Then there were the “tramps” in the metaphorical sense, the friends and bidden or unbidden guests whose visits were welcomed in that secluded region of bare heaths and hills. Edward Carpenter, as the writer of the books which had shown such life to be possible, was, of course, the tutelary deity of the place: Bernard Shaw, on the other hand, was the _advocatus diaboli_, whose professed hatred of the country gave an additional zest to his appearances there, and culminated in a characteristic article, “A Sunday on the Surrey Hills,” in which he described a wet walk on Hindhead and the extremity of his sufferings until he was restored to London by “the blessed rescuing train.”[16] But it is dangerous to jest on such subjects; and I regret to say that a local paper, some years afterwards, in reprinting “G.B.S.’s” jeremiad, added some scathing editorial comments, which showed a resentment unmitigated by time, on “a cockney gentleman possessing a very fine liver, but no soul above his stomach.”[17] In the simplification of household life, Shaw easily held his own; he was most conscientious and exemplary in “washing up,” and to see the methodical precision with which he made his bed was itself a lesson in domestic orderliness. Thus was realized the truth of what Clough had written in his _Bothie_: How even churning and washing, the dairy, the scullery duties, Wait but a touch to redeem and convert them to charms and attractions; Scrubbing requires for true grace but frank and artistical handling, And the removal of slops to be ornamentally treated. In dealing with tramps, however, even Shaw could be at fault. We once had a visit from a very undesirable vagrant who held forth at great length about a fearful wound which he bore on his person; and when his lecture was ended, Shaw, in the approved Fabian fashion, proceeded to ask a Question or two. But in such company to question is to suspect; and the tramp, deeply hurt at any reflection on his veracity, at once commenced to divest himself of his clothing, so as to offer ocular proof. “A sight to dream of, not to tell.” We were just saved from it by an earnest disavowal of any fragment of unbelief. Among the most welcome of our visitors was “the Wayfarer,” Mr. W. J. Jupp, author in after years of one of the wisest and most gracious of books, a real spiritual autobiography, a true story of the heart.[18] Himself a devoted nature-lover, he brought us tidings of the greatest of poet-naturalists, Henry David Thoreau, and thus laid me under the first of the many obligations which I owe to a friendship of old date.