A Tramps Life - Evelyn J. Steward (great book club books .txt) 📗

A Tramp’s Life.

“Get out of here you smelly old thing,” screamed the plump red-head who had opened the door to his rat-tat-tat thinking the postman was making an extra delivery.
“Beg pardon Madam….”
“Don’t you madam me. Be off with you or I’ll call the constable.” She slammed the door in his face and with the expulsion of air came the waft of perfume. Heavy. Cloying. The sort of scent he associated with city prostitutes rather than nice women in country villages who, more often than not, were more generous to a traveller such as he. Perhaps she had moved in over the last year, one of those ’let’s go and live in the country, it will be so much fun’ brigade. The countryside is not what is was, he mused as he made his way back to the road.
So called countryside, he reminded himself. These days it was hard to tell where the town ended and where the real countryside began. Too much Green Belt being used by nefarious means.
Arrabin remembered what his journeys used to be like when there was a lot more open space than there was now. Fresh air. Fresh fields full of green grass or wheat, barley or rye flaxen coloured in the summer sunshine with balmy breezes ruffling the corn, making it appear like an ocean of gold. Bright shiny poppies, red as summer berries dotted around the edges of some fields and blazoned in amongst the yellow wheat in others as if someone had sprayed them from a can of paint.
He was thinking about the old size fields, the half or one acre sizes reasonable for a man and shire horse to cope with; not these monsters of today made up from several fields joined together to make it easier for the combine harvester to work, like they had in the West Country for instance. Fields where hedgerows bordered and where birds built nests and sang merrily. Where sweet wild violets and other flowers scented the hot summer air. Where voles and field mice, dormice and hedgehogs had safe haven and a plentiful supply of food. Many of those borders, now ploughed under, no longer gave sustenance to such creatures. And our lives are lessened for it, he often thought.
It was the people that changed, not the land, he decided, and as they changed, they got new-fangled ideas into their heads. Arrabin supposed the farmers had to make ends meet, join co-operatives ior simply sold out to those large landowners who had more money to manage larger farms where they could keep exploding costs down. He presumed it wasn’t their fault. Everyone had to make a living, even himself.
He also remembered some of the people who had become his friends. The Reverend Nathaniel Marchpane, the eclectic Vicar of the Parish of Nottingdean.
Arrabin was sitting in the Parish Church of St Lebold in quiet repose one day. It was a Norman church built in the twelve hundreds. It had a square tower that was topped with crenulations. A clock had been added to the tower some hundreds of years later. Stained glass windows, typically Norman in design, let in beautiful colours when the sun beamed through them.
“Having a rest, my friend?” came the loud voice as the Vicar strode up to where Arrabin was sitting in a beam of blue light from the gown of The Virgin.
“Do you mind?” asked Arrabin, ready to move out quickly if asked.
“No, no, of course not. You are one of God’s chosen. He likes the quirky ones. Bit like myself really. I am the Rev. Marchpane, Vicar of this Parish. All are welcome in my church. Even if they are not in other parts of the village,” he murmured under his breath. “The more, the merrier, is my motto,” his voice up tempo again. “You are welcome to sit as long as you like. Maybe you are in need of consolation? No!” he saw Arrabin shake his head. “Oh well, then just rest and contemplate God and all his wonders, and this pleasant church. Oh, am I preaching again? I didn‘t mean too. Force of habit.”
They got to talking, Arrabin and the Reverend and a pleasant hour passed between them. Every time Arrabin passed through the village, he made a point of looking up The Reverend Marchpane. They would sit and drink tea in the Vicarage garden swapping tales of what had become of the other in the intervening time.
Then one time Arrabin called at the Vicarage as usual only to find that his friend had gone. “Left for Australia,” one of the villagers remarked. Some were glad he had moved on. Too modern for many a folk, but others regretted his passing. The elderly, with whom he spent much time, and the sick. The new Vicar of St. Lebold had no time for conversations with a tramp. Though not openly hostile. He remained aloof and so Arrabin never visited the village again, choosing other routes instead.
No begger, Arrabin often took to the fields and woods he passed to gather the free crops like wild mushrooms and sometimes truffles, sweet nuts and tart berries in autumn, apples from long forgotten trees, crab apples, wild gooseberries, plums, greengages, haws elderberries all in season. Down by certain streams watercress grew in abundance, wild garlic and other natural greens he gathered at will which either fed him or went to his stock of goods to sell in the local villages. Most knew him and his ways by now. He had his routes every year. At the coast he would pick samphire, this was welcomed if there was enough to sell. A good cash crop.
In Cornwall he also fished for spider crabs at certain times of the year, a delicious addition to his own menu. Added to cockles, mussels and limpets, they were a meal fit for a queen. He sold any spare bounty for some change for the odd cup of tea. Some teashops would serve him even though they made him sit outside.
It wasn’t much of a living. It didn’t make him rich. But then again, he didn’t want to be rich. He just wanted enough for the basics of life. Some coins for a bath, hair wash in hot water instead of streams and lakes. Enough to ensure he always had a clean set of clothing in his satchel to change into after his freshening.
Only his battered old army coat (bought some years back from a charity shop) showed on the outside, gave him his persona. This was frequently less clean than the rest of his attire, especially around the hem. His boots too were often muddy, as is much the case in the countryside. And that is what people saw, the outside. They never looked for the kind heart, or his now popular ‘green’ attitude (a view he had always veered towards) of only taking what Nature could afford to let him have - the excess, the abundant harvest. Never raking a patch clear of what he was gathering, leaving some for next time to renew the source. He gathered only in season. His philosophy was ‘take only what you need to survive’ nor what is not yours by right. Many a time a kindly farmer would say ‘help yourself to as much as you like’ He was thankful and took advantage for that days meal only. Occasionally one would say, ‘take those there and then be off’. He never took these statements to heart. By this road he had a tolerable living but with freedom to roam at will.
Arrabin walked the length of England and Wales in this vein. If it looked to be a warm summer he would guide his travels towards the Dales, Cumberland and further north of the border, returning to this undulating spot of land for the peace and tranquillity it gave him. Few cars drove these roads. The lochs were crystal clear and he could tickle any trout woth its salt. The scent of heather, carried on the balmy air, intoxicated him, and various bushes gave off a purple haze that hung through each branch list an evening mist adding to the serenity of the surroundings as day dwindled into twilight.
He was seldom ill. Ate what Nature and kindly villager could provide so his diet was extremely healthy. On the odd occasion where he needed medical attention he would pop into the local hospital where the nurses would bemoan his lifestyle, cure him, clean him up and find a few hand-me-downs thinking he was in need. These latter he politely accepted and left on the doorstep as he went on his way.
His family got a postcard from time to time saying he was fine, but that was it. They had a Corporate Business and Arrabin was always in line to ‘take over’. He even tried it out once when he was much younger. But they wanted too much control over him and in business, things aren’t always as honest as they seem.
So one day he just upped and left and the open road had been his happy life ever since.

Copyright Evelyn J. Steward. Written from an original story in the early 200s. Revised and edited in November, 2011.
Words 1559

Publication Date: 02-24-2012

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