ”

“ It was soon evident that my friend's ideas of driving probably coincided with his ideas of going up a mountain. When a mounted cowboy climbs a hill he does not believe in fussing with such nonsense as grades; he goes straight up. Similarly, this man evidently considered that, as roads were made for travel and distance for annihilation, one should turn on full speed and get there. Not one hair's breadth did he deign to swerve for chuck-hole or stone; not one fractional mile per hour did he check for gully or ditch. ”

“ The keen air of a frosty morning, or driving, rain at top speed, will not increase the accuracy of your aim, let alone the chance in the early autumn of a gnat in your eye, than which nothing can sometimes be more painful, or, later on in the year, a speck of gravel which may cut you like a knife. ”

“ Things are moving on the shore, and in the distance dots like men and women stir about the tiny houses, and a toy train toots, and toy engines rattle, and toy cars seem filling with toy people; and we think it time to go ashore and see if we can find a seat in one of those cars; so we run up forward, where our impatient fellow voyagers have been hurrying into the launch this long time. ”

“ Shorten your reins, decrease your pace, and whether it is driving in the traffic of the street or at your own door, slow up gradually. You can tell with certainty whether a man knows his business by the way he starts and stops. If you have stopped as you should, the horse is not sitting in the breeching, with his collar sliding toward the top of his head; but horse and vehicle are stopped, and yet the horse and the vehicle and harness are all in position to go on again without a jerk. ”

“ A great gray touring car hummed its way along the country road, a continuous cloud of dust, like rising smoke, trailing in its wake. A big, burly man, with tanned features, and whose eyes were obscured by masking goggles, gripped the wheel ”

“ The immediate answer was a plunge as the whip descended on both horses and the heavy carriage began to sway like a boat in a beam-sea swell. They tore through streets that were living streams of human beings—streams that split apart to let them through and closed like water again behind them. ”

“ The driving is eccentric, not to say bad, but there is the traffic—more than unsophisticated eyes have beheld for a certain number of years. It means business, it means money-making, it means crowded and hurrying life, and it gets into the blood and makes it move. ”

“ The voyager by road thinks less of a great expanse of scenery, bounded though it may be by the long waving line of mysterious hills, than he does of the thousand sights of beauty and interest under his eyes. ”

“ The boat turned, and pulled slowly away through the mist that from all the open water rose like smoke, and drew slowly down with the tide. And through the smoke the heart in the boat and the heart on the shore were aching for each other across the growing distance. ”

“ The turns are frequent and sharp; and the heavy, overladen vehicle, in its furious downward career, gives a swing at each, as if it would cut short the passage into Italy, and land the passenger, sooner than he wishes, at the bottom. At length, after four hours' riding, the descent is accomplished. The scene has changed in the twinkling of an eye. The plain is as level as a floor. ”

“ A boat stationary in the water, or drifting the wrong way against the stroke of the rower,—a railway carriage at a stand, or gliding back to the platform, contrary to the direction in which the traveller intends to go,—such experiences always produce a feeling of irksome uneasiness. ”

“ You can’t stop, if you would;—you may die, but you can’t stop; the engine may explode upon the road, and up you go along with it; or, may be a bolter, and take a fancy to go down a hill, or into a river: all this you must bear, for the privilege of travelling twenty miles an hour. ”

“ In an ordinary road is the impression of the wheel of a Stage Coach upon the solid surface of the road so great as to make the injury apparent every time the Carriage passes over it?—It is apparent to me, because wherever there is a mark upon the road there is a consequent injury. ”

“ You will toil along the dusty plain—hot, weary, worn-out—but anon you begin the ascent of the mountains; then, as you go up, the air grows purer and cooler. You descend from the vettura, and on foot tramp up the road, perhaps beside the driver, who is innately thankful to you for saving his horses a heavy pull; and with him, or a fellow-traveler, joke off the weary feeling you had in the low grounds. ”

“ I must drive as quick with a thunder-rain pelting in my face, and the roads in a muddle, and the horses starting—I can’t call it shying, I have ’em too well in hand,—at every flash, just as quick as if it was a fine hard road, and fine weather. ”

“ There was quite enough, indeed, to engage the attention of any except the most blasé and ennuyée traveller, in the grandeur of the scenery and the excitement of being galloped in rocking, lumbering, four-horse coaches, down declivities of road which would have made a driver in any ordinary hill-country draw tight rein and creep down with a heavy foot on the brake. ”

“ You seize the first motor-car at hand, and start off on the grand hunt after Bill. Through the crowded streets, out into the country highway, you fly at a terrific speed. Up the mountain passes you race, down precipitous slopes with every-increasing momentum. Every moment, it seems, will be your last. ”

“ Bill brought the little car to a stop.
Well I know that sort of sand! You plunge rashly into it on low gear; you buzz bravely for possibly fifty feet; you slow down, slow down; your driving wheels begin to spin—that finishes you. Every revolution digs a deeper hole. ”

“ On horseback one does drive, and in a vehicle one does ride, but a distinction is needed here, as in England; so, here as there, we may profitably make it, riding in the saddle and driving in the carriage. ”

“ While in the mountains we frequently came to shoals and riffles over which the boat dashed at a speed that turned us dizzy, but we had to stay with it and trust to the man at the rudder to keep her straight ahead. ”

“ Naturally quick and impatient, I cannot endure to move with calm and state along the roads. My postilions, my coachmen know it, driving in such fashion that no equipage is ever met which cleaves the air like mine. ”

“ The bush through which they travelled did not interest him; a motor-car was, in his view, a means of moving swiftly through space, and to crawl along a mountain track at the pace of a bullock-waggon failed to appeal to him in the least. ”

“ This is of the utmost importance in driving in the city streets, where you may find yourself in serious trouble if, through inattention, you have driven well into trouble, before planning to stop. Your horse's nose, or your pole, has poked into another horse or vehicle, or you are obliged to pull up so suddenly that you throw your horse, or horses down.
In America, where we turn to the right, pull well over to your own side and slow down before you get to the street corner around which you wish to go, whether to the right or left. ”

“ When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding—
Riding—riding— A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door. ”

“ Whether the Car shall jerk or sweetly run,
The Wine of Life is in a Motor Trip,
(Though all the Parts keep breaking One by One!)
Why, if the Soul can know this Glorious Game,
All other Stunts seem dry and dull and tame ”

“ Let the train stop, and immediately trees and houses cease moving, because we no longer have a shifting point of view. A simple carriage drawn by horses, a boat borne along by the current, lend themselves to this same curious illusion. ”

“ The most skillful driving did not prove skillful enough to guide the staggering oxen through the way provided by the road-makers; and the constant tendency of a forward wheel to run up a tree, on one side or the other, was very trying to the drivers. ”

“ I am fond of rapid driving, but sometimes it made me rather nervous to dash at the rate of eight miles an hour, within two feet of a precipice down which we looked upon the tops of trees a thousand feet below. There is, however, very little danger, as where the descent is steep, the driver can, in a moment, by putting his foot upon a spring at his side, cramp the wheel, and check our speed. ”

“ Slowly and laboriously do the wheels of a heavy traveling carriage wind along the rugged ascent, while the heaving flanks and dilated nostrils of the noble steeds bear witness to the toilsome pathway. ”

“ The odds are about one hundred to one against you that, when seated in your carriage, the postillion in his saddle and the fat courier outside, the words en route being given, you arrive at your destination that evening, without any accident or adventure whatever of more consequence than a lost shoe from the near leader, a snapped spring, or a heartburn from the glass of bad brandy you took at the third stage. ”

“ Voices could not be heard unless raised to a shout. The rigging of the dirigible creaked and groaned as the great bag swayed, and added to the distracting turmoil.
Paralyzed by the very suddenness and utter unexpectedness of it all, the adventurers for a time merely clung to the rails of their swaying, madly careening craft. ”

“ The Voyage of the Anchises I A long train of crowded cars, the passengers all of the same sex, almost of the same age, all dressed and hatted alike, was slowly steaming through the green sea-meadows late on a summer afternoon. In the cars, incessant stretching of cramped legs, shifting of shoulders, striking of matches, passing of cigarettes, groans of boredom ”