The Cruise of the Land-Yacht "Wanderer" Part 19

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8. The respectable iron milestone (page 208).

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

Of finger-posts I shall mention three types:--

1. The solid and respectable.

2. The limp and uncertain.

3. The aesthetic.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Notis Trespa.s.sers will be prosecuted dowgs will be shote."

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

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

Tramps.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Man with the Iron Mask.

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

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

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

The Scotch Collie Dog.

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

"The other was a ploughman's collie.

He was a gash [wise] and faithfu' tyke, As ever lap a sheugh [ditch] or d.y.k.e.

His honest sonsy bawan't [white-striped] face, Ay gat him friends in ilka place; His breast was white, his towsie back Weel clad wi' coat o' glossy black, His gawcie tail, wi' upward curl, Hung o'er his hurdils wi' a swirl."

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

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

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

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