The Cruise of the Land-Yacht "Wanderer" Part 18

1. "General" in the Salvation Army.

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

3. A travelling artist.

4. A photographer.

5. A menagerie.

6. A Cheap-Jack.

7. A Bible carriage.

8. A madman.

9. An eccentric baronet.

10. A political agent.

11. Lord E.

12. Some other "n.o.b."

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

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

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

"Oh! look at his long moustache."

"Oh! look at his hat, Mary."

"Susan, Susan, look at the Poll parrot."

"Look! it is holding a biscuit in its hand."

"Look at the bear."

"No, it's a dog."

"You're a ha.s.s! it's a bear."

"Lift me up to see, Tildie."

"Lift _me_ up too."

Here again is my coachman being interviewed by some country b.u.mpkins:--"Who be your master, matie?"

"A private gentleman."

"Is he a Liberal?"

"No."

"Is he a Tory?"

"Perhaps."

"Is he a Salvationist?"

"Not much."

"What does he do?"

"Nothing."

"What does he keep?"

"The Sabbath."

"Got anything to sell?"

"No! Do you take us for Cheap-Jacks?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Milestones and Finger-Posts.

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

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