TRIALS AND TROUBLES OF A TOURIST.
In clothes, both muddy and wet,
Without hat—left on the fell;
A pedestrian sought, with a tottering gait,
Refreshment at this hotel.
He'd walked a long and weary way,
O'er mountain-top and moor;
And thus he mused, mid'st wind and rain,
As he approached the door.
"I walk! walk! walk!
First climbing hills, and then down
Where the people are not to be seen,
Many miles from village or town.
Oh! haven't I been a dupe,
Pedestrian pleasure to seek,
When so quiet I might have stayed
At Redcar all the week."
"I walk! walk! walk!
With my boots fast breaking up,
And walk! walk! walk!
Without either bite or sup.
Oh! that again I was at home,
To feel as I used to feel,
And not as now, in hunger and thirst,
With a doubly-blistered heel."
"I walk! walk! walk!
Up to the knee in bog,
And loudly call, 'Lost! Lost!'
Surrounded by clouds and fog.
I walk! walk! walk!
Till my head begins to spin;
Oh! that I ne'er had scrambled out
The stream I tumbled in."
"I walk! walk! walk!
With cheeks all swollen and red;
A nasty aching within my ears,
Rheumatics in my head.
I walk! walk! walk!
In trousers tattered and torn!
With every thread from foot to head
Quite soaked since early morn."
"The day is fast wearing out,
And so are my boots and I;
The sleet blows in my face,
As with the breeze I sigh.
Although white fog I'm in,
Yet 'tis a dark look out
For one who hither has come for a change,
And cannot change a clout."
"I walk! walk! walk!
And nothing can find to see;
While water and mud from out my boots
Is squirting up to each knee.
Talk of scenery! Bah! it's all stuff,
But the waterfall, I admit,
Is good, for it's running down my back,
And I've no dry place to sit."
"I walk! walk! walk!
With my throat quite parched and dry;
No spirit to rouse my spirits up;
With pulse quite fevered and high.
I've a dropsy got outside,
Whilst inside there's a drought;
Oh! for a good warm draught within,
As a check to the draught without."
"Walk! walk! walk!
I'll never come here again:
My holiday shall be spent elsewhere,
Free from fatigue and pain.
Or I'll stay at home with my wife,
Where a dry shirt I can wear;"—
And worn out with misfortune's strife,
And almost weary of his life,
He sank in the old arm chair.
JOHN REED APPLETON, F.S.A.