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The Cruise of the Land-Yacht «Wanderer»: or, Thirteen Hundred Miles in my Caravan
Gordon Stables
Stables Gordon
The Cruise of the Land-Yacht «Wanderer»; or, Thirteen Hundred Miles in my Caravan
Preface
I need, I believe, do little more herein, than state that the following pages were written on the road, on the coupé of my caravan, and from day to day. First impressions, it must be admitted, are not always infallible, but they are ever fresh.
I have written from my heart, as I saw and thought; and I shall consider myself most fortunate and happy if I succeed in making the reader think in a measure as I thought, and feel as I felt.
It is but right to state that many of the chapters have appeared in The Leisure Hour.
Some of the illustrations are from photographs kindly lent me by Messrs Valentine and Sons, of Dundee; others from rough sketches of my own; while the frontispiece, “Waiting till the Kettle Boils,” is by Mr Eales, of Twyford.
Gordon Stables.
The “Wanderer” Caravan, Touring in Yorkshire, August 1886.
Chapter One.
Introductory – Written Before Starting
No man who cannot live in his house on wheels, cook, eat, and sleep in, on, or under it, can say that he is cut out for a gipsy life. But to do this you require to have your temporary home well arranged – a perfect multum in parvo, a domus in minima. The chief faults of the old-fashioned caravan are want of space – two ordinary-sized adults can hardly move in it without trampling on each other’s toes – general stuffiness, heat from sky or stove, or probably both combined, and a most disagreeable motion when on the road. This latter is caused by want of good springs, and errors in the general build.
“The man who is master of a caravan,” says a writer, “enjoys that perfect freedom which is denied to the tourist, whose movements are governed by the time-table. He can go where he likes, stop when he lists, go to bed at the hour which suits him best, or get up or lie daydreaming, knowing there is not a train to catch nor a waiter’s convenience to consult. If the neighbourhood does not suit the van-dweller, all he has to do is to hitch in the horses and move to more eligible quarters. The door of his hotel is always open. There is no bill to pay nor anybody to ‘remember;’ and, if the accommodation has been limited, the lodger cannot complain of the charges. In a caravan one has all the privacy of a private residence, with the convenience of being able to wheel it about with a facility denied to the western settler, who shifts his ‘shanty’ from the ‘lot’ which he has leased to the more distant one which he has bought. In the van may, for all the passer-by can discover, be a library and drawing-room combined, or it may be bedroom and dining-room in one, though, as the pioneers in this mode of touring sleep under canvas, we may presume that they find the accommodation indoors a little stuffy.”
Now, this sounds very well, but at the present sitting I have my doubts if a gipsy’s – even a gentle-man-gipsy’s – life be altogether as independent and sunshiny as the sentences represent them to be.
About going where he likes, for instance? Are there not certain laws of the road that forbid the tarrying by the way of caravan folks, for a longer period than that necessary to water and feed a horse or look at his feet? By night, again, he may spy a delightfully retired common, with nothing thereon, perhaps, except a flock of gabbling geese and a superannuated cart-horse, and be tempted to draw up and on it, but may not some duty-bound police man stroll quietly up, and order him to put-to and “move on?”
Again, if the neighbourhood does not suit, then the caravan-master may certainly go elsewhere, if the horses be not too tired or dead lame.
To be sure, there is inside a caravan all the privacy to be desired; but immediately outside, especially if drawn up on a village common, it may be noisy enough.
As regards going to bed and getting up when he pleases, the owner of a caravan is his own master, unless he chooses to carry the ideas and customs of a too-civilised life into the heart of the green country with him, and keep plenty of company.
Methinks a gentleman gipsy ought to have a little of the hermit about him. If he does not love nature and quiet and retirement, he is unsuited for a caravan life, unless, indeed, he would like to make every day a gala day, and the whole tour a round of pleasurable excitement – in other words, a farce.
It is, however, my impression at the present moment that the kind of life I trust to lead for many months to come, might be followed by hundreds who are fond of a quiet and somewhat romantic existence, and especially by those whose health requires bracing up, having sunk below par from overwork, overworry, or over much pleasure-seeking, in the reckless way it is the fashion to seek it.
Only as yet I can say nothing from actual experience. I have to go on, the reader has to read on, ere the riddle be solved to our mutual satisfaction.
Chapter Two.
The Caravan Itself – First Trials – Getting Horsed
“A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!”
Travelling through the romantic little village of Great Marlow one summer’s day in a pony-trap, I came suddenly on a row of caravans drawn up on the roadside. Some flying swings were started just as I approached, and the unwonted sight, with the wild whooping and noise, startled my horse. He shied, and made a rather thoughtless but very determined attempt to enter a draper’s shop. This resulted in damage enough to the trap to necessitate my staying an hour or two for repairs.
I would have a look at the caravans, at all events.
There was one very pretty little one, and, seeing me admire it, the owner, who stood by, kindly asked if I cared to look inside. I thanked him, and followed him up the steps. It proved to be a good thing of the class, but inside the space was limited, owing to the extraordinary breadth of the bed and size of the stove.
I asked the address of the builder, however, and wrote to him for an estimate. This was sent, but the penmanship and diction in which it was couched sent no thrill of pleasure through me. Here is a sentence: “Wich i can build you a wagon as ill cary you anyweres with 1 orse for eity pounds, i ’as built a power o’ pretty wagons for gipsies, an’ can refer you to lots on ’em for reference.”
Well, to be sure, there is no necessity for a builder of caravans being a classical scholar, but there was a sad absence of romance about this letter; the very word “wagon” was not in itself poetic. Why could not the man have said “caravan”? I determined to consult a dear old friend of mine who knows everything, C.A. Wheeler, to wit (the clever author of “Sportascrapiana.”)
Why, he said in reply, did not I go straight to the Bristol Waggon Company? They would do the thing well, at all events, and build my caravan from my own drawings.
This was good advice. So I got a few sheets of foolscap and made a few rough sketches, and thought and planned for a night or two, and thus the Wanderer came into existence – on paper.
Now that the caravan is built and fitted she is so generally admired by friends and visitors, that I may be forgiven for believing that a short description of her may prove not uninteresting to the general reader.
Let us walk round her first and foremost and view the exterior.
A glance will show you (see illustration) that The Saloon Caravan “Wanderer” is by no means of small dimensions. From stem to stern, without shafts or pole, she measures nearly twenty feet, her height from the ground being about eleven feet, and her breadth inside six feet fully.
For so long a carriage you will naturally say the wheels seem low.
This is true; the hind wheels are little over four feet, but they are under the carriage. Had they been tall they must have protruded beyond her considerably, and this would have given the Wanderer a breadth of beam which would have been awkward on the road, and rendered it impossible to get her through many gateways.
I might have had a semicircle or hollow in the sides of the caravan, in which high wheels could have moved without entailing a broader beam, but this would have curtailed the floor space in the after-cabin, on which my valet has to sleep athwartships, and this arrangement was therefore out of the question.
But she must be very heavy? Not for her size and strength. Although solid mahogany all round outside and lined with softer wood, she scaled at Bristol but 30 hundredweight, and loaded-up she will be under two tons. The loading-up includes master, valet, coachman, and a large Newfoundland dog, not one of whom need be inside except “coachee” on a stiff hill.
Obeying my instructions, then, the builders made her as light as was consistent with strength. The wood too is of the best and best seasoned that could be had. A firm that builds Pullman cars, not only for England but for America, has always a good supply of old wood on hand.
But if the Wanderer does not look light she certainly looks elegant. Polished mahogany with black and gold mouldings and shutters – jalousies – leaves little to be longed for as regards outside show, neither does it give a gay appearance. The wheels and underworks are dark chocolate, picked out with vermilion. The only “ornament” about her is the device on the side, and this is simply a sketch of the badge of my uniform cap – crown, anchor, and laurel leaves, – with a scroll of ribbon of the Robertson tartan, my mother’s plaid. This looks quite as pretty and costs less than armorial bearings.
In the illustration the fore part of the caravan is visible. There is a splashboard, an unusual luxury in carriages of this kind. The coupé is very roomy; the Newfoundland lies here when he likes, and a chair can be placed on it, or if rugs and a cushion are put down it forms a delightful lounge on a fine day, and this need in no way interfere with the comfort of either the driver or the great dog. The driver’s seat is also the corn-bin, and holds two bushels. From the broad panel at the other side of the door a board lets down at pleasure, and this forms still another seat for an extra passenger besides myself.
It may also be noticed that the front part of the roof protrudes, forming ample protection against sun and rain. This canopy is about three feet deep.
The brake, which is handy to the driver, is a very powerful one, and similar to those used on tram-cars. There is also an iron skid to lock one wheel if required on going down hill, and a roller besides for safety in stopping when going up hill.
There is a door behind right in the centre, similar in appearance to the front door, with morsels of stained glass let in at the upper corners.
Both doors have light shutters that are put up at night.
Under the rear door the broad steps are shipped, and at each side is a little mahogany flap table to let down. These the valet finds very handy when washing up. Beneath each of these flaps and under the carriage is a drawer to contain tools, dusters, blacking-brushes, and many a little article, without which comfort on the road could hardly be secured.
Under the caravan are fastened by chain and padlock a light long ladder, a framework used in holding out our after-awning or tent, a spade, and the buckets. But there is also space enough here in which to hang a hammock.
Under the caravan shafts are carried, which may, however, never be much required.
In order to give some notion of the internal economy of the Wanderer I append a linear plan of her floor.
I may mention first that there is quite as much room inside for even a tall man to stand as there is in a Pullman car.
Entering from behind you may pass through A, the pantry or kitchen, into B, the saloon. Folding doors with nice curtains divide the caravan at pleasure into two compartments. C is the sofa, upholstered in strong blue railway repp. It is a sofa only by day. At night it forms the owner’s bed. There are lockers under, which contain the bedclothes, etc, when not in use, as well as my wardrobe. D is the table, over which is a dainty little bookcase, with at each side a beautiful lamp on brackets. E is the cupboard, or rather the cheffonière, both elegant and ornamental, with large looking-glass over and behind it. It will be noticed that it juts out and on to the coupé, and thus not only takes up no room in the saloon, but gives me an additional recess on top for glove-boxes, hanging baskets for handkerchiefs, and nicknacks. The chiffoniere and the doors are polished mahogany and glass, the bulkheads maple with darker mouldings, the roof like that of a first-class railway carriage, the skylight being broad and roomy, with stained glass and ample means of ventilation.
The other articles of furniture not already mentioned are simple in the extreme, simple but sufficient, and consist of a piano-stool and tiny camp-chair, music-rack, footstool, dressing-case, a few artful cushions, pretty mirrors on the walls, with gilt brackets for coloured candles, a corner bracket with a clock, a guitar, a small harmonium, a violin, a navy sword, and a good revolver. There are gilded cornices over each window, with neat summer curtains, and also over the chiffoniere recess.
The floor is covered with linoleum, and a Persian rug does duty for a carpet.
The after-cabin contains a rack for dishes, with a cupboard above, a beautiful little carbon-silicated filter, – the best of filters made – a marble washstand, a triangular water-can that hangs above, complete with lid and tap, and which may be taken down to be filled at a well, a rack for hats and gloves, etc, neat pockets for tea and other towels, a box – my valet’s, which is also a seat – and a little flap table, at which he can take his meals and read or write. Also the Rippingille cooking-range. This after-cabin is well-ventilated; the folding doors are shot at night, and the valet makes his bed athwartships, as I have already said. The bed is simply two long soft doormats, with above these a cork mattress. The latter, with the bedding, are rolled up into an American cloth cover, the former go into a Willesden canvas bag, and are placed under the caravan by day.
No top-coat or anything unsightly hangs anywhere; economy of space has been studied, and this goes hand-in-hand with comfort of fittings to make the gipsy’s life on the road as pleasant as ever a gipsy’s life can be. A glance at the illustrations of our saloon and pantry will give a still better idea of the inside of the Wanderer than my somewhat meagre description can afford. These are from photographs taken by Mr Eales, of Twyford. (The frontispiece to this book is also by Mr Eales.)
The Rippingille cooking-range is a great comfort. On cool days it can be used in the pantry, on hot days – or, at pleasure, on any day – it can be placed under our after-tent, and the chef’s work got through expeditiously with cleanliness and nicety. Our caravan menu will at no time be a very elaborate one. I have long been of opinion, as a medical man and hygienist, that plain living and health are almost synonymous terms, and that intemperance in eating is to blame for the origin of quite as many diseases as intemperance in drinking.
On Getting Horsed
A correct knowledge of horseflesh is not one of those things that come intuitively to anybody, though I have sometimes been given to think it did. It is a kind of science, however, that almost every one, gentle or simple, pretends to be at home in. Take the opinion of even a draper’s assistant about some horse you happen to meet on the road, and lo! he begins to look knowing at once, and will strain a nerve, or even two, in order to give you the impression that he is up to a thing or two.
But let a young man of this kind only see the inside of a stable a few times, then, although he can hardly tell the heel from the knee in the genus equus, how glibly does he not begin to talk, till he almost takes your breath away, about capped hocks, side-bones, splints, shoulders, knees, fetlocks, and feet, and as he walks around a horse, feeling him here or smoothing him there, he verily seems to the manner born.
Ladies are seldom very far behind men in their knowledge of hippology. What young girl fresh from school can be found who cannot drive? “Oh, give me the reins, I’m sure I can do it.” These are her words as often as not. You do not like to refuse, badly as a broken-kneed horse would look. You sit by her side ready for any emergency. She is self-possessed and cool enough. She may not know her own side of the road, but what does that matter? If a man be driving the trap that is meeting her, is it not his duty to give place to her? To be sure it is. And as for the reins, she simply holds them; she evidently regards them as a kind of leathern telephone, to convey the wishes of the driver to the animal in the shafts.
But a man or woman either may be very clever at many things, and still know nothing about horses. It is their want of candour that should be condemned. Did not two of the greatest philosophers the world ever saw attempt to put their own nag in the shafts once? Ah! but the collar puzzled them. They struggled to get it on for half an hour, their perseverance being rewarded at last by the appearance on the scene of the ostler himself. I should have liked to have seen that man’s face as he quietly observed, suiting action to his words, —
“It is usual, gentlemen, to turn the collar upside down when slippin’ it hover the ’orse’s ’ead.”
But what must the horse himself have thought of those philosophers?
Now I do not mind confessing that riding is not one of my strong points. When on horseback there ever prevails in my mind an uncertainty as regards my immediate future. And I have been told that I do not sit elegantly, that I do not appear to be part and parcel of the horse I bestride. My want of confidence may in some measure be attributed to the fact that, when a boy of tender age, I saw a gentleman thrown from his horse and killed on the spot. It was a terrible sight, and at the time it struck me that this must be a very common method of landing from one’s steed. It seems to me the umbra of that sad event has never quite left my soul.
It is due to myself, however, to add that there are many worse whips than I in single harness. Driving in double harness is harder work, and too engrossing, while “tandem” is just one step beyond my present capabilities. The only time ever I attempted this sort of thing I miserably failed. My animals went well enough for a time, till all at once it occurred to my leader to turn right round and have a look at me. My team was thus “heads and tails,” and as nothing I could think of was equal to the occasion, I gave it up.
Notwithstanding all this, as far as stable duties are concerned, I can reef, steer, and box the compass, so to speak. I know all a horse needs when well, and might probably treat a sick horse as correctly as some country vets. No, I cannot shoe a horse, but I know when it is well done.
It is probably the want of technicality about my language when talking to real professed knights of the stable, which causes them to imagine “I don’t know nuffin about an ’orse.” This is precisely what one rough old farmer, with whom I was urging a deal, told me.
“Been at sea all your life, hain’t you?” he added.
“Figuratively speaking,” I replied, “I may have been at sea all my life, but not in reality. Is not,” I continued, parodying Shylock’s speech – “Is not a horse an animal? Hath not a horse feet, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with good oats, oftentimes hurt by the whip? Subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is?”
The man scratched his head, looked puzzled, and we did not deal.
But, dear reader, were I to tell one-tenth part of the woes I endured before I got horsed and while still tossed on the ocean of uncertainty and buffeted by the adverse winds of friendly advice, your kindly heart would bleed for me.
I believe my great mistake lay in listening to every body. One-half of the inhabitants of our village had horses to sell, the other half knew where to find them.
“You’ll want two, you know,” one would say.
I believed that I would need two.
“One large cart-horse will be ample,” said another.
I believed him implicitly.
“I’d have a pole and two nags,” said one.
“I’d have two nags and two pair of shafts,” said another.
“I’d have two nags,” said another; “one in the shafts and the other to trace.”
And so on ad nauseam till my brains were all in a whirl, and at night I dreamt I was a teetotum, and people were playing with me. Perhaps they were.
A friend to whom I appealed one day in my anguish cut the Gordian knot.
“You’ve got a nut on you?” he remarked (he meant my head). “Well,” he said, “make use of that.”
I took his advice.
Chapter Three.
First Experiences of Gipsy Life – The Trial Trip – A ThunderStorm on Maidenhead Thicket
“Now rings the woodland loud and long,
The distance takes a lovelier hue,
And drown’d in yonder living blue
The lark becomes a sightless song.
“Now dance the lights on lawn and lea,
The flocks are whiter down the vale,
And milkier every milky sail,
On winding stream or distant sea.”
Tennyson.
It was to be our first outing – our trial trip, “by the measured mile,” as navy sailors call it. Not so much a trial, however, for the caravan itself, as for a certain horse that was to be attached thereto; and, considering the weight of our house upon wheels, I thought it at least doubtful if any one horse would be sufficient to do the work.
The horse in this instance was – a mare. A splendid powerful dark bay draught mare, with small head, strong, shapely, arching neck, good shoulders, and long enough in body not to look cloddy. Her tail, about two yards long, had been specially plaited and got up for the occasion.
Matilda, as she was named, had never done anything except ploughing before, unless it were an occasional visit to the railway station with a load of wheat or hay. But she appeared quiet, and took the situation in at a glance, including the caravan and its master. We put-to, and after as much manoeuvring as would have sufficed to bring a P. and O. steamer away from a Southampton pier, we cleared the gate and got fairly under way.
In the matter of provisions the Wanderer was amply furnished. We had edibles for the day, and enough for a week, my wife having been steward and caterer for the occasion.
My companion voyageurs were the two eldest members of my family – Inez (aetat 7), Lovat (aetat 10), their summer dresses and young beauty making them look quite gay. Besides these, I had Hurricane Bob, my champion Newfoundland, who looked as though he could not quite understand any part of the business.
Very slowly at first walked that mare, and very solemnly too – at a plough-pace, in fact, – and the farmer’s man walked soberly on at her neck. A rousing touch or two of the light gig whip mended matters considerably, and there was far less of the “Dead March in Saul” about the progress after this. Matilda warmed to her work; she neighed merrily, and even got into a kind of swinging trot, which, properly speaking, was neither trot nor tramp, only it took us over the ground at four knots an hour, and in pity I made the farmer’s man – who, by the way, had his Sunday clothes all on – get up and sit down.
The morning was very bright and sunny, the road hard and good, but dusty. This latter was certainly a derivative from our pleasure, but then gipsies do not have it all their own way in this world any more than other people. The wind was with us, and was somewhat uncertain, both in force and direction, veering a little every now and then, and soon coming round again. But a select assortment of juvenile whirlwinds had been let loose from their cave, and these did not add to our delight.
Matilda had plenty of pluck, only she must have thought it an exceedingly long furrow, and at the end of two miles suddenly made up her mind to go about of her own accord. This determination on Matilda’s part resulted in a deviation from the straight line, which nearly landed our fore wheels in the ditch; it also resulted in admonitory flagellation for Matilda.
Before we had gone three miles the perspiration was streaming down the mare’s legs and meandering over her hoofs, so we pulled up to let her breathe. The day was young, it was all before us, and it is or ought to be in the very nature of every gipsy – amateur or professional – to take no note of time, to possess all the apathy of a Dutchman, all the drowsy independence of a garden tortoise.
