A Tramp's Sketches Part 2

A fire, a kettle, and while the kettle boils, into the sea, giving my limbs to the sparkling, buoyant water. Then am I super-self, if such an expression may be permitted. So pa.s.ses the vagabond's night.

Thus somehow one comes into new harmony with Nature, and the personal rhythm enters into connection with all things that sleep and wake under the stars. One lives a new life. It is something like the change from bachelor to married life. You are richer and stronger. When you move some one else moves with you, and that was unexpected. Whilst you live Nature lives with you.

I have written of the night, for the night hallows the day, and the day does not hallow the night except for those who toil.

III

THE LORD'S PRAYER

The Lord's Prayer is a very intimate whispering of the soul with G.o.d.

It is also the perfect child's prayer, and the tramp being much of a child, it is his.

Many people have their private interpretations of the prayer, and I have heard preachers examine it clause by clause. It can mean many things. It must mean different things to people of different lives. It is something very precious to the tramp.

The tramp is the lonely one: walking along all by himself all day by the side of the sounding waves he is desolated by loneliness, and when he lies down at dusk all alone he feels the need of loving human friends. But his friends are far away. He becomes once more a little trusting child, one who, though he fears, looks up to the face of a great strong Father. He feels himself encompa.s.sed about by dangers: perhaps some one watched him as he smoothed out his bracken bed; or if he went into a cave a robber saw him and will come later in the night, when he is fast asleep, murder him, and throw his body into the sea; or he may have made his bed in the path of the bear or in the haunt of snakes. Many, many are the shapes of terror that a.s.sail the mind of the wanderer. How good to be a little boy who can trust in a great strong Father to "deliver him from evil"!

And each clause of that lovely prayer has its special reality. Thus "Give us this day our daily bread" causes him to think, not so much of getting wages on the morrow as of the kindly fruits of the earth that lie in the trees and bushes like anonymous gifts, and of the hospitality of man.

Most beautiful of all to the tramp is the wish--"Thy Kingdom come--Thy Will be done in earth as it is in heaven." For it is thus understood: Thy Will be done in earth--I am that earth. "Thy Kingdom come" means Thy Kingdom come in me--may my soul lie like a pure mirror before the beauty of the world, may the beauty of the world be reflected in me till the whole beautiful world is my heart. Then shall my heart be pure, and that which I see will be G.o.d. Thy Will be done in me as it is done in heaven.

And the tramp asks himself as he lies full length on the earth and looks up at the stars--are you a yea-sayer? Do you say "Yes" to life?

Do you raise your face in wonder to the beauty of the world? Do you stand with bare feet in sacred places? Do you remember always the mystery and wonder that is in your fellow-man whom you meet upon the road? ... "Hallowed be Thy Name."

Does the wanderer love all things? It is a condition of all things loving him. He must have perfect peace in his heart for the kingdom to be built there.... "Forgive us our trespa.s.ses."

We may be tempted to forget Thee, may fear danger and our hearts be ruffled, may be tempted to forget that our fellow-man is one like ourselves, with our mystery and wonder, and having a very loving human heart either apparent or prevented. We may be tempted to forget the mystery of our own souls. The tramp prays to be led not into such temptation. For, with the Father above him, is the power, the kingdom, and the glory, for ever and ever. As I said, prayers are strong out of doors, made in the presence of all the stars. One is compa.s.sed about with a great cloud of witnesses. There is calm all around and in one's own heart. The mysterious beauty of the starry sky reflects itself in the soul, and across its mirror sails the pale moon. My own body becomes a cradle in which the little Christ Child sleeps. There are angels everywhere. I am in universal keeping, for the stars are all looking and pointing to me. Because of the little Child the shepherds near by hear heavenly harmony, and journeying through the night to the land of dreams come the three wonderful old kings with gifts.

IV

DAYS

It is because I have been tempered by the coldness of the night that I am not overwhelmed by the heat of the day. Because the night is dark and cool and sweet I see the true colours of the day, and the noon sun does not dazzle me. The tramp's eyes open and then they open again: at midday his eyes are wider than those of indoor folk. He is nearer to the birds because he has slept with them in the bush. They also are nearer to him, for the night has left her mysterious traces upon his face and garments, something which humans cannot see, not even the tramp himself, but which the wild things recognise right enough.

The tramp walks. His road is one that may only be walked upon. People on wheels are never on it: at least, I never met a wheel person who had seen on either side of the road what the tramp sees--and a road is not only a path, but that which is about it. The wheel is the great enemy of Nature, whether it be the wheel of a machine or of a vehicle.

Nature abhors wheels. She will not be wooed by cyclists, motorists, goggled motor-cyclists, and the rest: she is not like a modern young lady who, despite ideals, _must_ marry, and will take men as they are found in her day and generation.

The woman of the woods who dresses herself in flowers, and whose voice is as birds' songs, is the same yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow--not new-fangled. You must go to her; she will not come to you. You must live as she does.

Therefore the tramp moves _naturally_, on his feet. He comes into step. And sleeping out of doors, living in the sun, eating forest berries, washing in the stream or in the sea, all these are part of a coming into step.

How this _coming back_ develops the temperament! I left the town timid, almost a townsman, expecting not only the dangers that were but also all those that were not. I half believed all the tales by which stay-at-home people tried to warn or frighten me. Though taking the road with every aspect of carelessness and boldness, I confessed to my heart that I was a coward. Then came my first week's tramping, and I emerged a different man. I felt bold. A few days later still I nursed a stick in my hand, saying, "If a robber comes, let him come! We'll have a struggle." Leaving the town I scanned the faces of the pa.s.sers-by apprehensively, and said "Good-morning" or "Good-evening"

very meekly to all dangerous-looking persons, but a fortnight later I was even strutting on the road with a smile almost malicious on my lips.

I felt myself growing wilder. The truth broke upon me in an introspective moment one morning as I was nearing Sotchi. I felt I had changed. I stopped to take stock of my new life and ways. I had been living in the forest and on the seash.o.r.e, away from mankind, on Nature's gifts. All my days from dawn to sunset I hunted for food. My life was food-hunting. I certainly wrote not a line and thought less.

In my mind formed only such elementary ideas as "Soon more grapes,"

"These berries are not the best," "More walnuts," "Oh, a spring; I must drink there."

Something from the ancient past was awakened. I saw a bunch of wild grapes, my heart leapt, and without a thought I jumped to it and took it. Or I saw a fresh trickling stream pouring over the ledges of the rocks, and I rushed and pressed my lips to the bubbling water. There was no intermediary between Nature's gifts and the man who needed them. Wish was translated into act without the aid of thought.

One day I was lost in the forest among the giant tangles and I was not at all anxious to find the way out again. Perhaps I might have lived there all the Autumn, and only when the berries and nuts were exhausted and the cold winter winds sought me out should I come skulking back to the haunts of men like some wild animal made tame by Winter.

I was aware, therefore, of a new experience, a modification in personality, a change of rhythm. I was walking with Nature, marching with her, with all her captains the great trees and her infantry the little bushes, and I caught in my ears her marching music. I was thrilled by the common chord that makes crowds act as one man, that in this case made my heart beat in unison with all the wild things. I may as well say at once I love them all and am ready to live with them and for them.

V

THE QUESTION OF THE SCEPTIC

"That's all very well, but don't you often get bored?" asked a sceptic. "I enjoy a weekend in the country, or a good Sunday tramp in Richmond Park or Epping Forest. I take my month on the Yorkshire moors with pleasure, or I spend a season in Switzerland or Spain, and I don't mind sleeping under a bush and eating whatever I can get in shepherds' cottages. I can well appreciate the simple life and the country life, but I'm perfectly sure I should pine away if I had to live it always. I couldn't stand it. I'd rather be debarred from the country altogether than not go back to town. The town is much more indispensable to me. I feel the country life is very good in so far as it makes one stronger and fitter to work in town again, but as an end in itself it would be intolerable."

This was a question I needed to answer not only to the sceptic but to myself. It is true the wanderer often feels bored, even in beautiful places. I am bored some days every year, no matter where I spend them, and I shall always be. I get tired of this world and want another.

That is a common feeling, if not often a.n.a.lysed.

There is, however, another boredom, that of the weariness of the body, or its satiety of country air; the longing for the pleasures of the town, the tides of the soul attracted by the moon of habit. The tramp also confesses to that boredom. But when he gets back to the town to enjoy it for a while he swiftly finds it much more boring than the country.

If every one went to the country and lived the simple life when he was inclined, the size of European towns would be diminished to very small proportions. The evil of a town is that it establishes a tyranny and keeps its people against the people's true desires.

I said to my sceptical friend: "Those who praise the simple life and those who scoff at it are both very extravagant as a rule. Let the matter be stated temperately. The tramp does not want a world of tramps--that would never do. The tramps--better call them the rebels against modern life--are perhaps only the first searchers for new life. They know themselves as necessarily only a few, the pioneers.

Let the townsman give the simple life its place. Every one will benefit by a little more simplicity, and a little more living in communion with Nature, a little more of the country. I say, 'Come to Nature altogether,' but I am necessarily misunderstood by those who feel quickly bored. Good advice for all people is this--live the simple life as much as you can _till you're bored_. Some people are soon bored: others never are. Whoever has known Nature once and loved her will return again to her. Love to her becomes more and more."

But whoever has resolved the common illusions of the meaning of life, and has seen even in glimpses the naked mystery of our being, finds that he absolutely must live in the world which is outside city walls.

He wants to explore this desert island in s.p.a.ce, and with it to explore the unending significance of his deathless spirit.

VI

A THING OF BEAUTY IS A JOY FOR EVER

Rostof on the Don is always beautiful when one leaves it to go south.

Nothing can efface from my mind the picture of it as I saw it when first going to the Caucasus. The sunset illumined it with the hues of romance. All the multiplicity of its dingy buildings shone as if lit up from within, and their dank and mouldy greens and blues and yellows became burning living colours. The town lay spread out upon the high banks of the Don and every segment of it was crowned with a church.

The gilt domes blazed in the sunlight and the crosses above them were changed into pure fire. Round about the town stretched the grey-green steppe, freshened by the river-side, but burned down to the suffering earth itself on the horizon. Then over all, like G.o.d's mercy harmonising man's sins, the effulgence of a light-blue southern sky.

By that scene I have understood the poet's thought--