s more important neighbours had concluded their
operations, could only offer engagements to a select few of their
companies. The rest must needs wander. Whatever their predilections,
they were strollers upon compulsion.

Indeed, strolling was only feasible during summer weather. Audiences
could hardly be moved from their firesides in winter, barns were too
full of grain to be available for theatrical purposes, and the players
were then glad to secure such regular employment as they could,
however slender might be the scale of their remuneration. There is a
story told of a veteran and a tyro actor walking in the fields early
in the year, when, suddenly, the elder ran from the path, stopped
abruptly, and planting his foot firmly upon the green-sward, exclaimed
with ecstasy: "Three, by heaven! _That_ for managers!" and snapped his
fingers. His companion asked an explanation of this strange conduct.
"You'll know before you have strutted in three more barns," said the
"old hand." "In winter, managers are the most impudent fellows living,
because they know we don't like to travel, don't like to leave our
nests, fear the cold, and all that. But when I can put my foot upon
three daisies--summer's near, and managers may whistle for me!"

The life was not dignified, perhaps, but it had certain picturesque
qualities. The stroller toiling on his own account, "padding the
hoof," as he called journeying on foot--a small bundle under his arm,
containing a few clothes and professional appliances--wandered from
place to place, stopping now at a fair, now at a tavern, now at a
country-house, to deliver recitations and speeches, and to gain such
reward for his labours as he might. Generally he found it advisable,
however, to join a company of his brethren and share profits with
them, parting from them again upon a difference of opinion or upon the
receipts diminishing too seriously, when he would again rely upon his
independent exertions. Sometimes the actor was able to hire or
purchase scenes and dresses, the latter being procured generally from
certain shops in Monmouth Street dealing in cast clothes and tarnished
frippery that did well enough for histrionic purposes; then, engaging
a company, he would start from London as a manager, to visit certain
districts where it was thought that a harvest might be reaped. The
receipts were divided among the troop upon a prearranged method. The
impresario took shares in his different characters o