OUT FOR A WALK.

You people with portmanteaus, trunks,
Macintoshes, and umbrellas, bandboxes,
carpet-bags, shawls, plaids, rugs, and muffetees,
gentlemen who wear travelling caps and carry
about hat-boxes, are not to suppose that you
have ever travelled. You may have bought a
newspaper at every railway station in Europe, but,
believe me, you must tread your way if you desire
to feel honestly that you have travelled it.

I am not a great traveller. Have never
been in the East, and never been in the West,
have only heard of the North Pole, and do
not up to this date entertain any idea that
I shall ever take a passage to Australia.
Barring a quiet walk up the Moselle, and
little trips of that sort, I have never been
out of mv own country. But I have spent
some of the happiest days of my life afoot in
England.

I should recommend any one in want of a
good home walk not to stop out longer than
about a week. He may let the railway take
him quickly to new ground—it does not in
the least matter what or where; there is no
dull ground anywhere for the pedestrian—
and then let him step out. He should never
look up to the sky in fear, but in love and
enjoyment. The more changes there are in
it, the imore variety and pleasure is provided
for him. Let the sun beat at him, and the
rain dash cheerily in his face, and the wind
blow all ill-humours out of him. He should
go out impeded with nothing; have no
knapsack, not even a sly scrap of luggage in his hat,
no second coat upon his back, and no umbrella
in his hand. He should go out nothing but a
bold, unfettered man, to have communion
thoroughly with nature. He must make up
his mind for the week to disregard his
personal appearance. In fine exciting stormy
weather he will get a little draggle-tailed: he
must not mind that. He must be content
for the week with a comb, a tooth-brush, a
towel, and a pair of socks, in one coat pocket,
and a single reserve shirt in the other. That
last-named garment will very likely have been
wet through once, and certainly be crumpled,
by the time he puts it on. Its appearance
does not matter in the least; the purposes of
cleanliness will be for the nonce sufficiently
answered, and he must demand no more.
Every morning he should bathe in the first
sparkling stream with which he meets, and
that is why the towel should be carried. More
impediment he ought not to take with him.
Unless attached to it by habit he ought not
to take even a stick: hands absolutely free
are altogether preferable. I need not say
that he must have a little money in his purse;
it ought, however, to be little, and should be
used only to satisfy simple wants.

It is not necessary that a walk should last
a week. One may get a joy that will become
a memory for ever out of the walking of a
single day or night. I remember one night
taking a thirty miles' walk into Birmingham
to catch a train that started before sunrise.
There were not more shades of light between
sunset and darkness, than there were
emotions begotten by the scenery that shifted
during such a walk. First, the long sunset
shadows of the trees; then a glimpse from a
hill top of the Severn between deep banks
with the blue darkness of evening about it;
then twilight softening into delicious thought,
promoting gloom, and the moon rising over a
flat surface of trees and hedges, contrasting its
pure light with a red glare of fire on other
parts of the horizon, as I got into
Wolverhampton.

Properly I meant to have taken the train at
Wolverhampton, but I found the train gone
when I reached the little station, and there
were a couple of sleepy men sitting with a
lantern on one of the benches, making a great
noise in the place whenever they coughed or
moved their feet. Then they looked up when
they heard my footfall, and saw how the
moon threw the big shadow of my hat over the
railway sleepers. I was glad the train was gone,
and trudged away again rejoicing over the ten,
thirteen, or fifteen miles—I forget how many
they were—to Birmingham. That is the
most wonderful night walk in this country;
all blighted soil, and glare of fire, and roar of
furnaces. The intense purity and calm of the
moonlight and the starlight seen from among
such fires impress the mind with an entirely
new sensation. I got into Birmingham a
couple of hours too soon, and found the town
calmly asleep. The place was my own, and
I occupied the empty streets with a full
heart, rejoicing.