120 TRAMPS 



him the key of the fields, of the woods, of some solitary 

 barn, or outlying cattle-shed. Her guests may not 

 admire the rich green of the oak copse, but they know 

 that it makes an undeniable screen against the light wind 

 that has fixed itself in the east. The masses of foliage 

 that cast their shadows on the grass from the gnarled 

 oak boughs overhead will throw off any passing 

 showers that may fall should the wind chop round to 

 the west. The slanting rays that set the brown trunks 

 all ablaze with gold are a nuisance certainly, and elicit 

 many nervous execrations on them and on the eyes they 

 dazzle ; but the sun is sloping fast to the west, and 

 they will soon see the last of him. No such luck with 



those noisy nightingales and thrushes and 



blackbirds that make themselves so much at home as 

 gravely to embarrass the conversation of the lords of the 

 creation. Twigs and birdlime ! what makes it more 

 aggravating is to think of them half-crowns and five 



shillings hopping about among the branches just 



beyond a cove's reach, and beer only fourpence a quart 



too, and hard to come by at that. As it is, the 



tramp is reduced to charily sprinkling his parched 

 gullet with water from the cool brook that goes 

 rippling past at his feet. It is certainly not for pur- 

 poses of ablution that he courts the vicinity of water. 



We may boast of the tramp as one of those 

 peculiar institutions that are the special pride of 

 England ; and England is the genuine tramp's 

 paradise. In countries unhappily subjected to personal 

 rule, or haunted still by its tyrannical traditions, the 



