The fresh air and exercise give one a marvellous appetite, and we were hungry all day long.
But every one we met seemed to be hungry too. A hunk of bread and bacon or bread and cheese appears to be the standing dish. Tramps sitting by the wayside, navvies and roadmen, hawkers with barrows – all were carving and eating their hunks.
A glorious afternoon.
With cushions and rugs, our broad coupé makes a most comfortable lounge, which I take advantage of. Here one can read, can muse, can dream, in a delightfully lethargic frame of mind. Who would be a dweller in dusty cities, I wonder, who can enjoy life like this?
Foley – my valet – went on ahead on the Ranelagh Club (our caravan tricycle) to spy out the land at Thatcham and look for quarters for the night.
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 Berkshire. 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 buttercups, and starred with the ox-eyed daisies.
The oldest of old houses can be seen and admired in outlying villages of Berkshire, 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.
Anchored 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 coupé, 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 shipwreck.
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