Chapter Thirteen.

Chapter Thirteen.The Crew of the “Wanderer,” All Told.“His hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs,Showed he was nane o’ Scotland’s dogs.”Burns.While perusing these memoirs of my gipsy life, I should be more than delighted if my readers could to some extent think as I thought, and feel as I felt.In an early chapter I gave a sketch of the Wanderer herself; let me now give a brief account of its occupants by day. Why I say by day is this: my coachman does not sleep in the caravan, but takes his ease at his inn wherever the horses are stabled. Doubtless, however, when we are far away in the wilder regions of the Scottish Highlands, if it ever be our good fortune to get there safely, John G, my honest Jehu, will have sometimes to wrap himself in his horse rugs and sleep upon thecoupé. And we have so many awnings and so much spare canvas that it will be easy enough to make him a covering to defend him from the falling dew.Having mentioned John G, then, it is perhaps but right that I should give him the preference even to Hurricane Bob, and say a word about him first.My Jehu John.When I advertised for a coachman in theReading MercuryI had no lack of replies. Among these was one from a certain Major B, recommending John. He gave him an excellent character for quietness, steadiness, and sobriety, adding that when I had done with him he would be happy to take him back into his employment.This was virtually offering me John on loan, and having a soft side for the Queen’s service, I at once sent for John G.When John returned that forenoon to Mapledurham he was engaged. If John could speak Latin, he might have said,—“Veni, vidi, vici.”But, with all his other good qualities, John cannot talk Latin.I was naturally most concerned to know whether my coachman was temperate or not, and I asked him. “I likes my drop o’ beer,” was John’s reply, “but I know when I’ve enough.”John and myself are about ages, ie, we were both born in her Majesty’s reign. John, like myself, is a married man with young bairnies, of whom he is both proud and fond.John and I have something else in common. We are both country folks, and therefore both love nature. I do not think there is a shrub or tree anywhere about that is not an old friend, or a bird or wild creature in meadow or moorland or wood that we do not know the name and habits of. If we see anything odd about a tree or come to one that seems somewhat strange to us, we stop horses at once, and do not go on again until we have read the arboreal riddle.John is very quiet and polite, and thoroughly knows his place.Finally, he is fond of his horses, most careful to groom them well and to see to their feet and pasterns, and if ever the saddle hurts in the least on any particular spot, he is not content until he has eased the pressure.Next on the list of our crew all told comes—Alfred Foley.Foley has reached the mature age of twenty, and I have known him for eight years. To put it in broad but expressive Scotch, Foley is just “a neebour laddie.” He has done many odd jobs for me at home as my librarian, clerk, and gardener, and having expressed a wish to follow my fortunes in this long gipsy tour of mine, I have taken him.Both John and he have regularly signed articles, shipshape and sailor fashion, for the whole cruise; and I mean to be a good captain to both of them.As Foley at home is in fairly good circumstances of life, and has a kind and religious mother, it is needless to say much about his character. I could trust him with untold gold—if I had it. But here is a greater proof of my trust in his integrity—I can trust him with Hurricane Bob, and Hurricane Bob is more to me than much fine gold.On board the Wanderer, Foley fills the position of my first lieutenant and secretary; with this he combines the duties of valet and cook, I myself sometimes assisting in the latter capacity. He is also my outrider—on a tricycle—and often my agent in advance.On the whole he is a good lad. I do not believe he ever flirts with the maids at the bars of the village inns when we buy our modest drop of beer or secure our ginger-ale. And I am certain he reads the Book, and says his prayers every night of his life.So much for the crew of the Wanderer. Now for the live stock, my companions.I have already said a word about my horses, Corn-flower and Pear-blossom. We know more about their individual characters now.Nothing then in the world would annoy or put Corn-flower out of temper. Come hills or come valleys, on rough road and on smooth, walking or at the trot, he goes on with his head in the air, straight fore and aft, heeding nothing, simply doing his duty.There is far more of the grace and poetry of motion about Pea-blossom. She bobs and tosses her head, and flicks her tail, looking altogether as proud as a hen with one chicken.If touched with the whip, she immediately nibbles round at Corn-flower’s head, as much as to say, “Come on, can’t you, you lazy stick? There am I getting touched up with the whip all owing to you. You’re not doing your share of the work, and you know it.”But Corn-flower never makes the slightest reply. Pea-blossom is a thorough type of the sex to which she belongs. She is jealous of Corn-flower, pretends not to like him. She would often kick him if she could, but if he is taken out of the stable, and she left, she will almost neigh the house down.If in a field with Corn-flower, she is constantly imagining that he is getting all the best patches of grass and clover, and keeps nagging at him and chasing him from place to place.But the contented Corn-flower does not retaliate. For Corn-flower’s motto is “Never mind.”Polly—The Cockatoo.I want my friends—the readers—to know and appreciate my little feathered friend, so far as anyone can to whom she does not grant a private interview. I want them to know her, and yet I feel how difficult it is to describe her—or ratherhim, though I shall continue to sayher—without writing in a goody-goody or old-maidish style. “Never mind,” as Corn-flower says, I’ll do my best.Polly’s Birth and Parentage.—The bird came about five years ago from the wilds of West Australia, though she has been in my possession but little more than a year. She belongs to the great natural family Psattacidae, and to the soft-billed species of non-crested cockatoos. As regards the softness of her bill, however, it is more imaginary than real, for though she cannot crack a cocoa-nut, she could slit one’s nose or lay a finger open to the bone.I daresay Polly was born in some old log of wood in the bosh, and suffered, as all parrots do coming to this country, from vile food, close confinement, and want of water.Polly’s Personal Appearance.—Having no crest—except when excited—she looks to the ordinary eye a parrot and nothing else. Pure white is she all over except for a garland of crimson across her breast, a blue patch round her wondrous eyes, and the red of the gorcock over the beak. This latter is a curious apparatus; so long and bent is it that the dealers usually call this species of cockatoo “Nosey,” which is more expressive than polite.Polly’s Tricks and Manners.—These are altogether very remarkable and quite out of the common run.No cockatoo that ever I saw would beat a well-trained red-tail grey parrot at talking, but in motion-making and in tricks the latter is nowhere with Nosey.I place no value on Polly’s ordinary tricks, for any cockatoo will shake hands when told, will kiss one or ask to be kissed or scratched, or even dance. This last, however, if with a musical accompaniment, is a very graceful action. Polly also, like other cockatoos, stands on her head, swings by head or feet, etc, etc. But it is her extreme love for music that makes this bird of mine so winning.When she first came to me she was fierce, vindictive, and sulky. It was the guitar that brought her round. And now when I play either guitar or violin she listens most attentively or beats time with her bill on the bars of the cage.This she does when I am playing quadrille or waltz, but the following I think very remarkable: Polly cannot stand a Scotch strathspey, and often, when I begin to play one, she commences to imitate a dog and cat fighting, which she does to perfection. Again, if I play a slow or melancholy air on the violin, Polly seems entranced, and sits on her perch with downcast head, with one foot in the air, slowly opening and shutting her fist in time to the music.Polly plays the guitar with her beak when I hold it close to her cage, ie, she touches the strings while I do the fingering.I am teaching her to turn a little organ, and soon she will be perfect. Heigho! who knows that when, after a lapse of years, my pen and my gigantic intellect fail me, Polly may not be the prop of my declining years—Polly and the fiddle?Another of Polly’s strange motions is moving her neck as if using a whip. This she always does when she sees boys, so I daresay she knows what boys need.Her words and sayings are too numerous to mention. She calls for breakfast, for food, for sugar, for supper, etc. She calls Bob and the cat, and imitates both. She calls hens, imitates their being killed, puts them up to auction, and sells them for half-a-crown. She laughs and she sings,wordsandmusicboth being her own composition.She drinks from cup, or bottle, or spoon, milk, coffee, or tea, but no beer or ginger-ale.Her water is merely used to float and steep her seeds or crusts in. When frozen one day last winter, I found her throwing the seeds on top of the ice, and saying, “Poor dear Polly?” in a most mournful tone of voice.In conclusion, Polly is most affectionate and loving tome, and—“If to her lot some human errors fall,Look in her face, and you’ll forget them all.”Hurricane Bob.He is the caravan dog, a noble fellow, straight in coat, and jetty-black, without one curly hair. He is the admired of all beholders.He has gained prizes enough to entitle him to be dubbed champion according to the older rules. His real or bench name is Theodore Nero the Second. In his day his father was known all over the world.As to pedigree, Bob’s father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather were all champions, and he is himself the father of a champion, Mr Farquharson’s, MP, celebrated Gunville.(Vide “Aileen Aroon,” by the same author. Published by Messrs Partridge and Co, 9 Paternoster Row, EC.)In character, Bob—NB: We call him Robert on the Sabbath Day and on bank-holidays—is most gentle and amiable. And though, like all pure Newfoundlands, he is fond of fighting, he will never touch a small dog.Wherever Bob is seen he is admired, and neither children nor babies are ever afraid of him, while—“His locked and lettered braw brass collarShows him the gentleman and scholar.”The words of North and the Shepherd, in the “Noctes Ambrosianae,” come into my head as I write:—“A dog barks.Shepherd. Heavens! I could hae thocht that was Bronte.“North. No bark like his, James, now belongs to the world of sound.“Shepherd. Purple black was he all over, as the raven’s wing. Strength and sagacity emboldened his bounding beauty, but a fierceness lay deep down within the quiet lustre o’ his een that tauld ye, had he been enraged, he could hae torn in pieces a lion.“North. Not a child of three years old and upwards in the neighbourhood that had not hung by his mane, and played with his paws, and been affectionately worried by him on the flowery greensward.”Such was Bronte.Such is Hurricane Bob, only more so.

“His hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs,Showed he was nane o’ Scotland’s dogs.”Burns.

“His hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs,Showed he was nane o’ Scotland’s dogs.”Burns.

While perusing these memoirs of my gipsy life, I should be more than delighted if my readers could to some extent think as I thought, and feel as I felt.

In an early chapter I gave a sketch of the Wanderer herself; let me now give a brief account of its occupants by day. Why I say by day is this: my coachman does not sleep in the caravan, but takes his ease at his inn wherever the horses are stabled. Doubtless, however, when we are far away in the wilder regions of the Scottish Highlands, if it ever be our good fortune to get there safely, John G, my honest Jehu, will have sometimes to wrap himself in his horse rugs and sleep upon thecoupé. And we have so many awnings and so much spare canvas that it will be easy enough to make him a covering to defend him from the falling dew.

Having mentioned John G, then, it is perhaps but right that I should give him the preference even to Hurricane Bob, and say a word about him first.

When I advertised for a coachman in theReading MercuryI had no lack of replies. Among these was one from a certain Major B, recommending John. He gave him an excellent character for quietness, steadiness, and sobriety, adding that when I had done with him he would be happy to take him back into his employment.

This was virtually offering me John on loan, and having a soft side for the Queen’s service, I at once sent for John G.

When John returned that forenoon to Mapledurham he was engaged. If John could speak Latin, he might have said,—

“Veni, vidi, vici.”

But, with all his other good qualities, John cannot talk Latin.

I was naturally most concerned to know whether my coachman was temperate or not, and I asked him. “I likes my drop o’ beer,” was John’s reply, “but I know when I’ve enough.”

John and myself are about ages, ie, we were both born in her Majesty’s reign. John, like myself, is a married man with young bairnies, of whom he is both proud and fond.

John and I have something else in common. We are both country folks, and therefore both love nature. I do not think there is a shrub or tree anywhere about that is not an old friend, or a bird or wild creature in meadow or moorland or wood that we do not know the name and habits of. If we see anything odd about a tree or come to one that seems somewhat strange to us, we stop horses at once, and do not go on again until we have read the arboreal riddle.

John is very quiet and polite, and thoroughly knows his place.

Finally, he is fond of his horses, most careful to groom them well and to see to their feet and pasterns, and if ever the saddle hurts in the least on any particular spot, he is not content until he has eased the pressure.

Next on the list of our crew all told comes—

Foley has reached the mature age of twenty, and I have known him for eight years. To put it in broad but expressive Scotch, Foley is just “a neebour laddie.” He has done many odd jobs for me at home as my librarian, clerk, and gardener, and having expressed a wish to follow my fortunes in this long gipsy tour of mine, I have taken him.

Both John and he have regularly signed articles, shipshape and sailor fashion, for the whole cruise; and I mean to be a good captain to both of them.

As Foley at home is in fairly good circumstances of life, and has a kind and religious mother, it is needless to say much about his character. I could trust him with untold gold—if I had it. But here is a greater proof of my trust in his integrity—I can trust him with Hurricane Bob, and Hurricane Bob is more to me than much fine gold.

On board the Wanderer, Foley fills the position of my first lieutenant and secretary; with this he combines the duties of valet and cook, I myself sometimes assisting in the latter capacity. He is also my outrider—on a tricycle—and often my agent in advance.

On the whole he is a good lad. I do not believe he ever flirts with the maids at the bars of the village inns when we buy our modest drop of beer or secure our ginger-ale. And I am certain he reads the Book, and says his prayers every night of his life.

So much for the crew of the Wanderer. Now for the live stock, my companions.

I have already said a word about my horses, Corn-flower and Pear-blossom. We know more about their individual characters now.

Nothing then in the world would annoy or put Corn-flower out of temper. Come hills or come valleys, on rough road and on smooth, walking or at the trot, he goes on with his head in the air, straight fore and aft, heeding nothing, simply doing his duty.

There is far more of the grace and poetry of motion about Pea-blossom. She bobs and tosses her head, and flicks her tail, looking altogether as proud as a hen with one chicken.

If touched with the whip, she immediately nibbles round at Corn-flower’s head, as much as to say, “Come on, can’t you, you lazy stick? There am I getting touched up with the whip all owing to you. You’re not doing your share of the work, and you know it.”

But Corn-flower never makes the slightest reply. Pea-blossom is a thorough type of the sex to which she belongs. She is jealous of Corn-flower, pretends not to like him. She would often kick him if she could, but if he is taken out of the stable, and she left, she will almost neigh the house down.

If in a field with Corn-flower, she is constantly imagining that he is getting all the best patches of grass and clover, and keeps nagging at him and chasing him from place to place.

But the contented Corn-flower does not retaliate. For Corn-flower’s motto is “Never mind.”

I want my friends—the readers—to know and appreciate my little feathered friend, so far as anyone can to whom she does not grant a private interview. I want them to know her, and yet I feel how difficult it is to describe her—or ratherhim, though I shall continue to sayher—without writing in a goody-goody or old-maidish style. “Never mind,” as Corn-flower says, I’ll do my best.

Polly’s Birth and Parentage.—The bird came about five years ago from the wilds of West Australia, though she has been in my possession but little more than a year. She belongs to the great natural family Psattacidae, and to the soft-billed species of non-crested cockatoos. As regards the softness of her bill, however, it is more imaginary than real, for though she cannot crack a cocoa-nut, she could slit one’s nose or lay a finger open to the bone.

I daresay Polly was born in some old log of wood in the bosh, and suffered, as all parrots do coming to this country, from vile food, close confinement, and want of water.

Polly’s Personal Appearance.—Having no crest—except when excited—she looks to the ordinary eye a parrot and nothing else. Pure white is she all over except for a garland of crimson across her breast, a blue patch round her wondrous eyes, and the red of the gorcock over the beak. This latter is a curious apparatus; so long and bent is it that the dealers usually call this species of cockatoo “Nosey,” which is more expressive than polite.

Polly’s Tricks and Manners.—These are altogether very remarkable and quite out of the common run.

No cockatoo that ever I saw would beat a well-trained red-tail grey parrot at talking, but in motion-making and in tricks the latter is nowhere with Nosey.

I place no value on Polly’s ordinary tricks, for any cockatoo will shake hands when told, will kiss one or ask to be kissed or scratched, or even dance. This last, however, if with a musical accompaniment, is a very graceful action. Polly also, like other cockatoos, stands on her head, swings by head or feet, etc, etc. But it is her extreme love for music that makes this bird of mine so winning.

When she first came to me she was fierce, vindictive, and sulky. It was the guitar that brought her round. And now when I play either guitar or violin she listens most attentively or beats time with her bill on the bars of the cage.

This she does when I am playing quadrille or waltz, but the following I think very remarkable: Polly cannot stand a Scotch strathspey, and often, when I begin to play one, she commences to imitate a dog and cat fighting, which she does to perfection. Again, if I play a slow or melancholy air on the violin, Polly seems entranced, and sits on her perch with downcast head, with one foot in the air, slowly opening and shutting her fist in time to the music.

Polly plays the guitar with her beak when I hold it close to her cage, ie, she touches the strings while I do the fingering.

I am teaching her to turn a little organ, and soon she will be perfect. Heigho! who knows that when, after a lapse of years, my pen and my gigantic intellect fail me, Polly may not be the prop of my declining years—Polly and the fiddle?

Another of Polly’s strange motions is moving her neck as if using a whip. This she always does when she sees boys, so I daresay she knows what boys need.

Her words and sayings are too numerous to mention. She calls for breakfast, for food, for sugar, for supper, etc. She calls Bob and the cat, and imitates both. She calls hens, imitates their being killed, puts them up to auction, and sells them for half-a-crown. She laughs and she sings,wordsandmusicboth being her own composition.

She drinks from cup, or bottle, or spoon, milk, coffee, or tea, but no beer or ginger-ale.

Her water is merely used to float and steep her seeds or crusts in. When frozen one day last winter, I found her throwing the seeds on top of the ice, and saying, “Poor dear Polly?” in a most mournful tone of voice.

In conclusion, Polly is most affectionate and loving tome, and—

“If to her lot some human errors fall,Look in her face, and you’ll forget them all.”

“If to her lot some human errors fall,Look in her face, and you’ll forget them all.”

He is the caravan dog, a noble fellow, straight in coat, and jetty-black, without one curly hair. He is the admired of all beholders.

He has gained prizes enough to entitle him to be dubbed champion according to the older rules. His real or bench name is Theodore Nero the Second. In his day his father was known all over the world.

As to pedigree, Bob’s father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather were all champions, and he is himself the father of a champion, Mr Farquharson’s, MP, celebrated Gunville.

(Vide “Aileen Aroon,” by the same author. Published by Messrs Partridge and Co, 9 Paternoster Row, EC.)

In character, Bob—NB: We call him Robert on the Sabbath Day and on bank-holidays—is most gentle and amiable. And though, like all pure Newfoundlands, he is fond of fighting, he will never touch a small dog.

Wherever Bob is seen he is admired, and neither children nor babies are ever afraid of him, while—

“His locked and lettered braw brass collarShows him the gentleman and scholar.”

“His locked and lettered braw brass collarShows him the gentleman and scholar.”

The words of North and the Shepherd, in the “Noctes Ambrosianae,” come into my head as I write:—

“A dog barks.Shepherd. Heavens! I could hae thocht that was Bronte.

“North. No bark like his, James, now belongs to the world of sound.

“Shepherd. Purple black was he all over, as the raven’s wing. Strength and sagacity emboldened his bounding beauty, but a fierceness lay deep down within the quiet lustre o’ his een that tauld ye, had he been enraged, he could hae torn in pieces a lion.

“North. Not a child of three years old and upwards in the neighbourhood that had not hung by his mane, and played with his paws, and been affectionately worried by him on the flowery greensward.”

Such was Bronte.

Such is Hurricane Bob, only more so.

Chapter Fourteen.Letters Home, after being Months on the Road.“Come listen to my humble friends.Nor scorn to read their letters,The faithfulness of horse and dogOft-times makes us their debtors.Yet selfish man leads folly’s van,The thought is food for laughter.He admits all virtues in his ‘beast,’But—denies him a hereafter.”I.Letter from Polly Pea-Blossom to a Lady-Friend.NOW fulfil my promise of writing to you, my dear, which you remember I made long ago, saying I should do so at the earliest opportunity. By the way, poor Corn-flower, my pole-mate, spells opportunity with one ‘p.’ It is quite distressing, my dear, to think how much Captain Corn-flower’s education has been neglected in many ways. He is only called ‘Captain’ by courtesy you know, having never been in the army. Heigho! what a deal of ups and downs one does see in one’s life to be sure. Why, it is not more than three years since you and I, my dear, resided in the same big stable, and used to trot great fat old Lady C— to church in that stupid big yellow chariot of hers. And now heigho! the old lady has gone to heaven, or wherever else old ladiesdogo, and you and I are parted. But often and often now, while housed in some sad unsavoury den, I think of you, my dear, and olden times till tears as big as beans roll over my halter. And I think of that old stable, with its tall doors, its lofty windows, its sweet floors and plaited straw, and the breath of new-mown hay that used to pervade it! Heigho! again.“I was telling Corn-flower only last night of how I once kicked an unruly, unmannerly nephew of my ladyship’s out of the stable door, because he tried to pull hairs out of my tail to make a fishing line. Poor Corn-flower laughed, my dear, and said,—“‘Which ye was always unkimmon ready to kick, Polly, leastways ever since I has a-known ye.’“He does talk so vulgarly, my dear, that sometimes my blood boils to think that a mare of my blood and birth should be—but there! never mind, Corn-flower has some good points after all. He never loses his temper, even when I kick him and bite him. I only wish he would. If he would only kick me in return, oh, then wouldn’t I warm him just! I gave him a few promiscuous kicks before I commenced this letter. He only just sighed and said, ‘Ye can’t help it, Polly—that ye can’t. You’re honly a mare and I be a feelosopher, I be’s.’“On the whole, though, I have not much to complain of at present; my master is very kind and my coachman is very careful, and never loses his temper except when I take the bit in my teeth and have my own way for a mile.“When we start of a morning we never know a bit where we are going to, or what is before us; sometimes it is wet or rainy, and even cold; but bless you, my dear, we are always hungry, that is the best of it, and really I would not change places with any carriage-horse ever I knew. Travelling does improve one’s mind so, though heigho! I don’t think it has done much yet for the gallant Captain Corn-flower.“The greatest bother is getting a nice stable. Sometimes these are cool and comfortable enough, but sometimes so close and stuffy one can hardly breathe. Sometimes they smell of hens, and sometimes even of pigs. Isn’t that dreadful, my dear? I hate pigs, my dear, and one day, about a month ago, one of these hateful creatures struck my near hind leg with such force that he was instantly converted into pork. As regards bedding, however, John—that is our coachman—does look well out for us, though on more than one occasion we could get nothing better than pea-straw. Now pea-straw may be good enough for Corn-flower, my dear, but not for me; I scorn to lie on it, and stand all night!“I dearly love hay. Sometimes this is bad enough, but at other times a nice rackful of sweetly-scented meadow hay soothes me, and almost sends me to sleep; it must be like eating the lotus leaf that I hear master speak about.“Perhaps you would not believe this, my dear—some innkeepers hardly ever clean out their stables. The following is a remark I heard only yesterday. It was a Yorkshireman who made it—“‘Had I known you’d been coming, I’d ha’ turned th’ fowls out like, and cleaned oop a bit. We generally does clean ooponce a year.’“Sometimes, my dear, the roads are very trying, and what with big hills and thousands of flies it is a wonder on a warm day how I can keep my temper as well as I do.“But there, my dear, this letter is long enough. We must not grumble, must we, my dear? It is the lot of horses to work and toil, and theremaybe rest for us in some green hereafter, when our necks are stiffened in death, and our shoes taken off never to be nailed on again.“Quien sabe? as master says.Quien sabe?“Your affectionate old friend and stable-mate,—“Polly Pea-blossom.”II.From Captain Corn-Flower to Old Dobbin, a Brewer’s Horse.“Dear old Chummie,—Which i said last time i rubbed noses with you At the wagon and hosses, as ’ow i’d rite to you, and which i Now takes the Oportunity, bein’ as ’ow i would ha’ filled my Promise long Ago, If i was only arf as clever as Polly pea-blossom.“My shoes! old chummie, but Polly be amazin’ ’cute. She is My stable-mate is polly, likewise my pole-companion As you might say. Which her name is polly pea-blossom, all complete. Gee up and away you goes!“And which I considers it the completest ’onor out to be chums along o’ polly, anyhow whatsoever. Gee up and away you goes!“‘You’re a lady, polly,’ i says, says i, ‘and i ain’t a gentleman—no, beggar me if i be’s.’“‘You sometimes speak the truth,’ says polly, she says.“Which that was a kind o’ 2-handed compliment, dear dobbin. Gee up and away you goes!“Which polly is unkimmin clever, and I allers appeals to polly.“Which polly often amooses i like, while we Be a-munchin’ a bit o’ meadow hay, arter we’ve been and gone and ’ad our jackets brushed, and our Feet washed, and got bedded-up like; Polly allers tells me o’ the toime when she were a-pullin’ of a big chariat and a-draggin’ of a duchess to church, and what a jolly nice stable she lived In, and what fine gold-plated ’arness she used to put on, and Lots else I don’t recomember, dobbin, and all in such Fine english, dobbin, as you and i couldn’t speak with our bits out. Yes, polly be’s unkimmin clever. Gee up and away you goes!“But 1 nite, dobbin, i says to myself, says i, i’ll tell polly summit o’myyounger days, so I hits out as follers: ‘When i were a-livin’ wi’ farmer Frogue, polly,’ says i, which he were a farmer in a small way, and brew’d a drop o’ good beer for the publics all round like, there were me and my mate, a boss called dobbin; and bless your old collar, polly, dobbin were a rare good un, and he’d a-draw’d a tree out by the roots dobbin would. Gee op and away ye goes! And there were old Garge who drov us like, which he Had a fine temper, polly, ’ceptin’ when he got a drop too much, then it was whip, whip, whip, all day, up hill and down, and my shoulders is marked till this day. But Old farmer frogue, he comes to the stable once upon a time, which a very fat un were farmer frogue, wi’ no legs to speak of like. Well, polly, as I were a sayin’, he comes to the stable, and he says to Garge, ‘Garge,’ says he—“But would you believe it, dear dobbin? I never got further on with my story like.“‘Oh! bother you,’ cries polly, a-tossin o’ her mane that proud like. ‘Do you imagine for a moment that a born lady like me is interested in your Dobbins, and your Garges, and your fat old farmer Frogues? You’re a vulgar old horse, Corn-flower.’“Gee op, says i, and away ye goes!“And polly ups wi’ her hind foot and splinters the partition, and master had to pay for that, which polly is amazin’ clever at doin’ a kick like.“But I likes polly unkimmon, and polly likes i, and though she bites and kicks she do be unhappy when i goes away to be shoed. Which I never loses my temper, dobbin, whatsomever. Gee up and away ye goes!“Which we never funks a hill though, neither on us. When we Comes to a pertikler stiff un like i just appeals to polly.“‘Pull up,’ says Polly, says she, ‘every hill has a top to it; pull up, you old hass, pull op!’“Sometimes the hay we gets ain’t the sweetest o’ perfoomery, dobbin, old chummie; then I appeals to polly, cause you see if polly can eat it so kin i.“Sometimes we meet the tractive hengine; i never liked it, and what’s more i never will. It seems unnatural like, so i appeals to polly.“‘What’s the krect thing to do, polly?’ i says, says i; ‘shall us kick or shall us bolt?’“‘Come straight on, ye hold fool,’ says polly pea-blossom, says she.“Gee up, says i, and away ye goes!“Which i must now dror to a klose, dobbin, and which i does hope you’ll allers have a good home and good shoes, dobbin, till you’re marched to the knacker’s. Gee up and away ye goes!—“Good-bye, dobbin, polly’s gone to sleep, and master is a-playin’ the fiddle so soft and low like, in the meadow beyant yonder, which it allers does make me think o’ what the parson’s old pony once told me, dobbin, o’ a land where old hosses were taken to arter they were shot and their shoes taken off, a land o’ green meadows, dobbin, and a sweet quiet river a-rollin’ by, and long rows o’ wavin’ pollards like, with nothing to do all day, no ’arness to wear, no bit to hurt or rein to gall. Think o’ that, dobbin. Good-bye, dobbin—there goes the moosic again, so sweet and tremblin’ and sobbin’-like. i’m goin’ to listen and dream.“Yours kindly,—“Poor old Corn-flower.”III.From Polly the Cockatoo to Dick the Starling.“Dear Dick,—If you weren’t the cleverest starling that ever talked or flew, with a coat all shiny with crimson and blue, I wouldn’t waste a tail feather in writing to you.“You must know, Dick, that there are two Pollys on this wandering expedition, Polly the mare, Polly Pea-blossom, and Polly the pretty cockatoo, that’s me, though however master could have thought of making me godmother to an old mare, goodness only knows. Ha! ha! ha! it makes me laugh to think of it.“They do say that I’m the happiest, and the prettiest, and the merriest bird, that ever yet was born, and I won’t be five till next birthday, though what I shall be before I am a hundred is more than I can think.“Yes, I’ll live to a hundred, cockatoos all do; then my body will drop off the perch, and my soul will go into something else—ha! ha! ha! Wouldn’t you laugh too, if you had to live for a hundred years?“All that time in a cage, with only a run out once a day, and a row with the cat! Yes, all that time, and why not? What’s the odds so long as you’re happy? Ha! ha! ha!“I confess I do dream sometimes of the wild dark forest lands of Australia, and I think at times I would like to lead a life of freedom away in the woods yonder, just as the rooks and the pigeons do. Dash my bill! Dick, but I would make it warm for some of them in the woods—ha! ha! ha!“Sometimes when the sparrows—they are cheeky enough for anything—come close to my cage, I give vent to what master calls my war-cry, and they almost drop dead with fright.“‘Scray!’ that’s my war-cry, and it is louder than a railway whistle, and shriller than a bagpipe.“‘Scray! Scray! Scray—ay—ay!’“That’s it again.“Master has just pitched a ‘Bradshaw’ at my cage. I’ll tear that ‘Bradshaw’ to bits first chance I have.“Master says my war-cry is the worst of me. It is so startling, he says.“That’s just where it is—what would be the use of a war-cry if it weren’t startling? Eh, Dick?“Now out in the Australian jungles, this war-cry is the only defence we poor cockatoos have against the venomous snakes.“The snakes come gliding up the tree.“‘Scray! Scray!!’ we scream, and away they squirm.“A hundred years in a cage, or chained by a foot to a perch! A hundred years, Dick! It does seem a long time.“But the other day, when master put my cage on the grass, I just opened the fastening, and out I hopped. Ha! ha! ha! There were butterflies floating about, and bees on the flowering linden trees, and birds singing, and wild rabbits washing their faces with their forefeet among the green ferns, and every creature seemed as happy as the summer day is long. Ididhave an hour’s good fun in the woods, I can tell you. I caught a bird and killed it; I caught a mouse and crunched it up; and I scared some pigeons nearly to death, for they took me for an owl. Then an ugly man in a velvet jacket fired a gun at me, and I flew away back to my cage.“I wouldn’t have got much to eat in the woods, and there is always corn in Egypt.“But hanging up here in the verandah of the Wanderer is fine fun. I see so many strange birds, and so many strange children. I dote on children, and I sing and I dance to them, and sometimes make a grab at their noses.“Hullo! Dick. Why, the door of my cage is open! Master has gone out.“I am going out too, Dick.“I’ve been out, Dick. I have had a walk round the saloon. I’ve torn ‘Bradshaw’ all to pieces. I made a grab at Hurricane Bob’s tail, and the brute nearly bit my head off. Just as if his tail was of any consequence! I’ve been playing the guitar, and cut all the strings in two. I’ve pitched a basket of flowers on the carpet, and I’ve spilt the ink all over them, and I’ve danced upon them; and torn master’s letters up, and enjoyed myself most thoroughly. Ha! ha! ha! Master’s face will be as long as his fiddle when he comes back.“‘Scray! Scray! Scray—ay—ay!’“Well, no more at present, Dick my darling. I never tried to pullyourtail off, did I? I don’t think I have done very much harm in this world, and I never say naughty words, so, perhaps, when my hundred years are over, and my body drops off the perch, my soul will go into something very nice indeed.“Ha! ha! ha!“Scray! Scray!! Scray!!!“Poor Polly.”IV.From Hurricane Bob to his Kennel-Mate Eily.“You said in your last, dear Eily, that you wanted to know how I enjoyed my gipsy life, and the answer is, ‘out and out,’ or rather, ‘out and in,’ outside the caravan and inside the caravan. If there be a happier dog than myself in all the kingdom of kenneldom, let him come right up and show himself, and the probability is we’ll fight about it right away.“Well, you see, I don’t take many notes by the way, but I notice everything for all that.“First thing in the morning I have my breakfast and a trot out.“It pains me though to see so many poor dogs muzzled. I am sure that Carlyle was right, and that most men—especially magistrates—are fools. Wouldn’t I like to see some of them muzzled just?—the magistrates, I mean.“Every dog on the street makes room for me, and if they don’t—you know what I mean, Eily.“The other day a Scotch collie—and you know, Eily, you are the only Scotch collie I could ever bear—walked up to me on the cliff-top at Filey, and put up his back. As he did not lower his tail, I went straight for him, and it would have done you good to see how I shook him. There was a big dandy on me too, and as soon as I had quietened the collie I opened the dandy up. My bites are nearly well, and I am quite prepared for another fight. I won’t allow any dog in the world to come spooning round my master.“We travel many and many a long mile, Eily, and I am generally tired before the day is done, but at night there is another long walk or a run behind the tricycle. Then a tumble on the greensward; sometimes it is covered all over with beautiful flowers, prettier than any carpet you ever lay upon.“Everybody is so kind to me, and the ladies fondle me and say such pretty things to me. I wonder they don’t fondle master and say pretty things to him. I wish they would.“Good-bye, Eily. There is a tramp coming skulking round the caravan, and I don’t like his looks.“‘R-r-r-r-r-bow! Wow-w!’“He is gone, Eily. Good-bye, take care of master’s children till we all come back.“Yours right faithfully,—“Hurricane Bob.”V.From the Author to his Good Friend C.A.W.(C.A. Wheeler, Esq, of Swindon, the clever author of “Sports-scrapiana,” etc, etc.)“The Wanderer Caravan,—“Touring in Notts,—“July 28, 1886.“My dearly-beloved Caw,—For not writing to you before now I must make the excuse the Scotch lassie made to her lover—‘I’ve been thinkin’ aboot ye, Johnnie lad.’ And so in my wanderings I often think of thee and thine, poor old Sam included; and my mind reverts to your cosy parlour in Swindon, Nellie in the armchair, Sam on the footstool, my Hurricane Bob on the hearth, and you and I viewing each other’s smiling faces through the vapour that ascends from a duality of jorums of real Highland tartan toddy.“Yes, I’ve been thinking of you, but I have likewise been busy. There is a deal to be done in a caravan, even if I hadn’t my literary connection to keep up, and half-a-dozen serieses to carry on. You must know that a gentleman gipsy’s life isn’t all beer and skittles. Take the doings of one day as an example, my Caw. The Wanderer has been lying on the greensward all night, we will say, close by a little country village inn. Crowds gathered round us last night, lured by curiosity and the dulcet tones of your humble servant’s fiddle and valet’s flute, but soon, as we loyally played ‘God save the Queen,’ the rustics melted away, our shutters were put up, and soon there was no sound to be heard save the occasional hooting of a brown owl, and the sighing of the west wind through a thicket of firs. We slept the sleep of gipsies, or of the just, the valet in the after-cabin, I in the saloon, my faithful Newfoundland at my side. If a step but comes near the caravan at night, the deep bass, ominous growl that shakes the ship from stem to stern shows that this grand old dog is ready for business.“But soon as the little hands of the clock point to six, my eyes open mechanically, as it were, Bob gets up and stretches himself, and, ere ever the smoke from the village chimneys begins to roll up through the green of the trees, we are all astir. The bath-tent is speedily pitched, and breakfast is being prepared. No need of tonic bitters to give a gipsy an appetite, the fresh, pure air does that, albeit that frizzly ham and those milky, newborn eggs, with white bread and the countriest of country butter, would draw water from the teeth of a hand-saw. Breakfast over, my Caw, while I write on thecoupéand Bob rolls exultant on the grass, my valet is carefully washing decks, dusting, and tidying, and the coachman is once more carefully grooming Captain Corn-flower and Polly Pea-blossom.“It will be half-past eight before the saloon and after-cabin are thoroughly in order, for the Wanderer is quite a Pullman car and lady’s boudoir,minusthe lady. Then, my old friend, visitors will begin to drop in, and probably for nearly an hour I am holding a kind oflevée. It is a species of lionising that I have now got hardened to. Everybody admires everything, and I have to answer the same kind of questions day after day. It is nice, however, to find people who know me and have read my writings in every village in the kingdom. Hurricane Bob, of course, comes in for a big share of admiration. He gets showers of kisses, and many a fair cheek rests lovingly on his bonnie brow. I have to be content with smiles and glances, flowers and fruit, and eggs and new potatoes. The other day a handsome salmon came. It was a broiling hot day. The salmon said he must be eaten fresh. I was equal to the occasion. The lordly fish was cooked, the crew of the Wanderer, all told, gathered around him on the grass, and soon he had to change histense—from the present to the past.“The other day pigeons came. My valet plucked them, and the day being windy, and he, knowing no better, did the work standing, and, lor! how the feathers flew. It was a rain of feathers, and a reign of terror, for the ladies passing to the station had to put up their umbrellas.“But the steps are up, the horses are in, good-byes said, hands are waved by the kindly crowd, and away we rattle. My place is ever on thecoupé, note-book in hand.“‘A chiel’s among ye,’ etc.“My valet is riding on ahead on the tricycle. This year it is the charming ‘Marlborough,’ which is such a pleasant one to ride. On and on, now we go, through the beautiful country; something to attract our attention at every hundred yards. Heavens! my dear Caw, how little those who travel by train know of the delights of the road. We trot along while on level roads, we madly rush the short, steep hills at a glorious gallop, we crawl up the long, bad hills, and carefully—with skid and chain on the near hind wheel—we stagger down the break-neck ‘pinches.’ The brake is a powerful one, and in bad countries is in constant use, so that its brass handle shines like gold, and my arm aches ere night with putting it on and off.“Well, there is a midday halt after ten miles, generally on the roadside near water. We have a modest lunch of hard-boiled eggs, milk, beer, cheese, bread, and crushed oats and a bit of clover. Then on and on again. By five we have probably settled for the night, when dinner is prepared. We hardly need supper, and what with the rattling along all day, and the hum of the great van—with running and riding, and studying natural history and phenomena, including faces—I am tired, and so are we all, by nine o’clock.“But we generally have music before then. I have a small harmonium, a guitar, and a fiddle, and my valet plays well on the flute.“‘Then comes still evening on.’“The bats and owls come out, and we retire.“Of weather we have all varieties—the hot and the cool, the rain that rattles on the roof, the wind that makes the Wanderer rock, and the occasional thunderstorm. One dark night last week—we were in a lonely place—I sat out on thecoupétill one o’clock—‘the wee short hoor ayont the twal’—watching the vivid blue lightning, that curled like fiery snakes among the trees. By the way, I had nothing on but my night-shirt, and a dread spectre I must have appeared to anyone passing, seen but for a moment in the lightning’s flash, then gone. I marvelled next day that I had caught a slight cold.“I love little, quiet meadows, Caw. I dote on rural villages, and hate big towns. If the caravan is not lying on the grass there is no comfort.“I lay last night in the cosiest meadow ever I have been in. The very rural hamlet of Bunny, Notts, is a quarter of a mile away, but all the world is screened away from me with trees and hedges. I have for meadow-mates two intelligent cows, who can’t quite make us out. They couldn’t make Bob out either, till in the zeal of his guardianship he got one of them by the tail. There is in this hamlet of three hundred souls one inn—it is tottering to decay—a pound, a police-station, and a church. The church is ever so old, the weather-cock has long been blown down, and the clock has stopped for ever. The whole village is about as lively and bright as a farthing candle stuck in an empty beer bottle.“But here come the horses. Good-bye till we meet.“Gordon Stables,—“Ye Gentleman Gipsy.”

“Come listen to my humble friends.Nor scorn to read their letters,The faithfulness of horse and dogOft-times makes us their debtors.Yet selfish man leads folly’s van,The thought is food for laughter.He admits all virtues in his ‘beast,’But—denies him a hereafter.”

“Come listen to my humble friends.Nor scorn to read their letters,The faithfulness of horse and dogOft-times makes us their debtors.Yet selfish man leads folly’s van,The thought is food for laughter.He admits all virtues in his ‘beast,’But—denies him a hereafter.”

I.

Letter from Polly Pea-Blossom to a Lady-Friend.

NOW fulfil my promise of writing to you, my dear, which you remember I made long ago, saying I should do so at the earliest opportunity. By the way, poor Corn-flower, my pole-mate, spells opportunity with one ‘p.’ It is quite distressing, my dear, to think how much Captain Corn-flower’s education has been neglected in many ways. He is only called ‘Captain’ by courtesy you know, having never been in the army. Heigho! what a deal of ups and downs one does see in one’s life to be sure. Why, it is not more than three years since you and I, my dear, resided in the same big stable, and used to trot great fat old Lady C— to church in that stupid big yellow chariot of hers. And now heigho! the old lady has gone to heaven, or wherever else old ladiesdogo, and you and I are parted. But often and often now, while housed in some sad unsavoury den, I think of you, my dear, and olden times till tears as big as beans roll over my halter. And I think of that old stable, with its tall doors, its lofty windows, its sweet floors and plaited straw, and the breath of new-mown hay that used to pervade it! Heigho! again.

“I was telling Corn-flower only last night of how I once kicked an unruly, unmannerly nephew of my ladyship’s out of the stable door, because he tried to pull hairs out of my tail to make a fishing line. Poor Corn-flower laughed, my dear, and said,—

“‘Which ye was always unkimmon ready to kick, Polly, leastways ever since I has a-known ye.’

“He does talk so vulgarly, my dear, that sometimes my blood boils to think that a mare of my blood and birth should be—but there! never mind, Corn-flower has some good points after all. He never loses his temper, even when I kick him and bite him. I only wish he would. If he would only kick me in return, oh, then wouldn’t I warm him just! I gave him a few promiscuous kicks before I commenced this letter. He only just sighed and said, ‘Ye can’t help it, Polly—that ye can’t. You’re honly a mare and I be a feelosopher, I be’s.’

“On the whole, though, I have not much to complain of at present; my master is very kind and my coachman is very careful, and never loses his temper except when I take the bit in my teeth and have my own way for a mile.

“When we start of a morning we never know a bit where we are going to, or what is before us; sometimes it is wet or rainy, and even cold; but bless you, my dear, we are always hungry, that is the best of it, and really I would not change places with any carriage-horse ever I knew. Travelling does improve one’s mind so, though heigho! I don’t think it has done much yet for the gallant Captain Corn-flower.

“The greatest bother is getting a nice stable. Sometimes these are cool and comfortable enough, but sometimes so close and stuffy one can hardly breathe. Sometimes they smell of hens, and sometimes even of pigs. Isn’t that dreadful, my dear? I hate pigs, my dear, and one day, about a month ago, one of these hateful creatures struck my near hind leg with such force that he was instantly converted into pork. As regards bedding, however, John—that is our coachman—does look well out for us, though on more than one occasion we could get nothing better than pea-straw. Now pea-straw may be good enough for Corn-flower, my dear, but not for me; I scorn to lie on it, and stand all night!

“I dearly love hay. Sometimes this is bad enough, but at other times a nice rackful of sweetly-scented meadow hay soothes me, and almost sends me to sleep; it must be like eating the lotus leaf that I hear master speak about.

“Perhaps you would not believe this, my dear—some innkeepers hardly ever clean out their stables. The following is a remark I heard only yesterday. It was a Yorkshireman who made it—

“‘Had I known you’d been coming, I’d ha’ turned th’ fowls out like, and cleaned oop a bit. We generally does clean ooponce a year.’

“Sometimes, my dear, the roads are very trying, and what with big hills and thousands of flies it is a wonder on a warm day how I can keep my temper as well as I do.

“But there, my dear, this letter is long enough. We must not grumble, must we, my dear? It is the lot of horses to work and toil, and theremaybe rest for us in some green hereafter, when our necks are stiffened in death, and our shoes taken off never to be nailed on again.

“Quien sabe? as master says.Quien sabe?

“Your affectionate old friend and stable-mate,—

“Polly Pea-blossom.”

II.

From Captain Corn-Flower to Old Dobbin, a Brewer’s Horse.

“Dear old Chummie,—Which i said last time i rubbed noses with you At the wagon and hosses, as ’ow i’d rite to you, and which i Now takes the Oportunity, bein’ as ’ow i would ha’ filled my Promise long Ago, If i was only arf as clever as Polly pea-blossom.

“My shoes! old chummie, but Polly be amazin’ ’cute. She is My stable-mate is polly, likewise my pole-companion As you might say. Which her name is polly pea-blossom, all complete. Gee up and away you goes!

“And which I considers it the completest ’onor out to be chums along o’ polly, anyhow whatsoever. Gee up and away you goes!

“‘You’re a lady, polly,’ i says, says i, ‘and i ain’t a gentleman—no, beggar me if i be’s.’

“‘You sometimes speak the truth,’ says polly, she says.

“Which that was a kind o’ 2-handed compliment, dear dobbin. Gee up and away you goes!

“Which polly is unkimmin clever, and I allers appeals to polly.

“Which polly often amooses i like, while we Be a-munchin’ a bit o’ meadow hay, arter we’ve been and gone and ’ad our jackets brushed, and our Feet washed, and got bedded-up like; Polly allers tells me o’ the toime when she were a-pullin’ of a big chariat and a-draggin’ of a duchess to church, and what a jolly nice stable she lived In, and what fine gold-plated ’arness she used to put on, and Lots else I don’t recomember, dobbin, and all in such Fine english, dobbin, as you and i couldn’t speak with our bits out. Yes, polly be’s unkimmin clever. Gee up and away you goes!

“But 1 nite, dobbin, i says to myself, says i, i’ll tell polly summit o’myyounger days, so I hits out as follers: ‘When i were a-livin’ wi’ farmer Frogue, polly,’ says i, which he were a farmer in a small way, and brew’d a drop o’ good beer for the publics all round like, there were me and my mate, a boss called dobbin; and bless your old collar, polly, dobbin were a rare good un, and he’d a-draw’d a tree out by the roots dobbin would. Gee op and away ye goes! And there were old Garge who drov us like, which he Had a fine temper, polly, ’ceptin’ when he got a drop too much, then it was whip, whip, whip, all day, up hill and down, and my shoulders is marked till this day. But Old farmer frogue, he comes to the stable once upon a time, which a very fat un were farmer frogue, wi’ no legs to speak of like. Well, polly, as I were a sayin’, he comes to the stable, and he says to Garge, ‘Garge,’ says he—

“But would you believe it, dear dobbin? I never got further on with my story like.

“‘Oh! bother you,’ cries polly, a-tossin o’ her mane that proud like. ‘Do you imagine for a moment that a born lady like me is interested in your Dobbins, and your Garges, and your fat old farmer Frogues? You’re a vulgar old horse, Corn-flower.’

“Gee op, says i, and away ye goes!

“And polly ups wi’ her hind foot and splinters the partition, and master had to pay for that, which polly is amazin’ clever at doin’ a kick like.

“But I likes polly unkimmon, and polly likes i, and though she bites and kicks she do be unhappy when i goes away to be shoed. Which I never loses my temper, dobbin, whatsomever. Gee up and away ye goes!

“Which we never funks a hill though, neither on us. When we Comes to a pertikler stiff un like i just appeals to polly.

“‘Pull up,’ says Polly, says she, ‘every hill has a top to it; pull up, you old hass, pull op!’

“Sometimes the hay we gets ain’t the sweetest o’ perfoomery, dobbin, old chummie; then I appeals to polly, cause you see if polly can eat it so kin i.

“Sometimes we meet the tractive hengine; i never liked it, and what’s more i never will. It seems unnatural like, so i appeals to polly.

“‘What’s the krect thing to do, polly?’ i says, says i; ‘shall us kick or shall us bolt?’

“‘Come straight on, ye hold fool,’ says polly pea-blossom, says she.

“Gee up, says i, and away ye goes!

“Which i must now dror to a klose, dobbin, and which i does hope you’ll allers have a good home and good shoes, dobbin, till you’re marched to the knacker’s. Gee up and away ye goes!—

“Good-bye, dobbin, polly’s gone to sleep, and master is a-playin’ the fiddle so soft and low like, in the meadow beyant yonder, which it allers does make me think o’ what the parson’s old pony once told me, dobbin, o’ a land where old hosses were taken to arter they were shot and their shoes taken off, a land o’ green meadows, dobbin, and a sweet quiet river a-rollin’ by, and long rows o’ wavin’ pollards like, with nothing to do all day, no ’arness to wear, no bit to hurt or rein to gall. Think o’ that, dobbin. Good-bye, dobbin—there goes the moosic again, so sweet and tremblin’ and sobbin’-like. i’m goin’ to listen and dream.

“Yours kindly,—

“Poor old Corn-flower.”

III.

From Polly the Cockatoo to Dick the Starling.

“Dear Dick,—If you weren’t the cleverest starling that ever talked or flew, with a coat all shiny with crimson and blue, I wouldn’t waste a tail feather in writing to you.

“You must know, Dick, that there are two Pollys on this wandering expedition, Polly the mare, Polly Pea-blossom, and Polly the pretty cockatoo, that’s me, though however master could have thought of making me godmother to an old mare, goodness only knows. Ha! ha! ha! it makes me laugh to think of it.

“They do say that I’m the happiest, and the prettiest, and the merriest bird, that ever yet was born, and I won’t be five till next birthday, though what I shall be before I am a hundred is more than I can think.

“Yes, I’ll live to a hundred, cockatoos all do; then my body will drop off the perch, and my soul will go into something else—ha! ha! ha! Wouldn’t you laugh too, if you had to live for a hundred years?

“All that time in a cage, with only a run out once a day, and a row with the cat! Yes, all that time, and why not? What’s the odds so long as you’re happy? Ha! ha! ha!

“I confess I do dream sometimes of the wild dark forest lands of Australia, and I think at times I would like to lead a life of freedom away in the woods yonder, just as the rooks and the pigeons do. Dash my bill! Dick, but I would make it warm for some of them in the woods—ha! ha! ha!

“Sometimes when the sparrows—they are cheeky enough for anything—come close to my cage, I give vent to what master calls my war-cry, and they almost drop dead with fright.

“‘Scray!’ that’s my war-cry, and it is louder than a railway whistle, and shriller than a bagpipe.

“‘Scray! Scray! Scray—ay—ay!’

“That’s it again.

“Master has just pitched a ‘Bradshaw’ at my cage. I’ll tear that ‘Bradshaw’ to bits first chance I have.

“Master says my war-cry is the worst of me. It is so startling, he says.

“That’s just where it is—what would be the use of a war-cry if it weren’t startling? Eh, Dick?

“Now out in the Australian jungles, this war-cry is the only defence we poor cockatoos have against the venomous snakes.

“The snakes come gliding up the tree.

“‘Scray! Scray!!’ we scream, and away they squirm.

“A hundred years in a cage, or chained by a foot to a perch! A hundred years, Dick! It does seem a long time.

“But the other day, when master put my cage on the grass, I just opened the fastening, and out I hopped. Ha! ha! ha! There were butterflies floating about, and bees on the flowering linden trees, and birds singing, and wild rabbits washing their faces with their forefeet among the green ferns, and every creature seemed as happy as the summer day is long. Ididhave an hour’s good fun in the woods, I can tell you. I caught a bird and killed it; I caught a mouse and crunched it up; and I scared some pigeons nearly to death, for they took me for an owl. Then an ugly man in a velvet jacket fired a gun at me, and I flew away back to my cage.

“I wouldn’t have got much to eat in the woods, and there is always corn in Egypt.

“But hanging up here in the verandah of the Wanderer is fine fun. I see so many strange birds, and so many strange children. I dote on children, and I sing and I dance to them, and sometimes make a grab at their noses.

“Hullo! Dick. Why, the door of my cage is open! Master has gone out.

“I am going out too, Dick.

“I’ve been out, Dick. I have had a walk round the saloon. I’ve torn ‘Bradshaw’ all to pieces. I made a grab at Hurricane Bob’s tail, and the brute nearly bit my head off. Just as if his tail was of any consequence! I’ve been playing the guitar, and cut all the strings in two. I’ve pitched a basket of flowers on the carpet, and I’ve spilt the ink all over them, and I’ve danced upon them; and torn master’s letters up, and enjoyed myself most thoroughly. Ha! ha! ha! Master’s face will be as long as his fiddle when he comes back.

“‘Scray! Scray! Scray—ay—ay!’

“Well, no more at present, Dick my darling. I never tried to pullyourtail off, did I? I don’t think I have done very much harm in this world, and I never say naughty words, so, perhaps, when my hundred years are over, and my body drops off the perch, my soul will go into something very nice indeed.

“Ha! ha! ha!

“Scray! Scray!! Scray!!!

“Poor Polly.”

IV.

From Hurricane Bob to his Kennel-Mate Eily.

“You said in your last, dear Eily, that you wanted to know how I enjoyed my gipsy life, and the answer is, ‘out and out,’ or rather, ‘out and in,’ outside the caravan and inside the caravan. If there be a happier dog than myself in all the kingdom of kenneldom, let him come right up and show himself, and the probability is we’ll fight about it right away.

“Well, you see, I don’t take many notes by the way, but I notice everything for all that.

“First thing in the morning I have my breakfast and a trot out.

“It pains me though to see so many poor dogs muzzled. I am sure that Carlyle was right, and that most men—especially magistrates—are fools. Wouldn’t I like to see some of them muzzled just?—the magistrates, I mean.

“Every dog on the street makes room for me, and if they don’t—you know what I mean, Eily.

“The other day a Scotch collie—and you know, Eily, you are the only Scotch collie I could ever bear—walked up to me on the cliff-top at Filey, and put up his back. As he did not lower his tail, I went straight for him, and it would have done you good to see how I shook him. There was a big dandy on me too, and as soon as I had quietened the collie I opened the dandy up. My bites are nearly well, and I am quite prepared for another fight. I won’t allow any dog in the world to come spooning round my master.

“We travel many and many a long mile, Eily, and I am generally tired before the day is done, but at night there is another long walk or a run behind the tricycle. Then a tumble on the greensward; sometimes it is covered all over with beautiful flowers, prettier than any carpet you ever lay upon.

“Everybody is so kind to me, and the ladies fondle me and say such pretty things to me. I wonder they don’t fondle master and say pretty things to him. I wish they would.

“Good-bye, Eily. There is a tramp coming skulking round the caravan, and I don’t like his looks.

“‘R-r-r-r-r-bow! Wow-w!’

“He is gone, Eily. Good-bye, take care of master’s children till we all come back.

“Yours right faithfully,—

“Hurricane Bob.”

V.

From the Author to his Good Friend C.A.W.

(C.A. Wheeler, Esq, of Swindon, the clever author of “Sports-scrapiana,” etc, etc.)

“The Wanderer Caravan,—

“Touring in Notts,—

“July 28, 1886.

“My dearly-beloved Caw,—For not writing to you before now I must make the excuse the Scotch lassie made to her lover—‘I’ve been thinkin’ aboot ye, Johnnie lad.’ And so in my wanderings I often think of thee and thine, poor old Sam included; and my mind reverts to your cosy parlour in Swindon, Nellie in the armchair, Sam on the footstool, my Hurricane Bob on the hearth, and you and I viewing each other’s smiling faces through the vapour that ascends from a duality of jorums of real Highland tartan toddy.

“Yes, I’ve been thinking of you, but I have likewise been busy. There is a deal to be done in a caravan, even if I hadn’t my literary connection to keep up, and half-a-dozen serieses to carry on. You must know that a gentleman gipsy’s life isn’t all beer and skittles. Take the doings of one day as an example, my Caw. The Wanderer has been lying on the greensward all night, we will say, close by a little country village inn. Crowds gathered round us last night, lured by curiosity and the dulcet tones of your humble servant’s fiddle and valet’s flute, but soon, as we loyally played ‘God save the Queen,’ the rustics melted away, our shutters were put up, and soon there was no sound to be heard save the occasional hooting of a brown owl, and the sighing of the west wind through a thicket of firs. We slept the sleep of gipsies, or of the just, the valet in the after-cabin, I in the saloon, my faithful Newfoundland at my side. If a step but comes near the caravan at night, the deep bass, ominous growl that shakes the ship from stem to stern shows that this grand old dog is ready for business.

“But soon as the little hands of the clock point to six, my eyes open mechanically, as it were, Bob gets up and stretches himself, and, ere ever the smoke from the village chimneys begins to roll up through the green of the trees, we are all astir. The bath-tent is speedily pitched, and breakfast is being prepared. No need of tonic bitters to give a gipsy an appetite, the fresh, pure air does that, albeit that frizzly ham and those milky, newborn eggs, with white bread and the countriest of country butter, would draw water from the teeth of a hand-saw. Breakfast over, my Caw, while I write on thecoupéand Bob rolls exultant on the grass, my valet is carefully washing decks, dusting, and tidying, and the coachman is once more carefully grooming Captain Corn-flower and Polly Pea-blossom.

“It will be half-past eight before the saloon and after-cabin are thoroughly in order, for the Wanderer is quite a Pullman car and lady’s boudoir,minusthe lady. Then, my old friend, visitors will begin to drop in, and probably for nearly an hour I am holding a kind oflevée. It is a species of lionising that I have now got hardened to. Everybody admires everything, and I have to answer the same kind of questions day after day. It is nice, however, to find people who know me and have read my writings in every village in the kingdom. Hurricane Bob, of course, comes in for a big share of admiration. He gets showers of kisses, and many a fair cheek rests lovingly on his bonnie brow. I have to be content with smiles and glances, flowers and fruit, and eggs and new potatoes. The other day a handsome salmon came. It was a broiling hot day. The salmon said he must be eaten fresh. I was equal to the occasion. The lordly fish was cooked, the crew of the Wanderer, all told, gathered around him on the grass, and soon he had to change histense—from the present to the past.

“The other day pigeons came. My valet plucked them, and the day being windy, and he, knowing no better, did the work standing, and, lor! how the feathers flew. It was a rain of feathers, and a reign of terror, for the ladies passing to the station had to put up their umbrellas.

“But the steps are up, the horses are in, good-byes said, hands are waved by the kindly crowd, and away we rattle. My place is ever on thecoupé, note-book in hand.

“‘A chiel’s among ye,’ etc.

“My valet is riding on ahead on the tricycle. This year it is the charming ‘Marlborough,’ which is such a pleasant one to ride. On and on, now we go, through the beautiful country; something to attract our attention at every hundred yards. Heavens! my dear Caw, how little those who travel by train know of the delights of the road. We trot along while on level roads, we madly rush the short, steep hills at a glorious gallop, we crawl up the long, bad hills, and carefully—with skid and chain on the near hind wheel—we stagger down the break-neck ‘pinches.’ The brake is a powerful one, and in bad countries is in constant use, so that its brass handle shines like gold, and my arm aches ere night with putting it on and off.

“Well, there is a midday halt after ten miles, generally on the roadside near water. We have a modest lunch of hard-boiled eggs, milk, beer, cheese, bread, and crushed oats and a bit of clover. Then on and on again. By five we have probably settled for the night, when dinner is prepared. We hardly need supper, and what with the rattling along all day, and the hum of the great van—with running and riding, and studying natural history and phenomena, including faces—I am tired, and so are we all, by nine o’clock.

“But we generally have music before then. I have a small harmonium, a guitar, and a fiddle, and my valet plays well on the flute.

“‘Then comes still evening on.’

“The bats and owls come out, and we retire.

“Of weather we have all varieties—the hot and the cool, the rain that rattles on the roof, the wind that makes the Wanderer rock, and the occasional thunderstorm. One dark night last week—we were in a lonely place—I sat out on thecoupétill one o’clock—‘the wee short hoor ayont the twal’—watching the vivid blue lightning, that curled like fiery snakes among the trees. By the way, I had nothing on but my night-shirt, and a dread spectre I must have appeared to anyone passing, seen but for a moment in the lightning’s flash, then gone. I marvelled next day that I had caught a slight cold.

“I love little, quiet meadows, Caw. I dote on rural villages, and hate big towns. If the caravan is not lying on the grass there is no comfort.

“I lay last night in the cosiest meadow ever I have been in. The very rural hamlet of Bunny, Notts, is a quarter of a mile away, but all the world is screened away from me with trees and hedges. I have for meadow-mates two intelligent cows, who can’t quite make us out. They couldn’t make Bob out either, till in the zeal of his guardianship he got one of them by the tail. There is in this hamlet of three hundred souls one inn—it is tottering to decay—a pound, a police-station, and a church. The church is ever so old, the weather-cock has long been blown down, and the clock has stopped for ever. The whole village is about as lively and bright as a farthing candle stuck in an empty beer bottle.

“But here come the horses. Good-bye till we meet.

“Gordon Stables,—

“Ye Gentleman Gipsy.”

Chapter Fifteen.The Humours of the Road—Inn Signs—What I am Taken for—A Study of Faces—Milestones and Finger-Posts—Tramps—The Man with the Iron Mask—The Collie Dog—Gipsies’ Dogs—A Midnight Attack on the Wanderer.“I am as free as Nature first made man,Ere the base laws of servitude began,When wild in woods the noble savage ran.”Dryden.Madly dashing on through the country as cyclists do, on their way to John o’ Groats or elsewhere, probably at an average rate of seventy miles a day, neither scenery nor anything else can be either enjoyed or appreciated.The cyclist arrives in the evening at his inn, tired, dusty, and disagreeably damp as to underclothing. He has now no other wish except to dine and go to bed. Morning sees him in the saddle again, whirring ever onwards to the distant goal.He is doing a record. Let him. For him the birds sing not in woodland or copse; for him no wild flowers spring; he pauses not to listen to hum of bee or murmur of brooklet, nor to admire the beauties of heathy hills, purple with the glorious heather, or bosky dells, green with feathery larch or silvery birch; nor does he see the rolling cloudscapes, with their rifts of blue between. On—on—on—his way is ever on.But gipsy-folks, like myself, jogging along at a quiet six-or-seven-miles-an-hour pace, observe and note everything. And it is surprising what trifles amuse us.Although I constantly took notes from thecoupé, or from my cycle saddle, and now and then made rough sketches, I can in these pages only give samples from these notes.A volume could be written on public-house or inn signs, for example.Another on strange names.A third on trees.A fourth on water—lakes, brooklets, rivers, cataracts, and mill-streams.A fifth upon faces.And so on,ad libitum.As to signs, many are curious enough, but there is a considerable amount of sameness about many. You meet Red Lions, White Harts, Kings’ Arms, Dukes’ Arms, Cricketers’ Arms, and arms of all sorts everywhere, and Woolpacks, and Eagles, and Rising Suns,ad nauseam.The sign of a five-barred gate hung out is not uncommon in the Midland Counties, with the following doggerel verse:—“This gate hangs well,And hinders none;Refresh and pay,And travel on.”Although the Wanderer is nearly always taken for what she is—a private carriage on a large scale—still it is amusing sometimes to note what I am mistaken for, to wit:—1. “General” in the Salvation Army.2. Surgeon-attendant on a nervous old lady who is supposed to be inside.3. A travelling artist.4. A photographer.5. A menagerie.6. A Cheap-Jack.7. A Bible carriage.8. A madman.9. An eccentric baronet.10. A political agent.11. Lord E.12. Some other “nob.”13. And last, but not least, King of the Gipsies.It must not be supposed that I mind a single bit what people think of me, so long as I have a quiet, comfortable meadow to stand in at night and a good stable for Corn-flower and Pea-blossom. But how would you like, reader, to be taken for a travelling show, and to make your way through a village followed by a crowd of admiring children, counting their pence, and wondering when you were going to open?Polly’s cage would occasionally be hanging from the verandah over the coupé, with Hurricane Bob lying on his rug, and I would hear such remarks as these from the juvenile crowd:—“Oh! look at his long moustache.”“Oh! look at his hat, Mary.”“Susan, Susan, look at the Poll parrot.”“Look! it is holding a biscuit in its hand.”“Look at the bear.”“No, it’s a dog.”“You’re a hass! it’s a bear.”“Lift me up to see, Tildie.”“Liftmeup too.”Here again is my coachman being interviewed by some country bumpkins:—“Who be your master, matie?”“A private gentleman.”“Is he a Liberal?”“No.”“Is he a Tory?”“Perhaps.”“Is he a Salvationist?”“Not much.”“What does he do?”“Nothing.”“What does he keep?”“The Sabbath.”“Got anything to sell?”“No! Do you take us for Cheap-Jacks?”“Got anything togiveaway, then?” It will be observed that even a gentleman gipsy’s life has its drawbacks, but not many. One, however, is a deficiency of privacy. For instance, though I have on board both a guitar and fiddle, I can neither play nor sing so much of an evening as I would like to do, because a little mob always gathers round to listen, and I might just as well be on the stage. But in quiet country places I have often, when I saw I was not unappreciated, played and sang just because they seemed to like it.The faces I see on the road are often a study in themselves, and one might really make a kind of classification of those that are constantly recurring. I have only space to give a sample from memory.1. This face to me is not a pleasing memory. It is that of the severe-looking female in a low pony carriage. She may or may not be an old maid. Very likely she is; and no wonder, for she is flat-faced and painfully plain. Beside her sits her companion, and behind her a man in a cheap livery; while she herself handles the ribbons, driving a rough, independent, self-willed pony. These people sternly refuse to look at us. They turn away their eyes from beholding vanity; or they take us for real gipsies—“worse than even actors.” I can easily imagine some of the items of the home life of this party: the tidily kept garden; the old gardener, who also cleans the boots and waits at table; the stuffy little parlour, with the windows always down; the fat Pomeranian dog; the tabby cat; and the occasional “muffin shines,” as Yankees call them, where bad tea is served—bad tea and ruined reputations. Avast! old lady; the sun shines more brightly when you are out of sight.2. The joskin or country lout. He stops to stare. Probably he has a pitchfork in his hand. On his face is a wondering, half-amused smile, but his eyes are so wide open that he looks scared. His mouth is open, too, and big enough apparently to hold a mangel-wurzel.Go on, Garge; we won’t harm thee, lad.3. Cottage folks of all kinds and colours. Look at the weary face of that woman with the weary-looking baby on her arm. The husband is smoking a dirty pipe, but he smiles on us as we go whirling past; and his children, a-squat in the gutter, leave their mud pies and sing and shout and scream at us, waving their dusty hats and their little brown arms in the air.4. Honest John Bull himself, sure enough, well-to-do-looking in face and dress. He smiles admiringly at us, and seems really to want us to know that he takes an interest in us and our mode of life.5. The ubiquitous boarding-school girl of gentle seventeen. It may not be etiquette, she knows, to stare or look at passers-by, but for this once only shewillhave a glance. Lamps shimmering crimson through the big windows, and nicely draped curtains! howcanshe help it? We are glad she does not try to; her sweet young face refreshes us as do flowers in June, and we forget all about the severe-looking female, who turned away her eyes from beholding vanity.Milestones and Finger-Posts.England is the land of finger-posts and disreputable milestones. It is the land of lanes, and that is the reason finger-posts are so much needed.In Scotland they keep up a decent set of milestones, but they do not affect finger-posts. If you want to know the road, climb a hill and look; or ask. In the wildest parts of the Highlands, about Dalwhinnie for instance, you have snow-posts. These look quite out of place in summer, but in winter you must steer straight from one to the other, else, as there is no vestige of a fence, you may tumble over the adjoining precipice.Like the faces we meet on the roads, we have also types of milestones and finger-posts. Of the former we have—1. The squat milestone, of stone (page 69).2. The parallelogram milestone, of stone (page 115).3. The triangular milestone, also of stone, with reading on two sides (page 124).4. The round-headed, dilapidated milestone, that tells you nothing (page 141).5. The wedge-shaped milestone, stone with an iron slab let in (page 159).6. The reticent milestone, which, instead of names, only gives you letters (page 169).7. The mushroom milestone, of iron. Forgive the Irish bull. This milestone grows at Nottingham (page 178). So also does—8. The respectable iron milestone (page 208).9. The aesthetic milestone, of iron, and found only in the border-land (page 219).Of finger-posts I shall mention three types:—1. The solid and respectable.2. The limp and uncertain.3. The aesthetic.But what have we here? A milestone? Nay, but a murder-stone.I stop the caravan and get down to look and to read the inscription, the gist of which is as follows:“This stone was erected to mark the spot where Eliza Shepherd, aetat 17, was cruelly murdered in 1817.”I gaze around me. It is a lovely day, with large white cumulus clouds rolling lazily over a brilliant blue sky. It is a lonely but a lovely place, a fairy-like ferny hollow, close to the edge of a dark wood.Yes, it is a lovely place now in the sunlight, but I cannot help thinking of that terrible night when poor young Eliza, returning from the shoemaker’s shop, met that tramp who with his knife did the ugly deed. It is satisfactory to learn that he swung for it on the gallows-tree.But here is a notice-board worth looking at. It is a warning to dog-owners. It reads thus:—“NotisTrespassers will be prosecuteddowgs will be shote.”On a weird-looking tree behind it hangs a dead cur by the tail.Here is a Highland post-office, simply a little red-painted dog-kennel on the top of a pole, standing all alone in the middle of a bleak moorland.Tramps.We meet these everywhere, but more especially on the great highway between Scotland and the South.While cruising on the coast of Africa, in open boats, wherever we found cocoa-nut trees growing, there we found inhabitants; and so on the roads of England, wherever you find telegraph poles, you will find tramps.They are of both sexes, and of all sorts and sizes; and, remember, I am not alluding to itinerant gipsies, or even to tinkers, but to the vast army of homeless nomads, who wander from place to place during all the sweet summer weather, and seem to like it.Sometimes they sell trinkets, such as paper and pins, combs, or trashy jewellery, sometimes they get a day’s work here and there, but mostly they “cadge,” and their characters can be summed up in two words—“liars and vagabonds.” There are honest men on the march among them, however, tradesmen out of work, and flitting south or north in the hopes of bettering their condition. But these latter seldom beg, and if they do, they talk intelligible English.If a man comes to the back door of your caravan and addresses you thus: “Chuck us a dollop o’ stale tommy, guv’nor, will yer?” you may put him down as a professional tramp. But if you really are an honest tramp, reader—that is, a ragged pedestrian, a pedestrianminuspurple and fine linen—then I readily admit that there is something to be said in favour of your peculiar kind of life after all.To loll about on sunshiny days, to recline upon green mossy banks and dreamily chew the stalks of tender grasses, to saunter on and on and never know nor care what or where you are coming to, to gaze upon and enjoy the beautiful scenery, to listen to song of wild bird and drowsy hum of bee,—all this is pleasant enough, it must be confessed.Then you can drink of the running stream, unless, as often happens, fortune throws the price of a pint of cold fourpenny in your way. And you have plenty of fresh air. “Too much,” do you say? Yes, because it makes you hungry; but then, there are plenty of turnip fields. Besides, if you call at a cottage, and put on a pitiful face, you will nearly always find some one to “chuck you a dollop o’ stale tommy.”Do you long for society? There is plenty on the road, plenty of people in the same boat.And you are your own master; you are as free as the wind that bloweth where it listeth, unless indeed a policeman attempts to check your liberty. But he may not be able to prefer a charge against you; and if he ever goes so far as to lock you up on suspicion, it is only a temporary change in yourmodus vivendi; you are well-housed and fed for a week or two, then—out and away again.When night comes on, and the evening star glints out of the himmel-blue, you can generally manage to creep into a shed or shieling of some sort; and if not, you have only to fall back upon the cosy hayrick.Oh! I believe there are worse lives than yours; and if I were not a gipsy, I am not sure I would not turn a tramp myself.The Man with the Iron Mask.We came across him frequently away up in the north of England, and a mysterious-looking individual he is, nearly always old, say on the shady side of sixty.There he sits now on a little three-legged stool by the wayside. In front of him is a kind of anvil, in his hand a hammer. To his right is a heap of stones mingled with gravel; from this he fills a mounted sieve, and rakes the stones therefrom with his hammer as he wants them.The iron mask is to protect his face and eyes, and a curious spectacle he looks. He has probably been sitting there since morning, but as soon as the shades of evening fall, he will take up his stool and his hammer and wend his way homewards to his little cottage in the glen, and it is to be hoped his “old ’ooman” will have something nice ready for his supper.The Scotch Collie Dog.Where will you find a dog with a more honest and open countenance than Collie, or one more energetic and willing, or more devoted to his master’s interest? Says Bobbie Burns in his “Twa Dogs:”“The other was a ploughman’s collie.* * * * *He was a gash (wise) and faithfu’ tyke,As ever lap a sheugh (ditch) or dyke.His honest sonsy bawan’t (white-striped) face,Ay gat him friends in ilka place;His breast was white, his towsie backWeel clad wi’ coat o’ glossy black,His gawcie tail, wi’ upward curl,Hung o’er his hurdils wi’ a swirl.”You find the collie everywhere all over broad Scotland. The only place where I do not like to see him is on chain.Yonder he is even now trotting merrily on in front of that farmer’s gig, sometimes barking with half-hysterical joy, sometimes jumping up and kissing the old mare’s soft brown nose, by way of encouraging her.Yonder again, standing on the top of a stone fence herding cows, and suspiciously eyeing every stranger who passes. He is giving us a line of his mind even now. He says we are only gipsy-folk, and no doubt want to steal a cow and take her away in the caravan.There runs a collie assisting a sheep-drover. There trots another at the heels of a flock of cattle.Another is out in the field up there watching the people making hay, while still another is lying on his master’s coat, while that master is at work. His master is only a ditcher. What does that matter? He is a king to Collie.At Aberuthven was a retriever-collie who—his master, at whose farm I lay, told me—went every day down the long loaning to fetch the letters when the postman blew his horn. This dog’s name is Fred, and it was Fred’s own father who taught him this, and “in two lessons” Fred’s father always went for the letters, and never failed except once to bring them. On this particular occasion, he was seen to disappear behind a bush with a letter in his mouth, and presently to come forth without it. No trace of it was to be found. But a week after another letter was received asking the farmer why he had not acknowledged the bride’s cake. So the murder was out, for the dog’s honesty had not been proof against a bit of cake, and he had swallowed it, envelope and all.Gipsies’ Dogs.These are, as a rule, a mongrel lot, but very faithful, and contented with their roving life. They are as follows:—1. The bulldog, used for guard and for fighting, with “a bit o’ money on him” sometimes.2. The retriever, a useful and determined guard dog and child’s companion.3. The big mongrel mastiff. The fatter and the uglier he is the better, and the greater the sensation he will create in country villages.4. The whippet: a handy dog in many ways; and to him gipsies are indebted for many a good stew of hare or rabbit.5. Lastly, the terribly fat, immensely big black Russian retriever. His tail is always cut off to make him resemble a bear, and give an air of greateréclatto the caravan that owns him.A Midnight Attack on the “Wanderer.”We were lying in a lonely meadow, in a rough country away up on the borders of Yorkshire, and did not consider ourselves by any means in a very safe place. The Wanderer was pretty close to the roadside; and there were no houses about except a questionable-looking inn, that stood on the borders of a gloomy wood. The people here might or might not be villainous. At all events, it was not on their account we were uneasy. But a gang of the worst class of gipsies was to pass that night from a neighbouring fair, and there was a probability that they might attack the carriage.Foley before lying down barricaded the back door with the large Rippingille stove, and I myself had seen to the chambers of my revolver, all six of them.I had one lookout before lying down. It was a still and sultry summer’s night, with clouds all over the stars, so that it was almost dark. In ten minutes more I was sound asleep.It must have been long past midnight when I awoke with a start.Hurricane Bob was growling low and ominously; I could distinctly hear footsteps, and thought I could distinguish voices confabbing in whispers near the van.It was almost pitch dark now, and from the closeness of the night it was evident a thunderstorm would burst over us.Silencing the dog, I quickly got on my clothes, just as the caravan began to shake and quiver, as if some one were breaking open the after-door.My mind was made up at once. I determined to carry the war into the enemy’s quarters, so, seizing my sword, I quietly opened the front door, and slid down to the ground off thecoupé.I got in beneath the caravan and crept aft. There they were, whoever they were; I could just perceive two pairs of legs close to the caravan, and these legs were arrayed in what seemed to me to be white duck trousers. “Now,” said I to myself, “the shin is a most vulnerable part; I’ll have a hack at these extremities with the back of the sword.”And so I did.I hit out with all my might.The effect was magical.There was a load roar of pain, and away galloped the midnight marauders, in a wild and startled stampede.And who were they after all? Why, only a couple of young steers, who had been chewing a bath towel—one at one end, the other at the other—that Foley had left hanging under the van.Such then are some of the humours of an amateur gipsy’s life.

“I am as free as Nature first made man,Ere the base laws of servitude began,When wild in woods the noble savage ran.”Dryden.

“I am as free as Nature first made man,Ere the base laws of servitude began,When wild in woods the noble savage ran.”Dryden.

Madly dashing on through the country as cyclists do, on their way to John o’ Groats or elsewhere, probably at an average rate of seventy miles a day, neither scenery nor anything else can be either enjoyed or appreciated.

The cyclist arrives in the evening at his inn, tired, dusty, and disagreeably damp as to underclothing. He has now no other wish except to dine and go to bed. Morning sees him in the saddle again, whirring ever onwards to the distant goal.

He is doing a record. Let him. For him the birds sing not in woodland or copse; for him no wild flowers spring; he pauses not to listen to hum of bee or murmur of brooklet, nor to admire the beauties of heathy hills, purple with the glorious heather, or bosky dells, green with feathery larch or silvery birch; nor does he see the rolling cloudscapes, with their rifts of blue between. On—on—on—his way is ever on.

But gipsy-folks, like myself, jogging along at a quiet six-or-seven-miles-an-hour pace, observe and note everything. And it is surprising what trifles amuse us.

Although I constantly took notes from thecoupé, or from my cycle saddle, and now and then made rough sketches, I can in these pages only give samples from these notes.

A volume could be written on public-house or inn signs, for example.

Another on strange names.

A third on trees.

A fourth on water—lakes, brooklets, rivers, cataracts, and mill-streams.

A fifth upon faces.

And so on,ad libitum.

As to signs, many are curious enough, but there is a considerable amount of sameness about many. You meet Red Lions, White Harts, Kings’ Arms, Dukes’ Arms, Cricketers’ Arms, and arms of all sorts everywhere, and Woolpacks, and Eagles, and Rising Suns,ad nauseam.

The sign of a five-barred gate hung out is not uncommon in the Midland Counties, with the following doggerel verse:—

“This gate hangs well,And hinders none;Refresh and pay,And travel on.”

“This gate hangs well,And hinders none;Refresh and pay,And travel on.”

Although the Wanderer is nearly always taken for what she is—a private carriage on a large scale—still it is amusing sometimes to note what I am mistaken for, to wit:—

1. “General” in the Salvation Army.

2. Surgeon-attendant on a nervous old lady who is supposed to be inside.

3. A travelling artist.

4. A photographer.

5. A menagerie.

6. A Cheap-Jack.

7. A Bible carriage.

8. A madman.

9. An eccentric baronet.

10. A political agent.

11. Lord E.

12. Some other “nob.”

13. And last, but not least, King of the Gipsies.

It must not be supposed that I mind a single bit what people think of me, so long as I have a quiet, comfortable meadow to stand in at night and a good stable for Corn-flower and Pea-blossom. But how would you like, reader, to be taken for a travelling show, and to make your way through a village followed by a crowd of admiring children, counting their pence, and wondering when you were going to open?

Polly’s cage would occasionally be hanging from the verandah over the coupé, with Hurricane Bob lying on his rug, and I would hear such remarks as these from the juvenile crowd:—

“Oh! look at his long moustache.”

“Oh! look at his hat, Mary.”

“Susan, Susan, look at the Poll parrot.”

“Look! it is holding a biscuit in its hand.”

“Look at the bear.”

“No, it’s a dog.”

“You’re a hass! it’s a bear.”

“Lift me up to see, Tildie.”

“Liftmeup too.”

Here again is my coachman being interviewed by some country bumpkins:—“Who be your master, matie?”

“A private gentleman.”

“Is he a Liberal?”

“No.”

“Is he a Tory?”

“Perhaps.”

“Is he a Salvationist?”

“Not much.”

“What does he do?”

“Nothing.”

“What does he keep?”

“The Sabbath.”

“Got anything to sell?”

“No! Do you take us for Cheap-Jacks?”

“Got anything togiveaway, then?” It will be observed that even a gentleman gipsy’s life has its drawbacks, but not many. One, however, is a deficiency of privacy. For instance, though I have on board both a guitar and fiddle, I can neither play nor sing so much of an evening as I would like to do, because a little mob always gathers round to listen, and I might just as well be on the stage. But in quiet country places I have often, when I saw I was not unappreciated, played and sang just because they seemed to like it.

The faces I see on the road are often a study in themselves, and one might really make a kind of classification of those that are constantly recurring. I have only space to give a sample from memory.

1. This face to me is not a pleasing memory. It is that of the severe-looking female in a low pony carriage. She may or may not be an old maid. Very likely she is; and no wonder, for she is flat-faced and painfully plain. Beside her sits her companion, and behind her a man in a cheap livery; while she herself handles the ribbons, driving a rough, independent, self-willed pony. These people sternly refuse to look at us. They turn away their eyes from beholding vanity; or they take us for real gipsies—“worse than even actors.” I can easily imagine some of the items of the home life of this party: the tidily kept garden; the old gardener, who also cleans the boots and waits at table; the stuffy little parlour, with the windows always down; the fat Pomeranian dog; the tabby cat; and the occasional “muffin shines,” as Yankees call them, where bad tea is served—bad tea and ruined reputations. Avast! old lady; the sun shines more brightly when you are out of sight.

2. The joskin or country lout. He stops to stare. Probably he has a pitchfork in his hand. On his face is a wondering, half-amused smile, but his eyes are so wide open that he looks scared. His mouth is open, too, and big enough apparently to hold a mangel-wurzel.

Go on, Garge; we won’t harm thee, lad.

3. Cottage folks of all kinds and colours. Look at the weary face of that woman with the weary-looking baby on her arm. The husband is smoking a dirty pipe, but he smiles on us as we go whirling past; and his children, a-squat in the gutter, leave their mud pies and sing and shout and scream at us, waving their dusty hats and their little brown arms in the air.

4. Honest John Bull himself, sure enough, well-to-do-looking in face and dress. He smiles admiringly at us, and seems really to want us to know that he takes an interest in us and our mode of life.

5. The ubiquitous boarding-school girl of gentle seventeen. It may not be etiquette, she knows, to stare or look at passers-by, but for this once only shewillhave a glance. Lamps shimmering crimson through the big windows, and nicely draped curtains! howcanshe help it? We are glad she does not try to; her sweet young face refreshes us as do flowers in June, and we forget all about the severe-looking female, who turned away her eyes from beholding vanity.

England is the land of finger-posts and disreputable milestones. It is the land of lanes, and that is the reason finger-posts are so much needed.

In Scotland they keep up a decent set of milestones, but they do not affect finger-posts. If you want to know the road, climb a hill and look; or ask. In the wildest parts of the Highlands, about Dalwhinnie for instance, you have snow-posts. These look quite out of place in summer, but in winter you must steer straight from one to the other, else, as there is no vestige of a fence, you may tumble over the adjoining precipice.

Like the faces we meet on the roads, we have also types of milestones and finger-posts. Of the former we have—

1. The squat milestone, of stone (page 69).

2. The parallelogram milestone, of stone (page 115).

3. The triangular milestone, also of stone, with reading on two sides (page 124).

4. The round-headed, dilapidated milestone, that tells you nothing (page 141).

5. The wedge-shaped milestone, stone with an iron slab let in (page 159).

6. The reticent milestone, which, instead of names, only gives you letters (page 169).

7. The mushroom milestone, of iron. Forgive the Irish bull. This milestone grows at Nottingham (page 178). So also does—

8. The respectable iron milestone (page 208).

9. The aesthetic milestone, of iron, and found only in the border-land (page 219).

Of finger-posts I shall mention three types:—

1. The solid and respectable.

2. The limp and uncertain.

3. The aesthetic.

But what have we here? A milestone? Nay, but a murder-stone.

I stop the caravan and get down to look and to read the inscription, the gist of which is as follows:

“This stone was erected to mark the spot where Eliza Shepherd, aetat 17, was cruelly murdered in 1817.”

“This stone was erected to mark the spot where Eliza Shepherd, aetat 17, was cruelly murdered in 1817.”

I gaze around me. It is a lovely day, with large white cumulus clouds rolling lazily over a brilliant blue sky. It is a lonely but a lovely place, a fairy-like ferny hollow, close to the edge of a dark wood.

Yes, it is a lovely place now in the sunlight, but I cannot help thinking of that terrible night when poor young Eliza, returning from the shoemaker’s shop, met that tramp who with his knife did the ugly deed. It is satisfactory to learn that he swung for it on the gallows-tree.

But here is a notice-board worth looking at. It is a warning to dog-owners. It reads thus:—

“NotisTrespassers will be prosecuteddowgs will be shote.”

“NotisTrespassers will be prosecuteddowgs will be shote.”

On a weird-looking tree behind it hangs a dead cur by the tail.

Here is a Highland post-office, simply a little red-painted dog-kennel on the top of a pole, standing all alone in the middle of a bleak moorland.

We meet these everywhere, but more especially on the great highway between Scotland and the South.

While cruising on the coast of Africa, in open boats, wherever we found cocoa-nut trees growing, there we found inhabitants; and so on the roads of England, wherever you find telegraph poles, you will find tramps.

They are of both sexes, and of all sorts and sizes; and, remember, I am not alluding to itinerant gipsies, or even to tinkers, but to the vast army of homeless nomads, who wander from place to place during all the sweet summer weather, and seem to like it.

Sometimes they sell trinkets, such as paper and pins, combs, or trashy jewellery, sometimes they get a day’s work here and there, but mostly they “cadge,” and their characters can be summed up in two words—“liars and vagabonds.” There are honest men on the march among them, however, tradesmen out of work, and flitting south or north in the hopes of bettering their condition. But these latter seldom beg, and if they do, they talk intelligible English.

If a man comes to the back door of your caravan and addresses you thus: “Chuck us a dollop o’ stale tommy, guv’nor, will yer?” you may put him down as a professional tramp. But if you really are an honest tramp, reader—that is, a ragged pedestrian, a pedestrianminuspurple and fine linen—then I readily admit that there is something to be said in favour of your peculiar kind of life after all.

To loll about on sunshiny days, to recline upon green mossy banks and dreamily chew the stalks of tender grasses, to saunter on and on and never know nor care what or where you are coming to, to gaze upon and enjoy the beautiful scenery, to listen to song of wild bird and drowsy hum of bee,—all this is pleasant enough, it must be confessed.

Then you can drink of the running stream, unless, as often happens, fortune throws the price of a pint of cold fourpenny in your way. And you have plenty of fresh air. “Too much,” do you say? Yes, because it makes you hungry; but then, there are plenty of turnip fields. Besides, if you call at a cottage, and put on a pitiful face, you will nearly always find some one to “chuck you a dollop o’ stale tommy.”

Do you long for society? There is plenty on the road, plenty of people in the same boat.

And you are your own master; you are as free as the wind that bloweth where it listeth, unless indeed a policeman attempts to check your liberty. But he may not be able to prefer a charge against you; and if he ever goes so far as to lock you up on suspicion, it is only a temporary change in yourmodus vivendi; you are well-housed and fed for a week or two, then—out and away again.

When night comes on, and the evening star glints out of the himmel-blue, you can generally manage to creep into a shed or shieling of some sort; and if not, you have only to fall back upon the cosy hayrick.

Oh! I believe there are worse lives than yours; and if I were not a gipsy, I am not sure I would not turn a tramp myself.

We came across him frequently away up in the north of England, and a mysterious-looking individual he is, nearly always old, say on the shady side of sixty.

There he sits now on a little three-legged stool by the wayside. In front of him is a kind of anvil, in his hand a hammer. To his right is a heap of stones mingled with gravel; from this he fills a mounted sieve, and rakes the stones therefrom with his hammer as he wants them.

The iron mask is to protect his face and eyes, and a curious spectacle he looks. He has probably been sitting there since morning, but as soon as the shades of evening fall, he will take up his stool and his hammer and wend his way homewards to his little cottage in the glen, and it is to be hoped his “old ’ooman” will have something nice ready for his supper.

Where will you find a dog with a more honest and open countenance than Collie, or one more energetic and willing, or more devoted to his master’s interest? Says Bobbie Burns in his “Twa Dogs:”

“The other was a ploughman’s collie.* * * * *He was a gash (wise) and faithfu’ tyke,As ever lap a sheugh (ditch) or dyke.His honest sonsy bawan’t (white-striped) face,Ay gat him friends in ilka place;His breast was white, his towsie backWeel clad wi’ coat o’ glossy black,His gawcie tail, wi’ upward curl,Hung o’er his hurdils wi’ a swirl.”

“The other was a ploughman’s collie.* * * * *He was a gash (wise) and faithfu’ tyke,As ever lap a sheugh (ditch) or dyke.His honest sonsy bawan’t (white-striped) face,Ay gat him friends in ilka place;His breast was white, his towsie backWeel clad wi’ coat o’ glossy black,His gawcie tail, wi’ upward curl,Hung o’er his hurdils wi’ a swirl.”

You find the collie everywhere all over broad Scotland. The only place where I do not like to see him is on chain.

Yonder he is even now trotting merrily on in front of that farmer’s gig, sometimes barking with half-hysterical joy, sometimes jumping up and kissing the old mare’s soft brown nose, by way of encouraging her.

Yonder again, standing on the top of a stone fence herding cows, and suspiciously eyeing every stranger who passes. He is giving us a line of his mind even now. He says we are only gipsy-folk, and no doubt want to steal a cow and take her away in the caravan.

There runs a collie assisting a sheep-drover. There trots another at the heels of a flock of cattle.

Another is out in the field up there watching the people making hay, while still another is lying on his master’s coat, while that master is at work. His master is only a ditcher. What does that matter? He is a king to Collie.

At Aberuthven was a retriever-collie who—his master, at whose farm I lay, told me—went every day down the long loaning to fetch the letters when the postman blew his horn. This dog’s name is Fred, and it was Fred’s own father who taught him this, and “in two lessons” Fred’s father always went for the letters, and never failed except once to bring them. On this particular occasion, he was seen to disappear behind a bush with a letter in his mouth, and presently to come forth without it. No trace of it was to be found. But a week after another letter was received asking the farmer why he had not acknowledged the bride’s cake. So the murder was out, for the dog’s honesty had not been proof against a bit of cake, and he had swallowed it, envelope and all.

These are, as a rule, a mongrel lot, but very faithful, and contented with their roving life. They are as follows:—

1. The bulldog, used for guard and for fighting, with “a bit o’ money on him” sometimes.

2. The retriever, a useful and determined guard dog and child’s companion.

3. The big mongrel mastiff. The fatter and the uglier he is the better, and the greater the sensation he will create in country villages.

4. The whippet: a handy dog in many ways; and to him gipsies are indebted for many a good stew of hare or rabbit.

5. Lastly, the terribly fat, immensely big black Russian retriever. His tail is always cut off to make him resemble a bear, and give an air of greateréclatto the caravan that owns him.

A Midnight Attack on the “Wanderer.”

We were lying in a lonely meadow, in a rough country away up on the borders of Yorkshire, and did not consider ourselves by any means in a very safe place. The Wanderer was pretty close to the roadside; and there were no houses about except a questionable-looking inn, that stood on the borders of a gloomy wood. The people here might or might not be villainous. At all events, it was not on their account we were uneasy. But a gang of the worst class of gipsies was to pass that night from a neighbouring fair, and there was a probability that they might attack the carriage.

Foley before lying down barricaded the back door with the large Rippingille stove, and I myself had seen to the chambers of my revolver, all six of them.

I had one lookout before lying down. It was a still and sultry summer’s night, with clouds all over the stars, so that it was almost dark. In ten minutes more I was sound asleep.

It must have been long past midnight when I awoke with a start.

Hurricane Bob was growling low and ominously; I could distinctly hear footsteps, and thought I could distinguish voices confabbing in whispers near the van.

It was almost pitch dark now, and from the closeness of the night it was evident a thunderstorm would burst over us.

Silencing the dog, I quickly got on my clothes, just as the caravan began to shake and quiver, as if some one were breaking open the after-door.

My mind was made up at once. I determined to carry the war into the enemy’s quarters, so, seizing my sword, I quietly opened the front door, and slid down to the ground off thecoupé.

I got in beneath the caravan and crept aft. There they were, whoever they were; I could just perceive two pairs of legs close to the caravan, and these legs were arrayed in what seemed to me to be white duck trousers. “Now,” said I to myself, “the shin is a most vulnerable part; I’ll have a hack at these extremities with the back of the sword.”

And so I did.

I hit out with all my might.

The effect was magical.

There was a load roar of pain, and away galloped the midnight marauders, in a wild and startled stampede.

And who were they after all? Why, only a couple of young steers, who had been chewing a bath towel—one at one end, the other at the other—that Foley had left hanging under the van.

Such then are some of the humours of an amateur gipsy’s life.

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