Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1886-05-13


termined. For the rest, his black hair, which
was thickly mixed with iron gray, fell almost
to his shoulders, and his upper lip was COW
cred with an iron gray mustache.
AT last, as if satisfied with his scrutiny, Mr..
Monk turned his horse round with fierce
jerk OF the rein, and rode rapidly away in
the shadow of the wood.
CHAPTER III.
LEAVES FROM A YOUNG GENTLEMAN's JOUR-
NAL.
Before setting forth on this memorable
pilgrimage to nowhere, promised a certain
friend of mine in literary Bohemia, to keep
notes of my adventures, with view to flu
ture publication, illustrated by my own bril-
liant sketches. / fear the promise was q
rash one-firstly, because / am constitution
ally lazy and averse to literary exertion; and,
secondly, because have, as yet, met with no
adventures worth writing about. Not that l
have altogether lost my first enthusiasm for
the idea. There would be novelty in the
title, at any rate, Cruises in Caravan by
Charles Brinkley, with illustrations by the
author; Photographic frontispiece, the Cara
van, with Tim as large as life, smirking self
consciously in delight at having his pictur'
taken. My friend B has promised to find
me q publisher, if l will only persevere.
Well, we shall see. II the book does not
progress it will be entirely my own fault; for
have any amount of time ON my hands.
Paint as hard as 1 may all day. ( have al
ways the long evenings, when / must either
write, read or do nothing.
$50 am beginning this evening, exactly
fortnight after my first start from Chester. I
purchased the caravan there from morose
individual, with one eye, who had it built
with view to the exhibition of Wild Man
Of Patagonia; but said Wild Man having
taken it into his head to return to County
Cork, where he was born, and the morose in
dividual having no definite idea of a novelty to
take his place, the caravan came into the
market. Having secured this travelling
palace, duly furnished with window-blinds,
a piece of carpet, q chair-bedstead, a table, a
stove, cooking utensils, not to speak of my
own artistic paraphernalia, I sent over to
Mulrany, County Mayo, for my old servant,
Tim-na-C halnig, or Tim O. the Ferry-other-
wise Tim Iinney; and with his assistance
when he arrived, purchased a strong mare
at Chester Fair. All these preliminaries
being settled, we started one fine morning
soon after daybreak, duly bound for explora-
tons along the macadamized highways and
byways of North Wales
had recovered the first shock of seeing peri.
patetic dwelling house. took to the idea Won
derfully. Sure it's just like the ould cabin at
home he averred, 9barrin' the wheels, and
the windies, and the chimley, and the has te to
pull it along;' and l think the resemblance
would have been complete in his eyes if there
had only been two or three pigs to trot mer-
rly behind tho back door. AS for myself, /
took to the nomad life as naturally as if
had never in my life been in a civilized habi-
tation. To be able to go where one pleased,
to dawdle as one pleases, to stop and sleep
where one pleased, was certainly new SEN
sation. My friends, observing my sluggish
ways, had often compared me to that inter
esting creature, the snail; now the resem-
blance was complete, for i was a snail indeed,
with my house comfortably fixed upon my
shoulders, crawling TRANQUILITY along.
"Of course, the caravan has its inconveni-
ences Inside, to quote the elegant smile of
our progenitors, there is scarcely room enough
to swing a cat in; and when my bed is made,
end Tins hammock is swung just inside the
door, the place forms the tiniest of sleeping
chambers. Then our cooking arrangements
are primitive, and, as Tim has no idea what
ever in the culinary art, beyond being able to
boil potatoes in their skins and make very
doubtful 'stirabout, there is certain want
of variety in our repasts.
Besides the Inconvenience which have
mentioned, but which were, perhaps, hardly
worth chronicling, the caravan has social
drawbacks, more particularly embarrassing
to modest man like myself. 1t is confusing,
for example, on entering O town, or good
sized village to be surrounded by the entire
Juvenile population, who cheer us vociferously,
under the impression that we Constitute a
SHOW and afterward, on ascertaining their
mistake, pursue us with opprobrious jeers;
and it is distressing to remark that our mode
of life, instead of inviting confidence, causes us
to be regarded with suspicion by the vicar of
the parish and the local policemen. We are
exposed, moreover, to ebullitions OF bucolic
humor, which have taken the form of horse
play on more than one occasion. Tim has
had several fights with the Welsh peasantry,
and has generally come off victorious, though
ON one occasion he would have been over
powered by numbers if l had not gone, to his
assistance. Generally speaking, nothing will
remove from the rural population an idea
that the caravan forms an exhibition of some
sort. When airily alight and stroll through
a village, sketchbook in hand, have inva-
riably at my heels a long attendant train of
all ages, obviously under the impression that
am looking for a suitable pitch, and am
going to perform
ITO avoid these and similar inconveniences
we generally halt for the night in some Sc
cluded spot-some roadside nook or outlying
common. But there is a fatal attraction in
the caravan; it seems to draw spectators, as
it were, out of the very bowels of the earth.
No matter how desolate the place we have
chosen, we have scarcely made ourselves
| fal1 Ia a1rHi and
stragglers drop in, amazed and open-mouthed.
/ found it irksome at first to paint in the open
air, with gazing crowd at my back making
audible comments on my work as it pro-
gressed; but soon got used to it, and, hav-
ing discovered certain good subjects here
and there among my visitors, take the pub
hcity now as a matter of course. Even when
busy inside / am never aStonished to see
strange noses fattened against the windows
strange faces peeping in at the door. The
human temperament accustoms itself to any
thing.
II begin this record in the Island of Angle
sea, where we have arrived after our fort
nights wanderings in the more mountainous
districts of the mainland. Anglesea, am in
formed, is chiefly famous for its pigs and
its wild ducks. So far as I have yet explored
it find it flat and desolate enough; but
have been educated IN Irish landscapes, and
| don't object to flatness when combined with
desolation. I like these dreary meadows,
these bleak stretches of melancholy moor
land, these wild lakes and lagoons.
"At the present moment am encamped in
spot where, in all probability, I shall re-
main for days. / came upon it quite by ac-
cident about midday yesterday, when on my
way TO the market town of Pencroes; or,
rather, when I imagined that was going
thither, while I had, in reality, after hesitat-
| ing at three crossroads, taken the road which
led in exactly the opposite direction. The
way was desolate and dreary beyond meas
ure-stretches of moraSs and moorland on
every side, occasionally rising into heathery
knobs or hillocks, or strewed with huge
pieces of stones like the moors of Cornwall.
| Presently the open moorland ended,