The Cruise of the Land-Yacht «Wanderer»: or, Thirteen Hundred Miles in my Caravan

Wargrave, just two miles on the road, lies among its trees pretty close to the river’s bank. I should not like to call it a health resort all the year round, owing to the killing fogs that bury it at times, but in the season it is a pleasant spot at which to spend a week. Wyatt’s is the inn, a well-known river house indeed – old-fashioned, clean, and comfortable. There is a sign on a pole outside which is worth taking a look at. Mr Leslie and Mr Hodson (the well-known artists) were sojourning here once upon a time, taking their ease at their inn. Perhaps it was raining, and the time felt long. Anyhow, between them they painted that sign, and there it hangs – Saint George on one side engaged in deadly combat with a monster dragon; on the other side the dragon lying dead, and Saint George dismounted, and engaged refreshing himself with a tankard of foaming ale.

From Wargrave to Henley the scenery is sweetly pretty, and the river never leaves your side, though at times it hides behind and beneath the spreading trees.

As every one has heard or read about or been at Henley Regatta, so every one knows something of Henley itself. It is a charming little town, and the wooded hills about, with, even on their summits, the white mansions peeping through the trees, the river – broad and sweeping – the fine old bridge, and the church, combine to form not one picture only, but a picture in whichever direction you choose to look.

From the top of the church steeple the views on all sides are delightful.

I recommend this plan of seeing scenery to my American friends at present visiting England, and to every one else; never miss a chance of visiting the churches and getting up into the steeple. By this means I have oftentimes found refreshment both for mind and body.

If it were not that I wish to wander and roam through my native land, and actually feel from home, I could write a book on Berkshire alone. Even in the immediate neighbourhood of Twyford there are hundreds of beautiful spots, which those in search of health and quiet pleasure would do well to visit.

Marlow is a delightful village; all round Maidenhead, up and down the river, it is even more so. One might say of the country hereabouts, especially in summer and autumn, —

“A pleasing land of drowsy head it is,
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye
Of gay castles… And soft delights that witchingly
Instil a wanton sweetness thro’ the breast.”

Chapter Five.

A First Week’s Outing

“From the moist meadow to the withered hill,
Led by the breeze, the vivid verdure runs
And swells and deepens to the cherished eye;
The hawthorn whitens; and the juicy groves
Put forth their buds, unfolding by degrees,
Till the whole leafy forest stands displayed
In full luxuriance to the sighing gales,
Where the deer rustle through the twining brake,
And the birds sing concealed.”

    Thornton’s “Seasons.”
Early in May I left my village to enjoy a taste of gipsy life in earnest – a week on the road.

Matilda is a splendid mare, and a very handsome one. Strong and all though she be, there was in my mind a doubt as to whether she could drag the Wanderer on day after day at even the rate of ten miles in the twenty-four hours.

It had been raining the night before, and as the road from our yard leads somewhat up hill, it was no wonder that the immense caravan stuck fast before it got out of the gate. This was a bad beginning to a gipsy cruise, and, as a small concourse of neighbours had assembled to witness the start, was somewhat annoying. But a coal-carter’s horse came to the rescue, and the start was finally effected.

Matilda took us through Twyford at a round trot, and would fain have broken into a gallop, but was restrained. But the long hill that leads up from the Loddon bridge took the extra spirit out of her, and she soon settled down to steady work.

There is a pretty peep of Reading to be caught from the top of the railway bridge. No traveller should miss seeing it.

Rested at Reading, our smart appearance exciting plenty of curiosity. It was inside that the crowd wanted to peep – it is inside all crowds want to peep, and they are never shy at doing so.

The town of Reading is too well-known to need description; its abbey ruins are, however, the best part of it, to my way of thinking.

The day was as fine as day could be, the sky overcast with grey clouds that moderated the sun’s heat.

Our chosen route lay past Calcot Park, with its splendid trees, its fine old solid-looking, redbrick mansion, and park of deer. This field of deer, I remember, broke loose one winter. It scattered in all directions; some of the poor creatures made for the town, and several were spiked on railings. The people had “sport,” as they called it, for a week.

It was almost gloomy under the trees that here overhang the road. Matilda was taken out to graze, the after-tent put up, and dinner cooked beneath the caravan. Cooked! ay, and eaten too with a relish one seldom finds with an indoor meal!

On now through Calcot village, a small and straggling little place, but the cottages are neat and pretty, and the gardens were all ablaze with spring-flowers, and some of the gables and verandahs covered with flowering clematis.

The country soon got more open, the fields of every shade of green – a gladsome, smiling country, thoroughly English.

This day was thoroughly enjoyable, and the mare Matilda did her work well.

Unhorsed and encamped for the night in the comfortable yard of the Crown Inn.

When one sleeps in his caravan in an inn yard he does not need to be called in the morning; far sooner than is desirable in most instances, cocks begin to noisily assert their independence, dogs bark or rattle their chains, cows moan in their stalls, and horses clatter uneasily by way of expressing their readiness for breakfast. By-and-bye ostlers come upon the scene, then one may as well get up as lie a-bed.

Though all hands turned out at seven o’clock am, it was fully eleven before we got under way, for more than one individual was curious to inspect us, and learn all the outs and ins of this newest way of seeing the country. The forenoon was sunny and bright, and the roads good, with a coldish headwind blowing.

Both road and country are level after leaving Theale, with plenty of wood and well-treed braelands on each side. This for several miles.

Jack’s Booth, or the Three Kings, is a long, low house-of-call that stands by the wayside at cross roads: an unpleasant sort of a place to look at. By the way, who was Jack, I wonder, and what three kings are referred to? The name is suggestive of card-playing. But it may be historical.

The fields are very green and fresh, and the larks sing very joyfully, looking no bigger than midges against the little fleecy cloudlets.

I wonder if it be more difficult for a bird to sing on the wing than on a perch. The motion, I think, gives a delightful tremolo to the voice.

My cook, steward, valet, and general factotum is a lad from my own village, cleanly, active, and very willing, though not gifted with too good a memory, and apt to put things in the wrong place – my boots in the oven, for instance!

He sleeps on a cork mattress, in the after-compartment of the Wanderer, and does not snore.

A valet who snored would be an unbearable calamity in a caravan.

Hurricane Bob, my splendid Newfoundland, sleeps in the saloon on a morsel of red blanket. He does snore sometimes, but if told of it immediately places his chin over his fore-paw, and in this position sleeps soundly without any nasal noise.

On our way to Woolhampton – our dining stage – we had many a peep at English rural life that no one ever sees from the windows of a railway carriage. Groups of labourers, male and female, cease work among the mangolds, and, leaning on their hoes, gaze wonderingly at the Wanderer. Even those lazy workaday horses seem to take stock of us, switching their long tails as they do so, in quite a businesslike way. Yonder are great stacks of old hay, and yonder a terribly-red brick farm building, peeping up through a cloudland of wood.

We took Matilda out by the roadside at Woolhampton. This village is very picturesque; it lies in a hollow, and is surrounded by miniature mountains and greenwood. The foliage here is even more beautiful than that around Twyford.

We put up the after-tent, lit the stove, and prepared at once to cook dinner – an Irish stew, made of a rabbit, rent in pieces, and some bacon, with sliced potatoes – a kind of cock-a-leekie. We flavoured it with vinegar, sauce, salt, and pepper. It was an Irish stew – perhaps it was a good deal Irish, but it did not eat so very badly, nor did we dwell long over it.

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.