Chapter Twenty Eight.Caravanning for Health.“Life is not to live, but to be well.”This chapter, and indeed the whole of this appendix, may be considered nothing more or less than an apology for my favourite way of spending my summer outing.Now there are no doubt thousands who would gladly follow my example, and become for a portion of the year lady or gentlemen gipsies, did not circumstances over which they have no control raise insuperable barriers between them and a realisation of their wishes. For these I can only express my sorrow. On the other hand, I know there are many people who have both leisure and means at command, people who are perhaps bored with all ordinary ways of travelling for pleasure; people, mayhap, who suffer from debility of nerves, from indigestion, and from that disease of modern times we callennui, which so often precedes a thorough break-up and a speedy march to the grave. It is for the benefit of these I write my appendix; it is to them I most cordially dedicate it.There may be some who, having read thus far, may say to themselves:—“I feel tired and bored with the worry of the ordinary everyday method of travelling, rushing along in stuffy railway carriages, residing in crowded hotels, dwelling in hackneyed seaside towns, following in the wake of other travellers to Scotland or the Continent, over-eating and over-drinking; I feel tired of ball, concert, theatre, and at homes, tired of scandal, tired of the tinselled show and the businesslike insincerity of society, and I really think I am not half well. And ifennui, as doctors say, does lead the way to the grave, I do begin to think I’m going there fast enough. I wonder if I am truly getting ill, or old, or something; and if a complete change would do me good?” I would make answer thus:—You may be getting ill, or you may be getting old, or both at once, for remember age isnotto be reckoned by years, and nothing ages one sooner than boredom andennui. But if there be any doubts in your mind as regards the state of your health, and seeing thatennuidoes not weaken any one organ more than another, but that its evil effects are manifested in a deterioration of every organ and portion of the body and tissues at once, let us consider for a moment what health really is.It was Emerson, I think, who said, “Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.”There is a deal of truth underlying that sentence. To put it in my own homely way: if a young man, or a middle-aged one either, while spending a day in the country, with the fresh breezes of heaven blowing on his brow, with the larks a-quiver with song in the bright sunshine, and all nature rejoicing,—I tell you that if such an individual, not being a cripple, can pass a five-barred gate without an inclination to vault over it, he cannot be in good health.Will that scale suit you to measureyourhealth against?Nay, but to be more serious, let me quote the words of that prince of medical writers, the late lamented Sir Thomas Watson, Bart:—“Health is represented in the natural or standard condition of the living body. It is not easy to express that condition in a few words, nor is it necessary. My wish is to be intelligible rather than scholastic, and I should puzzle myself as well as you, were I to attempt to lay down a strict and scientific definition of what is meant by the term ‘health.’ It is sufficient for our purpose to say that it implies freedom from pain and sickness; freedom also from all those changes in the natural fabric of the body, that endanger life or impede the easy and effectual exercise of the vital functions. It is plain that health does not signify any fixed and immutable condition of the body. The standard of health varies in different persons, according to age, sex, and original constitution; and in the same person even, from week to week or from day to day, within certain limits it may shift and librate. Neither does health necessarily imply the integrity of all the bodily organs. It is not incompatible with great and permanent alterations, nor even with the loss of parts that are not vital—as of an arm, a leg, or an eye. If we can form and fix in our minds a clear conception of the state ofhealth, we shall have little difficulty in comprehending what is meant bydisease, which consists in some deviation from that state—some uneasy or unnatural sensation of which the patient is aware; some embarrassment of function, perceptible by himself or by others; orsome unsafe though hidden condition of which he may be unconscious; some mode, in short, of being, or of action, or of feeling different from those which are proper to health.”Can medicine restore the health of those who are threatened with a break-up, whose nerves are shaken, whose strength has been failing for some time past, when it seems to the sufferer—to quote the beautiful words of the Preacher—the days have already come when you find no pleasure in them; when you feel as if the light of the sun and the moon and the stars are darkened, that the silver cord is loosed, the golden bowl is broken, and the pitcher broken at the fountain?No, no, no! a thousand times no. Medicine, tonic or otherwise, never, alone, did, or could, cure the deadly ailment calledennui. You want newness of life, you want perfect obedience for a time to the rules of hygiene, and exercise above all.Now I do not for a moment mean to say that caravanning is the very best form of exercise one can have. Take your own sort, the kind that best pleases you. But, for all that, experience leads me to maintain that no life separates a man more from his former self, or gives him a better chance of regeneration of the most complete kind, than that of the gentleman gipsy.Take my own case as an example. I am what is called a spare man, though weighing eleven stone odd to a height of five feet nine. I am spare, but when well as wiry and hard as an Arab.I had an unusually stiff winter’s work last season. On my 1,300-mile caravan tour I had assuredly laid up a store of health that stood me in good stead till nearly April, and I did more literary work than usual. But I began to get weary at last, and lost flesh. I slaved on manfully, that I might get away on my second grand tour, from which I have just returned, after covering ground to the extent of a thousand and odd miles. Well, I started, and as I took a more hilly route, the journey was more fatiguing for us all. We all weighed before starting; six weeks afterwards we weighed again; my coachman had increased one and a half pounds, my valet three pounds, while I, who underwent the greatest fatigue of the three, had put on five pounds. Nor was this all; my heart felt lighter than it had done for years, and I was singing all day long. Though not a young man, I am certainly not an old one, but before starting, while still toiling at the drudgery of the desk’s dull wood, I was ninety-five years of age—in feeling; before I had been six weeks on the road I did not feel forty, or anything like it.The first fortnight of life in a great caravan like the Wanderer is just a little upsetting; even my coachman felt this. The constant hum of the waggon-wheels, and the jolting—for with the best of springs a two-ton waggon will jolt—shakes the system. It is like living in a mill; but after this you harden up to it, and would not change yourmodus vivendifor life in a royal palace.Now I would not dream of insulting the understanding of my readers by presuming that they do not know what the simple rules of hygiene which tend to long life, perfect health, and calm happiness, are. There is hardly a sixteen-year-old schoolboy nowadays who has not got these at his finger-ends; but, unfortunately, if we do not act up to them with a regularity that at length becomes a habit, we are apt to let them slip from our mind; and it is so easy to fall off into a poor condition of health, but not so very easy to pull one’s self together again.Let me simply enumerate, by way of reminding you, some of the ordinary rules for the maintenance of health. We will then see how far it is possible to carry these out in such a radical change of life as that of an amateur gipsy, living, eating, and sleeping in his caravan, and sometimes, to some extent, roughing it.The following remarks from one of my books on cycling are very much to the point in the subject I am now discussing, and the very fact of my writing so will prove, I think, that I am willing you should hear both sides of the question, for I know there are people in this world who prefer the life of the bluebottle-fly—fast and merry—to what they deem a slow even if healthful existence. (“Health upon Wheels.” Messrs Iliffe and Co, 98 Fleet Street, London.)Good habits, I say, may be formed as well as bad ones; not so easily, I grant you, but, being formed, or for a time enforced, they, too, become a kind of second nature.Some remarks of the author of “Elia” keep running through my head as I write, and for the life of me I cannot help penning them, although they in a certain sense militate against my doctrine of reform. “What?” says the gentle author, “have I gained by health? Intolerable dulness. What by early hours and moderate meals? A total blank.”I question, however, if Charles Lamb, after so many years spent in the London of his day, had a very great deal of liver left.—If he had, probably it was a very knotty one (cirrhosis) and piebald rather than healthy chocolate brown.Now I should be sorry indeed if I left my readers to infer that, after a reckless life up to the age say of forty, forty-five, or fifty, a decided reformation of habits will so far rejuvenate a man that he shall become quite as healthy and strong as he might have been had he spent his days in a more rational manner; one cannot have his cake and eat it too,butbetter late than never; he can by care save the morsel of cake he has left, instead of throwing it to the dogs and going hot foot after it.Every severe illness, no matter how well we get over it, detracts from our length of days: how much more then must twenty or more years of a fast life do so? With our “horse’s constitution” we may come through it all with life, but it will leave its mark, if not externally, internally.I am perfectly willing that the reader should have both theconsand theprosof the argument, and will even sit in judgment on the statements I have just made, and will myself call upon witnesses that may seem to disprove them.The first to take the box is your careless, sceptical, happy-go-lucky man, your live-for-to-day-and-bother-to-morrow individual, who states that he really enjoys life, and that he can point to innumerable acquaintances, who go the pace far faster than he does, but who, nevertheless, enjoy perfect health, and are likely to live “till a fly fells them.”The next witness has not much to say, but he tells a little story—a temperance tale he calls it.Two very aged men were one time subpoenaed on some case, and appeared in the box before a judge who was well-known as a staunch upholder of the principles of total abstinence. This judge, seeing two such aged beings before him, thought it a capital opportunity of teaching a lesson to those around him.“How old are you?” he said, addressing the first witness.“Eighty, and a little over,” was the reply.“You have led a very temperate life, haven’t you?” said the judge.“I’ve never tasted spirits, to my knowledge, all my life, sir.”The judge looked around him, with a pleased smile on his countenance. Then he addressed the other ancient witness, who looked even haler than his companion.“How old are you, my man?”“Ninety odd, your worship.”“Ahem?” said the judge. “You have doubtless led a strictly abstemious life, haven’t you?”“Strictly abstemious!” replied the old reprobate; “indeed, sir, I haven’t been strictly sober for the last seventy years.”Diet.—Errors in diet produce dyspepsia, and dyspepsia may be the forerunner of almost any fatal illness. It not only induces disease itself, but the body of the sufferer from this complaint, being at the best but poorly nourished, no matter how fat and fresh he may appear, is more liable to be attacked by any ailment which may be in the air. Dyspepsia really leaves the front door open, so that trouble may walk in.The chief errors in diet which are apt to bring on chronic indigestion are: 1. Over-rich or over-nutritious diet. 2. Over-eating, from which more die than from over-drinking. 3. Eating too quickly, as one is apt to do when alone, the solvent saliva having thus no time to get properly mingled with the food. 4. The evil habit of taking “nips” before meals, by which means the blood is heated, the salivary glands rendered partially inert, the mucous membrane of the mouth rendered incapable for a time of absorption, and the gastric juices thrown out and wasted before their proper time, that is meal-time. 5. Drinking too much fluid with the meals, and thereby diluting the gastric juices and delaying digestion. 6. Want of daily or tri-weekly change of diet. 7. Irregularity in times of eating.Drink.—I do not intend discussing the question of temperance. 1. But if stimulants are taken at all, it shouldneverbe on an empty stomach. 2. They ought not to be taken at all, if they can be done without. 3. What are called “nightcaps” may induce sleep, but it is by narcotic action, and the sleep is neither sound nor refreshing. The best nightcap is a warm bath and a bottle of soda water, with ten to fifteen grains of pure bicarbonate of soda in it.Coffee is a refreshing beverage.Cocoa is both refreshing and nourishing, but too much of it leads to biliousness.Oatmeal. Water drunk from off a handful or two of this is excellent on the road.Cream of tartar drink. This should be more popular than it is in summer. A pint of boiling water is poured over a dram and a half of cream of tartar, in which is the juice of a lemon and some of the rind; when cold, especially if iced, it is truly excellent in summer weather. It cools the system, prevents constipation, and assuages thirst.Ginger-ale or ginger beer is good, but should be taken in moderation.Tonic drinks often contain deleterious accumulative medicines, and should all be avoided.Cold tea, if weak, flavoured with lemon-juice, and drunk without sugar, is probably the best drink of the road. But let it be good pure Indian tea.Baths.—The morning cold sponge bath, especially with a handful or two of sea-salt in it, is bracing, stimulating, and tonic. No one who has once tried it for a week would ever give it up.The Turkish bath may be taken once a week, or once a fortnight. It gets rid of a deal of the impurities of the blood, and lightens both brain and heart. Whenever one feels dull and mopish, he should indulge in the luxury of a Turkish bath.Fresh air.—The more of this one has the better, whether by day or by night. Many chronic ailments will yield entirely to a course of ozone-laden fresh air, such as one gets at the seaside, or on the mountain’s brow. Have a proper and scientific plan of ventilating your bedrooms. Ventilators should be both in doors and windows, else one cannot expect perfect health and mental activity. Without air one dies speedily; in bad air he languishes and dies more slowly; in the ordinary air of rooms one exists, but he cannot be said to live; but in pure air one can be as happy and light-hearted as a lark.Exercise.—This must be pleasurable, or at all events it must be interesting—mind and body must go hand in hand—if exercise is to do any good. It must not be over-fatiguing, and intervals of rest must not be forgotten. Exercise should never be taken in cumbersome clothing.“Work,” I say in one of my books, “is not exercise.” This may seem strange, but it is true. I tell my patients, “I do not care how much you run about all day at your business, youmusttake the exercise I prescribe quite independently of your work.” There are perhaps no more hard-working men in the world than the Scottish ploughmen—wearily plodding all day long behind their horses, in wet weather or dry; no sooner, however, has the sun “gane west the loch,” and the day’s work is done, than, after supper and a good wash, those hardy lads assemble in the glen, and not only for one, but often three good hours, keep up the health-giving games for which their nation is so justly celebrated.Cooking.—Good cooking is essential to health. I do not care how plainly I live, but pray exercise the attribute of mercy. Let my steak or chop be tender and toothsome; my fish or vegetables not overdone, and oh! pray boil me my potatoes well, for without oldpomme de terrelife to me would be one dreary void.Now let us see how far the rules of health may be carried out in a caravan like the Wanderer.First comesearly rising. You get up almost with the lark—you are bound to, for there is a deal to be done in a caravan; what with getting breakfast, having the carriage tidied and dusted, the beds stowed away on the roof, dishes washed, stove cleaned, carpets shaken, and pantry swept and washed, eight o’clock comes before you know where you are. And by the time your flowers are rearranged in the vases, and everything so sweet and tidy that you do not mind Royalty itself having a look inside, it will be pretty near nine o’clock, and the horses will be round, the pole shipped, the buckets slung, and all ready for a start. But then you will think early rising the reverse of a hardship, for did you not turn in at ten o’clock? and have you not slept the sweet sleep of the just—or a gentleman gipsy?The first thing you did when you got up was to have a bath under the tent which your servant prepared for you. Oh that delicious cool sponge bath of a lovely summer’s morning! If you do not join the birds in their song even before you have quite finished rubbing down, it is because you have no music in your soul.But I mentioned a Turkish bath as a health accessory. Can that be had in a Wanderer caravan? Indeed it can. I have a portable one, and it does not exceed three inches in height, and when put away takes hardly as much space up as a pair of boots does.The greatest cleanliness is maintainable in a caravan where regularity exists,—cleanliness of person, and cleanliness of the house itself.As to regularity, this is one of the things one learns to perfection on a gipsy tour extending over months. There can be no comfort without it. Everything in its place must be your motto, and this is a habit which once learned is of the greatest service to one in more civilised life. For the want of regularity causes much worry, and worry is one of the primary causes of illness.Fresh air.—You are in it all day. Now down in the valley among the woods, or breathing the balmy odours of the pine forests; now high up on the mountain top, and anon by the bracing sea-beach. And at night your ventilators are all open, without a chance of catching cold, so no wonder your sleep is as sweet and dreamless as that of a healthy child.As to the weather, you are hardly ever exposed. The caravan does not leak, and if you are on thecoupéyou are protected by the verandah (videfrontispiece).Exercise.—This you get in abundance, and that too of the most wholesome and exhilarating kind.Food in the caravan.—Perhaps you have been living too freely before, and having too many courses; all this will be altered when you take to the road. Plainly you must live, and you will soon come to prefer a plain substantial diet.The first result of your new mode of life—and this you will not be twenty-four hours out before you feel—will be hunger. It does not matter that you had a substantial breakfast at eight o’clock, you will find your way to the cupboard at eleven, and probably for the first time in your life you will find out what a delicious titbit a morsel of bread-and-cheese is. Yes, and I would even forgive you if you washed it down with one tiny glass of mild ale, albeit beer is not the best thing on the road.At the midday halt you will have luncheon. You can drink your tea cold on the road or warm it in the spirit stove; and when settled for the night in some quiet and peaceful meadow, your servant will speedily cook the dinner, which has been put all ready in the Rippingille stove during the midday halt.While this is being cooked, in the privacy of the saloon you can play the fiddle or discourse sweet music from the harmonium, or if tired lie on the sofa and read.I have said that you must live plainly in a caravan. But the word plainly is a term. You may not have French dishes nor twenty courses, but I append extracts from bills of fare of caravan cookery, to show that diet is not necessarily a mere off-put in the Wanderer.I must, however, premise that I myself did not always bother with so good amenu.To begin with, here are my cook’s general instructions:—Always see that the stove is clean and in order. Wipe the tanks thoroughly dry, if any oil is perceptible upon them; trim the wicks, light them, turn down low, place in the proper grooves, and carefully follow instructions given with the stove. When set fairly in, regulate the light by observing the height through the sight holes. Brush out the oven, and then all is ready for a good day’s work. All this will occupy very little time, one-tenth of that generally spent in lighting coal fires and trying to escape the dust and dirt the old-fashioned open range entailed. Next rinse out the kettle, fill with fresh water from the tap, place over one of the burners. Wash your hands, and then get all ready for breakfast. Cut rashers of bacon and slices of bread sufficient for the family requirements. Bring out the eggs, butter, pepper, salt; then the tea-caddy, coffee, etc, with their respective pots; plates, dishes, toast-rack, fish slice, teacup or small basin, and lay on the table near the stove, so that no time may be lost running about when the cooking begins. These instructions apply toall meals. First get the apparatus and material ready, and then begin to cook.Breakfasts.I. Toast, poached eggs, tea, coffee, or chocolate.II. Toast, fried eggs and bacon, or mashed eggs, tea, etc.III. Oatmeal porridge with butter and creamy milk, followed by a boiled new-laid egg and a rasher, with tea. N.B.—The butter is always the sweetest, and the milk thecrème de la crème.IV. Herrings, devilled melt and roe, toast, tea, etc, eggs bouillés.V. Mock sausages, boiled eggs, and usual fixings.VI. Finnan haddocks, poached eggs, and usual fixings. And so onad libitum.Eleven o’clock Snacks.I. Bread or biscuit and cheese with a modicum of beer.II. Bloater-paste or anchovy-paste, or buttered toast with cold tea.III. Tongue and ham (potted), turkey and tongue, and fixings.Luncheons.The cold joints of yesterday, with hot potatoes, piquant sauces, and chutney; washed down with a cup of delicious chocolate or new milk.Dinners.I. Fried cutlets of fish; roast fowls; brown sauce, potatoes, greens, and bread; rice or golden pudding.II. Spatch cock; minced meat, baked potatoes, green peas; custard.III. Roast mutton, mashed turnips, potatoes; and fruit pudding.IV. Rabbit stewed, game in season, vegetables; and sago pudding.V. Beefsteak and onions, boiled potatoes, cauliflower; pudding.VI. Salmonà la Reine; cold meat and salad; La Belle pudding.And so onad libitum, with wine or beer to suit the taste.Suppers.I. If required, a snack of anything handy.II. Tomatoes forcés (tinned tomatoes if fresh cannot be had), cocoa, toast.III. Macaroni cheese and toast.IV. Eggsà la Soyer, toast; or a poached egg on toast. Salad, especially of lettuce, with a modicum of good beer or stout.A cleverer cook than I could devise a hundred simple dishes for caravan cookery, but I do not think mymenuis altogether prison fare.Ailments Likely to be Benefited by Caravan Life.I can, of course, only mention a few of these, and it must be distinctly understood that I am not trying to enforce the merits of a new cure. I am but giving my own impressions from my own experience, and if anyone likes to profit by these he may, and welcome.I. Ennui.II. Dyspepsia.III. Debility and enfeeblement of health from overwork, or from worry or grief.IV. Insomnia.V. Chronic bronchitis and consumption in its earliest stages.VI. Bilious habit of system.VII. Acidity of secretions of stomach, etc.VIII. All kinds of stomachic ailments.IX. Giddiness or vertigo.X. Hysteria.XI. Headaches and wearying backaches.XII. Constipated state of system.XIII. Tendency toembonpoint.XIV. Neuralgia of certain kinds.XV. Liver complaints of a chronic kind.XVI. Threatened kidney mischief.XVII. Hay fever.XVIII. Failure of brain power.XIX. Anaemia or poverty of blood.XX. Nervousness.Some of the great factors in the cure of such complaints as the above by life in a caravan for a series of months would be, that perfect rest and freedom from all care which is so calming to shattered nerves, weary brains, and aching hearts. The constant and pleasurable change of scene and change of faces, the regularity of the mode of life, and the delightfully refreshing sleep, born of the fresh air and exercise, which is nearly always obtainable at night.In concluding this chapter, let me just add that of all modes of enjoying life in summer and autumn I consider—speaking after a somewhat lengthy experience—caravan travelling the healthiest and the best.
“Life is not to live, but to be well.”
“Life is not to live, but to be well.”
This chapter, and indeed the whole of this appendix, may be considered nothing more or less than an apology for my favourite way of spending my summer outing.
Now there are no doubt thousands who would gladly follow my example, and become for a portion of the year lady or gentlemen gipsies, did not circumstances over which they have no control raise insuperable barriers between them and a realisation of their wishes. For these I can only express my sorrow. On the other hand, I know there are many people who have both leisure and means at command, people who are perhaps bored with all ordinary ways of travelling for pleasure; people, mayhap, who suffer from debility of nerves, from indigestion, and from that disease of modern times we callennui, which so often precedes a thorough break-up and a speedy march to the grave. It is for the benefit of these I write my appendix; it is to them I most cordially dedicate it.
There may be some who, having read thus far, may say to themselves:—
“I feel tired and bored with the worry of the ordinary everyday method of travelling, rushing along in stuffy railway carriages, residing in crowded hotels, dwelling in hackneyed seaside towns, following in the wake of other travellers to Scotland or the Continent, over-eating and over-drinking; I feel tired of ball, concert, theatre, and at homes, tired of scandal, tired of the tinselled show and the businesslike insincerity of society, and I really think I am not half well. And ifennui, as doctors say, does lead the way to the grave, I do begin to think I’m going there fast enough. I wonder if I am truly getting ill, or old, or something; and if a complete change would do me good?” I would make answer thus:—You may be getting ill, or you may be getting old, or both at once, for remember age isnotto be reckoned by years, and nothing ages one sooner than boredom andennui. But if there be any doubts in your mind as regards the state of your health, and seeing thatennuidoes not weaken any one organ more than another, but that its evil effects are manifested in a deterioration of every organ and portion of the body and tissues at once, let us consider for a moment what health really is.
It was Emerson, I think, who said, “Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.”
There is a deal of truth underlying that sentence. To put it in my own homely way: if a young man, or a middle-aged one either, while spending a day in the country, with the fresh breezes of heaven blowing on his brow, with the larks a-quiver with song in the bright sunshine, and all nature rejoicing,—I tell you that if such an individual, not being a cripple, can pass a five-barred gate without an inclination to vault over it, he cannot be in good health.
Will that scale suit you to measureyourhealth against?
Nay, but to be more serious, let me quote the words of that prince of medical writers, the late lamented Sir Thomas Watson, Bart:—
“Health is represented in the natural or standard condition of the living body. It is not easy to express that condition in a few words, nor is it necessary. My wish is to be intelligible rather than scholastic, and I should puzzle myself as well as you, were I to attempt to lay down a strict and scientific definition of what is meant by the term ‘health.’ It is sufficient for our purpose to say that it implies freedom from pain and sickness; freedom also from all those changes in the natural fabric of the body, that endanger life or impede the easy and effectual exercise of the vital functions. It is plain that health does not signify any fixed and immutable condition of the body. The standard of health varies in different persons, according to age, sex, and original constitution; and in the same person even, from week to week or from day to day, within certain limits it may shift and librate. Neither does health necessarily imply the integrity of all the bodily organs. It is not incompatible with great and permanent alterations, nor even with the loss of parts that are not vital—as of an arm, a leg, or an eye. If we can form and fix in our minds a clear conception of the state ofhealth, we shall have little difficulty in comprehending what is meant bydisease, which consists in some deviation from that state—some uneasy or unnatural sensation of which the patient is aware; some embarrassment of function, perceptible by himself or by others; orsome unsafe though hidden condition of which he may be unconscious; some mode, in short, of being, or of action, or of feeling different from those which are proper to health.”
Can medicine restore the health of those who are threatened with a break-up, whose nerves are shaken, whose strength has been failing for some time past, when it seems to the sufferer—to quote the beautiful words of the Preacher—the days have already come when you find no pleasure in them; when you feel as if the light of the sun and the moon and the stars are darkened, that the silver cord is loosed, the golden bowl is broken, and the pitcher broken at the fountain?
No, no, no! a thousand times no. Medicine, tonic or otherwise, never, alone, did, or could, cure the deadly ailment calledennui. You want newness of life, you want perfect obedience for a time to the rules of hygiene, and exercise above all.
Now I do not for a moment mean to say that caravanning is the very best form of exercise one can have. Take your own sort, the kind that best pleases you. But, for all that, experience leads me to maintain that no life separates a man more from his former self, or gives him a better chance of regeneration of the most complete kind, than that of the gentleman gipsy.
Take my own case as an example. I am what is called a spare man, though weighing eleven stone odd to a height of five feet nine. I am spare, but when well as wiry and hard as an Arab.
I had an unusually stiff winter’s work last season. On my 1,300-mile caravan tour I had assuredly laid up a store of health that stood me in good stead till nearly April, and I did more literary work than usual. But I began to get weary at last, and lost flesh. I slaved on manfully, that I might get away on my second grand tour, from which I have just returned, after covering ground to the extent of a thousand and odd miles. Well, I started, and as I took a more hilly route, the journey was more fatiguing for us all. We all weighed before starting; six weeks afterwards we weighed again; my coachman had increased one and a half pounds, my valet three pounds, while I, who underwent the greatest fatigue of the three, had put on five pounds. Nor was this all; my heart felt lighter than it had done for years, and I was singing all day long. Though not a young man, I am certainly not an old one, but before starting, while still toiling at the drudgery of the desk’s dull wood, I was ninety-five years of age—in feeling; before I had been six weeks on the road I did not feel forty, or anything like it.
The first fortnight of life in a great caravan like the Wanderer is just a little upsetting; even my coachman felt this. The constant hum of the waggon-wheels, and the jolting—for with the best of springs a two-ton waggon will jolt—shakes the system. It is like living in a mill; but after this you harden up to it, and would not change yourmodus vivendifor life in a royal palace.
Now I would not dream of insulting the understanding of my readers by presuming that they do not know what the simple rules of hygiene which tend to long life, perfect health, and calm happiness, are. There is hardly a sixteen-year-old schoolboy nowadays who has not got these at his finger-ends; but, unfortunately, if we do not act up to them with a regularity that at length becomes a habit, we are apt to let them slip from our mind; and it is so easy to fall off into a poor condition of health, but not so very easy to pull one’s self together again.
Let me simply enumerate, by way of reminding you, some of the ordinary rules for the maintenance of health. We will then see how far it is possible to carry these out in such a radical change of life as that of an amateur gipsy, living, eating, and sleeping in his caravan, and sometimes, to some extent, roughing it.
The following remarks from one of my books on cycling are very much to the point in the subject I am now discussing, and the very fact of my writing so will prove, I think, that I am willing you should hear both sides of the question, for I know there are people in this world who prefer the life of the bluebottle-fly—fast and merry—to what they deem a slow even if healthful existence. (“Health upon Wheels.” Messrs Iliffe and Co, 98 Fleet Street, London.)
Good habits, I say, may be formed as well as bad ones; not so easily, I grant you, but, being formed, or for a time enforced, they, too, become a kind of second nature.
Some remarks of the author of “Elia” keep running through my head as I write, and for the life of me I cannot help penning them, although they in a certain sense militate against my doctrine of reform. “What?” says the gentle author, “have I gained by health? Intolerable dulness. What by early hours and moderate meals? A total blank.”
I question, however, if Charles Lamb, after so many years spent in the London of his day, had a very great deal of liver left.—If he had, probably it was a very knotty one (cirrhosis) and piebald rather than healthy chocolate brown.
Now I should be sorry indeed if I left my readers to infer that, after a reckless life up to the age say of forty, forty-five, or fifty, a decided reformation of habits will so far rejuvenate a man that he shall become quite as healthy and strong as he might have been had he spent his days in a more rational manner; one cannot have his cake and eat it too,butbetter late than never; he can by care save the morsel of cake he has left, instead of throwing it to the dogs and going hot foot after it.
Every severe illness, no matter how well we get over it, detracts from our length of days: how much more then must twenty or more years of a fast life do so? With our “horse’s constitution” we may come through it all with life, but it will leave its mark, if not externally, internally.
I am perfectly willing that the reader should have both theconsand theprosof the argument, and will even sit in judgment on the statements I have just made, and will myself call upon witnesses that may seem to disprove them.
The first to take the box is your careless, sceptical, happy-go-lucky man, your live-for-to-day-and-bother-to-morrow individual, who states that he really enjoys life, and that he can point to innumerable acquaintances, who go the pace far faster than he does, but who, nevertheless, enjoy perfect health, and are likely to live “till a fly fells them.”
The next witness has not much to say, but he tells a little story—a temperance tale he calls it.
Two very aged men were one time subpoenaed on some case, and appeared in the box before a judge who was well-known as a staunch upholder of the principles of total abstinence. This judge, seeing two such aged beings before him, thought it a capital opportunity of teaching a lesson to those around him.
“How old are you?” he said, addressing the first witness.
“Eighty, and a little over,” was the reply.
“You have led a very temperate life, haven’t you?” said the judge.
“I’ve never tasted spirits, to my knowledge, all my life, sir.”
The judge looked around him, with a pleased smile on his countenance. Then he addressed the other ancient witness, who looked even haler than his companion.
“How old are you, my man?”
“Ninety odd, your worship.”
“Ahem?” said the judge. “You have doubtless led a strictly abstemious life, haven’t you?”
“Strictly abstemious!” replied the old reprobate; “indeed, sir, I haven’t been strictly sober for the last seventy years.”
Diet.—Errors in diet produce dyspepsia, and dyspepsia may be the forerunner of almost any fatal illness. It not only induces disease itself, but the body of the sufferer from this complaint, being at the best but poorly nourished, no matter how fat and fresh he may appear, is more liable to be attacked by any ailment which may be in the air. Dyspepsia really leaves the front door open, so that trouble may walk in.
The chief errors in diet which are apt to bring on chronic indigestion are: 1. Over-rich or over-nutritious diet. 2. Over-eating, from which more die than from over-drinking. 3. Eating too quickly, as one is apt to do when alone, the solvent saliva having thus no time to get properly mingled with the food. 4. The evil habit of taking “nips” before meals, by which means the blood is heated, the salivary glands rendered partially inert, the mucous membrane of the mouth rendered incapable for a time of absorption, and the gastric juices thrown out and wasted before their proper time, that is meal-time. 5. Drinking too much fluid with the meals, and thereby diluting the gastric juices and delaying digestion. 6. Want of daily or tri-weekly change of diet. 7. Irregularity in times of eating.
Drink.—I do not intend discussing the question of temperance. 1. But if stimulants are taken at all, it shouldneverbe on an empty stomach. 2. They ought not to be taken at all, if they can be done without. 3. What are called “nightcaps” may induce sleep, but it is by narcotic action, and the sleep is neither sound nor refreshing. The best nightcap is a warm bath and a bottle of soda water, with ten to fifteen grains of pure bicarbonate of soda in it.
Coffee is a refreshing beverage.
Cocoa is both refreshing and nourishing, but too much of it leads to biliousness.
Oatmeal. Water drunk from off a handful or two of this is excellent on the road.
Cream of tartar drink. This should be more popular than it is in summer. A pint of boiling water is poured over a dram and a half of cream of tartar, in which is the juice of a lemon and some of the rind; when cold, especially if iced, it is truly excellent in summer weather. It cools the system, prevents constipation, and assuages thirst.
Ginger-ale or ginger beer is good, but should be taken in moderation.
Tonic drinks often contain deleterious accumulative medicines, and should all be avoided.
Cold tea, if weak, flavoured with lemon-juice, and drunk without sugar, is probably the best drink of the road. But let it be good pure Indian tea.
Baths.—The morning cold sponge bath, especially with a handful or two of sea-salt in it, is bracing, stimulating, and tonic. No one who has once tried it for a week would ever give it up.
The Turkish bath may be taken once a week, or once a fortnight. It gets rid of a deal of the impurities of the blood, and lightens both brain and heart. Whenever one feels dull and mopish, he should indulge in the luxury of a Turkish bath.
Fresh air.—The more of this one has the better, whether by day or by night. Many chronic ailments will yield entirely to a course of ozone-laden fresh air, such as one gets at the seaside, or on the mountain’s brow. Have a proper and scientific plan of ventilating your bedrooms. Ventilators should be both in doors and windows, else one cannot expect perfect health and mental activity. Without air one dies speedily; in bad air he languishes and dies more slowly; in the ordinary air of rooms one exists, but he cannot be said to live; but in pure air one can be as happy and light-hearted as a lark.
Exercise.—This must be pleasurable, or at all events it must be interesting—mind and body must go hand in hand—if exercise is to do any good. It must not be over-fatiguing, and intervals of rest must not be forgotten. Exercise should never be taken in cumbersome clothing.
“Work,” I say in one of my books, “is not exercise.” This may seem strange, but it is true. I tell my patients, “I do not care how much you run about all day at your business, youmusttake the exercise I prescribe quite independently of your work.” There are perhaps no more hard-working men in the world than the Scottish ploughmen—wearily plodding all day long behind their horses, in wet weather or dry; no sooner, however, has the sun “gane west the loch,” and the day’s work is done, than, after supper and a good wash, those hardy lads assemble in the glen, and not only for one, but often three good hours, keep up the health-giving games for which their nation is so justly celebrated.
Cooking.—Good cooking is essential to health. I do not care how plainly I live, but pray exercise the attribute of mercy. Let my steak or chop be tender and toothsome; my fish or vegetables not overdone, and oh! pray boil me my potatoes well, for without oldpomme de terrelife to me would be one dreary void.
Now let us see how far the rules of health may be carried out in a caravan like the Wanderer.
First comesearly rising. You get up almost with the lark—you are bound to, for there is a deal to be done in a caravan; what with getting breakfast, having the carriage tidied and dusted, the beds stowed away on the roof, dishes washed, stove cleaned, carpets shaken, and pantry swept and washed, eight o’clock comes before you know where you are. And by the time your flowers are rearranged in the vases, and everything so sweet and tidy that you do not mind Royalty itself having a look inside, it will be pretty near nine o’clock, and the horses will be round, the pole shipped, the buckets slung, and all ready for a start. But then you will think early rising the reverse of a hardship, for did you not turn in at ten o’clock? and have you not slept the sweet sleep of the just—or a gentleman gipsy?
The first thing you did when you got up was to have a bath under the tent which your servant prepared for you. Oh that delicious cool sponge bath of a lovely summer’s morning! If you do not join the birds in their song even before you have quite finished rubbing down, it is because you have no music in your soul.
But I mentioned a Turkish bath as a health accessory. Can that be had in a Wanderer caravan? Indeed it can. I have a portable one, and it does not exceed three inches in height, and when put away takes hardly as much space up as a pair of boots does.
The greatest cleanliness is maintainable in a caravan where regularity exists,—cleanliness of person, and cleanliness of the house itself.
As to regularity, this is one of the things one learns to perfection on a gipsy tour extending over months. There can be no comfort without it. Everything in its place must be your motto, and this is a habit which once learned is of the greatest service to one in more civilised life. For the want of regularity causes much worry, and worry is one of the primary causes of illness.
Fresh air.—You are in it all day. Now down in the valley among the woods, or breathing the balmy odours of the pine forests; now high up on the mountain top, and anon by the bracing sea-beach. And at night your ventilators are all open, without a chance of catching cold, so no wonder your sleep is as sweet and dreamless as that of a healthy child.
As to the weather, you are hardly ever exposed. The caravan does not leak, and if you are on thecoupéyou are protected by the verandah (videfrontispiece).
Exercise.—This you get in abundance, and that too of the most wholesome and exhilarating kind.
Food in the caravan.—Perhaps you have been living too freely before, and having too many courses; all this will be altered when you take to the road. Plainly you must live, and you will soon come to prefer a plain substantial diet.
The first result of your new mode of life—and this you will not be twenty-four hours out before you feel—will be hunger. It does not matter that you had a substantial breakfast at eight o’clock, you will find your way to the cupboard at eleven, and probably for the first time in your life you will find out what a delicious titbit a morsel of bread-and-cheese is. Yes, and I would even forgive you if you washed it down with one tiny glass of mild ale, albeit beer is not the best thing on the road.
At the midday halt you will have luncheon. You can drink your tea cold on the road or warm it in the spirit stove; and when settled for the night in some quiet and peaceful meadow, your servant will speedily cook the dinner, which has been put all ready in the Rippingille stove during the midday halt.
While this is being cooked, in the privacy of the saloon you can play the fiddle or discourse sweet music from the harmonium, or if tired lie on the sofa and read.
I have said that you must live plainly in a caravan. But the word plainly is a term. You may not have French dishes nor twenty courses, but I append extracts from bills of fare of caravan cookery, to show that diet is not necessarily a mere off-put in the Wanderer.
I must, however, premise that I myself did not always bother with so good amenu.
To begin with, here are my cook’s general instructions:—
Always see that the stove is clean and in order. Wipe the tanks thoroughly dry, if any oil is perceptible upon them; trim the wicks, light them, turn down low, place in the proper grooves, and carefully follow instructions given with the stove. When set fairly in, regulate the light by observing the height through the sight holes. Brush out the oven, and then all is ready for a good day’s work. All this will occupy very little time, one-tenth of that generally spent in lighting coal fires and trying to escape the dust and dirt the old-fashioned open range entailed. Next rinse out the kettle, fill with fresh water from the tap, place over one of the burners. Wash your hands, and then get all ready for breakfast. Cut rashers of bacon and slices of bread sufficient for the family requirements. Bring out the eggs, butter, pepper, salt; then the tea-caddy, coffee, etc, with their respective pots; plates, dishes, toast-rack, fish slice, teacup or small basin, and lay on the table near the stove, so that no time may be lost running about when the cooking begins. These instructions apply toall meals. First get the apparatus and material ready, and then begin to cook.
I. Toast, poached eggs, tea, coffee, or chocolate.
II. Toast, fried eggs and bacon, or mashed eggs, tea, etc.
III. Oatmeal porridge with butter and creamy milk, followed by a boiled new-laid egg and a rasher, with tea. N.B.—The butter is always the sweetest, and the milk thecrème de la crème.
IV. Herrings, devilled melt and roe, toast, tea, etc, eggs bouillés.
V. Mock sausages, boiled eggs, and usual fixings.
VI. Finnan haddocks, poached eggs, and usual fixings. And so onad libitum.
I. Bread or biscuit and cheese with a modicum of beer.
II. Bloater-paste or anchovy-paste, or buttered toast with cold tea.
III. Tongue and ham (potted), turkey and tongue, and fixings.
The cold joints of yesterday, with hot potatoes, piquant sauces, and chutney; washed down with a cup of delicious chocolate or new milk.
I. Fried cutlets of fish; roast fowls; brown sauce, potatoes, greens, and bread; rice or golden pudding.
II. Spatch cock; minced meat, baked potatoes, green peas; custard.
III. Roast mutton, mashed turnips, potatoes; and fruit pudding.
IV. Rabbit stewed, game in season, vegetables; and sago pudding.
V. Beefsteak and onions, boiled potatoes, cauliflower; pudding.
VI. Salmonà la Reine; cold meat and salad; La Belle pudding.
And so onad libitum, with wine or beer to suit the taste.
I. If required, a snack of anything handy.
II. Tomatoes forcés (tinned tomatoes if fresh cannot be had), cocoa, toast.
III. Macaroni cheese and toast.
IV. Eggsà la Soyer, toast; or a poached egg on toast. Salad, especially of lettuce, with a modicum of good beer or stout.
A cleverer cook than I could devise a hundred simple dishes for caravan cookery, but I do not think mymenuis altogether prison fare.
I can, of course, only mention a few of these, and it must be distinctly understood that I am not trying to enforce the merits of a new cure. I am but giving my own impressions from my own experience, and if anyone likes to profit by these he may, and welcome.
I. Ennui.
II. Dyspepsia.
III. Debility and enfeeblement of health from overwork, or from worry or grief.
IV. Insomnia.
V. Chronic bronchitis and consumption in its earliest stages.
VI. Bilious habit of system.
VII. Acidity of secretions of stomach, etc.
VIII. All kinds of stomachic ailments.
IX. Giddiness or vertigo.
X. Hysteria.
XI. Headaches and wearying backaches.
XII. Constipated state of system.
XIII. Tendency toembonpoint.
XIV. Neuralgia of certain kinds.
XV. Liver complaints of a chronic kind.
XVI. Threatened kidney mischief.
XVII. Hay fever.
XVIII. Failure of brain power.
XIX. Anaemia or poverty of blood.
XX. Nervousness.
Some of the great factors in the cure of such complaints as the above by life in a caravan for a series of months would be, that perfect rest and freedom from all care which is so calming to shattered nerves, weary brains, and aching hearts. The constant and pleasurable change of scene and change of faces, the regularity of the mode of life, and the delightfully refreshing sleep, born of the fresh air and exercise, which is nearly always obtainable at night.
In concluding this chapter, let me just add that of all modes of enjoying life in summer and autumn I consider—speaking after a somewhat lengthy experience—caravan travelling the healthiest and the best.
Chapter Twenty Nine.The Cycle as Tender to the Caravan.“When the spring stirs my bloodWith the instincts of travel,I can get enough gravelOn the old Marlborough road.”Thoreau.I begin to think, reader, that the plan of putting headlines or verses to chapters, although a very ancient, time-honoured custom, is not such a very excellent one after all.The verses are written subsequently, of course, after you have finished the chapter, and the difficulty is to get them to fit; you may have some glimmering notion that, once upon a time, some poet or other did say something that would beapropos, but who was it? You get off your easy-chair and yawn and stretch yourself, then lazily make your way to the bookshelf and commence the search among your favourite poets. It is for all the world like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay, and when you do find it, it isn’t half so bright as you thought it would be, only down you jot it in a semi-reckless kind of a way, feeling all the while as if you were a humbug, or committing some sort of a deadly sin.If this good poet Thoreau had said,—“When the spring stirs my bloodWith the instincts of travel,I can get enoughexerciseOn my Marlborough tricycle.”—Although not metre, it would have been to the point. But the poet did not, so there we are. Nevertheless, the Marlborough is the cycle I have bestridden during my tour this summer, and a sweet wee thing it is. In my caravan tour of 1885 it was the Ranelagh Club I had as tender to the Wanderer, also a good one.But really, without a cycle, one would sometimes feel lost in caravan travelling. The Wanderer is so large that she cannot turn on narrow roads, so that on approaching a village, where I wish to stay all night, I find it judicious to stop her about a quarter of a mile out and tool on, mounted on the Marlborough, to find out convenient quarters. Then a signal brings the Wanderer on.Another advantage of having a tender is this. In narrow lanes your valet rides on ahead, and if there really be no room for a trap to pass us, he warns any carriage that may chance to be coming our way.Take, for example, that ugly climb we had when passing through Slochmuichk, in the Grampians (see illustration). My valet was on ahead, round the corner and on the outlook for coming vehicles, and so had anyone hove in sight a probable accident would have been avoided.Again, when passing through a town where board schools with their busy bees of boys are numerous, my valet, on the Marlborough tender, comes riding up behind, and accordingly the bees do not have a chance of sticking on to the carriage.Tramps will, at times, get up and try the drawers behind, but whenever I see a suspicious gang of these worthless loafers, a signal brings the tender flying back, and thus robbery is prevented.I had the utmost satisfaction once this year in punishing some country louts. Butler, my valet, was innocently riding on about a hundred yards ahead, and no sooner had he passed than the three blackguards commenced stone-throwing. They had no idea then the cycle belonged to the caravan. They had soon after though. I slid quietly off thecoupé, whip in hand, and for several seconds I enjoyed the most health-giving exercise. Straight across the face and round the ears I hit as hard as I knew how to. One escaped Scot-free, but two tumbled in the ditch and howled aloud for mercy, which I generously granted—after I got tired. The beauty of the attack was in its suddenness, and those roughs will remember it to their dying day.But the main pleasure in possessing a cycle lies in the opportunities you have of seeing lovely bits of scenery, and quaint queer old villages, and quaint queer old people, quite out of the beaten track of your grand tour. And itisa pleasure to have a long quiet ride through woods and flowery lanes, of a summer’s evening, after having been in the caravan all day long.Just let me pick one extract from a book I wrote last year, describing cycling in connection with my grand tour.(“Rota Vitae, The Cyclist’s Guide to Health and Rational Enjoyment.” Published by Messrs Iliffe and Sturney, 98 Fleet Street, London.)The little work is really a bombshell, as ancient divines used to call their tracts, aimed at the senseless making of records by cyclists who go flying from one end of the kingdom to the other, and come back as wise as they went, and infinitely more tired.Haddington and round it.Everywhere you go around Haddington, you will be charmed with the character and beauty of the scenery, and its great variety.Inland, are there not grand old hills and wild woodlands, lonely straths and glens, and splendid sheets of water? Is there not, too, the finest tree scenery that exists anywhere in Scotland? Yes! and the very wild flowers and hedgerows themselves would repay one for all the toil incurred in rattling over somewhat stony roads, and climbing lofty braelands. Then, towards the east, you come in sight of the sea itself—the ever-beautiful, ever-changing sea. Go farther east still, go to the coast itself, and you will find yourself among such rock scenery as can hardly be beaten, expect by that in Skye or the Orkneys. When tired of wandering on the shore, and, if a naturalist, studying and admiring the thousand-and-one strange objects around you, why, you may go and hobnob with some of the fisher folks—male or female, take your choice—they will amuse, ay, and mayhap instruct you, while some of the oldest of them will tell you tales of the old smuggling days, and life in the caves, that will heat anything you ever read in books.If you should stay at Cockburnspath all night you will not forget to visit the seashore and the caves. Those caves have a history, too; they were connected with the troublesome times of “auld lang syne,” and later still, they came in remarkably handy for bold smugglers, who, before the days of smart revenue cutters, made use of them as temporary storehouses when running a cargo on shore.How lovely the sea looks on a summer’s day from the hills around here! How enchanting the woods! How wild! How quiet! You will be inclined to live and linger among scenery such as this, book in hand, perhaps, on a bank of wild thyme and bluebells, and if you do notice some blue-coated bicyclist, with red perspiring face and dustytout ensemble, speeding past on his way to John-o’-Groat’s, how you will pity him! Farther west is the romantic Dunglass Dene, which you will visit without fail. Says Scott:“The cliffs here rear their haughty headHigh o’er the river’s darksome bed;Here trees to every crevice clung,And o’er the dell their branches hung:And there, all splintered and uneven,The shivered rocks ascend to heaven;Oft, too, the ivy swathed their breast,And wreathed their garland round their crest;Or from the spires bade loosely flareIts tendrils in the summer air.”The most romantic parts of Scotland which may be visited by the caravannist, with his tricycle as tender, are:—I. The counties of Barns, Hogg, and Scott (comprising all the space betwixt a line drawn from Edinburgh to Glasgow and the Tweed).II. The Grampian Wilds.III. The Perthshire Highlands.IV. The Valley of the Dee.V. The Valley of the Don.VI. The sea coast from Edinburgh to Fraserburgh, and west as far as Inverness itself.Coming south now to England, I must permit the tourist himself to choose his own headquarters. I shall merely mention the most healthy and interesting districts.I. The Lake Country.II. The Yorkshire District (most bracing and interesting).III. The Peak District of Derbyshire.IV. The Midland District.V. The East Coasts.VI. North Wales (centre, probably Bala).VII. South Wales.VIII. South Devon.IX. South Cornwall.X. Jersey (Saint Heliers).I should also mention both Orkney and Shetland, these islands are healthy and bracing.In both the last-named districts riding will be found practical, but boating excursions will rival the tricycle. Fishing and shooting, and walking among the moorlands and hills, combine to render a holiday in either the Orkneys or Shetland Islands a most enjoyable one.Both at Kirkwall and Lerwick fairly good hotels are to be found, and respectable lodgings, while living is as cheap as anyone could desire.NB—An ordinary-sized caravan can be taken by sea, but take my advice, never put it on board a train.
“When the spring stirs my bloodWith the instincts of travel,I can get enough gravelOn the old Marlborough road.”Thoreau.
“When the spring stirs my bloodWith the instincts of travel,I can get enough gravelOn the old Marlborough road.”Thoreau.
I begin to think, reader, that the plan of putting headlines or verses to chapters, although a very ancient, time-honoured custom, is not such a very excellent one after all.
The verses are written subsequently, of course, after you have finished the chapter, and the difficulty is to get them to fit; you may have some glimmering notion that, once upon a time, some poet or other did say something that would beapropos, but who was it? You get off your easy-chair and yawn and stretch yourself, then lazily make your way to the bookshelf and commence the search among your favourite poets. It is for all the world like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay, and when you do find it, it isn’t half so bright as you thought it would be, only down you jot it in a semi-reckless kind of a way, feeling all the while as if you were a humbug, or committing some sort of a deadly sin.
If this good poet Thoreau had said,—
“When the spring stirs my bloodWith the instincts of travel,I can get enoughexerciseOn my Marlborough tricycle.”
“When the spring stirs my bloodWith the instincts of travel,I can get enoughexerciseOn my Marlborough tricycle.”
—Although not metre, it would have been to the point. But the poet did not, so there we are. Nevertheless, the Marlborough is the cycle I have bestridden during my tour this summer, and a sweet wee thing it is. In my caravan tour of 1885 it was the Ranelagh Club I had as tender to the Wanderer, also a good one.
But really, without a cycle, one would sometimes feel lost in caravan travelling. The Wanderer is so large that she cannot turn on narrow roads, so that on approaching a village, where I wish to stay all night, I find it judicious to stop her about a quarter of a mile out and tool on, mounted on the Marlborough, to find out convenient quarters. Then a signal brings the Wanderer on.
Another advantage of having a tender is this. In narrow lanes your valet rides on ahead, and if there really be no room for a trap to pass us, he warns any carriage that may chance to be coming our way.
Take, for example, that ugly climb we had when passing through Slochmuichk, in the Grampians (see illustration). My valet was on ahead, round the corner and on the outlook for coming vehicles, and so had anyone hove in sight a probable accident would have been avoided.
Again, when passing through a town where board schools with their busy bees of boys are numerous, my valet, on the Marlborough tender, comes riding up behind, and accordingly the bees do not have a chance of sticking on to the carriage.
Tramps will, at times, get up and try the drawers behind, but whenever I see a suspicious gang of these worthless loafers, a signal brings the tender flying back, and thus robbery is prevented.
I had the utmost satisfaction once this year in punishing some country louts. Butler, my valet, was innocently riding on about a hundred yards ahead, and no sooner had he passed than the three blackguards commenced stone-throwing. They had no idea then the cycle belonged to the caravan. They had soon after though. I slid quietly off thecoupé, whip in hand, and for several seconds I enjoyed the most health-giving exercise. Straight across the face and round the ears I hit as hard as I knew how to. One escaped Scot-free, but two tumbled in the ditch and howled aloud for mercy, which I generously granted—after I got tired. The beauty of the attack was in its suddenness, and those roughs will remember it to their dying day.
But the main pleasure in possessing a cycle lies in the opportunities you have of seeing lovely bits of scenery, and quaint queer old villages, and quaint queer old people, quite out of the beaten track of your grand tour. And itisa pleasure to have a long quiet ride through woods and flowery lanes, of a summer’s evening, after having been in the caravan all day long.
Just let me pick one extract from a book I wrote last year, describing cycling in connection with my grand tour.
(“Rota Vitae, The Cyclist’s Guide to Health and Rational Enjoyment.” Published by Messrs Iliffe and Sturney, 98 Fleet Street, London.)
The little work is really a bombshell, as ancient divines used to call their tracts, aimed at the senseless making of records by cyclists who go flying from one end of the kingdom to the other, and come back as wise as they went, and infinitely more tired.
Everywhere you go around Haddington, you will be charmed with the character and beauty of the scenery, and its great variety.
Inland, are there not grand old hills and wild woodlands, lonely straths and glens, and splendid sheets of water? Is there not, too, the finest tree scenery that exists anywhere in Scotland? Yes! and the very wild flowers and hedgerows themselves would repay one for all the toil incurred in rattling over somewhat stony roads, and climbing lofty braelands. Then, towards the east, you come in sight of the sea itself—the ever-beautiful, ever-changing sea. Go farther east still, go to the coast itself, and you will find yourself among such rock scenery as can hardly be beaten, expect by that in Skye or the Orkneys. When tired of wandering on the shore, and, if a naturalist, studying and admiring the thousand-and-one strange objects around you, why, you may go and hobnob with some of the fisher folks—male or female, take your choice—they will amuse, ay, and mayhap instruct you, while some of the oldest of them will tell you tales of the old smuggling days, and life in the caves, that will heat anything you ever read in books.
If you should stay at Cockburnspath all night you will not forget to visit the seashore and the caves. Those caves have a history, too; they were connected with the troublesome times of “auld lang syne,” and later still, they came in remarkably handy for bold smugglers, who, before the days of smart revenue cutters, made use of them as temporary storehouses when running a cargo on shore.
How lovely the sea looks on a summer’s day from the hills around here! How enchanting the woods! How wild! How quiet! You will be inclined to live and linger among scenery such as this, book in hand, perhaps, on a bank of wild thyme and bluebells, and if you do notice some blue-coated bicyclist, with red perspiring face and dustytout ensemble, speeding past on his way to John-o’-Groat’s, how you will pity him! Farther west is the romantic Dunglass Dene, which you will visit without fail. Says Scott:
“The cliffs here rear their haughty headHigh o’er the river’s darksome bed;Here trees to every crevice clung,And o’er the dell their branches hung:And there, all splintered and uneven,The shivered rocks ascend to heaven;Oft, too, the ivy swathed their breast,And wreathed their garland round their crest;Or from the spires bade loosely flareIts tendrils in the summer air.”
“The cliffs here rear their haughty headHigh o’er the river’s darksome bed;Here trees to every crevice clung,And o’er the dell their branches hung:And there, all splintered and uneven,The shivered rocks ascend to heaven;Oft, too, the ivy swathed their breast,And wreathed their garland round their crest;Or from the spires bade loosely flareIts tendrils in the summer air.”
The most romantic parts of Scotland which may be visited by the caravannist, with his tricycle as tender, are:—
I. The counties of Barns, Hogg, and Scott (comprising all the space betwixt a line drawn from Edinburgh to Glasgow and the Tweed).
II. The Grampian Wilds.
III. The Perthshire Highlands.
IV. The Valley of the Dee.
V. The Valley of the Don.
VI. The sea coast from Edinburgh to Fraserburgh, and west as far as Inverness itself.
Coming south now to England, I must permit the tourist himself to choose his own headquarters. I shall merely mention the most healthy and interesting districts.
I. The Lake Country.
II. The Yorkshire District (most bracing and interesting).
III. The Peak District of Derbyshire.
IV. The Midland District.
V. The East Coasts.
VI. North Wales (centre, probably Bala).
VII. South Wales.
VIII. South Devon.
IX. South Cornwall.
X. Jersey (Saint Heliers).
I should also mention both Orkney and Shetland, these islands are healthy and bracing.
In both the last-named districts riding will be found practical, but boating excursions will rival the tricycle. Fishing and shooting, and walking among the moorlands and hills, combine to render a holiday in either the Orkneys or Shetland Islands a most enjoyable one.
Both at Kirkwall and Lerwick fairly good hotels are to be found, and respectable lodgings, while living is as cheap as anyone could desire.
NB—An ordinary-sized caravan can be taken by sea, but take my advice, never put it on board a train.
Chapter Thirty.Hints to Would-be Caravannists.“We live to learn ilka day,The warld wide’s the best o’ skools,Experience too, so auld folks say,Is just the jade for teachin’ fools.”Nemo.I.First catch your hare. That is, get your caravan.“Oh!” I think I hear some one say, “I shall hire one.” TakePunch’sadvice to people about to marry—“don’t.”And the same advice holds good as regards secondhand caravans.Mind, I do not say that you may not be able to meet with a good and clean one, but, woe is me, there is a chance of guests, in old caravans of the gipsy class, that you would not care to be shipmates with.Besides, the woodwork may be bad, or “going,” and there may be flaws in the springs, the wheels. The roof may leak, and a hundred and fifty other disagreeables be found out after you fairly start on the road.I would as soon buy an old feather-bed in the east end of London as an old caravan.Get your car then from a really good maker, one who could not afford to put a bad article out of hand.I have neither object nor desire to advertise the Bristol Waggon Company, but it is due to them to say that having paid a fair price, I got from them a splendid article. But of course there may be other makers as good or better. I do not know.II. Style of Build.You may copy the Wanderer if so minded. I do not think that I myself, after two years on the road, could improve on her, except that the shutters are difficult to draw on and off, and ought to run upon castors.However, few caravannists might care to have so long and large a chariot as mine; one about twelve feet long would serve every purpose, and be easily moved with one good horse. It would also be more easily drawn into meadows at night.A caravan, both exteriorly and interiorly, is capable of an infinite amount of ornamentation. But I do not think a gentleman gipsy’s carriage ought to, in any way, resemble that of a travelling showman, although it certainly should not be like a Salvationist’s “barrow.”The entrance door may be at the side, or behind, as in the Wanderer.The windows should be large and neat, and prettily curtained or upholstered. A caravannist is constantly being gazed at, and people will assuredly judge of your interior fittings by the taste and appearance displayed outside.The Wanderer, with my books and furniture (all light) on board, weighs well-nigh two tons. Even for a pair of good-hearted horses, such as I possess, this is rather much, so that I should advise that a single horse caravan be not much over fifteen hundredweight.The Wanderer is double-walled, being built of well-seasoned beautiful mahogany, and lined with maple, having an interspace of about one inch and a half. But double walls are really not necessary, and only add to the expense.The body of the carriage might be made of Willesden waterproof paper, fastened to a framework of light strong wood. This remarkable paper keeps its shape in all weathers, and can be charmingly painted and gilded.For a very light summer caravan the upper works might be painted Willesden canvas. Such a carriage, however, would hardly withstand the cold of winter.The roof of the Wanderer is painted white. I am often asked, Is it not very hot in summer? But the answer is “No, because with the doors open there is always a delightful breeze.” Then, wood being a conductor, and there being so much ventilation, as soon as the sun goes down the caravan becomes as cool as can be desired.Upholstering and Furnishing.A deal of taste can be shown in this. Everything must be of smallest possible dimensions.A few favourite books should be taken, while magazines, etc, can be bought in towns and villages as you pass through. I have a fairy edition of the poets, my little ebony bookcase is a fairy one, and a good many other articles as well are of fairy dimensions also. Mirrors are tolerably heavy, but let in here and there in the panels, etc, they have a very nice effect, and make the caravan seem double the size.Flower vases of different shapes and sizes may be almost everywhere. Flowers we can always get, and if the same kind hospitality be extended to every gentleman or lady gipsy that was lavished on me, his or her caravan will always be florally gay.Thecoupéis easily convertible into a delightful lounge. I have a bag close at hand on the splashboard, where I keep the road-book or guide, the map of the county through which I am passing, and my pens, ink, pencils, and note-books. There is also on thecoupéa brass-gilt little rack for holding my book or newspaper, as well as a minimum thermometer.If a shower faces the caravan and is blown in under the verandah, or if the dust is troublesome, it is easy to retire into the saloon for a short time, and shut the glass door.Sketching from the Coupé.If you are at all handy with the pencil and...This page missing.This page missing.—My vases, or blind or curtain one inch awry. Be gentle and firm with your valet, and he will soon come to see things as you do, and act in accordance with all your wishes.The cooking-stove should be black-leaded, the tin things should shine like burnished silver, and every kitchen utensil be as bright and clean as a new sovereign.What though your table be small, the viands plain? they are well put on, your delft is polished, and that flower in the vase, and those coloured glasses, look well on a spotless cloth.The Cooking-Range.Does it smell at all? I have often been asked that question. The reply is “No, not at all,” and in October I light the range of an evening to warm the caravan.When breakfast is wanted in a hurry, to ensure an early start, the cooking is done the night before, and the tea made and poured off the leaves into a large bottle, so that five minutes’ time in the morning is sufficient to warm everything. The oil for the range is hung underneath in a can.Underneath also are slung two buckets, a dog’s food-can, and a dust-proof basket in which vegetables are carried, to be cleaned and made ready for cooking at the midday halt, and so prepared without delay when the bivouac is chosen.Everything Done the Evening Before.Everything that can be done the evening before should be done—boot cleaning, knife polishing, filling cistern and filter, and preparing the range for immediate lighting.The Provision Book.This should be presented to you every morning at breakfast by your valet, who is to call your attention to the articles wanted, whether bread, butter, meat, vegetables, or groceries. Then the shopping is done in the forenoon as you pass through village or town, although many things are better and more cheaply procured at cottages.An Early Start Desirable.Make an early start and all will go well. On the other hand, if you laze and dawdle in the morning the day will be spoiled, luncheon will be hurried, and dinner too late.Asking the Road.This is the duty of your valet, who is on ahead with the tricycle. But do not trust altogether to him, but when any doubt exists ask yourself, and be sure that your informant really knows his right hand from his left. Remember that if a man stands facing you hisrightis yourleft.Draymen, butchers, and waggoners, are the best men to enquire the state of the roads of, as regards hills, condition, etc.I make a point of mingling in a kindly way of an evening with the villagers at the inns where my horses are stabled. I get much amusement sometimes by so doing. I meet many queer characters, hear many a strange story, and last but not least get well-ventilated opinions as to the best and nearest roads.A caravannist must not be above talking to all kinds and conditions of men. If he has pride he must keep it in a bucket under the caravan. Never if possible get—Belated.If you do, you are liable to accidents of all kinds. I have been run into more than once at night by recklessly-driving tipsy folks. Certainly it only slightly shook my great caravan, but capsized the dogcart.While on the Road.While on the road, your coachman will for the horses’ sakes keep on the best parts. Make room, however, wherever possible for faster vehicles that want to pass you. But whenever the drivers of them are insolent I laugh and let them wait; they dare not “ram” me. Ramming would not affect the Wanderer in the slightest, but would be rough on the rammer.Stabling.Stable your horses every night. Never think of turning them out. The horses are your moving power, and you cannot take too much care of them. See then that they are carefully groomed and fed, and stand pastern-deep in dry straw.Civility.This is a cheap article. Be civil to everyone, and you will have civility in return.The Price of Stabling.Make it a rule, as I do, to know exactly what you have to pay for your horses’ accommodation. You will thus have no words in the morning, you will part in friendship with the landlord, who will be glad to see you when you return, while the ostler’s good word can be bought cheaply enough.Water.Drink nothing but what has passed through the filter. I use one from the Silicated Carbon Company, and find it excellent.Dangers of the Road.These are nominal, and need hardly be mentioned. I carry a revolver which I seldom load; I have shutters that I seldom put up; and I often sleep with an open door. But I have a faithful dog. My most painful experience on the road this year I sent an account of to thePall Mallunder the title of “A Terrible Telegram.”“A few claret corks and an empty ‘turkey and tongue’ tin—nothing else will be left to mark the spot where the Wanderer lay.” My friend Townesend gazed on the grass as he spoke, and there was a look of sadness in his face, which, actor though he be, I feel sure was not assumed. He had come to see the last of me and my caravan—the last for a time, at all events—to bid me good-bye and see me start. Parting is sweet sorrow, and I had spent a most enjoyable week at that delightful, quiet, wee watering-place, Filey, Yorkshire. I had lazed and written, I had lounged and read; my very soul felt steeped in a dreamy glamour as pleasant as moonshine on the sea; I had enjoyed thedolee far niente, book in hand, among the wild thyme on the sunny cliffs of Guisthorpe; for me, blades of dulse—the esculent and deliciousrhodamenia palmata—culled wet from the waves that lapped and lisped among the Brigg’s dark boulders, had been veritable lotus leaves, and, reclining by the mouth of a cave, I could readily believe in fairies and sea nymphs—ay, and mermaids as well. No letters to write, no bills to pay, no waiters to tip—for is not the Wanderer my hotel upon wheels?—and no lodging-house cat,—surely one would think a gentleman gipsy’s life leaves little to be desired. And truly speaking, apart from that “terrible hill” which, day after day, seems ever on ahead of us, but which we always manage to surmount, caravanning in summer has but few drawbacks. So perfectly free and easy, so out-and-out happy is one’s existence when so engaged, that he actually cares as little for the great current events of the day, or for the rise and fall of governments, as the whistling ploughboy does about the storms that rage in mid-Atlantic. Why then should that wretched little fraud, that so-called boon to the public, the sixpenny telegram, burst like a thunderstorm around my head, and tear my peace and joy to rags?Listen, reader, and I already feel sore of your indulgence and sympathy. We left Filey on Monday forenoon, and after five days of toiling over the hills and wolds, found ourselves at Askern. Askern is a little spa and health resort, its waters are chemically similar to those of Harrogate, and useful in the same class of cases. The halt and maim and rheumatic come here, and those who seek for quiet and rest after months of drudgery at the desk’s dull wood. Many more would come were the place but better known. On Friday night here the rain came down in torrents, but Saturday morning was fine, so I allowed both my servants to take an after-dinner trip to Doncaster. I would take an after-dinner nap. I was on particularly good terms with myself; I had had letters from home, I had done a good day’s work, and presently meant to resume my writing.“A telegram, sir!” A telegram? I took it and tore it open. A telegram always gives me momentary increase of heart-action, but this laconic message caused such pericardial sinking as I hope I shall never feel again. “Come home immediately, and wire the time you leave,” so ran the terrible telegram. But, greatest mystery of all, it came from Mark-lane, and the sender was not my wife but “Hyde.” I had never been to Mark-lane, and who is Hyde? But what dreadful calamity had happened to my home? My wife and bairnies live in Berks; but she must have gone to town, I thought, and been killed in the street, having but time to breathe my name and address ere closing her eyes for ever. Were she alive she herself would have wired, and not Hyde. There must be a mortuary at Mark-lane, and Hyde must be the dead-house doctor. I dashed my manuscript all aside, then rushed to the post-office and wired to Hyde for fullest particulars. There would be a train at four which would take me to London by 8:30.Before I received the telegram my tongue was as red and clear as that of my Newfoundland dog’s, in a moment it had become white and furred; there was a burning sensation in my throat, and my heart felt as big as a bullock’s, and all these are symptoms of sudden shock and grief. But it was a time for action. In an hour the train would leave; ’twould seem a long, long hour to me. I packed my handbag with trembling hands, drew the shutters over all the windows of the Wanderer, determining to lock all up and board my valet at the hotel. Hurricane Bob, my dog, must have thought me mad, for I gave him the joint that had been meant for our Sunday’s dinner; it would not keep till my return. Then I went and sat down in the post-office, and with thumping heart awaited Hyde’s reply. How long the time seemed! How slowly the minute hand of the clock moved! My feelings must have been akin to those of a felon waiting the return of the jury and a verdict. The reply came at last, but only to deepen the mystery and my misery. No Hyde of Mark-lane could be found. I wired again, wired and waited for nearly another awful hour. Meanwhile my train had gone. The reader can judge of the state of my feelings, when at length the clicking needles informed the clerk that the first telegram was meant for another “Gordon Stables,” of another Askarn, spelt with an “a” instead of an “e.”I did not know I had a double till now, because my name is so unusual. If I rejoiced in the name of John, and my patronymic were Smith, the marvel would be small, but the Gordon Stableses of that ilk are not dropped into this world out of a watering-can, so I do wonder who my double is, and sincerely hope that telegram has not brought him grief, but ten thousand a year.I have no more to add. I trust if the reader does go on the road he will find a gipsy’s life as happy and pleasant as I have done. Good-bye.
“We live to learn ilka day,The warld wide’s the best o’ skools,Experience too, so auld folks say,Is just the jade for teachin’ fools.”Nemo.
“We live to learn ilka day,The warld wide’s the best o’ skools,Experience too, so auld folks say,Is just the jade for teachin’ fools.”Nemo.
First catch your hare. That is, get your caravan.
“Oh!” I think I hear some one say, “I shall hire one.” TakePunch’sadvice to people about to marry—“don’t.”
And the same advice holds good as regards secondhand caravans.
Mind, I do not say that you may not be able to meet with a good and clean one, but, woe is me, there is a chance of guests, in old caravans of the gipsy class, that you would not care to be shipmates with.
Besides, the woodwork may be bad, or “going,” and there may be flaws in the springs, the wheels. The roof may leak, and a hundred and fifty other disagreeables be found out after you fairly start on the road.
I would as soon buy an old feather-bed in the east end of London as an old caravan.
Get your car then from a really good maker, one who could not afford to put a bad article out of hand.
I have neither object nor desire to advertise the Bristol Waggon Company, but it is due to them to say that having paid a fair price, I got from them a splendid article. But of course there may be other makers as good or better. I do not know.
You may copy the Wanderer if so minded. I do not think that I myself, after two years on the road, could improve on her, except that the shutters are difficult to draw on and off, and ought to run upon castors.
However, few caravannists might care to have so long and large a chariot as mine; one about twelve feet long would serve every purpose, and be easily moved with one good horse. It would also be more easily drawn into meadows at night.
A caravan, both exteriorly and interiorly, is capable of an infinite amount of ornamentation. But I do not think a gentleman gipsy’s carriage ought to, in any way, resemble that of a travelling showman, although it certainly should not be like a Salvationist’s “barrow.”
The entrance door may be at the side, or behind, as in the Wanderer.
The windows should be large and neat, and prettily curtained or upholstered. A caravannist is constantly being gazed at, and people will assuredly judge of your interior fittings by the taste and appearance displayed outside.
The Wanderer, with my books and furniture (all light) on board, weighs well-nigh two tons. Even for a pair of good-hearted horses, such as I possess, this is rather much, so that I should advise that a single horse caravan be not much over fifteen hundredweight.
The Wanderer is double-walled, being built of well-seasoned beautiful mahogany, and lined with maple, having an interspace of about one inch and a half. But double walls are really not necessary, and only add to the expense.
The body of the carriage might be made of Willesden waterproof paper, fastened to a framework of light strong wood. This remarkable paper keeps its shape in all weathers, and can be charmingly painted and gilded.
For a very light summer caravan the upper works might be painted Willesden canvas. Such a carriage, however, would hardly withstand the cold of winter.
The roof of the Wanderer is painted white. I am often asked, Is it not very hot in summer? But the answer is “No, because with the doors open there is always a delightful breeze.” Then, wood being a conductor, and there being so much ventilation, as soon as the sun goes down the caravan becomes as cool as can be desired.
A deal of taste can be shown in this. Everything must be of smallest possible dimensions.
A few favourite books should be taken, while magazines, etc, can be bought in towns and villages as you pass through. I have a fairy edition of the poets, my little ebony bookcase is a fairy one, and a good many other articles as well are of fairy dimensions also. Mirrors are tolerably heavy, but let in here and there in the panels, etc, they have a very nice effect, and make the caravan seem double the size.
Flower vases of different shapes and sizes may be almost everywhere. Flowers we can always get, and if the same kind hospitality be extended to every gentleman or lady gipsy that was lavished on me, his or her caravan will always be florally gay.
Thecoupéis easily convertible into a delightful lounge. I have a bag close at hand on the splashboard, where I keep the road-book or guide, the map of the county through which I am passing, and my pens, ink, pencils, and note-books. There is also on thecoupéa brass-gilt little rack for holding my book or newspaper, as well as a minimum thermometer.
If a shower faces the caravan and is blown in under the verandah, or if the dust is troublesome, it is easy to retire into the saloon for a short time, and shut the glass door.
If you are at all handy with the pencil and...
This page missing.
This page missing.
—My vases, or blind or curtain one inch awry. Be gentle and firm with your valet, and he will soon come to see things as you do, and act in accordance with all your wishes.
The cooking-stove should be black-leaded, the tin things should shine like burnished silver, and every kitchen utensil be as bright and clean as a new sovereign.
What though your table be small, the viands plain? they are well put on, your delft is polished, and that flower in the vase, and those coloured glasses, look well on a spotless cloth.
Does it smell at all? I have often been asked that question. The reply is “No, not at all,” and in October I light the range of an evening to warm the caravan.
When breakfast is wanted in a hurry, to ensure an early start, the cooking is done the night before, and the tea made and poured off the leaves into a large bottle, so that five minutes’ time in the morning is sufficient to warm everything. The oil for the range is hung underneath in a can.
Underneath also are slung two buckets, a dog’s food-can, and a dust-proof basket in which vegetables are carried, to be cleaned and made ready for cooking at the midday halt, and so prepared without delay when the bivouac is chosen.
Everything Done the Evening Before.
Everything that can be done the evening before should be done—boot cleaning, knife polishing, filling cistern and filter, and preparing the range for immediate lighting.
This should be presented to you every morning at breakfast by your valet, who is to call your attention to the articles wanted, whether bread, butter, meat, vegetables, or groceries. Then the shopping is done in the forenoon as you pass through village or town, although many things are better and more cheaply procured at cottages.
Make an early start and all will go well. On the other hand, if you laze and dawdle in the morning the day will be spoiled, luncheon will be hurried, and dinner too late.
This is the duty of your valet, who is on ahead with the tricycle. But do not trust altogether to him, but when any doubt exists ask yourself, and be sure that your informant really knows his right hand from his left. Remember that if a man stands facing you hisrightis yourleft.
Draymen, butchers, and waggoners, are the best men to enquire the state of the roads of, as regards hills, condition, etc.
I make a point of mingling in a kindly way of an evening with the villagers at the inns where my horses are stabled. I get much amusement sometimes by so doing. I meet many queer characters, hear many a strange story, and last but not least get well-ventilated opinions as to the best and nearest roads.
A caravannist must not be above talking to all kinds and conditions of men. If he has pride he must keep it in a bucket under the caravan. Never if possible get—
If you do, you are liable to accidents of all kinds. I have been run into more than once at night by recklessly-driving tipsy folks. Certainly it only slightly shook my great caravan, but capsized the dogcart.
While on the road, your coachman will for the horses’ sakes keep on the best parts. Make room, however, wherever possible for faster vehicles that want to pass you. But whenever the drivers of them are insolent I laugh and let them wait; they dare not “ram” me. Ramming would not affect the Wanderer in the slightest, but would be rough on the rammer.
Stable your horses every night. Never think of turning them out. The horses are your moving power, and you cannot take too much care of them. See then that they are carefully groomed and fed, and stand pastern-deep in dry straw.
This is a cheap article. Be civil to everyone, and you will have civility in return.
Make it a rule, as I do, to know exactly what you have to pay for your horses’ accommodation. You will thus have no words in the morning, you will part in friendship with the landlord, who will be glad to see you when you return, while the ostler’s good word can be bought cheaply enough.
Drink nothing but what has passed through the filter. I use one from the Silicated Carbon Company, and find it excellent.
These are nominal, and need hardly be mentioned. I carry a revolver which I seldom load; I have shutters that I seldom put up; and I often sleep with an open door. But I have a faithful dog. My most painful experience on the road this year I sent an account of to thePall Mallunder the title of “A Terrible Telegram.”
“A few claret corks and an empty ‘turkey and tongue’ tin—nothing else will be left to mark the spot where the Wanderer lay.” My friend Townesend gazed on the grass as he spoke, and there was a look of sadness in his face, which, actor though he be, I feel sure was not assumed. He had come to see the last of me and my caravan—the last for a time, at all events—to bid me good-bye and see me start. Parting is sweet sorrow, and I had spent a most enjoyable week at that delightful, quiet, wee watering-place, Filey, Yorkshire. I had lazed and written, I had lounged and read; my very soul felt steeped in a dreamy glamour as pleasant as moonshine on the sea; I had enjoyed thedolee far niente, book in hand, among the wild thyme on the sunny cliffs of Guisthorpe; for me, blades of dulse—the esculent and deliciousrhodamenia palmata—culled wet from the waves that lapped and lisped among the Brigg’s dark boulders, had been veritable lotus leaves, and, reclining by the mouth of a cave, I could readily believe in fairies and sea nymphs—ay, and mermaids as well. No letters to write, no bills to pay, no waiters to tip—for is not the Wanderer my hotel upon wheels?—and no lodging-house cat,—surely one would think a gentleman gipsy’s life leaves little to be desired. And truly speaking, apart from that “terrible hill” which, day after day, seems ever on ahead of us, but which we always manage to surmount, caravanning in summer has but few drawbacks. So perfectly free and easy, so out-and-out happy is one’s existence when so engaged, that he actually cares as little for the great current events of the day, or for the rise and fall of governments, as the whistling ploughboy does about the storms that rage in mid-Atlantic. Why then should that wretched little fraud, that so-called boon to the public, the sixpenny telegram, burst like a thunderstorm around my head, and tear my peace and joy to rags?
Listen, reader, and I already feel sore of your indulgence and sympathy. We left Filey on Monday forenoon, and after five days of toiling over the hills and wolds, found ourselves at Askern. Askern is a little spa and health resort, its waters are chemically similar to those of Harrogate, and useful in the same class of cases. The halt and maim and rheumatic come here, and those who seek for quiet and rest after months of drudgery at the desk’s dull wood. Many more would come were the place but better known. On Friday night here the rain came down in torrents, but Saturday morning was fine, so I allowed both my servants to take an after-dinner trip to Doncaster. I would take an after-dinner nap. I was on particularly good terms with myself; I had had letters from home, I had done a good day’s work, and presently meant to resume my writing.
“A telegram, sir!” A telegram? I took it and tore it open. A telegram always gives me momentary increase of heart-action, but this laconic message caused such pericardial sinking as I hope I shall never feel again. “Come home immediately, and wire the time you leave,” so ran the terrible telegram. But, greatest mystery of all, it came from Mark-lane, and the sender was not my wife but “Hyde.” I had never been to Mark-lane, and who is Hyde? But what dreadful calamity had happened to my home? My wife and bairnies live in Berks; but she must have gone to town, I thought, and been killed in the street, having but time to breathe my name and address ere closing her eyes for ever. Were she alive she herself would have wired, and not Hyde. There must be a mortuary at Mark-lane, and Hyde must be the dead-house doctor. I dashed my manuscript all aside, then rushed to the post-office and wired to Hyde for fullest particulars. There would be a train at four which would take me to London by 8:30.
Before I received the telegram my tongue was as red and clear as that of my Newfoundland dog’s, in a moment it had become white and furred; there was a burning sensation in my throat, and my heart felt as big as a bullock’s, and all these are symptoms of sudden shock and grief. But it was a time for action. In an hour the train would leave; ’twould seem a long, long hour to me. I packed my handbag with trembling hands, drew the shutters over all the windows of the Wanderer, determining to lock all up and board my valet at the hotel. Hurricane Bob, my dog, must have thought me mad, for I gave him the joint that had been meant for our Sunday’s dinner; it would not keep till my return. Then I went and sat down in the post-office, and with thumping heart awaited Hyde’s reply. How long the time seemed! How slowly the minute hand of the clock moved! My feelings must have been akin to those of a felon waiting the return of the jury and a verdict. The reply came at last, but only to deepen the mystery and my misery. No Hyde of Mark-lane could be found. I wired again, wired and waited for nearly another awful hour. Meanwhile my train had gone. The reader can judge of the state of my feelings, when at length the clicking needles informed the clerk that the first telegram was meant for another “Gordon Stables,” of another Askarn, spelt with an “a” instead of an “e.”
I did not know I had a double till now, because my name is so unusual. If I rejoiced in the name of John, and my patronymic were Smith, the marvel would be small, but the Gordon Stableses of that ilk are not dropped into this world out of a watering-can, so I do wonder who my double is, and sincerely hope that telegram has not brought him grief, but ten thousand a year.
I have no more to add. I trust if the reader does go on the road he will find a gipsy’s life as happy and pleasant as I have done. Good-bye.