THE AMATEUR TRAMP IN ENGLAND 135 



of will. There is nothing like walking for getting rid 

 of the blue-devils, or to brace you for a wrestle with 

 more formidable fiends, to whom these blue-devils are 

 mere diaboli minores. But it is no idea of such earnest 

 grapple as that last which prompts our pen at this 

 present writing. We speak of pedestrians in the prime 

 of their powers, who, as yet, should have had no more 

 than the share of worry that may be mercifully sent as 

 a blessing in disguise, to put them in training against 

 veritable calamities of the exercise that comes as near 

 unadulterated happiness as any you are likely to find on 

 earth. 



Most people who may chance to read this book have 

 had their fates shaped out for them more or less. 

 Either they have been born to the happy independence 

 which has its responsibilities as well as its pleasures, and 

 have been educated more or less successfully to the 

 decent discharge of their duties ; or they have been 

 brought up to the enjoyment of certain luxuries which 

 can only be assured them by the practice of a profession. 

 In either case they have been broken into some sort of 

 harness, although occasionally they may kick over the 

 traces. Had it happened to them to have been born in 

 humble circumstances had their wants been more 

 simple, and their aspirations limited to the day they 

 might never have betaken themselves to regular employ- 

 ment, but have blossomed into full-blown tramps. 



Well, it has not been our fate to be born gipsies ; 

 and, like the poet, the gipsy or the tramp nascitur, ncn 

 fit. But if vagabondage can never be our pursuit, we 



