“ON THE ROAD” IN THE BRITISH ISLES
At noon the next day I received my wages and a printed certificate
stating that I had been a sailor on the cattle-boat. I kept it, for the
police would surely demand to know my trade while I was tramping through
the countries of Europe.
Tucking my camera into an inside pocket, I struck out along the Clyde
River toward the Highlands of Scotland. I passed through Dumbarton, a
town of factories, and at evening reached Alexandria. A band was
playing. I joined the crowd on the village green, and watched the young
Scots romping and joking, while their elders stood apart in gloomy
silence. A church clock struck nine. The concert ended. The sun was
still well above the horizon. I went on down the highway until, not far
beyond the town, the hills disappeared, and I saw the glassy surface of
a lake, its western end aglow in the light of the drowning sun. It was
Loch Lomond.
By and by the moon rose, casting a pale white shimmer over the Loch and
its little wooded islands. On the next hillside stood a field of
wheat-stacks. I turned into it, keeping well away from the owner’s
house. The straw was fresh and clean, and made a soft bed. But the
bundles of wheat did not protect me from the winds of the Scottish
Highlands. With a feeling that I had not slept soundly, I rose at
daybreak and pushed on.
Two hours of tramping brought me to Luss, a pretty little village on the
edge of Loch Lomond. I hastened to the principal street in search of a
restaurant; but the village was everywhere silent and asleep. Down on
the beach of the Loch a lone fisherman was preparing his tackle. He was
displeased when I said his fellow townsmen were late risers.
“Why, mon, ’tis no late!” he protested; “’tis no more nor five—and a
bonny morning it is, too. But there’s a mist in it,” he complained as he
looked at the sky.
I glanced at the bright morning sun and the unclouded sky. I could see
no mist, nor any sign of rain. Trying to forget my hunger, I stretched
out on the sands to wait for the morning steamer. Ben Lomond, a mountain
I had read of in Scott’s “Lady of the Lake,” stood just across the Loch,
and I had made up my mind to climb it.
About six, a heavy-eyed shopkeeper sold me a roll of bologna and a loaf
of bread. The steamer whistle sounded before I got back to the beach. I
bought a ticket at the wooden wharf, and hurried out to board the
steamer.
A big Scot stepped in front of me and demanded “tup’nce.”
“But I’ve paid my fare,” I said, holding up the ticket.
“Aye, mon, ye hov,” rumbled the native, straddling his legs and
thrusting out his elbows. “Ye hov, mon. But ye hovna paid fer walkin’
oot t’ yon boat on our wharf.”
Ten minutes later I paid again, this time for being allowed to walk off
the boat at Renwardenen.
Plodding through a half mile of heath and marsh, I struck into the
narrow white path that zigzagged up the face of the mountain. The mist
that the fisherman had seen began to settle down, and soon turned to a
drenching rain. For five hours I scrambled upward, slipping and falling
on wet stones and into deep bogs, and coming at last to a broad, flat
rock where the path disappeared. It was the top of old Ben Lomond, a
tiny island surrounded by whirling gray mist. The wind blew so hard that
it almost bowled me off my feet into the sea of fog.
I set off down the opposite slope. In the first stumble down the
mountain I lost my way, and came out upon a boggy meadow, where I
wandered for hours over low hills and through swift streams. Now and
then I scared up a flock of shaggy highland sheep that raced away down
wild looking valleys. There was neither road nor foot-path. For seven
miles I dragged myself, hand over hand, through a thick growth of shrubs
and bushes; and once I fell head first into an icy mountain river before
I reached the highway.
At the foot a new disappointment awaited me. There was a hotel, but it
was of the millionaire-club kind. I turned toward a group of board
shanties at the roadside.
“Can you sell me something to eat?” I inquired of the sour-faced
mountaineer who opened the first door.
“I can no!” he snapped. “Go to the hotel!”
There were freshly baked loaves plainly in sight in the next hovel where
I stopped.
“Have you nothing to eat in the house?” I demanded.
“No, mon; I’m no runnin’ a shop.”
“But you can sell me a loaf of that bread?”
“No!” bellowed the Scot. “We hovna got any. Go to the hotel. Yon’s the
place for tooreests.”
I tried at the other huts; but nobody would sell me any bread. So,
though I had already tramped and climbed twenty-five miles, I struck off
through the sea of mud that passed for a road, toward Aberfoyle, fifteen
miles distant. The rain continued. There was another lake, and then the
road stretched away across a dreary field. I became so weary that I
forgot I was hungry—then so drowsy that I could hardly force my legs to
carry me on. Dusk fell, then darkness. It was past eleven when I
splashed into Aberfoyle, too late to find an open shop. I hunted until I
found an inn, rang the bell until I awoke a servant, and went supperless
to bed.
Late the next morning I hobbled out into the streets of Aberfoyle to the
station, and took the train for Sterling. Two days later, in the early
afternoon, I reached Edinburgh. Following the signs that pointed the way
to the poor man’s section, I brought up in Haymarket Square, a place
well known in history. Many places in Europe that were once the palaces
of kings and queens are the slums of to-day. A crowd of careless-looking
men, in groups and in pairs, sauntered back and forth at the foot of a
statue in the center of the square. One of them, as ragged and uncombed
as his hearers, was making a speech. Another, in his shirt sleeves,
wandered from group to group, trying to sell his coat for the price of a
night’s lodging.
A sorry-looking building in front of me bore the sign: “Edinburgh Castle
Inn. Clean, capacious beds, 6 shillings.”
I went inside, and found the place so dirty that I was glad to escape
again into the street. A big policeman marched up and down with an air
of importance.
“Where shall I find a fairly cheap lodging-house?” I asked him.
“Try the Cawstle Inn h’over there,” replied “Bobby,” grandly waving his
Sunday gloves toward the place I had just left.
“But that place is not clean,” I objected.
“Not clean! Certainly it is clean! There’s a bloomin’ law makes ’em keep
’em clean,” shouted Bobby, glaring at me.
I entered another inn facing the square, but was thankful to escape from
it to the one I had first visited. Here I paid for my lodging, and
passed into the main room. It was furnished with benches, tables, and
several cook-stoves.
Men were crowded around these stoves, getting their own supper. Water,
fuel, and dishes were furnished free to all who had paid their lodging.
On the stoves were sputtering or boiling many kinds of cheap food,
tended by tattered men who handled frying-pans with their coat-tails as
holders, and cut up cabbages or peeled potatoes with knives that had
half-inch layers of tobacco on their blades. Each ate his mixture with
the greatest enjoyment, as soon as it showed the least sign of being
cooked, often without giving it time to cool, as I could tell by the
expression on the faces about me.