Consider for a moment the qualities needed by one who has undertaken the organisation of a party of walkers—if a mixed party, so much the better. To perform his functions successfully he must be a combination of Cook’s agent, weather-prophet, geographical specialist, Bradshaw expert, commissariat officer, guide, nurse, hostess, and chaperon. First he must arrange the day and time, and train, so as to suit everybody, which involves a hail of postcards, telephone conversations, and personal interviews. Then he must provide a fine day—by far his easiest task. Then he must arrange the route, his choice being limited only by the fact that each member of the party has his own views about pace, distance, time for lunch, and character of country, agreeing only that there must be no undue hurrying or waiting for the train home at the end of the walk. Then his functions as guide begin: he must necessarily lead the party, while keeping an eye behind to see that no one is straggling; he must never show even a momentary hesitation as to the route; he must receive with gratitude and attention the suggestions of his companions, who don’t care about the map, but are sure they came that way with their uncle some years ago, and are quite certain the guide is wrong; he must watch the time all through, making painful mental calculations of rates and distances; he must be sure, if the route passes any ancient churches, public-houses, or registry offices, that no members of the party whose tastes incline thereto linger too long with irretrievable results; and unless and until the party have reached a proper taciturnity, he must originate and stimulate interesting conversation. If the walk continues into the late afternoon—as it will if the leader has an ounce of sporting instinct—he must find a suitable place for tea at exactly the right time, and finally march his party down to their train with not more than five minutes to wait.
Many walkers when guiding a party prefer to stick to familiar routes, and so lessen some of the difficulties; but, if this plan is safer, it misses some of the most exciting moments of walking in company. There is nothing in life quite like guiding a company against time across unknown or dimly remembered country. With a map it is stimulating enough; but it is perhaps even more fun with Walker Miles. For the leader feels that not only himself but also Walker Miles is on his trial; he has to justify to the company not only his own intelligence, but also that of his master. And he knows that tracks may have been changed or landmarks moved, and that a passage is just coming in the text which requires careful attention to make certain of the master’s meaning. He turns the critical corner at the dividing of the ways, and has to decide instantly and without hesitation on the right route. He chooses one, and looks ahead to the next point in the text which marks a decisive point—a fork in the road, or a stile in the hedge. Time passes and the track continues, every yard more fatal if the last turn was wrong. And then in a sudden glory the track forks or the stile appears; the master is justified; and with something of the feeling of Wellington when Blucher appeared, or Euclid when the forty-seventh proposition worked out, he brushes the doubt and anxiety of the past from his mind, and hurls himself joyously on the next problem.
It would be untruthful and ungrateful to close an account of walking in company on a note of criticism or discontent. Really, the difficulties can easily be exaggerated: the disasters are mostly might-have-beens, which as a matter of fact were not. Only at certain points, and those mostly in the earlier stages, is it really anxious work. As the day wears on doubts and difficulties diminish: the party instinctively settles down to unanimity and good fellowship: the amateur geographer becomes less dogmatic, the conversationalist less brilliant: differences wear off, and the company is linked together by the influences of motion and their surroundings. When they started they were discrepant units of humanity, with every element that could divide and distract them hypertrophied by civilisation: now they have won their way back to the simpler and commoner things that unite. They have eaten in common the sacramental sandwich: they have trodden together twenty miles of their mother earth: and the gorse of Ranmore Common, or the autumn beechwoods of Buckinghamshire shall burn in their memory as a token of good fellowship.
Wherefore, O companions, that I may close as I began, let me with my last words put it on record that I bear no malice. There may have been little difficulties at times: when one of you was guiding, I may have offered irritating suggestions and comments: when I was guiding, I may have been inaccurate, heedless, impatient of criticism. But I do not think that these difficulties play much part in our joint stock of memories. What we remember is not the quarrels by the way, but the way itself—that steep run down Muckish and homeward tramp to the strain of John Brown, that April evening on the Longmynd, that wonderful chequered day of sun and cloud on the Gable, that hot afternoon pull over Watendlath, that moment on Moel Hebog when Snowdon burst into view (and the wall into which we crashed at the bottom), the ridge from the White Horse down to Lambourn, where we talked biology, those Whitsun walks along the back of the world, called the South Downs, those damp lunches on Bookham Common, that clear winter day in Buckinghamshire, and at all seasons and under every sky Leith Hill. Times and places and persons—they are linked together by an imperishable bond: and my last memories are not of bickerings and failures, but of toleration, good-will, and sympathy which lightened the way and sent the miles spinning backward beneath the tread of our feet.
But why use the past tense only? We are not yet old or decrepit, the earth is still firm under us, the wind yet blows, and there is a sun (we are told) still shining in the sky. In part for amusement, but in part as a tribute to our common memories of walking, I have twined these inadequate words. But there is a better thing we can do; let us put on our boots and take our sticks and go forth upon the road once more. There are several new tracks which I am anxious to show you.
EPILOGUE
And after all (the readers cry)
What is your great conclusion?
That walks are good, and hills are high,
Et cetera, in profusion.
We bore the burden of your prose
Through all its painful stages,
Are platitudes as trite as those
To be our only wages?
Yes, reader; there is nothing new,
Nothing the least exciting.
One truth, one only I pursue
In all this waste of writing—
Old as the hills on which we stood,
Trite as our path descending,
That walks are good, that walks are good—
I ask no better ending.
You seek for novel theories
The world without to wisen,
To open other people’s eyes
And broaden their horizon;
And so you set but little store
By works (like this) which lead to
What some one else has said before
And every one agreed to.
Yet, you must own, the world proceeds
Mainly by commonplaces,
With platitude to serve its needs,
Banality its basis.
It takes its customary roll
Around the same old axis,
And whispers to the fretting soul
‘Οὐ γνῶσις ἀλλὰ πρᾶξις.’