"Colin," I said, coming to him with my idea. "We've got to go, of course, but I've been thinking--don't you hate the idea of being hurled along in a train, and suddenly shot into the city again, like a package through a tube?"
"If only it could be more gradual," I went on. "Suppose, for instance, instead of taking the train, we should walk it!"
"Walk to New York?" said Colin, with a surprised whistle.
"All the better. We shall be all the longer getting there. But, listen. To go by train would be almost too sudden a shock. I don't believe we could stand it. To be here to-day, breathing this God's fresh air, living the lives of natural men in a natural world, and to-morrow--Broadway, the horrible crowds, the hustle, the dirt, the smells, the uproar."
For answer Colin watched the clean rain fleeting through the trees, and groaned aloud.
"But now if we walked, we would, so to say, let ourselves down lightly, inure ourselves by gradual approach to the thought of life once more with our fellows. Besides, we should be walking in the wake of the Summer. She has only moved a little East as yet. We might catch her up on her way to New York, and thus move with the moving season, keeping in step with the Zodiac. Then, at last, ... how much more fitting our entry into New York, not by way of some sordid and clangorous depot, but through the spacious corridors of the Highlands and the lordly gates of the Hudson!"
When I had thus attained my crescendo, Colin rose impressively, and embraced me with true French effusion.
"Old man," he said, "that's just great. It's an inspiration from on high. It makes me feel better already. Gee! but that's bully."
French as was his blood, it will be observed that Colin's expletives were thoroughly American. Of course, he should have said _sacré mille cochons_ or _nom de Dieu de nom de Dieu_; but, though in appearance, so to say, an embodied "_sacré"_ he seemed to find the American vernacular sufficiently expressive.
"It's a go," said Colin, once more in American.
It was wonderful what a change our new plan wrought in our spirits.
Our melancholy was immediately dispersed, and its place taken by active anticipations of our journey. The North wind in the trees, instead of blustering dismissal, sounded to our ears like the fluttering of the blue-peter at the masthead of our voyage. Strange heart of man! A day back we were in tears at the thought of going. Now we are all smiles to think of it, all impatience to be gone. We quote Whitman a dozen times in the hour, and it is all "afoot and light-hearted" with us, and "the open road."