known brick-layers on tramp, coming up with bricklayers at work, to
be so sensible of the indispensability of lookers-on, that they
themselves have sat up in that capacity, and have been unable to
subside into the acceptance of a proffered share in the job, for
two or three days together. Sometimes, the ‘navvy,’ on tramp, with
an extra pair of half-boots over his shoulder, a bag, a bottle, and
a can, will take a similar part in a job of excavation, and will
look at it without engaging in it, until all his money is gone.
The current of my uncommercial pursuits caused me only last summer
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Dickens, Charles – The Uncommercial Traveller
to want a little body of workmen for a certain spell of work in a
pleasant part of the country; and I was at one time honoured with
the attendance of as many as seven-and-twenty, who were looking at
six.
Who can be familiar with any rustic highway in summer-time, without
storing up knowledge of the many tramps who go from one oasis of
town or village to another, to sell a stock in trade, apparently
not worth a shilling when sold? Shrimps are a favourite commodity
for this kind of speculation, and so are cakes of a soft and spongy
character, coupled with Spanish nuts and brandy balls. The stock
is carried on the head in a basket, and, between the head and the
basket, are the trestles on which the stock is displayed at trading
times. Fleet of foot, but a careworn class of tramp this, mostly;
with a certain stiffness of neck, occasioned by much anxious
balancing of baskets; and also with a long, Chinese sort of eye,
which an overweighted forehead would seem to have squeezed into
that form.
On the hot dusty roads near seaport towns and great rivers, behold
the tramping Soldier. And if you should happen never to have asked
yourself whether his uniform is suited to his work, perhaps the
poor fellow’s appearance as he comes distressfully towards you,
with his absurdly tight jacket unbuttoned, his neck-gear in his
hand, and his legs well chafed by his trousers of baize, may
suggest the personal inquiry, how you think YOU would like it.
Much better the tramping Sailor, although his cloth is somewhat too
thick for land service. But, why the tramping merchant-mate should
put on a black velvet waistcoat, for a chalky country in the dogdays,
is one of the great secrets of nature that will never be
discovered.
I have my eye upon a piece of Kentish road, bordered on either side
by a wood, and having on one hand, between the road-dust and the
trees, a skirting patch of grass. Wild flowers grow in abundance
on this spot, and it lies high and airy, with a distant river
stealing steadily away to the ocean, like a man’s life. To gain
the milestone here, which the moss, primroses, violets, blue-bells,
and wild roses, would soon render illegible but for peering
travellers pushing them aside with their sticks, you must come up a
steep hill, come which way you may. So, all the tramps with carts
or caravans – the Gipsy-tramp, the Show-tramp, the Cheap Jack –
find it impossible to resist the temptations of the place, and all
turn the horse loose when they come to it, and boil the pot. Bless
the place, I love the ashes of the vagabond fires that have
scorched its grass! What tramp children do I see here, attired in
a handful of rags, making a gymnasium of the shafts of the cart,
making a feather-bed of the flints and brambles, making a toy of
the hobbled old horse who is not much more like a horse than any
cheap toy would be! Here, do I encounter the cart of mats and
brooms and baskets – with all thoughts of business given to the
evening wind – with the stew made and being served out – with Cheap
Jack and Dear Jill striking soft music out of the plates that are
rattled like warlike cymbals when put up for auction at fairs and
markets – their minds so influenced (no doubt) by the melody of the