CHAPTER IX 



Tramps 



A MONG country sights in English spring and early 

 ^"^ summer one of the commonest is the tramp. At 

 midday, you find him reposing on banks where oxlip 

 and the nodding violet blow, in nooks overshadowed 

 with canopies of lush wood-roses and eglantine. At 

 evening the thread of smoke from his kettle fire 

 wreathes itself in with the faint damps from the 

 stream that flows past his bivouac. From early 

 morning to dewy eve, and sometimes much later, 

 our shady lanes and the rank luxuriance of our 

 hedgerows are vocal with curses as with cuckoos. 

 The tramp, although he penetrates the very sanctu- 

 aries of Nature, regards the beauties he rifles from 

 a practical rather than an aesthetic point of view. 

 Like the companion of his wanderings, she is his 

 mistress but his drudge as well. She is more com- 

 placent to him than the austere authorities of the 

 neighbouring Union, and laughingly tenders her lap to 

 be lolled in with no associated nightmares of stone- 

 breaking and oakum-picking. She pleasantly offers 



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