A Tramps Sketches | Page 8

and looks up. There is blue in the clouds,
pale blue like that of a baby's eyes. A cart lumbers along the road, the
first cart of the morning. I reflect that if I remain where I am people
may come and look at me. Ten minutes hesitation, and then suddenly I
make up my mind and rise.
I feel a miserable creature, a despicable sort of person, one who has
lately been beaten, a beggar who has just been refused alms. In the
half-light of dawn it seems I scarcely have a right to exist. Or I feel a
sort of self-pity. How often have I said as I gathered up my stiff limbs
and damp belongings in the mist of the morning, "And the poor old
tramp lifts himself and takes to the road once more, trudge, trudge,
trudge--a weary life!"
The mansion of my soul has been housing phantoms all the night. They
may not stay after sunrise; they look out of my face with bleared eyes.
It is they who gibber and chatter thus at dawn, leaving me with no more
self-assurance than a man on ticket-of-leave.
But as the sun comes up, behold the spirits evaporate, the films pass
away from my eyes, and I am lighter, blither, happier, stronger. Then in
my heart birds begin to sing in chorus. I am myself once more.
A fire, a kettle, and while the kettle boils, into the sea, giving my limbs
to the sparkling, buoyant water. Then am I super-self, if such an
expression may be permitted. So passes the vagabond's night.
Thus somehow one comes into new harmony with Nature, and the
personal rhythm enters into connection with all things that sleep and
wake under the stars. One lives a new life. It is something like the
change from bachelor to married life. You are richer and stronger.
When you move some one else moves with you, and that was
unexpected. Whilst you live Nature lives with you.
I have written of the night, for the night hallows the day, and the day
does not hallow the night except for those who toil.

III
THE LORD'S PRAYER
The Lord's Prayer is a very intimate whispering of the soul with God. It
is also the perfect child's prayer, and the tramp being much of a child, it
is his.
Many people have their private interpretations of the prayer, and I have
heard preachers examine it clause by clause. It can mean many things.
It must mean different things to people of different lives. It is
something very precious to the tramp.
The tramp is the lonely one: walking along all by himself all day by the
side of the sounding waves he is desolated by loneliness, and when he
lies down at dusk all alone he feels the need of loving human friends.
But his friends are far away. He becomes once more a little trusting
child, one who, though he fears, looks up to the face of a great strong
Father. He feels himself encompassed about by dangers: perhaps some
one watched him as he smoothed out his bracken bed; or if he went into
a cave a robber saw him and will come later in the night, when he is
fast asleep, murder him, and throw his body into the sea; or he may
have made his bed in the path of the bear or in the haunt of snakes.
Many, many are the shapes of terror that assail the mind of the
wanderer. How good to be a little boy who can trust in a great strong
Father to "deliver him from evil"!
And each clause of that lovely prayer has its special reality. Thus "Give
us this day our daily bread" causes him to think, not so much of getting
wages on the morrow as of the kindly fruits of the earth that lie in the
trees and bushes like anonymous gifts, and of the hospitality of man.
Most beautiful of all to the tramp is the wish--"Thy Kingdom
come--Thy Will be done in earth as it is in heaven." For it is thus
understood: Thy Will be done in earth--I am that earth. "Thy Kingdom
come" means Thy Kingdom come in me--may my soul lie like a pure
mirror before the beauty of the world, may the beauty of the world be
reflected in me till the whole beautiful world is my heart. Then shall
my heart be pure, and that which I see will be God. Thy Will be done in
me as it is done in heaven.
And the tramp asks himself as he lies full length on the earth and looks
up at the stars--are you a yea-sayer? Do you say "Yes" to life? Do you
raise your face