‘Fountain,’ and as a man who talked with us while we rested there said that an old fountain had stood in the open space near by, it pleased us to think that here had been one of the Waterings of Saint Thomas where pilgrims to the shrine made short halts, and that perhaps it was at this very spot that Davy Copperfield, a modern pilgrim who travelled the same road, had come to a stop in his flight from the young man with a donkey-cart. A little way out of Deptford we came to Blackheath, where sheep were peacefully grazing, rooks cawing overhead, and two or three bicyclers racing, and where a woman stopped us to say that ‘That’s the ’ouse of Prince Harthur yander, and onst the Princess Sophia stayed in it on her way to Woolwich,’ and she pointed to the handsome brick house to our left.

The Pilgrims are Chased by Dogs.

After Blackheath the mist vanished, and the sun, gladdened by the sweet air, shone on the fields and woods, and the ugly barracks and pretty cottages by which we wheeled. Red-coated soldiers turned to look and dogs ran out to bark at us. In the meadows men and women leaned on their hoes and rakes to stare. From tiny gardens, overflowing with roses and sunflowers, children waved their delight. London was many miles behind when, at a few minutes before nine, we drew up on the bridge at Crayford.

It seemed at first a sleepy little village. The only signs of life were on the bridge. Here about a dozen men were smoking their morning pipes, and as many boys were leaning over the wall, lazily staring into the river below, or at the cool stretches of woodland and shady orchards on the hillside beyond. But presently, as we waited, the village clock struck nine, and at once the loud bell in the factory on the other side of the little river Cray began to ring. One by one the older loungers knocked the ashes from their pipes and passed through the gate. The boys lingered. But their evil genius, in the shape of an old man in a tall white cap, came out, and at his bidding they left the sunshine and the river and hurried to work. A man with a cart full of shining onions went by, and we followed him up a hilly street, where the gabled and timbered cottages seemed to be trying to climb one over the other to reach a terrace of shining white houses at the top. The first of these was but one-storied, and its tall chimney-pot threw a soft blue shadow on the higher wall of the house next to it. On a short strip of ground which stretched along the terrace patches of cabbages alternated with luxuriant crops of weeds. In one place there were stalks of pink hollyhock and poles covered with vines, and in the windows above were scarlet geraniums. About them all there was a feeling of warmth and light, more like Italy than England. J. took out his sketch-book. Several women, startled by the novelty of strangers passing by, had come out and were standing in their small gardens. When they saw the sketch-book they posed as if for a photographer—all except one old woman, who hobbled down the street, talking glibly. Perhaps it was as well we did not hear what she said, for I think she was cursing us. When she was close at our side and turned, waving her hands to the other women, she looked like a great bird of ill-omen. ‘Go in! go in!’ she croaked: ‘he’s takin’ of yere likenesses. That’s wot he’s arter!’ Her wrath still fell upon us as we wheeled out of Crayford.

There were many pilgrims on the road; a few, like us, were on machines, but the greater number were on foot. As in Chaucer’s day, both rich and poor go upon pilgrimage through Kent; but, whereas in his time there were monasteries and hospitals by the way where the latter were taken in at night, now they must find shelter under hedges or in dingles. Their lot, however, did not seem hard. It is sweet to lie beneath the sky now as it was when Daphnis sang. And the pilgrims whom we saw looked as if soft turf was luxury compared to the beds they had just left, for they belonged to the large army of hop-pickers who, every autumn, come from London to make the Kentish roads unsafe after dark and the householder doubly watchful. Whitechapel and other low quarters are nearly emptied at this season. It is pleasant to know that at least once a-year these people escape from their smoky, squalid streets, into green places where they can breathe pure air, but their coming is not welcomed in the country. Many poor, honest women in towns and villages thereabouts will rather lose a few shillings than let their children go to the hop-fields during the picking season, lest they should come away but too much wiser than they went. As we rode further the number of tramps increased; all the morning we passed and overtook them.
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An Enterprising Pilgrim. There were grey-haired, decrepit men and women, who hobbled painfully along, and could scarcely keep pace with their more stalwart sons and daughters; there were children by the score, some of whom ran gaily on, forgetting fatigue for joy of the sunshine; others lagged behind, whimpering and weary; and still others were borne in their mothers’ arms. Almost all these people were laden with their household goods and gods. They carried heavy bags thrown over their shoulders, or else baskets and bundles slung on their arms, and pots and kettles and all manner of household furniture. One man, more enterprising than the others, had brought a push-cart; when we saw it, two babies, almost hidden in a confused mass of clothing and pots and pans, were sleeping in it, and one clasped a kitten in her arms.
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An Indifferent Pilgrim.Now, with a sharp bend in the road, we came suddenly upon a man sitting under a tree, who, though we rang our bell right in his ear, never raised his eyes from a hole in an old silk handkerchief he was holding; and now we came to a man and woman resting on a pile of stones by the roadside, who sat upright at the tinkling of our bell. I shall never forget the red and swarthy face of the woman as she turned and looked at us, her black hair, coarse and straight as an Indian’s, hanging about her shoulders and over her eyes: she was unmistakably young in years but old in vice, and ignorant of all save evil—compared to hers an idiot’s face would have been intelligent, a brute’s refined. I could now understand why honest countrywomen kept their children from the hop-fields. As a rule, the tramps were as careless and jolly as Béranger’s Bohemians, and laughed and made merry as if the world and its hardships were but jests. We, as figures in the farce, came in for a share of their mirth. ‘That’s right! ladies fust!’ one old tattered and torn man called after us, gaily; ‘that’s the principle on which I allus hacts!’ Which, I