About six a heavy-eyed shopkeeper sold me a roll of bologna, concocted of equal parts of pepper and meat, and a loaf of day-before-yesterday’s bread. The steamer whistle sounded before I had regained the beach. I purchased a ticket at the shore-end of the distorted wooden wharf and hurried out to board the craft. My way was blocked by a burly Scot who demanded “tu p’nce.”
“But I’ve paid my fare,” I protested, holding up the ticket.
“Aye, mon, ye hov,” rumbled the 杭州丝袜qq native, straddling his legs and setting his elbows akimbo. “Ye hov, mon. But ye hovna paid fer walkin’ oot t’ yon boat on oor wharf.”
Ten minutes later I paid a similar sum for the privilege of walking off the boat at Renwardenen.
Plodding across a half-mile of heath and morass, I struck into the narrow, white path that zigzagged up the face of the Ben, and soon overtook three Glasgow firemen, off for a day’s vacation in the hills. The mist that the fisherman had foreseen began to settle down and turned soon to a drenching rain. For five hours we scrambled silently upward in Indian file, slipping and falling on wet rocks and into deep bogs, to come at last to a broad, flat boulder where the path vanished. It was the summit of old Ben Lomond, a tiny island in a sea of whirling grey mist, into which the wind bowled us when we 杭州419同城 attempted to stand erect. My companions fell to cursing their luck in expressive Scotch. The remnants of a picnic lunch under the shelter of a cairn tantalized us with the thought of how different the scene would have been on a day of sunshine. I was reminded, too, of the bread and bologna that had been left over from my breakfast, and I thrust a hand hopefully into my pocket. My fingers plunged into a floating pulp of pepper, dough, and bits of meat and paper that it would have been an insult to offer to share with the hungriest mortal; and I fell to munching the mess alone.
Two of the firemen decided to return the way we had come. With the third I set off down the opposite slope towards Inversnaid. In 9the first simultaneous stumble down the mountain side, we lost all sense of direction and, fetching up in a boggy meadow, 杭州水疗会所论坛 wandered for hours over knolls and through swift streams, now and then scaring up a flock of shaggy highland sheep that raced away down primeval valleys. Well on in the afternoon, as we were telling ourselves for the twentieth time that Inversnaid must be just over the next ridge, we came suddenly upon a hillside directly above the landing stage of Renwardenen. On this side of the Loch was neither highway nor footpath. For seven miles we dragged ourselves, hand over hand, through the thick undergrowth, and even then must each take a header into an icy mountain river before we reached our goal.
Here a new disappointment awaited me. Instead of the town I had expected, Inversnaid consisted of a landing stage and a hotel of the millionaire-club variety in which my worldly wealth would scarcely have paid a night’s lodging, even should 杭州按摩全套服务 the house dogs have permitted so bedraggled a being to approach the establishment. The fireman wandered down to the wharf and I turned towards a cluster of board shanties at the roadside.
“Can you sell me something to eat?” I inquired of the sour-faced mountaineer who opened the first door.
“I can no!” he snapped, “go to the hotel.”
There were freshly baked loaves plainly in sight in the next hovel, but I received a similar rebuff.
“Have you nothing to eat in the house?” I demanded.
“No, mon, I’m no runnin’ a shop.”
“But you can sell me a loaf of that bread?”
“No!” bellowed the Scot, “we hovna got any. Go to the hotel. Yon’s the place for tooreests.”
The invariable excuse was worn threadbare before I reached the last hut, and, though I had already covered twenty-five miles, I struck off through the sea of mud that passed 杭州洗浴娱乐休闲场所 for a highway, towards Aberfoyle, fifteen miles distant.
The rain continued. An hour beyond, the road skirted the shore of Loch Katrine and stretched away across a desolate moorland. Fatigue drove away hunger and was in turn succeeded by a drowsiness in which my legs moved themselves mechanically, carrying me on through the dusk and into the darkness. It was past eleven when I splashed into Aberfoyle, too late to find an open shop in straight-laced Scotland, and, routing out a servant at a modest inn, I went supperless to bed. Months afterward, when I was in training for such undertakings, 10a forty-mile tramp left no evil effects; at this early stage of the journey the experience was not quickly forgotten.
The attraction of the open road was lacking when, late the next morning, I hobbled out into the streets of Aberfoyle, and, 杭州桑拿龙凤论坛419 my round of sight-seeing over, I wandered down to the station and took train for Stirling. Long before the journey was ended, there appeared, far away across the valleys, that most rugged of Scotland’s landmarks, the castle of Stirling. Like the base of some giant pillar erected by nature and broken off by a mightier Sampson, it stands in solemn isolation in a vast, rolling plain, the very symbol of staunch independence and sturdy defiance.
My imagination far back in the days of Wallace and Bruce, I made my way up to the monument from the city below, half expecting, as I entered the ancient portal, to find myself surrounded by those bold and fiery warriors of past ages. And surely, there they were! That group of men in bonnets and kilts, gazing away across the parapets. Cautiously I approached them. What pleasure it would be to hear the old Scottish tongue and, perhaps, the story of some feud among the fierce clans of the Highlands! Suddenly 杭州哪里有特色足浴 one of the group strode away across the courtyard. As he passed me, he began to sing. A minstrel lay of ancient days, in the old Gaelic tongue? No, indeed. He had broken forth in the rasping voice of a Liverpool bootblack, juggling his H’s, as only a Liverpool bootblack can, in “The Good Old Summer Time.”
An hour afterward I faced the highway again, bound for Edinburgh. The route led hard by the battle-field of Bannockburn, to-day a stretch of waving wheat, distinguished from the surrounding meadows, that history does not know, only by the flag of Britain above it. With darkness I found lodging in a wheat field overlooking the broad thoroughfare.
The next day was Sunday and the weather calorific. For all that, the highroad had its full quota of tramps. I passed the time of day with any number of these roadsters,—they call them 杭州桑拿小姐 “moochers” in the British Isles. Some were sauntering almost aimlessly along the shimmering route, others were stretched out at apathetic ease in shady glens carpeted with freshly-blossomed bluebells. The “moocher” is a being of far less activity and initiative than the American tramp. He is content to stroll a few miles each day, happy if he gleans a meager fare from the kindly disposed. He would no more think of “beating his way” on the railroads than of building an air-ship for his aimless and endless wanderings. It is always walk with him, day after day, week after week; and if, by chance, he hears of the swift travel by “blind-baggage” and the full meals that fall to his counterpart across the water, he stamps them at once “bloody lies.”
Women laborers in the linen-mills of Belfast, Ireland
S.S. Sardinian. “Lamps does a 杭州品茶群上课 bit of painting above the temporary cattle-pens”
11In stranger contrast to the American, the British tramp is quite apt to be a family man. As often as not he travels with a female companion whom he styles, within her hearing and apparently
with her entire acquiescence, “me Moll” or “me heifer.” But whatever his stamping ground the tramp is essentially the same fellow the world over. Buoyant of spirits for all his pessimistic grumble, generous to a fault, he eyes the stranger with deep suspicion at the first greeting, as uncommunicative and noncommittal as a bivalve. Then a look, a gesture suggests the world-wide question, “On the road, Jack?” Answer it affirmatively and, though your fatherland be on the opposite side of the earth, he is ready forthwith to open his heart and to divide with you his last crust.
