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

“The snowdrop and primrose our woodlands adorn,And violets blaw in the dews o’ the morn,They pain my sad bosom, sae sweetly they blaw,They mind me on Nannie – and Nannie’s awa’.”

Fields and Moorland.

Turning to these, what oceans of beauty I saw everywhere around me during all the months of my travel!

In May, many of the uplands were covered with the yellow-blooming furze or whins. The black forest, for instance, ’twixt Guildford and Frimley, was a sight worth travelling long miles to look upon; while nothing could excel the fragrance of the perfume shed everywhere around.

The furze lies low to the ground where it has plenty of sunlight, but straggles upwards to seek the light when it grows in the woodlands.

Sweet-scented thistles of every shade – I had almost added “and every shape” – grew plentifully in corners of fields we passed, mostly prickly, but some harmless; lilac, pale pink, dark crimson, and purple; field thistles, milk thistles, melancholy thistles, and nodding thistles.

This latter species I found growing in glorious profusion on the links of Musselburgh, and I quite adorned my caravan with them.

Wherever thistles grow in fields, the tansy is not far off; a showy, yellow, too-hardy flower, without, in my opinion, a vestige of romance about it. Perhaps the sheep think differently, for long after Scottish fields and “baulks” are picked bare, they can always find a pluck of sweet green grass by taking their tongues round a tansy stem.

The yellow meadow vetchling is a beautiful, bright-yellow, pea-like flower, that dearly loves a snug corner under a hedge or bush of furze.

The pink-blossomed geranium-like mallow we all know. It is none the less lovely, however, because common; and here is a hint worth knowing – it looks well in a vase, and will bloom for weeks in water.

But a far more lovely flower, that I first foregathered with, I think, in Yorkshire, is the wild blue geranium, or meadow crane’s-bill. Words alone could not describe its beauty, it must be seen. It mostly grows by the wayside.

Need I even name the corn-marigold, or the blush of the corn-poppies among green growing wheat, or the exquisitely lovely sainfoin, that sheds its crimson beauty over many a southern field; or the blue and charming corn-flower, that delights to bloom amid the ripening grain?

Oh! dear farmer, call it not a weed, hint not at its being a hurt-sickle – rather admire and love it.

Nay, but the farmer will not, he has no romance about him, and will quote me lines like these: —

“Bluebottle, thee my numbers fain would raise,And thy complexion challenge all my praise,Thy countenance like summer skies is fair;But ah! how different thy vile manners are.A treacherous guest, destruction thou dost bringTo th’ inhospitable field where thou dost spring,Thou blunt’st the very reaper’s sickle, and soIn life and death becom’st the farmer’s foe.”

But cowslips, and buttercups —

“The winking Mary-buds beginTo ope their golden eyes.”Shakespeare.

– And the chaste and pretty ox-eye daisy, even a farmer will not object to my adoring, for the very names of these bring to his mind sleek-sided cattle wading in spring time knee-deep in fields of green sweet grass.

And what shall I say of gowan or mountain-daisy? Oh! what should I say, but repeat the lines of our own immortal bard: —

“Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower,Thou’s met me in an evil hour,For I maun crush among the stoure        Thy slender stem:To save thee now is past my power,        Thou bonnie gem?”

The spotted orchis is a sweet-scented Highland moorland gem, but right glad I was to find it meeting me on the banks of Northumberland. Far over the borders grew the pretty Scottish bluebell, and on rough patches of ground the trailing lilac rest-harrow.

Singly, a sprig of bluebells may not look to much advantage, but growing in great beds and patches, and hanging in heaps to old rained walls, or turf-capped dykes, they are very effective indeed.

I had meant to speak in this chapter of many other flowers that grow by the wayside – of the dove’s foot cranebill, of the purple loose-strife, of the sky-blue chicory and the pink-eyed pimpernel, of the golden bird’s-foot trefoil, of purple bugles, of yellow celandine, and of clover red and white. I had even meant to throw in a bird or two – the lark, for instance, that seems to fan the clouds with its quivering wing, the fluting blackbird of woodland and copse, the shrill-voiced mocking mavis, that makes the echoes ring from tree to tree; the cushat, that croodles so mournfully in the thickets of spruce; the wild-screaming curlew, and mayhap the great eagle itself.

But I fear that I have already wearied the reader, and so must refrain.

Stay though, one word about our Highland heather – one word and I have done. I have found both this and heath growing in England, but never in the same savage luxuriance as on the wilds of the Grampian range. Here you can wander in it waist-deep, if you are not afraid of snakes, and this Erica cineria you will find of every shade, from white – rare – to pink and darkest crimson: —

        “Those wastes of heathThat stretch for leagues to lure the bee,Where the wild bird, on pinions strong,Wheels round, and pours his piping song,        And timid creatures wander free.”

I trust I may be forgiven for making all these poetical quotations, but as I commenced with one from the poet Campbell, so must I end with one from the selfsame bard. It is of the purple heath and heather he is thinking when he writes: —

“I love you for lulling me back into dreamsOf the blue Highland mountains, and echoing streams,And of birchen glades breathing their balm.While the deer is seen glancing in sunshine remote,And the deep-mellow gush of the wood-pigeon’s note,Makes music that sweetens the calm.”

Chapter Twenty Five.

A Chapter about Children – Children in Bouquets – Children by the “sad sea-wave” – sweet maudie brewer – wee dickie ellis – the miner’s sprite

“On these laughing rosy faces    There are no deep lines of sin;None of passion’s dreary traces,    That betray the wounds within.”Tupper.

As much even as the wild flowers themselves were the children a feature in the seemingly interminable panorama, that flitted past me in my long tour in the Wanderer. The wild flowers were everywhere; by wayside, on hillside, by streamlet, in copse, hiding in fairy nooks among the brackens in the woodlands, carpeting mossy banks in the pine forests, floating on the lakes, nodding to the running brooklets, creeping over ruined walls and fences, and starring the hedgerows, – wild flowers, wild flowers everywhere.

Wild flowers everywhere, and children everywhere.

Country children: minding cows or sheep or pigs; trotting Blondin-like along the parapets of high bridges; riding or swinging on gateways; stringing daisies on flowery meads; paddling in stream or in burn; fishing by lonely tarns; swinging in the tree-tops; or boring head first through hedges of blackthorn and furze.

Village children: sitting in dozens on door-steps; a-squat on the footpath, nursing babies as big as themselves; at play on the walks or in the street midst; toddling solemnly off to school, with well-washed faces, and book-laden; or rushing merrily home again, with faces all begrimed with mud and tears.

Seaside children: out in boats, rocked in the cradle of the deep; bathing in dozens, swimming, sprawling, splashing, whooping; squatting among the seaweed; dabbling in pools, or clinging to the cliffs with all the tenacity of crabs.

Children everywhere, all along. Curly-pated children, bare-legged children, well-dressed children, and children in rags, but all shouting, screaming, laughing, smiling, or singing, and all as happy, seemingly, as the summer’s day was long.

“Harmless, happy little treasures,    Full of truth, and trust, and mirth;Richest wealth and purest pleasures    In this mean and guilty earth.“But yours is the sunny dimple,    Radiant with untutored smiles;Yours the heart, sincere and simple,    Innocent of selfish wiles.“Yours the natural curling tresses,    Prattling tongues and shyness coy;Tottering steps and kind caresses,    Pure with health, and warm with joy.”

Look at that little innocent yonder in that cottage doorway. There is a well-kept garden in front of the house, but not a flower in it more sweet than she. Round-faced, curly-tressed, dimpled chin and cheeks and knee. It is early morning, she has rushed to the door in her little night-dress; one stocking is on, the other she waves wildly aloft as she cheers the Wanderer.

Here at a village door is a group – a bouquet you may say – worth looking it. Three such pretty children, seated in a doorway, on the steps. They are dressed in blue, with white socks and fairy-like caps, and the oldest is holding a bald-headed crowing baby in her lap.

Here is another tableau: three pretty little well-dressed maidens, hand-in-hand, dancing and whirling in Indian circle round a hole which has been dug in the green sward; a fourth seated close by the hole, flicking the dust up in clouds with a green bough, and giving each a full share of it. Never mind the lace-edged dresses, heed not the snow-white pinafores, round and round and round they go, and how they laugh and shout, and enjoy it!

And here is a bouquet from Musselburgh, though perhaps it has a somewhat fishy flavour. A group of chubby children on the beach, among the somewhat black sand; one has a large crab-shell with a string to it – this is his cart, and it is laden with cockle-shells and star-fish; another boy has a dead eel on a string; a baby is lying on its face digging holes in the sand with a razor shell, and a little girl is nursing a cod’s head for a doll, and has dressed it up with seaweed. They have bare heads and feet, and smudgy faces, but dear me! they do look happy!

Five little kilted boys, squatting on the grass; between them is a round kettle pot half-filled with porridge, and each holds in his hand a “cogie” of milk. But they start to their feet as the Wanderer rolls past, wave aloft their horn spoons, and shout till we are out of sight.

Here is a little cherub of some seven summers old. He very likely belongs to that pretty cottage whose redbrick gable peeps out through a cloudland of trees yonder. He has a barrow, and it is nearly full, for the boy has been scavenging on the road, gathering material to make the mushrooms grow in his father’s garden. Right in the centre of this he has dug a nest, and in this nest is seated his baby brother. He is telling him a story, and the baby brother is crowing and kicking, and looking all over so delighted and joyful in his questionable nest, that one almost envies him. That youngster may emigrate some day, and he may become President of America yet. When I think of that I cannot help feeling a kind of respect for him.

The most smudgy-faced children I noticed on my tour were, I think, some of those in the outlying villages of the North Riding of Yorks. Of course, they always came trooping out to view the caravan, from cottage doors, from garden gates, from schools, and from playgrounds, the foremost calling aloud to those behind to come quick, to run, for a show was coming.

If we happened to stop, they would gather around us and stare with saucer eyes and open mouths astonished, expectant. If we drove on quickly, they speedily set up an impromptu “Hip, hip, hoor – ay – ay!” and waved their arms or ragged caps in the air.

Talk about the great unwashed! These were the little unwashed, and a far larger section of the public than their bigger brethren.

Do not blame the poor things because their faces are not over cleanly. It may not even be the fault of their parents. Early of a morning we often met children going toddling off to school, with books and slates, and, mind you, with faces that positively glistened and reflected the sunbeams, the result of recent ablutions, and a plentiful use of soap. We met school children again coming from school of an evening, but sadly different in facial aspect, for lo! and alas! grief soon begins of a morning with a child, and tears begin to flow, so cheeks get wet, and are wiped, and dust begrimes them, and long ere evening the average boy’s face is woefully be-smudged.

I found a little Scotch boy once standing with his face against a hayrick weeping bitterly. I daresay he had been chastised for some fault and had come here to indulge in the luxury of a good cry. But would he own it? No, he was too Scotch for that.

“What are ye greetin’ (weeping) about, my wee laddie?” I said, pulling him round.

“I’m no greetin’,” he replied through his tears.

“It looks unco’ like it,” I ventured to remark.

“I tell you, si-si-sir,” he sobbed, “I’m no gaga – greetin’. I’m only just letting —

“‘The tears doon fa’,

For Jock o’ Hadedean.’”

I gave him a penny on the spot, and that changed his tune.

Children by the “Sad Sea-Wave.”

There is nothing sad about the sea from a child’s point of view. On many a long voyage I have known children be the light and the life of a ship fore and aft.

Coming from the Cape once I remember we had just one child passenger, a fair-haired, blue-eyed, curly-polled little rascal whom the sailors had baptised Tommy Tadpole. He was a saloon passenger, but was quite as often forward among the men on deck or down below. Not more than seven years of age, I often wondered he did not have his neck broken, for even in half a gale of wind he would be rushing about like a mad thing, or up and down the steep iron ladder that led to the engine room. He had a mother on board, and a nurse as well, but he was too slippery for either, and for the matter of that everyone on board was Tommy’s nurse or playmate.

Catch-me-who-catch-can was the boy’s favourite game, and at this he would keep three sailors busy for half-an-hour, and still manage to elude their grasp. How he doubled and bolted and dived, to be sure, round the binnacle, round the capstan, over the winch, under the spare anchor, down one ladder and up another – it was marvellous! One day I remember he was fairly caught; he got up into the main-rigging, and actually through the lubber hole into the main-top. Ah! but Tommy couldn’t get back, and there he sat for some time, for all the world like that sweet little cherub who sits up aloft to look after the life of poor Jack, till a sturdy seaman ran up, and Tommy rode down on his shoulder.

And the waves were never high enough, nor the wind stormy enough, to frighten Tommy Tadpole.

But country children on a visit to the seashore find fun and joy and something to laugh at in every breaker or tumbling wave.

A storm was raging at Brighton the day after my arrival there in the Wanderer. Great seas were thundering in upon the shingly beach and leaping madly over pier and wall.

“Look, look!” cried my little daughter Inez delightedly, “how the waves are smoking!”

“Surely,” she added, “great whales must be in the water to make it wobble so.”

But it was great fun to her to watch them “wobbling,” all the same.

She crowed with joy at the scene.

“Oh! they do make me laugh so,” she cried, clapping her tiny hands, “they are such fun!” Yes, and for weeks afterwards, whenever she thought of that storm-tossed ocean she would laugh.

But really you can find everlasting amusement at the seaside in summer or in autumn – supposing you are a child, I mean. Shingle is not very nice to dig among, perhaps, with a wooden spade, but then you find such quantities of pretty stones and shells among it, and morsels of coloured glass worn round by the action of the waves. You cannot build a very satisfactory house or fortification with the smaller kinds of shingle, but you can throw spadefuls of it in all directions – over your companions or over your nurse, and if a shower of it does fall on that old gentleman’s long hat, what matters it whether he be angry or not? it was fun to hear it rattle, and you would do it again and again if you only dared.

If you are permitted to take off shoes and stockings and tuck up your dress, what a glorious treat to wade on the soft sand, and feel the merry wee waves playing soft and warm about your legs! If you cannot have shoes and stockings off, then you can chase each receding wave, and let the advancing ones chase you. This will make you laugh, and if one should overtake you and go swilling round your ankles, why, what matters it? to listen to the water jerking in your boots at every step is in itself good fun.

There is endless amusement to be got out of seaweed, too, and if you have a big dog the fun will be fast and furious.

Perhaps he is a large Newfoundland, like our Hurricane Bob. By the seaside Bob is always on the best of terms with himself and every other living creature. You can bury him in the sand all but the nose; you can clothe him from head to tail with broad bands of wet seaweed, he enjoys it all, takes everything in good part. He will go splashing and dashing into the sea after a stick or a stone, and if you were to fall plump into the sea yourself he would jump after you, carry you out, and lay you on the beach in the most businesslike fashion imaginable; then shake himself, the water that flies from his great jacket of jet making rainbows all round him in the sunshine.

No; there is no sadness about the sea-wave in the happy, merry days of childhood.

Littlehampton is altogether a children’s watering-place. There they were by the dozen and score, sailing yachts in little pools, flying kites and building castles, playing at horses, riding on donkeys, gathering shells and seaweed, dancing, singing, laughing, screaming, racing, chasing, paddling and puddling, and all as happy as happy could be.

I was always pleased enough to have interesting children come and see me; whether they brought little bouquets of flowers with them – which they often did – or not, they always brought sunshine.

Let me give just one or two specimens of my juvenile visitors. I could, give a hundred.

Sweet Maudie Brewer.

I could not help qualifying her name with a pretty adjective from the first moment I saw her. Not that Maudie is a very beautiful child, but so winning and engaging, and exceedingly old-fashioned. I made her acquaintance at the inn where my horses were stabled. She is an orphan – virtually, at all events – but the landlord of the hotel is exceedingly good to her, and very proud also of his wee six-year-old Maudie.

It is as a conversationalist that Maudie shines. She has no shyness, but talks like an old, old world-wise mite of a woman.

“Now,” she said, after we had talked on a variety of topics, “come into the parlour and I shall play and sing to you?”

As she took me by the hand I had to go, but had I known the little treat I was to have I should have gone more willingly. For not only can Maudie sing well, but she plays airs and waltzes in a way that quite surprised me; and I found myself standing by the piano turning over the leaves for this child of six summers as seriously as if she had been seventeen. That was Maudie Brewer.

Wee Dickie Ellis.

Dickie is another old-fashioned child, a handsome, healthful country boy, who lives in Yorkshire. Very chatty and very free was Dickie, but by no means impertinent. Age about seven. But his age does not cost Dickie a thought, for when I asked him how old he was, he said it was either six or sixteen, but he wasn’t sure which. He admired the caravan, and admired Hurricane Bob, but it was my talking cockatoo that specially took his fancy.

He had not been gone half-an-hour till I found him on the steps again.

“I’ve just coome,” he said, “to have another look at t’ould Poll parrot.”

Polly took to him, danced to him and sang to him, and finally make a great grab at his nose.

Dickie was back in an hour.

“Coome again,” he explained, “to have a look at t’ould Poll parrot.”

I thought I was rid of him now for the day; but after sunset, lo! Dickie appeared once more.

“I’m gangin’ to bed noo,” he said, “and I want to say ‘good-night’ to t’ould Poll parrot.”

And next morning, before I started, up came Dickie sure enough.

“Just coome,” he sadly remarked, “to have t’last look at t’ould Poll parrot.”

The Miner’s Sprite.

The Wanderer was lying in a quiet meadow in a mining district. It was a lovely summer’s evening; tall trees and a church tower not far off stood out dark against a crimson sky, for the sun had but just gone down. I was seated reading on the back steps, and all alone.

“Peas, sir,” said a voice close to me; “peas, sir.”

“I don’t buy peas,” I replied, looking up in some surprise, for I’d heard no footstep.

“Peas, sir,” persisted the child – “I mean, if oo peas, sir, I’ve come to see your talavan.”

What a sprite she looked! What a gnome! Her little face and hands and bare legs and feet were black with coal dust, only her lips were pink. When she smiled she showed two rows of little pearly teeth, and her eyes were very large and lustrous. I took all this in at a glance, and could not help noticing the smallness of her feet and hands and ears.

“Take my hand and help me up the stails. Be twick.” I did as I was told, and everything inside was duly criticised and admired. She sat on a footstool, and told me a deal about herself. She spent all the day in the mine, she said, playing and singing, and everybody loved her, and was so “dood” to her.

She lived with her pa and ma in a cottage she pointed to.

“But,” she added, “my pa isn’t my real faddel (father), and ma isn’t my real muddel (mother).” Here was a mystery.

“And where is your real father and mother?”

“Oh!” she replied, “I never had a real faddel and muddel.”

As she was going away she said, —

“You may tiss me, and tome and see me.”

I could not see my way to kiss so black a face, but I promised to go and see her at her “faddel’s” cottage. I did so in an hour, but only to find the mystery that hung around my little gnome deepened.

My little gnome was a gnome no more, but a fairy, washed and clean and neatly dressed, and with a wealth of sunny hair floating over her shoulders. The miner himself was clean, too, and the cottage was the pink of tidiness and order. There were even flowers in vases, and a canary in a gilded cage hanging in the window.

Though I stayed and talked for quite a long time, I did not succeed in solving the mystery.

“She ain’t ours, sir, little Looie ain’t,” said the sturdy miner. “Come to us in a queer way, but lo! sir, how we does love her, to be sure!”

Chapter Twenty Six.

From Inverness to London – Southward Away – The “Wanderer’s” Little Mistress – A Quiet Sabbath – A Dreary Evening at Aldbourne

“While he hath a child to love him    No man can be poor indeed;While he trusts a Friend above him    None can sorrow, fear, or need.”Tupper.

I would willingly draw a veil over the incidents that occurred, and the accidents that happened, to the Wanderer from the time she left Inverness by train, till the day I find myself once more out on the breezy common of Streatham, with the horses’ heads bearing southward away!

But I am telling a plain unvarnished tale, not merely for the amusement of those who may do me the honour to read it, but for the guidance of those who may at some future date take it into their heads to enjoy a gipsy outing.

When I arrived in Glasgow the summer had so far gone, that it became a 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.