The Cruise of the Land-Yacht "Wanderer" Part 5

There were certain objections to the inn he chose, however; so, having settled the Wanderer on the broad village green, I went to another inn.

A blackish-skinned, burly, broad-shouldered fellow answered my summons.

Gruff he was in the extreme.

"I want stabling for the night for one horse, and also a bed for my driver." This from me.

"Humph! I'll go and see," was the reply.

"Very well; I'll wait."

The fellow returned soon.

"Where be goin' to sleep yourse'f?"

This he asked in a tone of lazy insolence.

I told him mildly I had my travelling saloon caravan. I thought that by calling the Wanderer a _saloon_ I would impress him with the fact that I was a gentleman gipsy.

Here is the answer in full.

"Humph! Then your driver can sleep there too. We won't 'ave no wan [van] 'osses 'ere; and wot's more, we won't 'ave no wan folks!"

My Highland blood got up; for a moment I measured that man with my eye, but finally I burst into a merry laugh, as I remembered that, after all, Matilda was only a "wan" horse, and we were only "wan" folks.

In half an hour more both Matilda and my driver were comfortably housed, and I was having tea in the caravan.

Thatcham is one of the quietest and quaintest old towns in Berks.h.i.+re.

Some of the houses are really studies in primeval architecture. I could not help fancying myself back in the Middle Ages. Even that gruff landlord looked as if he had stepped out of an old picture, and were indeed one of the beef-eating, bacon-chewing retainers of some ancient baronial hall.

It was somewhat noisy this afternoon on the village green. The young folks naturally took us for a show, and wondered what we did, and when we were going to do it.

Meanwhile they amused themselves as best they could. About fifty girls played at ball and "give-and-take" on one side of the green, and about fifty boys played on the other.

The game the boys played was original, and remarkable for its simplicity. Thus, two lads challenged each other to play, one to be deer, the other to be hound. Then round and round and up and down the green they sped, till finally the breathless hound caught the breathless deer. Then "a ring" of the other lads was formed, and deer and hound had first to wrestle and then to fight. And _vae victis_! the conquered lad had no sooner declared himself beaten than he was seized and thrown on his back, a rope was fastened to his legs, and he was drawn twice round the ground by the juvenile shouting mob, and then the fun began afresh. A game like this is not good for boys' jackets, and tailors must thrive in Thatcham.

Next day was showery, and so was the day after, but we continued our rambles all the same, and enjoyed it very much indeed.

But now on moist roads, and especially on hills, it became painfully evident that Matilda--who, by the way, was only on trial--was not fit for the work of dragging the Wanderer along in all countries and in all weathers. She was willing, but it grieved me to see her sweat and pant.

Our return journey was made along the same route. Sometimes, in making tea or coffee, we used a spirit-of-wine stove. It boiled our water soon, and there was less heat. Intending caravanists would do well to remember this. Tea, again, we found more quickly made than coffee, and cocoatina than either.

As we rolled back again towards Woolhampton the weather was very fine and sunny. It was a treat to see the cloud shadows chasing each other over the fields of wind-tossed wheat, or the meadows golden with b.u.t.tercups, and starred with the ox-eyed daisies.

The oldest of old houses can be seen and admired in outlying villages of Berks.h.i.+re, and some of the bold Norman-looking men who inhabit these take the mind back to Merrie England in the Middle Ages. Some of these men look as though they could not only eat the rustiest of bacon, but actually swallow the rind.

On our way back to Theale we drew up under some pine-trees to dine. The wind, which had been blowing high, increased to half a gale. This gave me the new experience--that the van rocked. Very much so too, but it was not unpleasant. After dinner I fell asleep on the sofa, and dreamt I was rounding the Cape of Good Hope in a strong breeze.

There is a road that leads away up to Beenham Hill from Woolhampton from which, I think, one of the loveliest views in Berks can be had. A long winding avenue leads to it--an avenue.

"O'erhung with wild woods thickening green," and "braes" clad in brackens, among which wild flowers were growing--the sweet-scented hyacinth, the white or pink crane's-bill, the little pimpernel, and the azure speedwell.

The hill is wooded--and such woods!--and all the wide country seen therefrom is wooded.

Surely spring tints rival even those of autumn itself!

This charming spot is the home _par excellence_ of the merle and thrush, the saucy robin, the bold pert chaffie, and murmuring cushat.

Anch.o.r.ed at Crown Inn at Theale once more.

A pleasant walk through the meadows in the cool evening. Clover and vetches coming into bloom, or already red and white. A field of blossoming beans. Lark singing its vesper hymn. I was told when a boy it was a hymn, and I believe it still.

After a sunset visit to the steeple of Theale Church we turned in for the night. Bob has quite taken up his commission as caravan guard. By day he sleeps on the broad _coupe_, with his crimson blanket over his shoulders to keep away the cold May winds; and when we call a halt woe be to the tramp who ventures too near, or who looks at all suspicions!

On leaving the Crown Inn yard, Matilda made an ugly "jib," which almost resulted in a serious accident to the whole expedition. Matilda has a mind of her own. I do _not_ like a horse that thinks, and I shall not have much more of Matilda. To be capsized in a dogcart by a jibbing horse would be bad enough, but with our great conveyance it would mean something akin to s.h.i.+pwreck.

The last experience I wish to record in this chapter is this; in caravan travelling there is naturally more fatigue than there would be in spending the same time in a railway carriage. When, therefore, you arrive in the evening at one village, you have this feeling--that you must be hundreds of miles from another.

[One soon gets used to caravan travelling, however, and finds it far less fatiguing than any other mode of progression.]

"Is it possible," I could not help asking myself, "that Thatcham is only ten or twelve miles from Theale, and that by train I could reach it in fifteen minutes? It feels to me as if it were far away in the wilds of Scotland."

People must have felt precisely thus in the days before railways were invented, and when horses were the only progressive power.

CHAPTER SIX.

OUR LAST SPRING RAMBLE.

"The softly warbled song Comes from the pleasant woods, and coloured wings Glance quick in the bright sun, that moves along The forest openings.

"And the bright sunset fills The silver woods with light, the green slope throws Its shadow in the hollows of the hill, And wide the upland glows."

Longfellow.

It is now well into the middle of June. Like the lapwing in autumn, I have been making short flights here, there, and everywhere within a day's march previous to the start on my "journey due north."

Whatever it might be to others, with longer and wiser heads, to me the greatest difficulty has been in getting horses to suit. I have tried many. I have had jibbers, bolters, kickers; and one or two _so_ slow, but _so_ sore, that an eighty-one-ton gun fired alongside them would not increase their pace by a yard to the mile.

To get horsed may _seem_ an easy matter to many. It might _be_ easy for some, only it ought to be borne in mind that I am leaving home on a long journey--one, at all events, that will run to weeks and mayhap months; a journey not altogether unattended with danger--and that; my horses are my motor power. If they fail me I have nothing and no one to fall back upon. Hence my anxiety is hardly to be wondered at.

But here let me say that caravanning for health and pleasure had better not be undertaken with a single carriage, however well horsed. There ought to be two caravans at least. Then, in the event of coming to an ugly hill, there is an easy way of overcoming it--by bending all your horse-power on to one carriage at a time, and so trotting them over the difficulty.

To go all alone as I am about to do is really to go at considerable risk; and at this moment I cannot tell you whether I am suitably horsed or not.

But in the stable yonder stand quietly in their stalls Pea-blossom and Corn-flower, of whom more anon. Pea-blossom is a strong and good-looking dark bay mare of some fifteen hands and over; Corn-flower is a pretty light bay horse. They match well; they pull together; and in their buff leather harness they really look a handsome pair.

They are good in the feet, too, and good "doers," to use stable phraseology. Corn-flower is the best "doer," however. The rascal eats all day, and would deprive himself of sleep to eat. Nothing comes wrong to Corn-flower. Even when harnessed he will have a pull at anything within reach of his neck. If a clovery lea be beneath his feet, so much the better; if not, a "rive" at a blackthorn hedge, a bush of laurels, a bracken bank, or even a thistle, will please him. I'm not sure, indeed, that he would not eat an old shoe if nothing else came handy. But Pea-blossom is more dainty. It is for her we fear on the march. She was bought from a man who not only _is_ a dealer, but is not ashamed to sign himself dealer; whereas Corn-flower was bought right off farm work.

Well, time will tell.