The Cruise of the Land-Yacht «Wanderer»: or, Thirteen Hundred Miles in my Caravan

Berwick-on-Tweed, I have been told more than once, belongs neither to Scotland nor to England. It is neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring. It is a county by itself. My royal mistress ought therefore to be called Queen of Great Britain, Berwick, and Ireland. But I will have it thus: Berwick is part and parcel of Scotland. Tell me not of English laws being in force in the pretty town; I maintain that the silvery Tweed is the natural dividing line ’twixt England and the land of mountain and flood.

Chapter Seventeen.

Scenes in Berwick – Border Marriages – Bonnie Ayton

“Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,Who never to himself hath said,    ‘This is my own, my native land;’Whose heart has ne’er within him burnedAs home his weary footsteps, turned    From wandering on a foreign strand?”

These lines naturally rang through my mind as I rode on my cycle over the old bridge of Tweed. The caravan was a long way behind, so after getting fairly into Berwick I turned and recrossed the bridge, and when I met the Wanderer I gave the tricycle up to Foley, my worthy valet and secretary, for I knew that he too wanted to be able to say in future that he had ridden into Scotland.

Yes, the above lines kept ringing through my mind, but those in the same stirring poem that follow I could not truthfully recite as yet —

“Oh! Caledonia, stern and wild,Nurse meet for a poetic child;Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,Land of the mountain and the flood.”

– Because round Berwick the scenery is not stern and wild, and though there may be roaring floods, the mountains hold pretty far aloof.

Through narrow archways, and up the long, steep streets of this border town, toiled the Wanderer. We called at the post-office and got letters, and went on again, seeking in vain for a place of rest. We were nearly out of the town, when, on stopping for a few minutes to breathe the horses, I was accosted by a gentleman, and told him my wants.

Ten minutes afterwards the great caravan lay comfortably in a pork-curer’s yard, and the horses were knee-deep in straw in a neighbouring stable.

A German it is who owns the place. Taking an afternoon walk through his premises, I was quite astonished at the amount of cleanliness everywhere displayed. Those pigs are positively lapped in luxury; of all sorts and sizes are they, of all ages, of all colours, and of all breeds, from the long-snouted Berkshire to the pug-nosed Yorker, huddled together in every attitude of innocence. Here are two lying in each other’s arms, so to speak, but head and tail. They are two strides long, and sound asleep, only dreaming, and grunting and kicking a little in their dreams. I wonder what pigs do dream about? Green fields, perhaps, hazel copses, and falling nuts and acorns. The owner of this property came in, late in the evening, and we had a pleasant chat for half an hour. About pigs? Yes, about pigs principally – pigs and politics.

Probably no town in the three kingdoms has a wilder, more chequered, or more romantic history than the once-circumvallated Berwick-on-Tweed. How far back that history dates is somewhat of a mystery, more in all likelihood than a thousand years, to the days of Kenneth the Second of Scotland. He it was, so it is written, who first made the Tweed the boundary between the two countries. Is it not, however, also said that the whole country north of Newcastle properly belongs to Caledonia? However this may be, Berwick was a bone of contention and a shuttlecock for many a century. Scores of fearful battles were fought in and around it; many a scene of carnage and massacre has its old bell-tower looked down upon; ay, and many a scene of pomp and pageantry as well.

“It is a town,” says an old writer, “that has been the delight, nay, but also the ransom of kings – a true Helena, for which many bloody battles have been fought; it has been lost and regained many times within the compass of a century of years, held in the hands of one kingdom for a time, then tossed by the other – a ball that never found rest till the advent of the Union.”

Very little, I found, remained of its ancient castle, only a crumbling corner or two, only a few morsels of mouldering ruin, which makes one sad to think of.

The atmosphere is not over pure, and there is an all-pervading odour of fried fresh herrings, which a starving man might possibly relish.

I saw much of Berwick, but that much I have no space here to describe.

Yet I would earnestly advise tourists to make this town their headquarters for a few weeks, and then to make excursions up the Tweed and into the romantic land of Scott and Hogg, the bard of Ettrick.

Indeed, the places of interest in this border country that lie on both sides of the Tweed are almost too numerous to be mentioned. Past the Ladies’ Well you would go on your journey up stream, and there you would probably stop to drink, getting therefrom a cup that in reality cheers, but inebriates not. If an invalid, you might drink of this well for weeks, and perhaps continue your journey feeling in every vein and nerve the glad health-blood flowing free, feeling indeed that you had obtained a new lease of life. Onward you would go, pausing soon to look at the beautiful chain bridge, the tree-clad banks, and the merry fisher-boats.

Etal you would visit, and be pleased with its quiet beauty, its old castle on the banks of the smooth-flowing Till, and its cottages and gardens, its peace-loving inhabitants and happy children.

You would not miss Wooler, if only for the sake of the river and mountain scenery around it.

Nor Chillingham, with its parks of wild cattle, though you would take care to keep clear of the maned bulls.

If a Scot, while gazing on the battlefield of Flodden sad and melancholy thoughts would arise in your mind, and that mournful but charming song “The Flowers of the Forest” would run through your memory —

“I’ve seen Tweed’s silver stream,Glittering in the sunny beam,Grow drumlie and dark as it rolled on its way.O fickle fortune, why this cruel sporting?O, why thus perplex us poor sons of a day?Thy frowns cannot fear me,Thy smiles cannot cheer me,For the Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.”(By the Flowers of the Forest he means the Scottish army at Flodden.)

The village of Norham would calm and delight an invalid, however nervous he might be, and the tree-foliage, the flowery sward, the grand old castle ruin once seen on a summer’s day, or even in the quiet summer’s gloaming, could never be forgotten.

Need I mention Floors Castle, Kelso Abbey, Melrose Abbey, or the abbeys of Jedburgh and romantic Dryburgh? Scott says —

“He who would see Melrose arightMust see it by the pale moonlight.”

The same may be said about Dryburgh too.

Just a word about Saint Abb’s Head, then I’ll put my horses to, and the Wanderer shall hurry on northwards ho!

Here were the nunnery and chapel of Saint Abb, the ruins of the former still to be seen on the top of precipitous cliffs that stand out into the sea. Go, visit Saint Abb’s on a stormy day, when the wild waves are dashing on the rocks, and the sea-birds screaming around. A feeling of such awe will steal over you as probably you never felt before.

On the 17th of July, about 2:30 pm, the Wanderer rolled out of Berwick, and at four o’clock we crossed the undisputed line which divides Scotland from sister England.

There are two old cottages, one at each side of the road. This is Lamberton.

Once there was a toll here, and here clandestine marriages used to be performed by priests, the last of whom died from an accident some time ago.

I was told I would see a sign pointing out the house for border marriages, but probably it has been removed. These border marriages were considered a saving in money and in time. The priests were not slow in looking out for custom, and would even suggest marriage to likely couples. One priest is said to have united no less than one thousand five hundred.

An old lady came out from the door of one of the cots. I asked her civilly, and I hope pleasantly, if she would marry either my coachman or my valet.

She said no, she kept hens, and they were care and trouble enough.

I found some ginger-ale in the cheffonier, and had it out, and we all drank —

“Here’s a health, bonnie Scotland, to thee.”

Then I got the guitar, and sang as the horses trotted merrily on, with music in their footsteps, music in every jingle of their harness, and poetry in their proudly tossing manes.

The scenery around us was pleasant enough, but strange. Of the land we could not see half a mile in any direction, for the scenery was a series of great round knolls, or small hills, cultivated to the top, but treeless and bare. It put me in mind of being in the doldrums in the tropics, every knoll or hill representing an immense smooth wave.

The sea, close down on our right beneath the green-topped beetling cliffs, was as blue as ever I had known it to be.

We stopped for a few minutes to gaze and admire.

There was a stiff breeze blowing, that made the Wanderer rock like a ship in a sea-way. There were the scream of gulls, the cawing of rooks, and the whistling of the wind through the ventilators, and the whispering of the waves on the beach beneath the cliffs, but no other sound to break the evening stillness.

Within two miles of Ayton the road sweeps inland, and away from the sea, and a beautiful country bursts all at once upon the view.

On this evening the sun’s rays slanted downwards from behind great clouds, lighting up the trees and the hills, but causing the firs and spruces that were in shadow to appear almost black.

Ayton Castle was passed on the right, just before we crossed the bridge and rattled into the sweet wee town of Ayton itself. The castle is a modern house of somewhat fantastic appearance, but placed upon the braeland there, among the woods, it looks charming, and the braeland itself is a cloudland of green.

Ayton is placed in a lovely valley on the River Eye, which goes wimpling and winding round it. The town itself is pretty, rural, quaint, and quiet. I do wonder if it is a health resort or not, or whether turtle-doves go there to spend the honeymoon.

If they do not they ought to.

The landlord of the hotel where I put my horses, like myself, came from the far north; he soon found me a stand for the Wanderer, a quiet corner in a farmer’s field, where we lay snug enough.

Towards sunset about ten waggon loads of happy children passed by. They had been at some fête or feast. How they did laugh and crow when they saw the great caravan, and how they did wave their green boughs and cheer!

What else could I do but wave my hat in return? which had the effect of making them start to their feet and shout till the very welkin rang, and the woods of bonnie Ayton re-echoed the sound.

Reader, a word here parenthetically. I was not over-well when I started from home just one month ago. I got up from “the drudgery of the desk’s dull wood” to start on my tour. Now I am hard in flesh, and I have the power to enjoy life as one ought to. Here is an extract from my diary of to-day written on the road:

“How brightly the sun is shining. What a delightful sensation of perfect freedom possesses me! I cannot be too thankful to God for this the most enjoyable of all travels or outings I have ever had during a somewhat chequered career. It would hardly be too much to say that at this moment I feel perfectly happy and content, and that is surely saying a deal in a world like this.”

Chapter Eighteen.

The Journey to Dunbar – A Rainy Day

“I lay upon the headland height and listened    To the incessant sobbing of the sea        In caverns under me,And watched the waves that tossed and fled and glistened,    Until the rolling meadows of amethyst        Melted away in mist.”Longfellow.

July 18th.

We make an early start this morning. The horses are in, and we are out of the field before eight o’clock. We have a long journey before us – three-and-twenty miles to Dunbar – and do it we must.

It is raining in torrents; every hilltop is wrapped in mist as in a gauze veil. The country is fertile, but trees and hedges are dripping, and if the hills are high, we know it not, seeing only their foundations.

About four miles on, the road enters a beautiful wood of oak, through which the path goes winding. There is clovery sward on each side, and the trees almost meet overhead.

Some six miles from Co’burn’s path we stop at a small wayside grocery to oil the wheel-caps, which have got hot. I purchase here the most delicious butter ever I tasted for ten pence a pound. The rain has ceased, and the breaking clouds give promise of a fine day.

I inquire of a crofter how far it is to Inverness.

“Inverness?” he ejaculates, with eyes as big as florins. “Man! it’s a far cry to Inverness.”

On again, passing for miles through a pretty country, but nowhere is there an extensive view, for the hills are close around us, and the road is a very winding one. It winds and it “wimples” through among green knolls and bosky glens; it dips into deep, deep dells, and rises over tree-clad steeps.

This may read romantic enough, but, truth to tell, we like neither the dips nor the rises.

But look at this charming wood close on our right, a great bank of sturdy old oaks and birches, and among them wild roses are blooming – for even here in Scotland the roses have not yet deserted us. Those birken trees, how they perfume the summer air around us! From among the brackens that grow beneath, so rank and green, rich crimson foxglove bells are peeping, and a thousand other flowers make this wild bank a thing of beauty. Surely by moonlight the fairies haunt it and hold their revels here.

We pass by many a quiet and rural hamlet, the cottages in which are of the most primitive style of architecture, but everywhere gay with gardens, flowers, and climbing plants. It does one good to behold them. Porches are greatly in vogue, very rustic ones, made of fir-trees with the bark left on, but none the less lovely on that account.

Here is the porch of a house in which surely superstition still lingers, for the porch, and even the windows, are surrounded with honeysuckle and rowan. (Rowan, or rantle tree, – the mountain ash.)

“Rantle tree and wood-binTo haud the witches on come in.”(To keep the witches out.)

The mists have cleared away.

We soon come to a high hill overtopped by a wood. There are clearings here and there in this wood, and these are draped with purple heath, and just beneath that crimson patch yonder is a dark cave-like hole. That is the mouth of a loathsome railway tunnel. There may be a people-laden train in it now. From my heart I pity them. They are in the dark, we in the sunshine, with the cool breeze blowing in our faces, and as free as the birds. We are on the hill; they are in the hole.

As we near Co’burn’s path the scenery gets more and more romantic. A peep at that wondrous tree-clad hill to the right is worth a king’s ransom. And the best of it is that to-day we have all the road to ourselves.

I stopped by a brook a few minutes ago to cull some splendid wild flowers. A great water-rat (bank-vole) eyed me curiously for a few moments, then disappeared with a splash in the water as if he had been a miniature water-kelpie. High up among the woods I could hear the plaintive croodling of the cushie-doo, or wild pigeon, and Dear me, on a thorn-bush, the pitiful “Chick-chick-chick-chick-chee-e-e” of the yellow-hammer. But save these sweet sounds all was silent, and the road and country seemed deserted. Where are our tourists? where our health and pleasure-seekers? “Doing” Scotland somewhere on beaten tracks, following each other as do the wild geese.

We climb a hill; we descend into a deep and wooded ravine, dark even at midday, cross a most romantic bridge, and the horses claw the road as they stagger up again.

A fine old ruined castle among the pinewoods. It has a story, which here I may not tell.

If ever, reader, you come this way, visit Pease Dene and the bridge. What a minglement is here of the beautiful in art and the awesome in nature!

Are you fond of history? Well, here in this very spot, where the Wanderer rests for a little time, did Cromwell, with his terrible battle-cry, “The Lord of hosts,” defeat the Scottish Covenanters. It was a fearful tulzie; I shudder when I look round and think of it.

“Drive on, John, drive on.”

All round Co’burn’s path is a wild land of romance. But here is the hamlet itself.

The inn – there is but one – stands boldly by the roadside; the little village itself hides upon a wooded braeland away behind.

“Is it a large village?” I inquired.

“No,” was the canny Scotch reply, “not so vera large. It is just a middlin’ bit o’ a village.”

So I found it when I rode round, a very middling bit of a village indeed.

The shore is about half a mile from the road. It is bounded by tall steep cliffs, and many of these are pierced by caves. The marks of chisels are visible on their walls, and in troublous times they were doubtless the hiding-places of unfortunate families, but more recently they were used by smugglers, concerning which the hills about here, could they but speak, would tell many a strange story.

Dined and baited at Co’burn’s path, and started on again. And now the rain began to come down in earnest – Scotch rain, not Scotch mist, rain in continuous streams that fell on the road with a force that caused it to rebound again, and break into a mist which lay all along the ground a good foot deep.

Nothing could touch us in our well-built caravan, however; we could afford to look at the rain with a complacency somewhat embittered with pity for the horses.

The country through which we are now passing is beautiful, or would be on a fine day. It is a rolling land, and well-treed, but everything is a blur at present, and half hidden by the terrible rain.

When we reached Dunbar at last, we found the romantic and pretty town all astir. The yeomanry had been holding their annual races, and great was the excitement among both sexes, despite the downpour.

It was an hour or two before I could find a place to stand in. I succeeded at last in getting on to the top of the west cliff, but myself and valet had to work hard for twenty minutes before we got in here. We chartered a soldier, who helped us manfully to enlarge a gap, by taking down a stone wall and levelling the footpath.

At Dunbar, on this cliff-top, from which there was a splendid view of the ever-changing sea, I lay for several days, making excursions hither and thither, and enjoying the sea-bathing.

(For further notes about pleasant excursions, fishing streams, etc, see my “Rota Vitae; or, Cyclist’s Guide to Health and Rational Enjoyment.” Price 1 shilling. Published by Messrs Iliffe and Co, Fleet Street, London.)

The ancient town of Dunbar is too well-known to need description by me, although every one is entitled to talk about a place as he finds it. Dunbar, then, let me say parenthetically, is a town of plain substantial stone, with many charming villas around it. It has at least one very wide and spacious street, and it has the ruins of an ancient castle – no one seems to know how ancient; it has been the scene of many a bloody battle, and has a deal otherwise to boast about in a historical way.

I found the people exceedingly kind and hospitable, and frank and free as well.

English people ought to know that Dunbar is an excellent place for bathing, that it is an extremely healthy town, and could be made the headquarters for tourists wishing to visit the thousand and one places of interest and romance around it.

But it was the rock scenery that threw a glamour over me. It is indescribably wild and beautiful here. These rocks are always fantastic, but like the sea that lisps around their feet in fine weather, or dashes in curling wreaths of snow-white foam high over their summits, when a nor’-east storm is blowing, they are, or seem to be, ever-changing in appearance, never quite the same. Only, one rock on the horizon is ever the same, the Bass.

When the tide is back pools are left among the rocks; here bare-legged children dabble and play and catch the strange little fishes that have been left behind.

To see those children, by the way, hanging like bees – in bunches – on the dizzy cliff-tops and close to the edge, makes one’s heart at times almost stand still with fear for their safety.

There is food here for the naturalist, enjoyment for the healthy, and health itself for the invalid. I shall be happy indeed if what I write about the place shall induce tourists to visit this fine town.

On the morning of the 23rd of July we left Dunbar, after a visit from the Provost and some members of the town council. Sturdy chiels, not one under six feet high, and broad and hard in proportion. An army of such men might have hurled Cromwell and all his hordes over the cliffs to feed the skate – that is, if there were giants in those days.

We got out and away from the grand old town just as the park of artillery opened fire from their great guns on their red-flagged targets far out to sea. Fife-shire Militia these soldiers are, under command of Colonel the Hon. – Halket. Mostly miners, sturdy, strong fellows, and, like the gallant officer commanding them, soldierly in bearing.

I fear, however, that the good folks of Dunbar hardly appreciate the firing of big guns quite so close to their windows, especially when a salvo is attempted. This latter means shivered glass, frightened ladies, startled invalids, and maddened dogs and cats. The dogs I am told get into cupboards, and the cats bolt up the chimneys.

The first day of the firing an officer was sent to tell me that the Wanderer was not lying in quite a safe position, as shells sometimes burst shortly after leaving the gun’s mouth. I took my chance, however, and all went well. Alas for poor Hurricane Bob, however! I have never seen a dog before in such an abject state of shivering terror. The shock to his system ended in sickness of a painful and distressing character, and it was one o’clock in the morning before he recovered.

One o’clock, and what a night of gloom it was! The sky over hills and over the ocean was completely obscured, with only here and there a lurid brown rift, showing where the feeble rays of moon and stars were trying to struggle through.

The wind was moaning among the black and beetling crags; far down beneath was the white froth of the breaking waves, while ever and anon from seaward came the bright sharp flash of the summer lightning. So vivid was it that at first I took it for a gun, and listened for the report.

It was a dreary night, a night to make one shiver as if under the shadow of some coming evil.

Chapter Nineteen.

A Day at Pressmannan – The Fight for a Polonie Sausage – In the Haughs of Haddington – Mrs Carlile’s Grave – Genuine Hospitality

“Here springs the oak, the beauty of the grove,Whose stately trunk fierce storms can scarcely move;Here grows the cedar, here the swelling vineDoes round the elm its purple clusters twine;Here painted flowers the smiling gardens bless,Both with their fragrant scent and gaudy dress;    Here the white lily in full beauty grows;    Here the blue violet and the blushing rose.”Blackmore.

Had a gale of wind come on to blow during our stay at Dunbar, our position on the green cliff-top would undoubtedly have been a somewhat perilous one, for the wind takes a powerful hold of the Wanderer. Perhaps it was this fact which caused my illustrious valet and factotum to write some verses parodying the nursery rhyme of “Hush-a-bye baby, upon the tree top.” I only remember the first of these: —

“Poor weary Wanderer on the cliff-top,If the wind blows the carriage will rock,If gale should come on over she’ll fallDown over the cliff, doctor and all.”

Perhaps one of the most pleasant outings I had when at Dunbar was my visit to the beautiful loch of Pressmannan.

I give here a short sketch of it to show that a gentleman gipsy’s life is not only confined to the places to which he can travel in his caravan. The Wanderer is quite a Pullman car, and cannot be turned on narrow roads, while its great height causes overhanging trees to form very serious obstacles indeed.

But I have my tricycle. I can go anywhere on her. Well, but if I want to take a companion with me on some short tour where the Wanderer cannot go, it is always easy to borrow a dogcart, pop Pea-blossom into the shafts, and scud away like the wind. This is what I did when I made up my mind to spend —