FullReads

We left Dorking and walked all afternoon through a pleasant sunny country, up hill and down, to the town of Guildford. At four o’clock, to break the journey, we laid out our lunch of bread and cheese and cucumber, and rested for an hour. The place was a grassy bank along a road above a fertile valley where men were pitching hay. Their shouts were carried across the fields with an agreeable softness. Today, doubtless, women work in those fields.

On another occasion we walked from Maidstone to Rochester on pilgrimage to the inn where Alfred Jingle borrowed Mr. Winkle’s coat to attend the Assembly, when he made love to the buxom widow. War had just been declared between Britain and Germany, and soldiers guarded the roads above the town. At a tea-room in the outskirts army officers ate at a neighboring table. Later, it is likely, they were in the retreat from Mons: for the expeditionary force crossed the channel within a week. Yet so does farce march along with tragedy that our chief concern in Rochester was the old inn where the ball was held.

A surly woman who sat behind the cashier’s wicket fixed me with her eye. “Might we visit the ballroom?” I inquired. Evidently not, unless we were stopping at the house. “Madame,” I said, “perhaps you are unaware that the immortal Mr. Pickwick once sojourned beneath your roof.” There was no response. “The celebrated Mr. Pickwick, G. C. M. P. C.,” I continued, “who was the discoverer of the sources of the Hampstead Ponds.” At this–for my manner was impressive–she fumbled through the last few pages of her register and admitted that he might have been once a patron of the house, but that he had now paid his bill and gone.

I was about to question her about the poet Augustus Snodgrass, who had been with Mr. Pickwick on his travels, when a waiter, a humorous fellow with a vision of a sixpence, offered to be our guide. We climbed the stairs and came upon the ballroom. It was a small room. Three quadrilles must have stuffed it to the edge–a dingy place with bare windows on a deserted innyard. At one end was a balcony that would hold not more than three musicians. The candles of its former brightness have long since burned to socket. Vanished are “Sir Thomas Clubber, Lady Clubber and the Miss Clubbers!” Gone is the Honorable Wilmot Snipe and all the notables that once crowded it! Vanished is the punchbowl where the amorous Tracy Tupman drank too many cups of negus on that memorable night. I gave the dirty waiter a sixpence and came away.

I discourage the usual literary pilgrimage. Indeed, if there is a rumor that Milton died in a neighboring town, or a treaty of consequence was signed close by, choose another path! Let neither Oliver Cromwell nor the Magna Carta deflect your course! One of my finest walks was on no better advice than the avoidance of a celebrated shrine. I was led along the swift waters of a river, through several pretty towns, and witnessed the building of a lofty bridge. For lunch I had some memorable griddlecakes. Finally I rode on top of a rattling stage with a gossip for a driver, whose long finger pointed out the sights upon the road.

But for the liveliest truancy, keep an eye out for red-haired and freckled lads, and make them your counselors! Lads so spotted and colored, I have found, are of unusual enterprise in knowing the best woodland paths and the loftiest views. A yellow-haired boy, being of paler wit, will suck his thumb upon a question. A touzled black exhibits a sulky absorption in his work. An indifferent brown, at best, runs for an answer to the kitchen. But red-haired and freckled lads are alive at once. Whether or not their roving spirit, which is the basis of their deeper and quicker knowledge, proceeds from the magic of the pigment, the fact yet remains that such boys are surer than a signpost to direct one to adventure. This truth is so general that I have read the lives of the voyagers–Robinson Crusoe, Captain Kidd and the worthies out of Hakluyt–if perhaps a hint might drop that they too in their younger days were freckled and red-haired. Sir Walter Raleigh–I choose at random–was doubtless called “Carrots” by his playmates. But on making inquiry of a red-haired lad, one must have a clear head in the tumult of his direction. I was once lost for several hours on the side of Anthony’s Nose above the Hudson because I jumbled such advice. And although I made the acquaintance of a hermit who dwelt on the mountain with a dog and a scarecrow for his garden–a fellow so like him in garment and in feature that he seemed his younger and cleaner brother–still I did not find the top or see the clear sweep of the Hudson as was promised.