Does one take accounts of travel in lands other than that one is tramping in? I imagine not. Unknown Arabia is out of place in a tramp through California. But a tramp’s account of his own life is interesting reading anywhere, and one naturally thinks of W. H. Davies’ autobiography in this connection. There are few tramp writers. But probably the best short story of Maxim Gorky’s tells of his tramping life, and is called “The Fellow Traveller.” Jack London’s Valley of the Moon contains some tramping episodes. Jack London, Rudyard Kipling, Cunninghame Graham, Belloc, Chesterton, Carl Sandburg, Vachel Lindsay, are all delightful writers in the tramping mood and ask a place in the knapsack. Then there are Harry Franck’s untiring pedestrian tours in Patagonia, China, and elsewhere, perhaps in too ponderous a form as yet for field use.
I once met a tramping publisher, rara avis, a very black swan; he began his life as a colporteur of the British and Foreign Bible Society and spent twenty years on the road, going from Bibles to leaflets, which he printed himself, and thence to booklets, thence to books and an office and a vast organization. He had a simple way of business. I handed him a manuscript; he opened a drawer and handed out a wad of notes, and the transaction was concluded without a word in writing. But I suppose that was unusual even in his business. There was a savor of tramp meeting tramp in the affair.
The Bible colporteur ought, at least, to know one book the better for his calling. When all is said, there is one book more worth taking than all the rest; poetry, philosophy, history, fantasy, treatise, novel, and drama, you have all in one in the Bible, the inexhaustible book of books. You need not take it all, take the prophecies, the Psalms, the Gospels. It means much to tramp with one Gospel in the inner pocket of the coat.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LONG HALTS
IF your tramping expedition is long; if you have voted yourself plenty of time; if, for example, you are taking a wander year, you are under no compulsion to keep on tramping. One advantage of being a true Bohemian is that you are under no compulsion except that of the heart. You stop when you like, you go on when you like. You surely come to places in which you are tempted to remain—be it only for a few days. You stay a day, and the place grows on you; you stay longer. And then, when the spirit moves, you move with it, move on, enriched by your delay, by your idleness.
There are short halts and long halts. The short ones are simple and natural; the longer ones more difficult to make, but not to be foregone on that account. You come at last to the ideally simple, or beautiful, or alluring village. You ought to stay there a while, make home there for a while. And you have only your tramping kit and no word to recommend you. Still, it can be arranged, and the very modesty of your approach should help you. You come from below, not from above; the villagers will not hide their life from you. They may be shy of the stranger, but shyness will wear off as they watch you in their midst.
Do not go to the local priest who, being a responsible person, is likely to tell you that it is impossible to stay there and to fill your mind with difficulties. You want to get taken in and hire a room. You have money to pay for it. You should make your appeal direct at the house where you would like to stay. You shall be very civil to the lady, and drink with mine host. It can be arranged. They will even put themselves to trouble on your behalf.
It is so much better to be in a family than in an inn. Inside the little family of a home you are inside the bigger family of the village, and if you are a sociable soul you will soon have many friends. You will get to know the village characters and gossips, the village children, the village musicians; the stories of the village, its legends, its superstitions—and then, its love affairs, its family entanglements, its coming weddings and fêtes.