So much of my travelling is done on foot, that if I cherished betting propensities, I should
probably be found registered in sporting newspapers under some such title as the Elastic
Novice, challenging all eleven stone mankind to competition in walking. My last special
feat was turning out of bed at two, after a hard day, pedestrian and otherwise, and
walking thirty miles into the country to breakfast. The road was so lonely in the night,
that I fell asleep to the monotonous sound of my own feet, doing their regular four miles
an hour. Mile after mile I walked, without the slightest sense of exertion, dozing heavily
and dreaming constantly. It was only when I made a stumble like a drunken man, or
struck out into the road to avoid a horseman close upon me on the path - who had no
existence - that I came to myself and looked about. The day broke mistily (it was autumn
time), and I could not disembarrass myself of the idea that I had to climb those heights
and banks of cloud, and that there was an Alpine Convent somewhere behind the sun,
where I was going to breakfast. This sleepy notion was so much stronger than such
substantial objects as villages and haystacks, that, after the sun was up and bright, and
when I was sufficiently awake to have a sense of pleasure in the prospect, I still
occasionally caught myself looking about for wooden arms to point the right track up the
mountain, and wondering there was no snow yet. It is a curiosity of broken sleep that I
made immense quantities of verses on that pedestrian occasion (of course I never make
any when I am in my right senses), and that I spoke a certain language once pretty
familiar to me, but which I have nearly forgotten from disuse, with fluency. Of both these
phenomena I have such frequent experience in the state between sleeping and waking,
that I sometimes argue with myself that I know I cannot be awake, for, if I were, I should
not be half so ready. The readiness is not imaginary, because I often recall long strings of
the verses, and many turns of the fluent speech, after I am broad awake.
My walking is of two kinds: one, straight on end to a definite goal at a round pace; one,
objectless, loitering, and purely vagabond. In the latter state, no gipsy on earth is a greater
vagabond than myself; it is so natural to me, and strong with me, that I think I must be
the descendant, at no great distance, of some irreclaimable tramp.
One of the pleasantest things I have lately met with, in a vagabond course of shy
metropolitan neighbourhoods and small shops, is the fancy of a humble artist, as
exemplified in two portraits representing Mr. Thomas Sayers, of Great Britain, and Mr.
John Heenan, of the United States of America. These illustrious men are highly coloured
in fighting trim, and fighting attitude. To suggest the pastoral and meditative nature of
their peaceful calling, Mr. Heenan is represented on emerald sward, with primroses and
other modest flowers springing up under the heels of his half- boots; while Mr. Sayers is
impelled to the administration of his favourite blow, the Auctioneer, by the silent
eloquence of a village church. The humble homes of England, with their domestic virtues
and honeysuckle porches, urge both heroes to go in and win; and the lark and other
singing birds are observable in the upper air, ecstatically carolling their thanks to Heaven
for a fight. On the whole, the associations entwined with the pugilistic art by this artist
are much in the manner of Izaak Walton.
