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

A Day at Pressmannan.

I would have preferred going alone on my cycle with a book and my fishing-rod, but Hurricane Bob unfortunately – unlike the infant Jumbo – is no cyclist, and a twenty-miles’ run on a warm summer’s day would have been too much for the noble fellow. Nor could he be left, in the caravan to be frightened out of his poor wits with thundering cannon and bursting shells. Hence Pea-blossom and a light elegant phaeton, with Bob at my feet on his rugs.

We left about ten am, just before the guns began to roar.

The day was warm and somewhat hazy, a kind of heat-mist.

Soon after rattling out of Dunbar we passed through a rural village. We bore away to the right, and now the scenery opened up and became very interesting indeed.

Away beneath us on our right – we were journeying north-west – was a broad sandy bay, on which the waves were breaking lazily in long rolling lines of foam. Far off and ahead of us the lofty and solid-looking Berwick Law could be seen, rising high over the wooded hills on the horizon with a beautiful forest land all between.

Down now through an avenue of lofty beeches and maples that makes this part of the road a sylvan tunnel. We pass the lodge-gates of Pitcox, and in there is a park of lordly deer.

On our left now are immensely large rolling fields of potatoes. These supply the southern markets, and the pomme de terre is even shipped, I believe, from this country to America. There is not a weed to be seen anywhere among the rows, all are clean and tidy and well earthed up.

No poetry about a potato field? Is that the remark you make, dear reader? You should see these even furrows of darkest green, going high up and low down among the hills; and is there any flower, I ask, moch prettier than that of the potato? But there we come to the cosy many-gabled farmhouse itself. How different it is from anything one sees in Yorks or Berkshire, for instance! A modern house of no mean pretensions, built high up on a knoll, built of solid stone, with bay windows, with gardens, lawns, and terraces, and nicely-wooded winding avenues. About a mile farther on, and near to the rural hamlet of Stenton, we stop to gaze at and make conjectures about a strange-looking monument about ten feet high, that stands within a rude enclosure, where dank green nettles grow.

What is it, I wonder? I peep inside the door, but can make nothing of it. Is it the tomb of a saint? a battlefield memorial? the old village well? or the top of the steeple blown down in a gale of wind?

We strike off the main road here and drive away up a narrow lane with a charming hedgerow at each side, in which the crimson sweetbriar-roses mingle prettily with the dark-green of privet, and the lighter green of the holly.

At the top of the hill the tourist may well pause, as we did, to look at the view beneath. It is a fertile country, only you cannot help admiring the woods that adorn that wide valley – woods in patches of every size and shape, woods in rows around the cornfields, woods in squares and ovals, woods upon hills and knolls, and single trees everywhere.

On again, and ere long we catch sight of a great braeland of trees – a perfect mountain of foliage – worth the journey to come and see. That hill rises up from the other side of the loch. We now open a gate, and find ourselves in a very large green square, with farm buildings at one side and a great stone well in the centre. Far beneath, and peeping through the trees, is the beautiful mansion-like model farmhouse. It is surrounded by gardens, in which flowers of every colour expand their petals to the sunshine. No one is at home about the farmyard. The servants are all away haymaking, so we quietly unlimber, stable, and feed Pea-blossom. Hurricane Bob, my Jehu, and myself then pass down the hill through a wood of noble trees, and at once find ourselves on the margin of a splendid sheet of water that winds for miles and miles among the woodlands and hills.

I seat myself in an easy-chair near the boathouse, a chair that surely some good fairy or the genii of this beautiful wildery has placed here for me. Then I become lapt in Elysium. Ten minutes ago I could not have believed that such scenery existed so near me.

What a lonesome delightful place to spend a long summer’s day in! What a place for a picnic or for a lover’s walk! Oh! to fancy it with a broad moon shining down from the sky and reflected in the water!

The road goes through among the trees, not far from the water’s edge, winding as the lake winds. The water to-day is like a sheet of glass, only every now and then and every here and there a leaping fish makes rings in it; swallows are skimming about everywhere, and seagulls go wheeling round or settle and float on the surface. We see many a covey of wild ducks too, but no creature – not even the hares and rabbits among the brackens – appear afraid of us.

Nowhere are the trees of great height, but there is hardly one you can give a name to which you will not find here by the banks of this lovely lonesome lake, to say nothing of the gorgeous and glowing undergrowth of wild shrubs and wild flowers.

Weary at last, because hungry, we returned to the green square where we had left our carriage, and, first giving Pea-blossom water, proceeded to have our own luncheon.

We had enough for the three of us, with plenty to spare for the feathered army of fowls that surrounded us. They were daring; they were greedy; they were insolent; and stole the food from our very fingers.

Ambition in this world, however, sometimes over-reaches itself. One half-bred chick at last stole a whole polonie, which was to have formed part of Bob’s dinner. Bob knew it, and looked woefully after the thieving chick; the brave little bird was hurrying off to find a quiet place in which to make its dinner.

It had reckoned rather rashly, though.

A cochin hen met the chick. “What daring audacity!” cried the hen. “Set you up with a whole polonie, indeed!”

A dig on the back sent the chick screaming away without the sausage, and the big hen secured it.

“I’ll go quietly away and eat it,” she said to herself, “behind the water-butt.”

But the other fowls spied her.

“Why, she’s got a whole polonie!” cried one.

“The impudence of the brazen thing!” cried another.

“A whole polonie! a whole polonie!” was now the chorus, and the chase became general. Bound and round the great stone well flew the cochin, but she was finally caught and thrashed and deprived of that polonie. But which hen was to have it? Oh! every hen, and all the four cocks wanted it.

A more amusing scene I never witnessed at a farmyard. It was like an exciting game of football on the old Rugby system, and at one time, while the game was still going on, I counted three pairs of hens and one pair of Dorking cocks engaged in deadly combat, and all about that polonie. But sly old Bob watched his chance. He was not going to lose his dinner if he could help it. He went round and lay flat down behind the well, and waited. Presently the battle raged in that direction, when suddenly, with one glorious spring, Bob flung himself into the midst of the conflict. The fowls scattered and fluttered and fled, and flew in all directions, and next minute the great Newfoundland, wagging his saucy tail and laughing with his eyes, was enjoying his polonie as he lay at my feet.

Returning homewards, instead of passing the Pitcox lodge-gate, we boldly enter it; I cannot help feeling that I am guilty of trespass. However, we immediately find ourselves in a great rolling park, with delightful sylvan scenery on every side, with a river – the winding Papana – meandering through the midst of the glen far down beneath and to the right.

After a drive of about a mile we descend by a winding road into this glen, and cross the river by a fine bridge. Then going on and on, we enter the archway, and presently are in front of the mansion house of Biel itself. It is a grand old place, a house of solid masonry, a house of square and octangular towers, long and low and strong.

It is the seat of a branch of the Hamilton ilk. Miss Hamilton was not then at home.

“No, the lady is not at home at present, sir,” a baker who was driving a cart informed me, “but it would have been all one, sir. Every one is welcome to look at the place and grounds, and she would have been glad to see you.”

We really had stopped at the back of the house, which is built facing the glen, but I soon found my way to the front.

I cannot describe the beauty of those terraced gardens, that one after another led down to the green glen beneath, where the river was winding as if loth to leave so sweet a place. They were ablaze with flowers, the grass in the dingle below was very green, the waters sparkled in the sunlight, and beyond the river the braeland was a rolling cloudland of green trees.

We drove out by an avenue – two miles long – bordered by young firs and cypresses.

Altogether, the estate is a kind of earthly paradise.

And think of it being constantly open to tourist or visitor!

“What a kind lady that Miss Hamilton must be, sir!” said my coachman.

“Yes, John,” I replied. “This is somewhat different from our treatment at Newstead Abbey.”

I referred to the fact that on my arrival at the gates of the park around that historical mansion where the great Byron lived, I could find no admission. In vain I pleaded with the lodge-keeper for liberty only to walk up the avenue and see the outside of the house.

No, she was immovable, and finally shut the gates with an awful clang in my face.

I have since learned that many Americans have been treated in the same way.

The heat of July the 23rd was very great and oppressive, and a haze almost hid the beautiful scenery ’twixt Dunbar and Haddington from our view.

Arrived at the latter quaint old town, however, we were soon at home, for, through the kindness of the editor of the Courier, the Wanderer found a resting-place in the beautiful haugh close by the riverside, and under the very shadow of the romantic old cathedral and church adjoining.

The cathedral was rendered a ruin by the soldiery of Cromwell, and very charming it looks as I saw it to-night under the rays of the moon.

The people of Haddington are genuinely and genially hospitable, and had I stayed here a month I believe I would still have been a welcome guest.

It is said that the coach-builders here are the best in Scotland. At all events I must do them the credit of saying they repaired a bent axle of my caravan, and enabled me on the afternoon of the 24th to proceed on my way in comfort and safety.

Not, however, before I had made a pilgrimage to the grave of poor Mrs Carlyle. The graveyard all around the church and cathedral is spacious and well-kept, but her grave is inside the ruin.

It was very silent among these tall red gloomy columns; the very river itself glides silently by, and nothing is to be heard except the cooing of the pigeons high over head. The floor is the green sward, and here are many graves.

It was beside Mrs Carlyle’s, however, that I sat down, and the reader may imagine what my thoughts were better than I can describe them.

An old flat stone or slab covers the grave, into which has been let a piece of marble bearing the following inscription beneath other names:

“Here likewise now restsJane Welsh Carlyle,Spouse of Thomas Carlyle, Chelsea, London.She was born at Haddington, 14th July, 1800,The only child of the above John Welsh,And of Grace Welsh, Caplegill,Dumfriesshire, his wife.In her bright existence sheHad more sorrows than are common, but also a softInvincibility and clearness of discernment, and a nobleLoyalty of heart which are rare. For 40 years she wasThe true and ever-loving helpmate of her husband,And by act and word unwearily forwarded him as noneElse could, in all of worthy, that he did or attempted.She died at London on the 21st April, 1866,Suddenly snatched away from him, andThe light of his life, as if gone out.”

I believe the above to be a pretty correct version of this strange inscription, though the last line seems to read hard.

There is a quaint old three-arched bridge spanning the river near the cathedral, and in it, if the tourist looks up on the side next the ruin, he will notice a large hook. On this hook culprits used to be hanged. They got no six-foot drop in those days, but were simply run up as sailors run up the jib-sail, the slack of the rope was belayed to something, and they were left to kick until still and quiet in death.

A visit to a celebrated pigeonry was a pleasant change from the churchyard damp and the gloom of that ruined cathedral. Mr Coalston is a famous breeder of pigeons of many different breeds. The houses are very large, and are built to lean against a tall brick wall. The proprietor seemed pleased to show me his lovely favourites, and put them up in great flocks in their aviaries or flights.

So successful has this gentleman been in his breeding that the walls are entirely covered with prize cards.

He loves his pigeons; and here in the garden near them he has built himself an arbour and smoking-room, from the windows of which he has them all in view.

We started about two pm. I would willingly have gone sooner, but the Wanderer was surrounded on the square by a crowd of the most pleasant and kindly people I ever met in my life. Of course many of these wanted to come in, so for nearly an hour I held a kind of levée. Nor did my visitors come empty-handed; they brought bouquets of flowers and baskets of strawberries and gooseberries, to say nothing of vegetables and eggs. Even my gentle Jehu John was not forgotten, and when at length we rolled away on our road to Musselburgh, John had a bouquet in his bosom as large as the crown of his hat.

God bless old Haddington, and all the kindly people in it!

Chapter Twenty.

Edinburgh – The Fisher Folks o’ Musselboro’ – Through Linlithgow to Falkirk – Gipsy-Folks

“Edina! Scotia’s darling seat!All hail thy palaces and towers,Where once beneath a monarch’s feetSat legislation’s sov’reign powers.From marking wildly-scattered flowers,As on the banks of Ayr I strayed,And singing, lone, the lingering hoursI shelter in thy honour’d shade.”Burns.

So sang our immortal Burns. And here lies the Wanderer snugly at anchor within the grounds of that great seminary, the High School of Edinburgh. This by the courtesy of the mathematical teacher and kindness of the old janitor, Mr Rollo. She is safe for the midday halt, and I can go shopping and visiting with an easy mind. Sight-seeing? No. Because I have learnt Edinburgh, “my own romantic town,” by heart long ago. Besides, it is raining to-day, an uncomfortable drizzle, a soaking insinuating Scotch mist. But the cathedral of Saint Giles I must visit, and am conducted there by W. Chambers, Esq, of Chambers’s Journal. I think he takes a pride in showing me the restorations his father effected before death called him away. And I marvel not at it.

The day before yesterday, being then lying in Musselburgh, in the tan-yard of that most genial of gentlemen, Mr Millar, I took my servants to the capital of Scotland by way of giving them a treat. They were delighted beyond measure, and I did not neglect them in the matter of food and fluid. Remember, though, that they are English, and therefore not much used to climbing heights. I took them first, by way of preparation, to the top of Scott’s monument. What a sight, by the way, were the Princes Street gardens as seen from here! A long walk in the broiling sunshine followed, and then we “did” (what a hateful verb!) the castle.

“The pond’rous wall and massy bar,Grim-rising o’er the rugged rock,Have oft withstood assailing war,And oft repelled th’ invader’s shock.”

Another long walk followed, and thus early I fancied I could detect symptoms of fag and lag in my gentle Jehu.

But I took them down to ancient Holyrood, and we saw everything there, from the picture gallery to Rizzio’s blood-stain on the floor.

Another long walk. I showed them old Edinburgh, some of the scenes in which shocked their nerves considerably. Then on and up the Calton Hill, signs of fag and lag now painfully apparent. And when I proposed a run up to the top of Nelson’s monument, my Jehu fairly struck, and laughingly reminded me that there could be even too much of a good thing. So we went and dined instead.

I was subjected to a piece of red-tapeism at the post-office here which I cannot refrain from chronicling as a warning to future Wanderers.

I had hitherto been travelling incog. Letters from home had been sent in registered packets, addressed to “The Saloon Caravan Wanderer,” to be left at the post-offices till I called for them; but those sent to Edinburgh were promptly sent back to Twyford, because, according to these clever officials, the name was fictitious. It was really no more so than the name of a yacht is, the Wanderer being my land-yacht.

When a clerk showed me a letter from some bigwig anent the matter, I indignantly dashed my pen through the word “fictitious.” You should have seen that clerk’s face then. I believe his hair stood on end, and his eyes stuck out on stalks.

“Man!” he cried, “you’ve done a bonnie thing noo. I’ll say no more to you. You must go round and speak to that gentleman.”

As that gentleman was at one end of the counter and this gentleman at the other, this gentleman refused to budge, albeit he had done “a bonnie thing.” For, I reasoned, this gentleman represents the British public, that gentleman is but a servant of the said British public.

So it ended. But was it not hard to be refused my letters – not to be able to learn for another week whether my aged father was alive, whether my little Inie’s cough was better, or Kenneth had cut that other tooth?

If further proof were needed that Midlothian is a smart country, it was forthcoming at Corstorphine, a pretty village some miles from Edina. I had unlimbered on the side of the road, not in any one’s way. Soon after there was a rat-tat-tat-tat at my back door – no modest single knock, mind you.

A policeman – tall, wiry, solemn, determined.

“Ye maun moove on. Ye canna be allooed to obstruct the thoro’fare.”

I told the fellow, as civilly as I could, to go about his business, that my horses should feed and my own dinner be cooked and eaten ere I “mooved on.”

He departed, saying, “Ye maun stand the consekences.”

I did stand the “consekences,” and dined very comfortably indeed, then jogged leisurely on. This was the first and last time ever a policeman put an uninvited foot on my steps, and I do but mention it to show intending caravanists that a gipsy’s life has its drawbacks in the county of Midlothian.

It is about six miles from Musselburgh to Edinburgh, through Portobello, and one might say with truth that the whole road is little else than one long street. We had stayed over the Sunday in that spacious old tan-yard. We were not only very comfortable, but quiet in the extreme. Close to the beach where we lay, great waves tumbled in from the eastern ocean on sands which I dare not call golden. We were in the very centre of the fisher population, and a strange, strange race of beings they are. Of course I cultivated their acquaintance, and by doing so in a kindly, friendly way, learned much of their “tricks and their manners” that was highly interesting.

The street adjoining my tan-yard was quaint in the extreme. Clean? Not very outside, but indoors the houses are tidy and wholesome. They are not tall houses, and all are of much the same appearance outdoors or in. But washing and all scullery work is done in the street. Looking up Fishergate, you perceive two long rows of tubs, buckets, and baskets, with boxes, and creels, and cats and dogs galore. Being naturally fond of fish, cats here must have a high old time of it.

The older dames are – now for a few adjectives to qualify these ladies; they are short, squat, square, apparently as broad as they are long; they are droll, fresh, fat, and funny, and have right good hearts of their own. The most marvellous thing is their great partiality for skirts. As a rule I believe they wear most of their wardrobes on their bodies; but ten to fifteen skirts in summer and twenty in winter are not uncommonly worn.

The children on week days look healthy and happy; a dead puppy or a cod’s head makes a delightful doll to nurse in the gutter, and any amount of fun can be got out of “partans’ taes and tangles.” (Crabs’ toes and seaweed canes.)

But these children are always clean and tidy on the Sabbath day.

At the village of Kirkliston, some miles from Corstorphine, with its intelligent policemen, I stopped for the night in a little meadow. It was a pleasant surprise to find in the clergyman here a man from my own University.

Kirkliston was all en gala next day; flags and bands, and games and shows, and the greatest of doings. But after an early morning ride to those wonderful works where the Forth is being bridged, we went on our way, after receiving gifts of fruit and peas from the kindly people about.

By the way, Kirkliston boasts of one of the biggest distilleries in Scotland.

But it quite knocks all the romance out of Highland whisky to be told it is made from American maize instead of from malt. Ugh!

Splendid road through a delightful country all the way to Linlithgow. Pretty peeps everywhere, and blue and beautiful the far-off Pentlands looked.

At Linlithgow even my coachman and valet were made to feel that they really were in Scotland now, among a race of people whose very religion causes them to be kindly to the stranger.

Through Polmont and on through a charming country to Falkirk, celebrated for its great cattle tryst.

July 29th. – At Linlithgow I visited every place of note – its palace and its palace prison, and its quaint and ancient church. Those gloomy prison vaults made my frame shiver, and filled my mind with awe. “Who enters here leaves hope behind” might well have been written on the lintels of those gruesome cells.

There are the remains of a curious old well in the palace courtyard. A facsimile of it, when at its best, is built in a square in the town. Standing near it to-day was a white-haired, most kindly visaged clergyman (The Rev. Dr Duncan Ogilvie), with whom I entered into conversation. I found he came originally from my own shire of Banff, and that he was now minister of a church in Falkirk.

He gave me much information, and it is greatly owing to his kindness that I am now, as I write, so comfortably situated at Falkirk.

A pleasant old stone-built town it is, with homely, hearty, hospitable people. Many a toil-worn denizen of cities might do worse than make it his home in the summer months. There is plenty to see in a quiet way, health in every breeze that blows, and a mine of historical wealth to be had for merely the digging. The town is celebrated for its great cattle fair, or tryst.

Away from Falkirk, after holding a levée as usual, during which a great many pleasant and pretty people stepped into the Wanderer.

The country altogether from Edinburgh to Glasgow is so delightful that I wonder so few tourists pass along the road.

As soon as we leave the last long straggling village near Falkirk, with its lovely villas surrounded by gardens and trees, and get into the open country, the scenery becomes very pretty and interesting, but on this bright hot day there is a hazy mist lying like a veil all over the landscape, which may or may not be smoke from the great foundries; but despite this, the hills and vales and fertile tree-clad plains are very beautiful to behold.

Stone fences (dykes) by the wayside now divide the honour of accompanying us on our journey with tall hedges snowed over with flowering brambles, or mingled with the pink and crimson of trailing roses. (A dyke in Scotland means a stone or turf fence.)

What beauty, it might be asked, could a lover of nature descry in an old stone fence? Well, look at these dykes we are passing. The mortar between the stones is very old, and in every interstice cling in bunches the bee-haunted bluebells. The top is covered with green turf, and here grow patches of the yellow-flowering fairy-bedstraw and purple “nodding thistles,” while every here and there is quite a sheet of the hardy mauve-petalled rest-harrow.