Entry the Ninth , 22nd of May, 1873
The morning broke with a deceptive serenity, the kind of cool, bright air that tempts one into optimism. I set forth with the Steam Unicycle freshly stoked, its brasswork gleaming as though it, too, anticipated a day of steady progress. The road rose almost immediately into Dartmoor, that noble expanse of granite and gorse, where sheep graze like scattered punctuation across the heath.
Riding upon the moor is unlike the lanes of Cornwall. There the hedgerows confine, here the horizon liberates; one feels at once triumphant and exposed. The machine responded with unaccustomed grace, climbing the inclines with steady huffing, descending with a speed that, while unnerving, never quite mutinied. I even managed, for a half-mile stretch, to feel almost dignified,an artist upon his singular steed, master of a new form of conveyance.
Alas, dignity is a fragile condition. A sudden squall swept across the moor, as if conjured from the very granite. Rain lashed at me in diagonal sheets, the wind tugged at my hat with villainous intent, and the boiler, protesting, emitted jets of steam that mingled with the storm until I resembled a mobile chimney. There was no inn, no farmhouse, scarcely even a tree to grant relief. I pressed onward, but still no shelter did I find. Eventually the road dissolved into mire. I was exhausted and felt compelled to concede: this night I must camp under the stars.
I wheeled the unicycle beneath the lee of a tor, its bulk offering what shelter it might. There I spread my travelling cloak, gathered such gorse and heather as could be coaxed into bedding, and made myself a rude bivouac. The unicycle, its boiler drained, stood sentinel, dripping quietly as the rain subsided into mist. I confess I felt a strange companionship, as though it were a brass hound guarding me in sleep.
As I lay uncomfortable and cold, listening to the sighing of the moor, I suddenly conceived of a Self-Warming Travelling Mattress. I saw it complete in my mind: Steam from a miniature boiler would circulate through coiled tubes embedded within a light mattress, granting a constant heat to the person who slept above p. Were such a contrivance perfected, nights outdoors need never be endured but rather savoured. I made a note in my journal, thinking that one might market them to polar explorers.
Despite damp and chill – and no Self-Warming Travelling Mattress – I managed some hours of slumber, awakened once by the cry of an owl, and again by the unsettling impression that the moor itself was shifting under me. Dawn at last came pale and slow, revealing the unicycle rimed with dew, a glinting relic amidst the wilderness.
Thus ends the ninth day and night. I have slept beneath open skies and feel bruised yet invigorated. England reveals itself differently when one accepts the Moors’ inhospitality; there is a grandeur in such experiences, a reminder that I am just a guest upon an older stage.
