“Which means, I think, that go or stay
Affects you nothing, either way.”
“And that is where Parker sleeps.”
We craned our necks, and, stooping low, saw beneath the vehicle a
parasitic square box like a huge barnacle fixed to the bottom of the
van. A box about four feet by two. The door of it was open, and Parker's
bedfellows--two iron buckets and a sack of potatoes--stood confessed.
“Oh yes--very nice,” we murmured.
“Oh, it's awfully jolly!” said the host-in-himself.
We looked at Parker, who was peeling potatoes on the off-shaft--Parker,
six feet two, with a soldier's bearing--and we drifted off into thought.
“And who drives?” we asked, with an intelligent interest.
“Oh, Parker. And we do all the rest, you know.”
It was seven o'clock in the evening when we joined the caravan, in a
stackyard on the outskirts of an Eastern county town.
“That's 'im--that's Lord George Sanger,” was said of the writer by one
of the crowd of small boys assembled at the stackyard gate. A travelling
menagerie and circus was advertised in a somewhat “voyant” manner on
the town walls, and a fancied resemblance to the aristocratic manager
thereof accredited us with an honourable connection in the enterprise.
“When do you open?” inquired an intelligent spectator, anxious to show
savoir faire.
“See small handbills,” replied the host-in-himself, with equal courtesy.
“'Oo are yer, at any rate?” inquired an enlightened voter.
“Who are YOU?” we replied with spirit; and, passing through the gate, we
closed it to keep out the draught. Then we paid a domiciliary visit, and
were duly shown Parker's apartments.
In outward appearance the caravan suggested an overgrown
bathing-machine. The interior resembled the cabin of a yacht. The walls
were gaily decorated with painting on the panels; flowers bloomed in
vases fixed upon the wall; two prettily curtained windows--one a bay,
the other flat--gave a view of the surrounding country. At the forward
end, against the bulkhead, so to speak, was a small but enterprising
chest of drawers, and above it a large looking-glass which folded
down, developed legs, and owned to the soft impeachment of being a bed.
Beneath the starboard window a low and capacious sofa, combining the
capacity of a locker. Under the port window was fixed a table against
the bulkhead, where four people could and did dine sumptuously. When
en voyage and between meals, charts, maps, and literature littered this
table pleasantly. A ship's clock hung over it, and a corner cupboard
did its duty in the port quarter. A heavy plush curtain closed off the
kitchen and pantry, which were roomy and of marvellous capacity. Then
the back door--in halves--and the back step, brassbound, treacherous.
In front there was a little verandah with supporting columns of bamboo.
Here we usually sat when travelling--Parker in the right-hand
corner handling the ribbons of the tandem cart-horses with skill and
discretion.
As dinner was not ready, we proceeded to pitch the small tent wherein
the two men were to sleep. It was a singular tent, with a vast number of
pendent ropes which became entangled at the outset. We began with zeal,
but presently left the ropes and turned our attention to the pegs. These
required driving in with a wooden mallet and a correct eye. Persons
unaccustomed to such work strike the peg on one side--the mallet goes
off at a tangent and strikes the striker with force upon the shin-bone.
Finally Parker said he would put up the tent “by'n-by.”
There was a Bedlington terrier--Parker's dog--attached (literally) to
the caravan. He was tied to one of the bamboo columns on the forecastle,
and when Parker absented himself for long he usually leaped off the
platform and sought death by strangulation--this we discovered later.
When we abandoned the tent we thought we would cheer up the dog.
“Don't touch him, sir; he'll bite you,” said Parker.
Of course we touched him; no man who respects himself at all is ready
to admit that a dog bites HIM. It was wonderful how that dog and Parker
understood each other. But the bite was not serious.
At last dinner was ready, and we are prepared to take any horrid oath
required that no professional cook could set before a king potatoes more
mealy. This only, of all the items in the menu, is mentioned, because
where potatoes are good the experienced know that other things will
never be amiss.
We waited on ourselves, and placed the dirty dishes, plates, and forks
upon the back step, where Parker replaced them in a few minutes, clean.
“Oh!” exclaimed the hostess-in-herself, about 10 p.m., when we were
smoking the beatific pipe, “by the way--Parker's dinner!”
In response to united shouts Parker appeared, and learned with apparent
surprise that he had omitted to dine. He looked pale and worn, and told
us that he had been blowing out the air-beds. At eleven o'clock we two
men left the ladies and went out into the cold moonlight, where our tent
looked remarkably picturesque. Of course we fell over a tent-peg each,
and the host lost his watchkey. Parker came forward--dining--to explain
where the ropes were, and fell over one himself, losing a piece of cold
boiled beef in the grass. We hunted for it with a lucifer match. Its
value was enhanced by the knowledge that when the bed was shut down
and had developed its legs the larder was inaccessible. After some time
Parker discovered that the dog had been let loose and had found the
beef some moments before. He explained that it was a singular dog and
preferred to live by dishonesty. Unstolen victuals had for him no zest.
He added that the loss was of no consequence, as he never had been very
keen on that piece of beef. We finally retired into the tent, and left
Parker still at work completing several contracts he had undertaken to
carry through “by'n-by.” He said he preferred doing them overnight, as
it was no good getting up BEFORE five on these dark autumnal mornings.
As an interior the tent was a decided success. We went inside and hooked
the flap laboriously from top to bottom. Then we remembered that the
host's pyjamas were outside. He undid two hooks only and attempted to
effect a sortie through the resultant interstice. He stuck. The position
was undignified, and conducive to weak and futile laughter. At last
Parker had to leave the washing-up of the saucepans to come to the
rescue, while the dog barked and imagined that he was attending a
burglary.
It was nearly midnight before we made our first acquaintance with an
air-bed, and it took us until seven o'clock the next morning to get on
to speaking terms with it. The air-bed, like the Bedlington terrier,
must be approached with caution. Its manner is, to say the least of it,
repellent. Unless the sleeper (save the mark!) lies geometrically in the
centre, the air rushes to one side, and the ignorant roll off the other.
If there were no bedclothes one could turn round easily, but the least
movement throws the untucked blanket incontinently into space, while the
instability of the bed precludes tucking in. Except for these and a few
other drawbacks, the air-bed may safely be recommended.
The next morning showed a white frost on the grass, and washing in the
open, in water that had stood all night in a bucket, was, to say the
least of it, invigorating. Parker browned our boots, put a special edge
of his own upon our razors, attended to the horses, oiled the wheels,
fetched the milk, filled the lamps of the paraffin stove, bought a
gallon of oil, and carried a can of water from a neighbouring farm
before breakfast, just by way--he explained--of getting ready to start
his day's work.
An early start had been projected, but owing to the fact that after
breakfast Parker had to beat the carpet, wash the dishes, plates, cups
and saucers, knives and forks, and his own face, strike the tent, let
the air out of the air-beds, roll up the waterproof sheets, clean the
saucepans, groom the horses, ship the shafts, send off a parcel from
the station, buy two loaves of bread, and thank the owner of the
stackyard--owing, I say, to the fact that Parker had these things to
accomplish while we “did the rest,” it was eleven o'clock before all
hands were summoned to get “her” out of the narrow gateway. This was
safely accomplished, by Parker, while we walked round, looked
knowingly at the wheels, sternly at the gate-posts, and covertly at the
spectators.
Then we clambered up, the host-in-himself cracked the whip, Parker
gathered up his reins.
“Come up, Squire! Come up, Nancy!”
And the joy of the caravaneer was ours.
This joy is not like the joy of other men. For the high-road, the
hedgerows, the birds, the changing sky, the ever-varying landscape,
belong to the caravaneer. He sits in his moving home and is saturated
with the freedom of the gipsy without the haunting memory of the police,
which sits like Care on the roof of the gipsy van. Book on lap, he
luxuriates on the forecastle when the sun shines and the breeze blows
soft, noting idly the passing beauty of the scene, returning peaceably
to the printed page. When rain comes, as it sometimes does in an English
summer, he goes inside and gives a deeper attention to the book, while
Parker drives and gets wet. Getting wet is one of Parker's duties. And
through rain and sunshine he moves on ever, through the peaceful and
never dull--the incomparable beauty of an English pastoral land. The
journey is accomplished without fatigue, without anxiety; for the end of
it can only be the quiet corner of a moor, or some sleepy meadow. Speed
is of no account--distance immaterial. The caravaneer looks down with
indifference upon the dense curiosity of the smaller towns; the larger
cities he wisely avoids.
The writer occupied the humble post of brakesman--elected thereto in all
humility by an overpowering majority. The duties are heavy, the glory
small. A clumsy vehicle like a caravan can hardly venture down the
slightest incline without a skid under the wheel and a chain round the
spoke. This necessitates the frequent handling of a heavy piece of
iron, which is black and greasy at the top of a hill, and red-hot at the
bottom.
A steep hill through the town dispelled the Lord George Sanger illusion
at one fell blow, the rustic-urban mind being incapable of conceiving
that that self-named nobleman could demean himself to the laying of the
skid.
Of the days that followed there remains the memory of pleasant sunny
days and cool evenings, of the partridge plucked and cleaned by the
roadside, fried deliciously over the paraffin flame, amidst fresh butter
and mushrooms with the dew still on them. We look back with pleasure
to the quiet camp in a gravel-pit on a hill-top far from the haunts
of men--to the pitching of the tent by moonlight in a meadow where the
mushrooms gleamed like snow, to be duly gathered for the frying-pan
next morning by the host-in-himself, and in pyjamas. Nor are the sterner
sides of caravan life to be forgotten--the calamity at the brow of a
steep hill, where a nasty turn made the steady old wheeler for once lose
his head and his legs; the hard-fought battle over a half-side of bacon
between the Bedlington terrier and the writer when that mistaken dog
showed a marked preference for the stolen Wiltshire over the partridge
bone of charity.
And there are pleasant recollections of friends made, and, alas! lost so
soon; of the merry evening in a country house, of which the hospitable
host, in his capacity of justice of the peace, gave us short shrift
in the choice between the county gaol and his hospitality. Unless we
consented to sleep beneath his roof and eat his salt, he vowed he would
commit us for vagabonds without visible means of support. We chose the
humiliation of a good dinner and a sheeted bed. The same open-handed
squire hung partridges in our larder, and came with us on the forecastle
to pilot us through his own intricate parish next day.
Also came the last camp and the last dinner, at which the writer
distinguished himself, and the host-in-himself was at last allowed
to manipulate (with accompanying lecture) a marvellous bivouac-tin
containing a compound called beef a la mode, which came provided with
its own spirits of wine and wick, both of which proved ineffectual to
raise the temperature of the beef above a mediocre tepidity. Parker,
having heard that the remains of this toothsome dish were intended for
his breakfast, wisely hid it with such care that the dog stole it and
consumed it, with results which cannot be dwelt upon here.
Of the vicissitudes of road travel we recollect but little. The
incipient sea-sickness endured during the first day has now lost its
sting; the little differences about the relative virtues of devilled
partridge and beef a la mode are forgotten, and only the complete
novelty, the heedless happiness of it all, remains. We did not even
know the day of the week or the date; which ignorance, my masters, has a
wealth of meaning nowadays.
“Date--oh, ask Parker!” we would say.
And Parker always knew.