Good-by, fare thee well; good-by, fare thee well!”
The passage across was like other cattle-boat trips. There were a few quarrels, a free-for-all fight now and then, among the cattlemen: the work was hard, the food poor, and the sailors’ quarters in the forecastle unfit to live in. But the voyage was no worse than I had expected.
On the tenth day out, we came on deck to see, a few miles off, the sloping coast of Ireland. Patches of growing and ripening grain made the island look like a huge tilted checkerboard. Before night fell we had left Ireland behind, and it was near the mouth of the Clyde River that we fed the cattle for the last time.
A mighty uproar awakened us at dawn. Glasgow longshoremen, shouting at the top of their voices, were driving the cattle, slipping and sliding, down the gangway. We had reached Europe at last! An hour later the cattlemen were scattering along the silent streets of Sunday morning Glasgow.
CHAPTER II
“ON THE ROAD” IN THE BRITISH ISLES
At noon the next day I received my wages and a printed certificate stating that I had been a sailor on the cattle-boat. I kept it, for the police would surely demand to know my trade while I was tramping through the countries of Europe.
Tucking my camera into an inside pocket, I struck out along the Clyde River toward the Highlands of Scotland. I passed through Dumbarton, a town of factories, and at evening reached Alexandria. A band was playing. I joined the crowd on the village green, and watched the young Scots romping and joking, while their elders stood apart in gloomy silence. A church clock struck nine. The concert ended. The sun was still well above the horizon. I went on down the highway until, not far beyond the town, the hills disappeared, and I saw the glassy surface of a lake, its western end aglow in the light of the drowning sun. It was Loch Lomond.
By and by the moon rose, casting a pale white shimmer over the Loch and its little wooded islands. On the next hillside stood a field of wheat-stacks. I turned into it, keeping well away from the owner’s house. The straw was fresh and clean, and made a soft bed. But the bundles of wheat did not protect me from the winds of the Scottish Highlands. With a feeling that I had not slept soundly, I rose at daybreak and pushed on.
Two hours of tramping brought me to Luss, a pretty little village on the edge of Loch Lomond. I hastened to the principal street in search of a restaurant; but the village was everywhere silent and asleep. Down on the beach of the Loch a lone fisherman was preparing his tackle. He was displeased when I said his fellow townsmen were late risers.
“Why, mon, ’tis no late!” he protested; “’tis no more nor five—and a bonny morning it is, too. But there’s a mist in it,” he complained as he looked at the sky.