Part 5
Other great cycling institutions exist, which are rendering good service to the general public in various ways, one notably in calling attention to the decadence of our public roads since the old coaching-days. In many parts of the country, main roads now exist that are all but impassable to ordinary traffic; their deterioration may be attributed mainly to the competition and monopolisation of the railways in diverting the traffic that once passed over them. Their condition is a misfortune to the public in general, and especially to the inhabitants of the locality; for as good roads are certain to advance the prosperity of a district, so bad ones have ever been considered an indication of a backward state of civilisation. The local authorities to whom the construction and maintenance of these roads have been intrusted, are being aroused to a sense of their responsibility by influentially and numerously attended meetings of persons interested in cycling; the laws relating to the highways have been collected and discussed, and many leading newspapers have given prominence to the grievances vented at these assemblies. If the result should be the amelioration of the condition of these highways, the thanks of the general public will be due to the cyclists, and it will tend to forge still stronger the link which is fast binding them into closer fellowship.
To many manufacturing towns, the rise of cycling has been a boon; to one in particular, Coventry, it has proved perhaps the greatest blessing that has ever befallen it. That ancient city was fast sinking into absolute inertness through the falling-off of its staple trade; it can now boast of being one of the most prosperous towns of the midlands, with huge manufactories and busy hives of men sending forth to the world those apparently delicate structures which are now in such universal request. Other towns, such as Birmingham, London, Wolverhampton, &c., sensibly feel the demands of the two hundred thousand cyclists who are computed to be in Great Britain alone, and the export trade of these towns is rapidly becoming greater in this particular branch. The two and three wheeler have now penetrated to nearly every part of the globe; they are no longer strangers to the Russian, the Turk, and the Hindu; in Brazil, Australia, and New Zealand, they make steady progress; and even the sacred land of the Celestials is not free from their enchantments. This wide and general dissemination of a sport which is essentially English, cannot fail to be a source of the greatest gratification to those who so sturdily fought for it and upheld it during the trials of its early existence.
SPRING IN THE ALLEY.
She stooped and told him that the Spring was born; A ring of triumph in her fresh young voice; For she, poor child, was in her life’s glad morn, And the soft sunshine made her heart rejoice. ‘Wert thou not longing for the Spring?’ she said; But the pale sufferer sadly shook his head,
And gazed with sunken eyes upon her face, Till its pure beauty filled his soul with peace, Then smoothed her locks, and in a fond embrace, Clasping her slender form, he whispered: ‘Cease To sing the praises of the young Spring flowers; Child of the narrow court! they are not ours!’
O’er the despondent sufferer bending low, Till her fair tresses swept his throbbing brow, With tender glistening eyes, and cheeks aglow With joy and hope, she softly told him how, Not very far away, the golden bees Wooed the white clusters of the hawthorn trees.
She spoke of twittering birds, and raised her eyes, Bright with the glory of poetic thought, To the dark ceiling that shut out the skies, And lowered upon her, as she vainly sought, With words of loving sympathy, to cheer The flickering life that suffering made so dear.
For oh, that life, unlovely though it seemed, Was the dear object of her fondest love; Volumes of witching poesy she dreamed, Morn, noon, and evening, as she bent above His weary form, yet neither light nor bloom Could tempt her footsteps from that dingy room.
Oft, when she heard his hollow cough, she wept In the still midnight—how it wrung her heart! Yea, she could hear it even when she slept, And often wakened with a feverish start, Beseeching God, in many a tearful prayer, To ease the pain that _she_ so longed to share.
Blithely she carolled when the morning sun Rose o’er the alley like a blushing bride; Or grave and silent, like some meek-faced nun, Plied she her needle by the sufferer’s side— And oh, it was so sweet to toil for him Till her hands trembled, and her eyes grew dim!
Till from those weary hands her work would fall, And her dim vision could distinguish nought Save the black spiders crawling on the wall, And the dead violets she herself had bought With the few coppers she had stored away From her poor scanty earnings day by day.
For when before the market-stall she stood, Her little purse clasped tightly in her hand, She needs must purchase—for each dewy bud Seemed like a messenger from fairyland; And well her fine poetic fancy knew The sheltered places where the violets grew.
And when she raised them to her eager lips With the pure rapture of a little child, The dewdrops twinkled on their azure tips, Till the young dreamer bent her face and smiled With the sweet consciousness that they would bring Into the meanest slum a breath of Spring.
Returning home, her joyous footsteps fell Like the soft patter of the summer rain; And oh, _one_ weary sufferer knew it well, And moaned a welcome from his bed of pain! Close to his breast she crept, and kneeling there, He twined the violets in her sunny hair.
Charmed from his fretful mood, the sufferer laid One thin white hand upon her worn gray dress; ‘Dear child!’ he murmured, while the sunbeams played At hide-and-seek amid each wandering tress, ‘Withdraw the blind—let in the rosy morn; _I_ too am grateful that the Spring is born!’
FANNY FORRESTER.
* * * * *
Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.
* * * * *
_All Rights Reserved._