“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.