The Cruise of the Land-Yacht "Wanderer" Part 17

"Good-bye, Eily. There is a tramp coming skulking round the caravan, and I don't like his looks.

"'R-r-r-r-r-bow! Wow-w!'

"He is gone, Eily. Good-bye, take care of master's children till we all come back.

"Yours right faithfully,--

"Hurricane Bob."

V.

From the Author to his Good Friend C.A.W.

[C.A. Wheeler, Esq, of Swindon, the clever author of "Sports-sc.r.a.piana,"

etc, etc.]

"The Wanderer Caravan,--

"Touring in Notts,--

"_July 28_, 1886.

"My dearly-beloved Caw,--For not writing to you before now I must make the excuse the Scotch la.s.sie made to her lover--'I've been thinkin'

aboot ye, Johnnie lad.' And so in my wanderings I often think of thee and thine, poor old Sam included; and my mind reverts to your cosy parlour in Swindon, Nellie in the armchair, Sam on the footstool, my Hurricane Bob on the hearth, and you and I viewing each other's smiling faces through the vapour that ascends from a duality of jorums of real Highland tartan toddy.

"Yes, I've been thinking of you, but I have likewise been busy. There is a deal to be done in a caravan, even if I hadn't my literary connection to keep up, and half-a-dozen serieses to carry on. You must know that a gentleman gipsy's life isn't all beer and skittles. Take the doings of one day as an example, my Caw. The Wanderer has been lying on the greensward all night, we will say, close by a little country village inn. Crowds gathered round us last night, lured by curiosity and the dulcet tones of your humble servant's fiddle and valet's flute, but soon, as we loyally played 'G.o.d save the Queen,' the rustics melted away, our shutters were put up, and soon there was no sound to be heard save the occasional hooting of a brown owl, and the sighing of the west wind through a thicket of firs. We slept the sleep of gipsies, or of the just, the valet in the after-cabin, I in the saloon, my faithful Newfoundland at my side. If a step but comes near the caravan at night, the deep ba.s.s, ominous growl that shakes the ship from stem to stern shows that this grand old dog is ready for business.

"But soon as the little hands of the clock point to six, my eyes open mechanically, as it were, Bob gets up and stretches himself, and, ere ever the smoke from the village chimneys begins to roll up through the green of the trees, we are all astir. The bath-tent is speedily pitched, and breakfast is being prepared. No need of tonic bitters to give a gipsy an appet.i.te, the fresh, pure air does that, albeit that frizzly ham and those milky, newborn eggs, with white bread and the countriest of country b.u.t.ter, would draw water from the teeth of a hand-saw. Breakfast over, my Caw, while I write on the _coupe_ and Bob rolls exultant on the gra.s.s, my valet is carefully washing decks, dusting, and tidying, and the coachman is once more carefully grooming Captain Corn-flower and Polly Pea-blossom.

"It will be half-past eight before the saloon and after-cabin are thoroughly in order, for the Wanderer is quite a Pullman car and lady's boudoir, _minus_ the lady. Then, my old friend, visitors will begin to drop in, and probably for nearly an hour I am holding a kind of _levee_.

It is a species of lionising that I have now got hardened to.

Everybody admires everything, and I have to answer the same kind of questions day after day. It is nice, however, to find people who know me and have read my writings in every village in the kingdom. Hurricane Bob, of course, comes in for a big share of admiration. He gets showers of kisses, and many a fair cheek rests lovingly on his bonnie brow. I have to be content with smiles and glances, flowers and fruit, and eggs and new potatoes. The other day a handsome salmon came. It was a broiling hot day. The salmon said he must be eaten fresh. I was equal to the occasion. The lordly fish was cooked, the crew of the Wanderer, all told, gathered around him on the gra.s.s, and soon he had to change his _tense_--from the present to the past.

"The other day pigeons came. My valet plucked them, and the day being windy, and he, knowing no better, did the work standing, and, lor! how the feathers flew. It was a rain of feathers, and a reign of terror, for the ladies pa.s.sing to the station had to put up their umbrellas.

"But the steps are up, the horses are in, good-byes said, hands are waved by the kindly crowd, and away we rattle. My place is ever on the _coupe_, note-book in hand.

"'A chiel's among ye,' etc.

"My valet is riding on ahead on the tricycle. This year it is the charming 'Marlborough,' which is such a pleasant one to ride. On and on, now we go, through the beautiful country; something to attract our attention at every hundred yards. Heavens! my dear Caw, how little those who travel by train know of the delights of the road. We trot along while on level roads, we madly rush the short, steep hills at a glorious gallop, we crawl up the long, bad hills, and carefully--with skid and chain on the near hind wheel--we stagger down the break-neck 'pinches.' The brake is a powerful one, and in bad countries is in constant use, so that its bra.s.s handle shines like gold, and my arm aches ere night with putting it on and off.

"Well, there is a midday halt after ten miles, generally on the roadside near water. We have a modest lunch of hard-boiled eggs, milk, beer, cheese, bread, and crushed oats and a bit of clover. Then on and on again. By five we have probably settled for the night, when dinner is prepared. We hardly need supper, and what with the rattling along all day, and the hum of the great van--with running and riding, and studying natural history and phenomena, including faces--I am tired, and so are we all, by nine o'clock.

"But we generally have music before then. I have a small harmonium, a guitar, and a fiddle, and my valet plays well on the flute.

"'Then comes still evening on.'

"The bats and owls come out, and we retire.

"Of weather we have all varieties--the hot and the cool, the rain that rattles on the roof, the wind that makes the Wanderer rock, and the occasional thunderstorm. One dark night last week--we were in a lonely place--I sat out on the _coupe_ till one o'clock--'the wee short hoor ayont the twal'--watching the vivid blue lightning, that curled like fiery snakes among the trees. By the way, I had nothing on but my night-shirt, and a dread spectre I must have appeared to anyone pa.s.sing, seen but for a moment in the lightning's flash, then gone. I marvelled next day that I had caught a slight cold.

"I love little, quiet meadows, Caw. I dote on rural villages, and hate big towns. If the caravan is not lying on the gra.s.s there is no comfort.

"I lay last night in the cosiest meadow ever I have been in. The very rural hamlet of Bunny, Notts, is a quarter of a mile away, but all the world is screened away from me with trees and hedges. I have for meadow-mates two intelligent cows, who can't quite make us out. They couldn't make Bob out either, till in the zeal of his guardianship he got one of them by the tail. There is in this hamlet of three hundred souls one inn--it is tottering to decay--a pound, a police-station, and a church. The church is ever so old, the weather-c.o.c.k has long been blown down, and the clock has stopped for ever. The whole village is about as lively and bright as a farthing candle stuck in an empty beer bottle.

"But here come the horses. Good-bye till we meet.

"Gordon Stables,--

"Ye Gentleman Gipsy."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

THE HUMOURS OF THE ROAD--INN SIGNS--WHAT I AM TAKEN FOR--A STUDY OF FACES--MILESTONES AND FINGER-POSTS--TRAMPS--THE MAN WITH THE IRON MASK-- THE COLLIE DOG--GIPSIES' DOGS--A MIDNIGHT ATTACK ON THE WANDERER.

"I am as free as Nature first made man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the n.o.ble savage ran."

Dryden.

Madly dashing on through the country as cyclists do, on their way to John o' Groats or elsewhere, probably at an average rate of seventy miles a day, neither scenery nor anything else can be either enjoyed or appreciated.

The cyclist arrives in the evening at his inn, tired, dusty, and disagreeably damp as to underclothing. He has now no other wish except to dine and go to bed. Morning sees him in the saddle again, whirring ever onwards to the distant goal.

He is doing a record. Let him. For him the birds sing not in woodland or copse; for him no wild flowers spring; he pauses not to listen to hum of bee or murmur of brooklet, nor to admire the beauties of heathy hills, purple with the glorious heather, or bosky dells, green with feathery larch or silvery birch; nor does he see the rolling cloudscapes, with their rifts of blue between. On--on--on--his way is ever on.

But gipsy-folks, like myself, jogging along at a quiet six-or-seven-miles-an-hour pace, observe and note everything. And it is surprising what trifles amuse us.

Although I constantly took notes from the _coupe_, or from my cycle saddle, and now and then made rough sketches, I can in these pages only give samples from these notes.

A volume could be written on public-house or inn signs, for example.

Another on strange names.

A third on trees.

A fourth on water--lakes, brooklets, rivers, cataracts, and mill-streams.

A fifth upon faces.

And so on, _ad libitum_.

As to signs, many are curious enough, but there is a considerable amount of sameness about many. You meet Red Lions, White Harts, Kings' Arms, Dukes' Arms, Cricketers' Arms, and arms of all sorts everywhere, and Woolpacks, and Eagles, and Rising Suns, _ad nauseam_.

The sign of a five-barred gate hung out is not uncommon in the Midland Counties, with the following doggerel verse:--

"This gate hangs well, And hinders none; Refresh and pay, And travel on."

Although the Wanderer is nearly always taken for what she is--a private carriage on a large scale--still it is amusing sometimes to note what I am mistaken for, to wit:--