question with me whether I should finish my northern tour there and
journey back to the south of England by a different route, or push on
and cross the Grampians at all hazards, take the whole expedition, men,
horses, and caravan, back by train to London, and tour thence down
through the southern counties. The New Forest had always a charm for
me, as all forests have, and I longed to take the Wanderer through it.
So I chose the latter plan, and for sake of the experience I gained--
dark as it was--I do not now regret it.
I ought to say that the officials of all ranks belonging to the railway
(North-Eastern route) were exceedingly kind and considerate, and did all
for my comfort and the safety of the Wanderer that could be done. I
shall never forget the pains Mr Marsters, of Glasgow, took about the
matter, nor that of Mr McLean and others in Inverness.
The wheels were taken off the Wanderer as well as the wheel carriages,
and she was then shipped on to a trolly and duly secured. The _one_
great mistake made was not having springs under her.
Men and horses went on before, and the caravan followed by goods. In
due time I myself arrived in town, and by the aid of a coachmaker and a
gang of hands the great caravan was unloaded, and carefully bolted once
more on her fore and aft carriages. Her beautiful polished mahogany
sides and gilding were black with grime and smoke, but a wash all over
put them to rights.
I then unlocked the back door to see how matters stood there. Something
lay behind the door, but by dint of steady pushing it opened at last.
Then the scene presented to my view beggars description. A more
complete wreck of the interior of a saloon it is impossible to conceive.
The doors of every cupboard and locker had been forced open with the
awful shaking, and their contents lay on the deck mixed up in one
chaotic heap--china, delft, and broken glass, my papers, manuscripts,
and letters, my choicest photographs and best bound books, butter,
bread, the cruets, eggs, and portions of my wardrobe, while the whole
was freely besprinkled with paraffin, and derisively, as it were,
bestrewn with blooming heather and hothouse flowers! Among the litter
lay my little ammunition magazine and scattered matches--safety matches
I need not say, else the probability is there would have been a bonfire
on the line, and no more Wanderer to-day.
It seemed to me to be the work of fiends. It was enough to make an
angel weep. The very rods on which ran the crimson silken hangings of
the skylight windows were wrenched out and added to the pile.
It struck me at first, and the same thought occurred to the goods
manager, that burglars had been at work and sacked the Wanderer.
But no, for nothing was missing.
Moral to all whom it concerns: Never put your caravan on a railway
track.
It took me days of hard work to restore the _status quo ante_.
And all the while it was raining, and the streets covered with mud. The
noise, and din, and dirt around me, were maddening. How I hated London
then! Its streets, its shops, its rattling cabs, its umbrellaed crowds,
the very language of its people. And how I wished myself back again on
the wolds of Yorkshire, among the Northumbrian hills or the Grampian
range--anywhere--anywhere out of the world of London, and feel the
fresh, pure breezes of heaven blowing in my face, see birds, and trees,
and flowers, and listen to the delightful sounds of rural life, instead
of to cockney-murdered English.
Caravans like the Wanderer have no business to be in cities. They ought
to give cities a wide, wide berth, and it will be my aim to do so in
future.
The journey through London was accomplished in safety, though we found
ourselves more than once in a block. When we had crossed over Chelsea
Bridge, however, my spirits, which till now had been far below freezing
point, began to rise, and once upon the common, with dwarf furze
blooming here and there, and crimson morsels of ling (_Erica communis_),
a balmy soft wind blowing, and the sun shining in a sky of blue, I
forgot my troubles, and found myself singing once more, a free and
independent gipsy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
But now to hark back a little. Who should meet me in London, all
unexpectedly as it were, but "mamma"? I mean my children's mother, and
with her came my little daughter Inez! Long flaxen hair hath she, and
big grey wondering eyes, but she is wise in her day and generation.
And Inez had determined in her own mind that she would accompany me on
my tour through England--south, and be the little mistress of the
land-yacht Wanderer.
So mamma left us at Park Lane, and went away home to her other wee
"toddlers." She took with her Polly, the cockatoo. It was a fair
exchange: I had Inez and she had Polly; besides, one parrot is quite
enough in a caravan, though for the matter of that Inie can do the
talking of two.
A few silent tears were dropped after the parting--tears which she tried
to hide from me.
But London sights and wonders are to a child pre-eminently calculated to
banish grief and care, especially when supplemented by an unlimited
allowance of ripe plums and chocolate creams.
Inez dried her eyes and smiled, and never cried again.
But if her cares were ended mine were only commencing, and would not
terminate for weeks to come. Henceforward a child's silvery treble was
to ring through my "hallan," [Scottish, cottage or place of abode] and
little footsteps would patter on my stairs.
I was to bear the onus of a great responsibility. I was to be both "ma"
and "pa" to her, nurse and lady's maid all in one. Might not, I asked
myself, any one or more of a thousand accidents befall her? Might she
not, for instance, catch her death of cold, get lost in a crowd, get run
over in some street, fall ill of pear and plum fever, or off the steps
of the caravan?
I must keep my eye on her by night and by day. I made special
arrangements for her comfort at night. The valet's after-cabin was
requisitioned for extra space, and he relegated to sleep on shore, so
that we and Bob had all the Wanderer to ourselves.
I am writing these lines at Brighton, after having been a week on the
road, and I must record that Inie and I get on well together. She is
delighted with her gipsy tour, and with all the wonders she daily sees,
and the ever-varying panorama that flits dreamlike before her, as we
trot along on our journey. She nestles among rags on the broad _coupe_,
or sits on my knee beside the driver, talking, laughing, or singing all
day long. We never want apples and pears in the caravan--though they
are _given_ to us, not bought--and it is Inie's pleasure sometimes to
stop the Wanderer when she sees a crowd of schoolchildren, pitch these
apples out, and laugh and crow to witness the grand scramble.
But some sights and scenes that present themselves to us on the road are
so beautiful, or so funny, or so queer withal, that merely to laugh or
crow would not sufficiently relieve the child's feelings. On such
occasions, and they are neither few nor far between, she must needs clap
her tiny hands and kick with delight, and "hoo-oo-ray-ay!" till I fear
people must take her for a little mad thing, or a Romany Rye run wild.
Such are the joys of gipsy life from a child's point of view.
She eats well, too, on the road; and that makes me happy, for I must not
let her get thin, you know. Probably she _does_ get a good deal of her
own way.
"You mustn't spoil her," ma said before she left. I'll try not to
forget that next time Inie wants another pineapple, or more than four
ices at a sitting.
My great difficulty, however, is with her hair of a morning. She can do
a good deal for herself in the way of dressing, but her hair--that the
wind toys so with and drives distracted--sometimes is brushed out and
left to float, but is more often plaited, and that is my work.
Well, when a boy, I was a wondrous artist in rushes. Always at home in
woodland, on moor, or on marsh--I could have made you anything out of
them, a hat or a rattle, a basket or creel, or even a fool's cap, had
you chosen to wear one. And my adroitness in rush-work now stands me in
good stead in plaiting my wee witch's hair.
Hurricane Bob is extremely fond of his little mistress. I'm sure he
feels that he, too, has--when on guard--an extra responsibility, and if
he hears a footstep near the caravan at night, he shakes the Wanderer
fore and aft with his fierce barking, and would shake the owner of the
footstep too if he only had the chance.
Our first bivouac after leaving London was in a kindly farmer's
stackyard, near Croydon. His name is M--, and the unostentatious
hospitality of himself, his wife, and daughter I am never likely to
forget.
I will give but one example of it.
"You can stay here as long as you please," he said, in reply to a query
of mine. "I'll be glad to have you. For the bit of hay and straw your
horses have you may pay if you please, and as little as you please, but
for stable room--no."
He would not insult _my_ pride by preventing me from remunerating him
for the fodder, nor must I touch _his_ pride by offering to pay for
stable room.
It was nearly seven o'clock, but a lovely evening, when I reached the
gate of this farmer's fine old house. Almost the first words he said to
me as he came out to meet me on the lawn were these: "Ha! and so the
Wanderer has come at last! I'm as pleased as anything to see you."
He had been reading my adventures in the _Leisure Hour_.
We remained at anchor all next day, and Inez and I went to the Crystal
Palace, and probably no two children ever enjoyed themselves more.
Next day was Saturday, and we started from the farm about eleven, but
owing to a mishap it was two pm before we got clear of the town of
Croydon itself.
The mishap occurred through my own absent-mindedness. I left the
Wanderer in one of the numerous new streets in the outskirts, not far
off the Brighton Road, and walked with Inez about a mile up into the
town to do some shopping.
On returning, a heavy shower, a pelting shower in fact, came on, and so
engrossed was I in protecting my little charge with the umbrella, that
when I at last looked up, lo! we were lost! The best or the worst of it
was that I did not know east from west, had never been in Croydon
before, and had neglected to take the name of the street in which I had
left the Wanderer.
It was a sad fix, and it took me two good hours to find my house upon
wheels.
On through Red Hill, and right away for Horley; but though the horses
were tired and it rained incessantly, it could not damp our spirits. At
the Chequers Inn we found a pleasant landlord and landlady, and a
delightfully quiet meadow in which we spent the Sabbath.
The Chequers Inn is very old-fashioned indeed, and seems to have been
built and added to through many generations, the ancient parts never
being taken down.
Sunday was a delightful day, so still, so quiet, so beautiful. To live,
to exist on such a day as this amid such scenery is to be happy.
_September 7th_.--We are on the road by nine. It is but five-and-twenty
miles to Brighton. If we can do seven-and-twenty among Highland hills,
we can surely do the same in tame domestic England.
But the roads are soft and sorely trying, and at Hand Cross we are
completely storm-stayed by the terrible downpours of rain. I do not
think the oldest inhabitant could have been far wrong when he averred it
was the heaviest he ever could remember.
During a kind of break in the deluge we started, and in the evening
reached the cross roads at Aldbourne, and here we got snugly at anchor
after an eighteen-mile journey.
My little maiden went to sleep on the sofa hours before we got in, and
there she was sound and fast. I could not even wake her for supper,
though on my little table were viands that might make the teeth of a
monk of the olden times water with joyful anticipation.
So I supped alone with Bob.
I spent a gloomy eerisome evening. It was _so_ gloomy! And out of
doors when I dared to look the darkness was profound. The incessant
rattling of the raindrops on the roof was a sound not calculated to
raise one's spirits. I began to take a dreary view of life in general,
indeed I began to feel superstitions. I--
"Papa, dear."
Ha! Inez was awake, and smiling all over. Well, we would have a little
pleasant prattle together, and then to bed. The rattling of the
raindrops would help to woo us to sleep, and if the wind blew the
Wanderer would rock. We would dream we were at sea, and sleep all the
sounder for it.
"Good-night, dearie."
"Good-night, darling papie."
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.
STORM-STAYED AT BRIGHTON--ALONG THE COAST AND TO LYNDHURST--THE NEW
FOREST--HOMEWARDS THROUGH HANTS.
"Dim coasts and cloud-like hills and shoreless ocean,
It seemed like omnipresence! God methought
Had built Himself a temple; the whole world
Seem'd imaged in its vast circumference."
Coleridge.
"Rides and rambles, sports and farming,
Home the heart for ever warming;
Books and friends and ease;
Life must after all be charming,
Full of joys like these."
Tupper.
I love Brighton, and if there were any probability of my ever "settling
down," as it is called, anywhere in this world before the final settling
down, I would just as soon it should be in Brighton as in any place I
know.
It is now the 13th of September, and the Wanderer has been storm-stayed
here for days by equinoctial gales. She occupies a good situation,
however, in a spacious walled enclosure, and although she has been
rocking about like a gun-brig in Biscay Bay, she has not blown over.
As, owing to the high winds and stormy waves, digging on the sands,
gathering shells, and other outdoor amusements have been denied us, we
have tried to make up for it by visiting the theatre and spending long
hours in the Aquarium.
The Aquarium is a dear delightful place. We have been much interested
in the performances of the Infant Jumbo, the dwarf elephant, and no
wonder. He kneels, and stands, and walks, plays a mouth organ, makes
his way across a row of ninepins, and across a bar, balancing himself
with a pole like a veritable Blondin. He plays a street-organ and beats
a drum at the same time; and last, and most wonderful of all, he rides a
huge tricycle, which he works with his legs, steering himself with his
trunk. This infant is not much bigger than a donkey, but has the sense
and judgment of ten thousand donkeys. I should dearly like to go on a
cycling tour with him to John o' Groat's. I believe we would astonish
the natives.
How the wind has been blowing to be sure, and how wild and spiteful the
waves have been; how they have leapt and dashed and foamed, wrecking
everything within reach, and tearing up even the asphalt on the
promenade!
Sunday was a pleasant day, though wind and sea were still high, and on
Monday we made an early start.
It is a muggy, rainy morning, with a strong head wind. The sea is grey
and misty and all flecked with foam, and the country through which we
drive is possessed of little interest. Before starting, however, we
must needs pay a farewell visit to the shore, and enjoy five minutes'
digging in the sand. Then we said,--
"Good-bye, old sea; we will be sure to come back again when summer days
are fine. Good-bye! Ta, ta!"
Shoreham is a quaint and curious, but very far from cleanly little town.
We heard here, by chance, that the storm waves had quite destroyed a
portion of the lower road to Worthing, and so we had to choose the upper
and longer route, which we reached in time for dinner with the kindly
landlord of the Steyne Hotel. If children are a blessing, verily Mr
C--is blessed indeed; he hath his quiver full, and no man deserves it
more.
Worthing, I may as well mention parenthetically, is one of the most
delightful watering-places on the south coast, and I verily believe that
the sun shines here when it does not shine anywhere else in England.
Two dear children (Winnie and Ernie C--) came with us for three miles,
bringing a basket to hold the blackberries they should gather on their
way back.
Winnie was enchanted with this short experience of gipsy life, and
wanted to know when I would return and take her to Brighton. Ernie did
not say much; he was quietly happy.
It broke up a fine afternoon, and now and then the sun shone out, making
the drive to Littlehampton, through the beautiful tree scenery, quite a
delightful one.
Reached Littlehampton-on-Sea by five o'clock, and, seeing no other place
handy, I undid the gate of the cricket-field and drove right in. I then
obtained the address of the manager or secretary, and sent my valet to
obtain leave. I have found this plan answer my purposes more than once.
It is the quickest and the best. It was suggested to me long, long ago
on reading that page of "Midshipman Easy" where that young gentleman
proposes throwing the prisoners overboard and trying them by
court-martial afterwards.
So when Mr Blank came "to see about it" he found the _fait accompli_,
looked somewhat funny, but forgave me.
Littlehampton-on-Sea is a quiet and pleasant watering-place, bracing,
too, and good for nervous people. I am surprised it is not more
popular. It has the safest sea-bathing beach in the world, and is quite
a heaven on earth for young children.
We had a run and a romp on the splendid sands here last night, and I do
not know which of the two was the maddest or the merriest, Hurricane Bob
or his wee mistress. We are down here again this morning for
half-an-hour's digging and a good run before starting.
Now last night the waves were rippling close up to the bathing-machines,
and Bob had a delicious dip. When we left the Wanderer this morning he
was daft with delight; he expected to bathe and splash again. But the
tide is out, and the sea a mile away; only the soft, wet, rippled sands
are here, and I have never in my life seen a dog look so puzzled or
nonplussed as Bob does at this moment.
He is walking about on the sand looking for the sea.
"What _can_ have happened?" he seems to be thinking. "The sea _was_
here last night, right enough. Or can I have been dreaming? Where on
earth _has_ it gone to?"
In the same grounds where the Wanderer lay last night, but far away at
the other end of the field, is another caravan--a very pretty and
clean-looking one. I was told that it had been here a long time, that
the man lived in it with his young wife, supporting her and himself by
playing the dulcimer on the street. A quiet and highly respectable
gipsy indeed.
Delayed by visitors till eleven, when we made a start westward once
again.
'Tis a glorious morning. The sky is brightly blue, flecked with white
wee clouds, a haze on the horizon, with rock-and-tower clouds rising
like snowbanks above it.
The road to Arundel is a winding one, but there are plenty of
finger-posts in various stages of dilapidation. A well-treed country,
too, and highly cultivated. Every three or four minutes we pass a
farm-steading or a cottage near the road, the gardens of the latter
being all ablaze with bright geraniums, hydrangeas, dahlias, and
sunflowers, and all kinds of berried, creeping, and climbing plants.
How different, though, the hedgerows look now from what they did when I
started on my rambles in early summer, for now sombre browns, blues, and
yellows have taken the place of spring's tender greens, and red berries
hang in clusters where erst was the hawthorn's bloom.
The blossom has left the bramble-bushes, except here and there the pink
of a solitary flower, but berries black and crimson cluster on them;
only here and there among the ferns and brackens, now changing to brown,
is the flush of nodding thistle, or some solitary orange flowers, and
even as the wind sweeps through the trees a shower of leaves of every
hue falls around us.
A steep hill leads us down to the valley in which Arundel is situated,
and the peep from this braeland is very pretty and romantic.
The town sweeps up the opposite hill among delightful woodlands, the
Duke of Norfolk's castle, with its flagstaff over the ruined keep, being
quite a feature of the landscape.
We turn to the left in the town, glad we have not to climb that terrible
hill; and, after getting clear of the town, bear away through a fine
beech wood. The trees are already assuming their autumnal garb of dusky
brown and yellow, and sombre shades of every hue, only the general
sadness is relieved by the appearance here and there of a still verdant
wide-spreading ash.
On and on. Up hill and down dell. Hardly a field is to be seen, such a
wildery of woodlands is there on every side. The brackens here are very
tall, and, with the exception of a few dwarf oak, elm, or elder-bushes,
constitute the only undergrowth.
We are out in the open again, on a breezy upland; on each side the road
is bounded by a great bank of gorse. When in bloom in May, how lovely
it must look! We can see fields now, pale yellow or ploughed,
suggestive of coming winter. And farm-steadings too, and far to the
left a well-wooded fertile country, stretching for miles and miles.
Near to Bell's Hut Inn we stop to water, and put the nosebags on. There
is a brush-cart at the door, and waggons laden with wood, and the
tap-room is crowded with rough but honest-looking country folks,
enjoying their midday repast of bread and beer.
The day is _so_ fine, the sun is _so_ bright, and the sward _so_ green,
that we all squat, gipsy-fashion, on the grass, to discuss a modest
lunch. Fowls crowd round us and we feed them. But one steals Foley's
cheese from off his plate, and hen steals it from hen, till the big
Dorking cock gets it, and eats it too. Corn-flower scatters his oats
about, and a feathered multitude surround him to pick them up.
Pea-blossom brings her nosebag down with a vicious thud every now and
then, and causes much confusion among the fowls.
Bob is continually snapping at the wasps.
Bread-and-cheese and ginger-ale are not bad fare on a lovely day like
this, when one has an appetite.
Gipsies always have appetites.
A drunken drover starts off from the inn door without paying for his
dinner. The landlady's daughter gives chase. I offer to lend her Bob.
She says she is good enough for two men like that. And so she proves.
We are very happy.
One's spirits while on the road to a great extent rise and fall with the
barometer.
Chichester seems a delightful old place. But we drove rapidly through
it, only stopping to admire the cross and the cathedral. The former put
me in mind of that in Castle-gate of Aberdeen.
Between Littlehampton and the small town of Botley, which the reader may
notice on the map of Hampshire, we made one night's halt, and started
early next morning.
The view from the road which leads round the bay at Porchester is, even
with the tide back, picturesque. Yonder is the romantic old castle of
Porchester on the right middle distance, with its battlements and ivied
towers; and far away on the horizon is Portsmouth, with its masts, and
chimneys, and great gasworks, all asleep in the haze of this somewhat
sombre and gloomy day.
Porchester--the town itself--could supply many a sketch for the artist
fond of quaintness in buildings, in roofs, picturesque children, and
old-fashioned public-houses. Who, I wonder, drinks all the "fine old
beer," the "sparkling ales," and the "London stout," in this town of
Porchester? Every third house seems an inn.
Through Fareham, where we stopped to admire a beautiful outdoor aviary,
and where a major of marines and his wife possessed themselves of my
little maiden, and gave her cake and flowers enough to set up and
beautify the Wanderer for a week at least.
Botley is one of the quietest, quaintest, and most unsophisticated wee
villages ever the Wanderer rolled into. It is rural in the extreme, but
like those of all rural villages, its inhabitants, if unsophisticated,
are as kind-hearted as any I have ever met.
Botley can boast of nearly half-a-score of public-houses, but it has
only one hotel, the Dolphin, and one butcher's shop.
That milkman who let us into his field was right glad to see the
caravan, which he had read a good deal about, and seemed proud to have
us there, and just as pleased was the honest landlord of the Dolphin to
have our horses. In the good old-fashioned way he invited my little
daughter and me into the cosy parlour behind the bar, where we spent a
few musical hours most enjoyably.