It is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the walkers, nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-ending enterprises.  Our expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old hearth-side from which we set out.  Half the walk is but retracing our steps.  We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return,—­prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms.  If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again,—­if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man, then you are ready for a walk.

To come down to my own experience, my companion and I, for I sometimes have a companion, take pleasure in fancying ourselves knights of a new, or rather an old, order,—­not Equestrians or Chevaliers, not Ritters or Riders, but Walkers, a still more ancient and honorable class, I trust.  The chivalric and heroic spirit which once belonged to the Rider seems now to reside in, or perchance to have subsided into, the Walker,—­not the Knight, but Walker Errant.  He is a sort of fourth estate, outside of Church and State and People.

We have felt that we almost alone hereabouts practised this noble art; though, to tell the truth, at least, if their own assertions are to be received, most of my townsmen would fain walk sometimes, as I do, but they cannot.  No wealth can buy the requisite leisure, freedom, and independence, which are the capital in this profession.  It comes only by the grace of God.  It requires a direct dispensation from Heaven to become a walker.  You must be born into the family of the Walkers. Ambulator nascitur, non fit.  Some of my townsmen, it is true, can remember and have described to me some walks which they took ten years ago, in which they were so blessed as to lose themselves for half an hour in the woods; but I know very well that they have confined themselves to the highway ever since, whatever pretensions they may make to belong to this select class.  No doubt they were elevated for a moment as by the reminiscence of a previous state of existence, when even they were foresters and outlaws.

  “When he came to grene wode,
    In a mery mornynge,
  There he herde the notes small
    Of byrdes mery syngynge.

  “It is ferre gone, sayd Robyn,
    That I was last here;
  Me lyste a lytell for to shote
    At the donne dere.”

I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least—­and it is commonly more than that—­sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.  You may safely say, A penny for your thoughts, or a thousand pounds.  When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics and shopkeepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, but all the afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so many of them,—­as if the legs were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon,—­I think that they deserve some credit for not having all committed suicide long ago.