The next morning, we met on our usual terms; but I judged it more
delicate to withdraw; nor did he attempt to dissuade me.
It was nine years before I revisited the neighbourhood. I
travelled at that time with a tilt cart, a tent, and a cooking-
stove, tramping all day beside the waggon, and at night, whenever
it was possible, gipsying in a cove of the hills, or by the side of
a wood. I believe I visited in this manner most of the wild and
desolate regions both in England and Scotland; and, as I had
neither friends nor relations, I was troubled with no
correspondence, and had nothing in the nature of headquarters,
unless it was the office of my solicitors, from whom I drew my
income twice a year. It was a life in which I delighted; and I
fully thought to have grown old upon the march, and at last died in
a ditch.
It was my whole business to find desolate corners, where I could
camp without the fear of interruption; and hence, being in another
part of the same shire, I bethought me suddenly of the Pavilion on
the Links. No thoroughfare passed within three miles of it. The
nearest town, and that was but a fisher village, was at a distance
of six or seven. For ten miles of length, and from a depth varying
from three miles to half a mile, this belt of barren country lay
along the sea. The beach, which was the natural approach, was full
of quicksands. Indeed I may say there is hardly a better place of
concealment in the United Kingdom.
Pages:
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233