The Cruise of the Land-Yacht "Wanderer" Part 44

"When the spring stirs my blood With the instincts of travel, I can get enough _exercise_ On my Marlborough tricycle."

--Although not metre, it would have been to the point. But the poet did not, so there we are. Nevertheless, the Marlborough is the cycle I have bestridden during my tour this summer, and a sweet wee thing it is. In my caravan tour of 1885 it was the Ranelagh Club I had as tender to the Wanderer, also a good one.

But really, without a cycle, one would sometimes feel lost in caravan travelling. The Wanderer is so large that she cannot turn on narrow roads, so that on approaching a village, where I wish to stay all night, I find it judicious to stop her about a quarter of a mile out and tool on, mounted on the Marlborough, to find out convenient quarters. Then a signal brings the Wanderer on.

Another advantage of having a tender is this. In narrow lanes your valet rides on ahead, and if there really be no room for a trap to pa.s.s us, he warns any carriage that may chance to be coming our way.

Take, for example, that ugly climb we had when pa.s.sing through Slochmuichk, in the Grampians (see ill.u.s.tration). My valet was on ahead, round the corner and on the outlook for coming vehicles, and so had anyone hove in sight a probable accident would have been avoided.

Again, when pa.s.sing through a town where board schools with their busy bees of boys are numerous, my valet, on the Marlborough tender, comes riding up behind, and accordingly the bees do not have a chance of sticking on to the carriage.

Tramps will, at times, get up and try the drawers behind, but whenever I see a suspicious gang of these worthless loafers, a signal brings the tender flying back, and thus robbery is prevented.

I had the utmost satisfaction once this year in punishing some country louts. Butler, my valet, was innocently riding on about a hundred yards ahead, and no sooner had he pa.s.sed than the three blackguards commenced stone-throwing. They had no idea then the cycle belonged to the caravan. They had soon after though. I slid quietly off the _coupe_, whip in hand, and for several seconds I enjoyed the most health-giving exercise. Straight across the face and round the ears I hit as hard as I knew how to. One escaped Scot-free, but two tumbled in the ditch and howled aloud for mercy, which I generously granted--after I got tired.

The beauty of the attack was in its suddenness, and those roughs will remember it to their dying day.

But the main pleasure in possessing a cycle lies in the opportunities you have of seeing lovely bits of scenery, and quaint queer old villages, and quaint queer old people, quite out of the beaten track of your grand tour. And it _is_ a pleasure to have a long quiet ride through woods and flowery lanes, of a summer's evening, after having been in the caravan all day long.

Just let me pick one extract from a book I wrote last year, describing cycling in connection with my grand tour.

["_Rota Vitae_, The Cyclist's Guide to Health and Rational Enjoyment."

Published by Messrs. Iliffe and Sturney, 98 Fleet Street, London.]

The little work is really a bombsh.e.l.l, as ancient divines used to call their tracts, aimed at the senseless making of records by cyclists who go flying from one end of the kingdom to the other, and come back as wise as they went, and infinitely more tired.

Haddington and round it.

Everywhere you go around Haddington, you will be charmed with the character and beauty of the scenery, and its great variety.

Inland, are there not grand old hills and wild woodlands, lonely straths and glens, and splendid sheets of water? Is there not, too, the finest tree scenery that exists anywhere in Scotland? Yes! and the very wild flowers and hedgerows themselves would repay one for all the toil incurred in rattling over somewhat stony roads, and climbing lofty braelands. Then, towards the east, you come in sight of the sea itself--the ever-beautiful, ever-changing sea. Go farther east still, go to the coast itself, and you will find yourself among such rock scenery as can hardly be beaten, expect by that in Skye or the Orkneys.

When tired of wandering on the sh.o.r.e, and, if a naturalist, studying and admiring the thousand-and-one strange objects around you, why, you may go and hobn.o.b with some of the fisher folks--male or female, take your choice--they will amuse, ay, and mayhap instruct you, while some of the oldest of them will tell you tales of the old smuggling days, and life in the caves, that will heat anything you ever read in books.

If you should stay at c.o.c.kburnspath all night you will not forget to visit the seash.o.r.e and the caves. Those caves have a history, too; they were connected with the troublesome times of "auld lang syne," and later still, they came in remarkably handy for bold smugglers, who, before the days of smart revenue cutters, made use of them as temporary storehouses when running a cargo on sh.o.r.e.

How lovely the sea looks on a summer's day from the hills around here!

How enchanting the woods! How wild! How quiet! You will be inclined to live and linger among scenery such as this, book in hand, perhaps, on a bank of wild thyme and bluebells, and if you do notice some blue-coated bicyclist, with red perspiring face and dusty _tout ensemble_, speeding past on his way to John-o'-Groat's, how you will pity him! Farther west is the romantic Dungla.s.s Dene, which you will visit without fail. Says Scott:

"The cliffs here rear their haughty head High o'er the river's darksome bed; Here trees to every crevice clung, And o'er the dell their branches hung: And there, all splintered and uneven, The shivered rocks ascend to heaven; Oft, too, the ivy swathed their breast, And wreathed their garland round their crest; Or from the spires bade loosely flare Its tendrils in the summer air."

The most romantic parts of Scotland which may be visited by the caravannist, with his tricycle as tender, are:--

I. The counties of Barns, Hogg, and Scott (comprising all the s.p.a.ce betwixt a line drawn from Edinburgh to Glasgow and the Tweed).

II. The Grampian Wilds.

III. The Perthshire Highlands.

IV. The Valley of the Dee.

V. The Valley of the Don.

VI. The sea coast from Edinburgh to Fraserburgh, and west as far as Inverness itself.

Coming south now to England, I must permit the tourist himself to choose his own headquarters. I shall merely mention the most healthy and interesting districts.

I. The Lake Country.

II. The Yorkshire District (most bracing and interesting).

III. The Peak District of Derbyshire.

IV. The Midland District.

V. The East Coasts.

VI. North Wales (centre, probably Bala).

VII. South Wales.

VIII. South Devon.

IX. South Cornwall.

X. Jersey (Saint Heliers).

I should also mention both Orkney and Shetland, these islands are healthy and bracing.

In both the last-named districts riding will be found practical, but boating excursions will rival the tricycle. Fishing and shooting, and walking among the moorlands and hills, combine to render a holiday in either the Orkneys or Shetland Islands a most enjoyable one.

Both at Kirkwall and Lerwick fairly good hotels are to be found, and respectable lodgings, while living is as cheap as anyone could desire.

NB--An ordinary-sized caravan can be taken by sea, but take my advice, never put it on board a train.

CHAPTER THIRTY.

HINTS TO WOULD-BE CARAVANNISTS.

"We live to learn ilka day, The warld wide's the best o' skools, Experience too, so auld folks say, Is just the jade for teachin' fools."

Nemo.

I.

First catch your hare. That is, get your caravan.

"Oh!" I think I hear some one say, "I shall hire one." Take _Punch's_ advice to people about to marry--"don't."