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

Four miles from Falkirk we enter the picturesque and widely scattered village of Bonny Bridge. This little hamlet, which is, or ought to be, a health resort, goes sweeping down a lovely glen, and across the bridge it goes straggling up the hill; the views – go where you like – being enchanting. Then the villas are scattered about everywhere, in the fields and in the woods. No gimcrack work about these villas, they are built of solid ornamentally-chiselled stone, built to weather the storms of centuries.

By-and-bye we rattle up into the village of Dennyloanhead. Very long it is, very old and quaint, and situated on a hill overlooking a wide and fertile valley. The houses are low and squat, very different from anything one ever sees in England.

Through the valley yonder the canal goes wimpling about, and in and out, on its lazy way to Glasgow, and cool, sweet, and clear the water looks. The farther end of the valley itself is spanned by a lofty eight-arched bridge, over which the trains go noisily rolling. There is probably not a more romantic valley than this in all the diversified and beautiful route from Edinburgh to Glasgow. Tourists should take this hint, and health-seekers too.

Passing through this valley over the canal, under the arches and over a stream, the road winds up a steep hill, and before very long we reach the hamlet of Cumbernauld.

An unpretentious little place it is, on a rocky hilltop and close to a charming glen, but all round here the country is richly historical.

We stable the horses at the comfortable Spurr Hotel and bivouac by the roadside. A little tent is made under the hedge, and here the Rippingille cooking-range is placed and cooking proceeded with.

Merry laughing children flock round, and kindly-eyed matrons knitting, and Hurricane Bob lies down to watch lest any one shall open the oven door and run away with the frizzling duck. Meanwhile the sun shines brightly from a blue, blue sky, the woods and hedges and wild flowers do one good to behold, and, stretched on the green sward with a pleasant book and white sun umbrella, I read and doze and dream till Foley says, —

“Dinner’s all on the table, sir.”

No want of variety in our wanderings to-day. Change of scenery at every turn, and change of faces also.

On our way from Cumbernauld we meet dozens and scores of caravans of all descriptions, for in two days’ time there is to be a great fair at Falkirk, and these good people are on their way thither.

“Thank goodness,” I say to my coachman, “they are not coming in our direction.”

“You’re right, sir,” says John.

For, reader, however pleasant it may be to wave a friendly hand to, or exchange a kindly word or smile with, these “honest” gipsies, it is not so nice to form part in a Romany Rye procession.

Here they come, and there they go, all sorts and shapes and sizes, from the little barrel-shaped canvas-covered Scotch affair, to the square yellow-painted lordly English van. Caravans filled with real darkies, basket caravans, shooting-gallery caravans, music caravans, merry-go-round caravans, short caravans, long caravans, tall caravans, some decorated with paint and gold, some as dingy as smoke itself, and some mere carts covered with greasy sacking filled with bairns; a chaotic minglement of naked arms and legs, and dirty grimy faces; but all happy, all smiling, and all perspiring.

Some of these caravans have doors in the sides, some doors at front and back; but invariably there are either merry saucy children or half-dressed females leaning out and enjoying the fresh air, and – I hope – the scenery.

The heat to-day is very great. We are all limp and weary except Polly, the parrot, who is in her glory, dancing, singing, and shrieking like a maniac.

But matters mend towards evening, and when we pause to rest the horses, I dismount and am penning these lines by the side of a hedge. A rippling stream goes murmuring past at no great distance. I could laze and dream here for hours, but prudence urges me on, for we are now, virtually speaking, in an unknown country; our road-book ended at Edinburgh, so we know not what is before us.

“On the whole, John,” I say, as I reseat myself among the rugs, “how do you like to be a gipsy?”

“I’m as happy, sir,” replies my gentle Jehu, “as a black man in a barrel of treacle.”

Chapter Twenty One.

Glasgow and Grief – A Pleasant Meadow – Thunderstorm at Chryston – Strange Effects – That Terrible Twelfth of August – En Route for Perth and the Grampians

“O rain! you will but take your flight,Though you should come again to-morrow,And bring with you both pain and sorrow;Though stomach should ache and knees should swell,I’ll nothing speak of you but well;    But only now, for this one day,    Do go, dear rain! do go away.”Coleridge.

In Scotland there are far fewer cosy wee inns with stabling attached to them than there are in England; there is therefore greater difficulty in finding a comfortable place in which to bivouac of a night. In towns there are, of course, hotels in abundance; but if we elected to make use of these, then farewell peace and quiet, and farewell all the romance and charm of a gipsy life.

It was disheartening on arriving at the village of Muirhead to find only a little lassie in charge of the one inn of the place, and to be told there was no stabling to be bad. And this village was our last hope ’twixt here and Glasgow. But luckily – there always has been a sweet little cherub sitting up aloft somewhere who turned the tide in times of trouble – luckily a cyclist arrived at the hostelry door. He was naturally polite to me, a brother cyclist.

“Let us ride over to Chryston,” he said; “I believe I can get you a place there.”

A spin on the tricycle always freshens me up after a long day’s drive, and, though I was sorry to leave the poor horses a whole hour on the road, I mounted, and off we tooled. Arrived at the farm where I now lie, we found that Mr B – was not at home, he had gone miles away with the cart. But nothing is impossible to the cyclist, and in twenty minutes we had overtaken him, and obtained leave to stable at the farm and draw into his field.

A quiet and delightful meadow it is, quite at the back of the little village of Chryston, and on the brow of a hill overlooking a great range of valley with mountains beyond.

The sky to-night is glorious to behold. In the east a full round moon is struggling through a sea of cumulus clouds. Over yonder the glare of a great furnace lights up a quarter of the sky, the flashing gleams on the clouds reminding one of tropical wild-fire. But the sky is all clear overhead, and in the northern horizon over the mountains is the Aurora Borealis. Strange that after so hot a day we should see those northern lights.

But here comes Hurricane Bob.

Bob says, as plainly as you please, “Come, master, and give me my dinner.”

Whether it be on account of the intense heat, or that Hurricane Bob is, like a good Mohammedan, keeping the feast of the Ramadan, I know not, but one thing is certain – he eats nothing ’twixt sunrise and sunset.

Glasgow: Glasgow and grief. I now feel the full force of the cruelty that kept my letters back. My cousins, Dr McLennan and his wife, came by train to Chryston this Saturday forenoon, and together we all rode (seven miles) into Glasgow in the Wanderer. We were very, very happy, but on our arrival at my cousins’ house – which I might well call home – behold! the copy of a telegram containing news I ought to have had a week before!

My father was dying!

Then I said he must now be gone. How dreadful the thought, and I not to know. He waiting and watching for me, and I never to come!

Next morning I hurried off to Aberdeen. The train goes no farther on Sunday, but I was in time to catch the mail gig that starts from near the very door of my father’s house, and returns in the evening.

The mail man knew me well, but during all that weary sixteen-mile drive I never had courage to ask him how the old man my father was. I dreaded the reply.

Arrived at my destination, I sprang from the car and rushed to the house, to find my dear father – better. And some days afterwards – thank God for all His mercies – I bade him good-bye as he sat by the fire.

No quieter meadow was ever I in than that at Chryston, so I determined to spend a whole week here and write up the arrears of my literary work, which had drifted sadly to leeward. Except the clergyman of the place, and a few of the neighbouring gentry, hardly any one ever came near the Wanderer.

If an author could not work in a place like this, inspired by lovely scenery and sunny weather, inhaling health at every breath, I should pity and despise him.

I never tired of the view from the Wanderer’s windows, that wondrous valley, with its fertile farms and its smiling villas, and the great Campsie range of hills beyond. Sometimes those hills were covered with a blue haze, which made them seem very far away; but on other days, days of warmth and sunshine, they stood out clear and close to us; we could see the green on their sides and the brown heath above it, and to the left the top of distant Ben Ledi was often visible.

Thunderstorm at Chryston.

It had been a sultry, cloudy day, but the banks of cumulus looked very unsettled, rolling and tossing about for no apparent reason, for the wind was almost nil.

Early in the afternoon we, from our elevated position, could see the storm brewing – gathering and thickening and darkening all over Glasgow, and to both the north and south-west of as, where the sky presented a marvellous sight.

The thunder had been muttering for hours before, but towards four pm the black clouds gathered thick and fast, and trooped speedily along over the Campsie Hills. When right opposite to us, all of a sudden the squall came down. The trees bent before its fury, the caravan rocked wildly, and we had barely time to place a pole under the lee-side before the tempest burst upon us in all its fury.

Everything around us now was all a smother of mist. It reminded me of a white squall in the Indian Ocean. The rain came down in torrents, mingled with hail. It rattled loudly on the roof and hard and harsh against the panes, but not so loud as the pealing thunder.

The lightning was bright, vivid, incessant. The mirrors, the crystal lamps, the coloured glasses seemed to scatter the flashes in all directions; the whole inside of the Wanderer was like a transformation scene at a pantomime.

It was beautiful but dangerous.

I opened the door to look out, and noticed the row of ash-trees near by, sturdy though they were, bending like fishing-rods before the strength of the blast, while the field was covered with twiglets and small branches.

But the squall soon blew over, and the clouds rolled by, the thunder ceased or went growling away beyond the hills, and presently the sun shone out and began to dry the fields.

By the twelfth day of August – sacred to the Scottish sportsman – I had made up my literary leeway and got well to windward of editors and printers. I was once more happy.

That Terrible Twelfth of August.

We were to start on the twelfth of August for the north, en route for the distant capital of the Scottish Highlands – Inverness.

What is more, we were going to make a day of it, for my brave little Highland cousin Bella (Mrs McLennan) and her not less spirited friend Mrs C were to go a-gipsying and journey with me from Chryston to Stirling.

It was all nicely arranged days beforehand. We promised ourselves sunshine and music and general joy, with much conversation about the dear old days of long ago. And we were to have a dinner al fresco on the green sward after the manner of your true Romany Rye.

Alas for our hopes of happiness! The rain began at early morn. And such rain! I never wish to see the like again. The sky reminded me of some of Doré’s pictures of the Flood.

During one vivid blink of sunshine the downpour of rain looked like glass rods, so thick and strong was it.

In less than two hours the beautiful meadow that erst was so hard and firm was a veritable Slough of Despond. This was misfortune Number 1. Misfortune Number 2 lay in the fact that the ’busman did not meet the train the ladies were coming by, so for two long Scotch miles they had to paddle on as best they could through pelting rain and blackest mud.

Nor had the ladies come empty-handed, for between them they carried a large parrot-cage, a parcel, and a pie. (Polly had been spending a week in Glasgow, and was now returning.)

It was a pie of huge dimensions, of varied contents, and of curious workmanship – nay, but curious workwomanship – for had not my cousin designed it, and built it, and furnished it with her own fair fingers? It was a genuine, palpable, edible proof of feminine forethought.

Not, however, all the rain that ever fell, or all the wind that ever blew, could damp the courage of my cousin. Against all odds they came up smiling, the Highland lass and her English friend – the thistle and the rose.

But the rain got worse: it came down in bucketfuls, in torrents, in whole water. It was a spate.

Then came misfortune Number 3, for the wheels of the Wanderer began to sink deep in the miry meadow. We must draw on to the road forthwith, so Corn-flower and Pea-blossom were got out and put-to.

But woe is me! they could not start or move her. They plunged and pawed, and pawed and plunged in vain – the Wanderer refused to budge.

“I’ve a horse,” said Mr R – , quietly, “that I think could move a church, sir.”

“Happy thought!” I said; “let us put him on as a tracer.”

The horse was brought out. I have seldom seen a bigger. He loomed in the rain like a mountain, and appeared to be about nineteen hands high, more or less.

The traces were attached to buckles in our long breeching. Then we attempted to start.

It might now have been all right had the trio pulled together, but this was no part of Pea-blossom’s or Corn-flower’s intention.

They seemed to address that tall horse thus: “Now, old hoss, we’ve had a good try and failed, see what you can do.”

So instead of pulling they hung back.

I am bound to say, however, that the tall horse did his very best. First he gave one wild pull, then a second, then a third and a wilder one, and at that moment everything gave way, and the horse coolly walked off with the trace chains.

It was very provoking, all hopes of enjoyment fled. Hardly could the strawberries and cream that Mrs R brought console us. Here we were stuck in a meadow on the glorious twelfth, of all days, in a slough of despair, in a deluge of rain, and with our harness smashed.

No use lamenting, however. I sent my servant off to Glasgow to get repairs done at once, and obtain hydraulic assistance for the semi-wrecked Wanderer.

About noon there came round a kindly farmer Jackson.

“Men can do it,” he said, after eyeing us for a bit. “There’s nothing like men.”

I had sent the ladies into the farmhouse for warmth, and was in the saloon by myself, when suddenly the caravan gave herself a shake and began to move forward.

In some surprise I opened the door and looked out. Why, surely all the manhood of Chryston was around us, clustering round the wheels, lining the sides, pushing behind and pulling the pole. With a hip! ho! and away we go!

“Hurrah, lads, hurrah!”

“Bravo, boys, bravo!”

In less time than it takes me to tell it, the great caravan was hoisted through that meadow and run high and dry into the farmer’s courtyard.

To offer these men money would have been to insult them – they were Scotch. Nor can a kindness like this be measured by coin. I offered them liquid refreshment, however, but out of all who helped me I do not think that half-a-dozen partook.

All honour to the manly feelings of the good folks of Chryston.

But our day’s enjoyment was marred and we were left lamenting.

August 13th. We are off.

We are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur. And happy we feel, on this bright, bracing morning, to be once more on the road again with our backs to old England, our faces to the north.

Click, click – click, click! Why, there positively does seem music in the very horses’ feet. They seem happy as well as ourselves. Happy and fresh for, says my gentle Jehu, “They are pulling, sir, fit to drag the very arms out of ye.”

“Never mind, John,” I reply, “the Highland hills are ahead of us, and the heather hills, my Jehu. Knowest thou this song, John?”

“‘O! glorious is the sea, wi’ its heaving tide,And bonnie are the plains in their simmer pride;But the sea wi’ its tide, and the plains wi’ their rills,Are no half so dear as my ain heather hills.I may heedless look on the silvery sea,I may tentless muse on the flowery lee,But my heart wi’ a nameless rapture thrillsWhen I gaze on the cliffs o’ my ain heather hills.Then hurrah, hurrah, for the heather hills,Where the bonnie thistle waves to the sweet bluebells,And the wild mountain floods heave their crests to the clouds,Then foam down the steeps o’ my ain heather hills.’”

No wonder the rattling chorus brought half-dressed innocent cottage children to their doors to wave naked arms and shout as we passed, or that their mothers smiled to us, and fathers doffed their bonnets, and wished us “good speed.”

But summer has gone from nature if not from our hearts. All in a week the change has come, and many-tinted autumn was ushered in with wild and stormy winds, with rain and floods and rattling thunder.

Not as a lamb has autumn entered, but as a lion roaring; as a king or a hero in a pantomime, with blue and red fire and grand effects of all kinds.

There is a strong breeze blowing, but it is an invigorating one, and now, at eight o’clock on this morning, the sun is shining brightly enough, whatever it may do later on.

What a grand day for the moors! It will quite make up for the loss of yesterday, when doubtless there were more drams than dead grouse about.

In Glasgow, days ago, I noticed that the poulterers’ windows were decorated with blooming heather in anticipation of the twelfth.

I saw yesterday afternoon some “lads in kilts” – Saxons, by the shape of their legs. But I do not hold with Professor Blackie, that if you see a gentleman in Highland garb “he must either be an Englishman or a fool.”

For I know that our merriest of professors, best of Greek scholars, and most enthusiastic of Scotchmen, would himself wear the kilt if there was the slightest possibility of keeping his stockings up!

Chapter Twenty Two.

On the High Road to the Highlands

”… Here the bleak mount,The bare bleak mountain speckled thin with sheep;Grey clouds, that shadowing spot the sunny fields;And river, now with bushy rocks o’erbrowed,Now winding bright and full, with naked banks;And seats and lawns, the abbey and the wood;And cots and hamlets, and faint city spire.”Coleridge.

At Cumbernauld, the people were pleased to see us once more, and quite a large crowd surrounded the Wanderer. On leaving the village we were boarded by a young clergyman and his wife, such pleasant enthusiastic sort of people that it does one good to look at and converse with.

Passed strings of caravans at Dennyloanhead, and exchanged smiles and good-morrows with them. Then on to the Stirling road, through an altogether charming country.

Through Windsor Newton, and the romantic village of Saint Ninian’s, near which is Bannockburn.

Then away and away to Stirling, and through it, intending to bivouac for the night at Bridge of Allan, but, Scot that I am, I could not pass that monument on Abbey Craig, to Scotland’s great deliverer; so here I lie on the grounds of a railway company, under the very shadow of this lovely wooded craig, and on the site of a memorable battle.

How beautiful the evening is! The sun, as the song says, “has gone down o’er the lofty Ben Lomond,” but it has left no “red clouds to preside o’er the scene.”

A purple haze is over all yonder range of lofty mountains, great banks of cloud are rising behind them. Up in the blue, a pale scimitar of a moon is shining, and peace, peace, peace, is over all the wild scene.

By-the-bye, at Saint Ninian’s to-day, we stabled at the “Scots wha hae,” and my horses had to walk through the house, in at the hall door and out at the back. (Travellers will do well to ask prices here before accepting accommodation.) But nothing now would surprise or startle those animals. I often wonder what they think of it all.

We were early on the road this morning of August 14th, feeling, and probably looking, as fresh as daisies. Too early to meet anything or anyone except farmers’ carts, with horses only half awake, and men nodding among the straw.

Bridge of Allan is a sweet wee town, by the banks of the river, embosomed in trees, quite a model modern watering-place.

We travel on through splendid avenues of trees, that meet overhead, making the road a leafy tunnel, but the morning sun is shimmering through the green canopy, and his beams falling upon our path make it a study in black and white.

The road is a rolling one, reminding us forcibly of Northumbrian banks and Durham braes.

The trains here seem strangely erratic, we meet them at every corner. They come popping out from and go popping into the most unlikely places, out from a wood, out of the face of a rock, or up out of the earth in a bare green meadow, disappearing almost instantly with an eldritch shriek into some other hole or glen or wood.

Through the city of Dunblane, with its Ruined cathedral, by narrow roads across country fifteen miles, till we reach Blackford, and as there are to be games here to-morrow, we get run into a fine open meadow behind Edmund’s Hotel, and bivouac for the night.

Both my coachman and my valet were Englishmen, and it would be something new for them, at all events.

The meadow into which I drove was very quiet and retired. The games were to be held in an adjoining rolling field, and from the roof of the Wanderer a very good view could be had of all the goings-on.

On looking at my notes, written on the evening before the Highland gathering, I find that it was my doggie friend Hurricane Bob who first suggested my stopping for the games.

“Did ever you see such a glorious meadow in your life?” he seemed to say, as he threw himself on his broad back and began tumbling on the sward. “Did you ever see greener grass,” he continued, “or more lovely white clover? You must stay here, master.”

“Well, I think I will stay, Bob,” I replied.

“What say you, Pea-blossom?” I continued, addressing my saucy bay mare.

“Stay?” replied Pea-blossom, tossing her head. “Certainly stay. You stopped a whole week at Chryston, and I thought I was going to be a lady for life.”

“And what say you, Corn-flower?” I continued, addressing my horse, who, by the way, is not quite so refined in his ideas as Pea-blossom.

“Which I’d stop anyw’eres,” said Corn-flower, taking an immense mouthful of clover, “where there be such feeding as this.”

Well, when both one’s horses, besides his Newfoundland dog and his servants, want to stay at a place for the night, compliance in the master becomes a kind of a virtue.

The Evening before the Games.

“Now roseSweet evening, solemn hour; the sun, declined,Hung golden o’er this nether firmament,Whose broad cerulean mirror, calmly bright,Gave back his beamy image to the skyWith splendour undiminished.”Mallet.

The village is all a-quiver to-night with the excitement of expectancy, and many an anxious eye is turned skywards.

“If the breeze holds from this direction,” says the landlord of the hotel, “it will be fine for certain.”

Poor fellow! little could he dream while he spoke of the dreadful accident that would befall him but a few hours after he thus talked so hopefully.

At sunset to-night a balloon-like cloud settles down on the peak of distant Ben Voirloch, and as this soon becomes tinged with red, the lofty hill has all the appearance of a burning mountain. But all the northwestern sky is now such a sight to see that only the genius of a Burns could describe it in words, while no brush of painter could do justice to it, now that the immortal Turner is no longer on earth.

There are leaden-grey clouds banked along near the horizon; behind these and afar off are cloud-streaks of gold, which – now that the sun is down – change slowly to crimson, then to grey and to bronze.