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LANGUAGE AND GLOBALIZATION

Labour Policies,
Language Use and the
‘New’ Economy
The Case of Adventure Tourism

Kellie Gonçalves
Language and Globalization

Series Editors
Sue Wright
University of Portsmouth
Portsmouth, UK

Helen Kelly-Holmes
FAHSS
University of Limerick
Castletroy Limerick, Ireland
In the context of current political and social developments, where the
national group is not so clearly defined and delineated, the state lan-
guage not so clearly dominant in every domain, and cross-border flows
and transfers affects more than a small elite, new patterns of language
use will develop. This series aims to provide a framework for report-
ing on and analysing the lingustic outcomes of globalization and
localization.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14830
 Kellie Gonçalves

Labour Policies,
Language Use
and the ‘New’
Economy
The Case of Adventure Tourism
Kellie Gonçalves
English Department
University of Cologne
Cologne, Germany

Language and Globalization

ISBN 978-3-030-48704-1 ISBN 978-3-030-48705-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48705-8

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For Núbia and Alois—my best adventure yet!
 Acknowledgments

This book has been a long time in the making and there are so many
individuals I would like to thank for their assistance, encouragement
and support that came in many different forms. This book is based
on a mobile, ethnographic study that officially began in Interlaken,
Switzerland in 2010 although the idea of such a study started brewing
years earlier. Living in a small community that economically thrives
on tourism and having been engaged in the adventure tourism directly
allowed me unfettered access to many individuals and sources both
locally and transnationally that I might not have been able to access
otherwise. As such, I am indebted to many people both far and near
for their generous support, time and assistance with regards to this pro-
ject and the completion of this book. First and foremost, I would like
to thank all of the participants of this study for their invaluable time
and insight into the world of adventure tourism and global mobility.
Without them, this study would not have been possible. While many
names have been altered to protect individuals and organizations ano-
nymity, several names have also remained unchanged.
In Interlaken, I would like to thank the Tourism Office Interlaken
(TOI) and especially Alice Leu and Stefan Otz for their time, support

vii
viii      Acknowledgments

and assistance with TOI’s archive material. To my friends and colleagues

directly and indirectly involved in the adventure tourism industry: Remo
Stüssi, Julian Moore, Sebastian Meier, Daniela Meier, Peter Bühler,
Röbi Caspani, Häppy Michel, Claudia Michel, Markus Zimmermann,
Süsle Zimmermann, Nicole Insley, Jessica Powers, Corinne Deschères,
Pascal Deschères, Nina Deschères and Alois Rettenbacher, our many
conversations over the years have (and continue) to provide me with so
much food for thought. Thanks for always engaging with me on this
topic and keeping me up to date on things while I was away!
In Queenstown, I would like to thank everyone at Destination
Queenstown for their assistance as well individuals who helped me with
the archival work at the Lakes District Museum in Arrowtown, New
Zealand. A huge thanks to both Hannah Carmen and the “other Kelly”
for their assistance with the interviews. Together, the data collection
for this project was much more manageable. I would also like to thank
The Skyline crew in Queenstown and a special thanks to Chris Gut and
Gavin Taylor for their considerate hospitality and kind generosity in
hosting me during my time in Queenstown by offering me shelter, a
car when necessary, and a bike my size to cruise around town to get my
work done. Thanks also to Melissa Daly for your friendship, intriguing
questions and our early morning yoga sessions.
When this project officially began I was at the University of Bern,
Switzerland working with Dave Britain. Dave and I both love New
Zealand for various and different reasons, but without his support and
intellectual exchange surrounding ideas of mobility and place, this pro-
ject might not have seen the light of day. I am indebted to Dave for
being persistent but never pushy about when my trip to New Zealand
was taking place and for always allowing me to debrief and talk about
my ideas whenever necessary.
I would also like to thank all of my students at the University of
Bern, Switzerland who were in my courses Discourse and Tourism
MA Seminar 2012, The Linguistic Consequences of Globalization MA
Seminar 2013, Discourse and Tourism BA Seminar 2013 and Linguistic
Landscapes BA Seminar 2013, who assisted me with data collection for
this project during our fieldwork trips. Your diligence was absolutely
invaluable for this project and I also learned a lot from you. I am also
 Acknowledgments     ix

very thankful to many students over the years who assisted with the
transcriptions of the spoken corpus. Your time, effort and precision has
never gone unnoticed!
This longitudinal project was also only possible due to extremely gen-
erous funding I received from diverse funding bodies over the years.
I am extremely grateful to the Swiss National Science Foundation
which partially funded this project through the Marie Heim Vögtlin
Fellowship PMPDP1_158279/1 from 2015 to 2017.
I am also greatly indebted to the Bern University Research
Foundation 40/2012, which generously funded my fieldwork trip to
Queenstown in 2013 allowing me to hire two research assistants and
collect an extraordinary amount of data in a relatively short time.
I would also like to thank MultiLing (Center for Multilingualism
in Society Across the Lifespan) and the Research Council of Norway
through its Centres of Excellence funding scheme 223265, which ena-
bled me to work on the finalization of this book manuscript in 2019.
Thank you to Aafke Diepeveen for her research assistance throughout
different stages of the manuscript preparation in 2019.
Writing a book is also only ever possible if you have the support,
encouragement and guidance from a publisher and various editors.
This was most definitely the case with this book. I want to thank the
series editors, Sue Wright and Helen Kelly-Holmes for enthusiastically
accepting this book into their Language and Globalization series and for
challenging me to write up an accessible “how to guide” for younger
scholars. I would also like to thank external reviewers who specifically
asked me to write “less densely” in order to appeal to a wider audience.
I also want to extend my thanks to Beth Farrow, Cathy Scott and Alice
Green at Palgrave for their exceptional patience and always being availa-
ble to assist me at a moment’s notice.
It is difficult to write about adventure tourism and adventure meccas
without providing readers with the visuals to guide them. I am indebted
to various individuals, organizations and companies for giving me the
necessary permission to reproduce material within the chapters of this
book. Thank you to Christoph Leibundgut at TOI, Janine and Dan
Patittuci at PatitucciPhotos, Hene Loosli at Alpin Raft, Brent Maggio at
ViralHog, Ruth Peddie at AJ Hackett and Alois Rettenbacher.
x      Acknowledgments

Parts of this research have been presented at different conferences and

I would like to thank colleagues, peers and students for their questions,
comments and critical feedback. Within this context, I would especially
like to thank Crispin Thurlow and Adam Jaworski for their mentorship
and encouragement over the years and whose work has helped shape my
own ideas about tourism, place and performance.
To my wonderful colleagues and friends who read through differ-
ent chapters of this book at various stages, thank you ever so much for
taking the time out of your busy lives to give me feedback and sugges-
tions on ways to improve specific chapters. Thank you to Beatrix Busse,
Dave Britain, David Machin, Maiju Strömmer, David Divita, Rafael
Lomeu Gomes and Haley De Korne. This book reads better because of
your constructive feedback and intellectual generosity. All shortcomings
are my own.
And finally, I would like to thank my family: my mom, dad, Jen,
Alois and Núbia for your patience, love, support and acceptance. I
know that my runs are not always convenient or conducive to family
time, so thank you for providing me with the space and time needed
to engage in my own solitary adventures. Núbia, although you may not
realize it now, your questions and help with my index, figures and cover
layout was invaluable, may your persistence, endurance and creativity
never falter, thank you so much! And last, but not least, thank you to
Alois and Núbia, by far, my greatest adventure yet! Thank you both for
making it possible for me to be away for long stretches at a time and
for perfecting our alternative lifestyles and often very hypermobile lives.
May our joint adventures on land, at sea and in the sky continue to
keep us excited and energized!
 Contents

1 Theorizing Mobility, Place and Adventure Tourism 1

1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Mobility and Mobilities 5
1.3 The Discourse of Escapism 10
1.4 Tourism and the Tourism Industry 14
1.5 Place 20
1.5.1 The Performance of Place 22
1.6 Adventure Tourism: An Overview 24
1.6.1 Adventure Travel and Adventure Tourism 28
1.7 Outline of Book 33
References 37

2 Adventure Playgrounds: Places to Play and Places

“in Play” 47
2.1 Introduction 47
2.1.1 Queenstown, New Zealand 48
2.1.2 Interlaken, Switzerland 56
2.1.3 Chapter Summary 68
References 69

xi
xii      Contents

3 Mobile and Global Ethnography in Two Hemispheres 71

3.1 Introduction 71
3.2 Mobile Ethnography 72
3.2.1 Mobile Methods 74
3.3 Accessing Participants 76
3.3.1 Tourists, Locals and Lifestyle Mobility
Residents: The Social and Theoretical
Categorization of Participants 80
3.3.2 Locals 81
3.3.3 Tourists 83
3.3.4 Travelers and Backpackers 84
3.3.5 Hostels as Places of Transient Residences 87
3.4 Mobile Lifestyles—Residents and Migrants 88
3.4.1 Lifestyle 89
3.4.2 Lifestyle Migration 97
3.4.3 Lifestyle Mobilities 100
3.5 Chapter Summary 101
References 102

4 Labor Regulation and Hypermobility Within Adventure

Tourism’s Niche Market 107
4.1 Introduction 107
4.2 New Zealand’s Current Tourism Industry 111
4.2.1 Immigration Policy and Labor Market
Demand 113
4.2.2 Local Labor Shortages and Unskilled
Workers in Queenstown 115
4.3 Switzerland’s National Economy and the Tourism
Industry 118
4.3.1 Labor Migration in Switzerland 118
4.4 Hypermobility 123
4.4.1 Adventure Playgrounds: The Interface
of Global Mobility, Labor and Leisure 127
4.4.2 The Socioeconomic Consequences
of a “Transient” Place and “Workforce” 135
4.4.2.1 The Positive Effects
of Hypermobility 139
 Contents     xiii

4.5 Chapter Summary 141

References 142

5 The Performance of Place and Tourist Performativity

Through Bungee Jumping On and Offline 147
5.1 Introduction 147
5.2 Performance Theory 149
5.3 Bungee Jumping and Perceived Risk 152
5.4 Selling Thrill! A Multimodal Approach to Bungee
Jumping 158
5.4.1 Investigating Controlled Risk and the
Semiotics of Fear 170
5.5 The Kawarau Bridge—Queenstown’s First Bungee Site 173
5.5.1 Before the Jump—Discursive Accounts
from Newbie Jumpers 176
5.5.2 On the “Edge” and the Performance
of Courage 178
5.5.3 Conquering the Jump and Individuals’
Reassessment of Their Social Statuses 179
5.6 Chapter Summary 181
References 183

6 Concluding Thoughts 189

References 196

7 Advice: What to Bear in Mind if You Decide

on an Ethnographic Study of Your Own 197
7.1 Introduction 197
7.1.1 Gender Matters 198
7.1.1.1 Guidelines in a Male-Dominated
Industry 202
7.1.2 Ideas, Research Questions and the Time
Factor 203
7.1.2.1 Data Collection and Informed
Consent 205
7.1.2.2 Crossing Borders and “Academic
Migration” 210
xiv      Contents

7.1.3 Data, What Kind and How Much? 210

7.1.3.1 “Be Prepared” 213
7.1.3.2 “Be Adaptable” 215
7.1.3.3 “Be Mindful and Respectful” 217
7.1.4 Ethnographic Observation 217
7.1.4.1 Field Notes 220
7.1.4.2 Paragliding in Interlaken—An Insider/
Outsider’s Perspective 222
7.1.4.3 Accidents and the Shaping of Place 223
7.1.4.4 Cultural Artifacts 227
7.1.4.5 Interviews as Conversations 233
7.1.4.6 Don’t Forget to Say Thank You 237
7.2 Suggestions for Further Reading 238
References 239

Bibliography 245

Index 269
 List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 The Commodification of Adventure and its components

(Adapted from Beedie 2003) 32
Fig. 2.1 A view of Queenstown inlet and bay, the Remarkables
mountain range and Lake Wakatipu. This image is taken
from the skyline gondola station 48
Fig. 2.2 Panoramic map of Interlaken with surrounding lakes
and mountains 57
Fig. 2.3 Global Air: a picture of the first charter flight from London
in 1965 61
Fig. 2.4 The sales manual of Interlaken (1986) promoting
Interlaken as a year-round resort town 63
Fig. 2.5 Interlaken polygon 1986 64
Fig. 2.6 Alpin Raft, which was established in 1988 began with
selling rafting trips down the River Lütschine 65
Fig. 3.1 World-class Swiss mountaineer and solo climber Ueli Steck
on the cover of Mountain Hard Wear Magazine 93
Fig. 4.1 Queenstown Employer Guide and Essential Skills work
visa applications 116
Fig. 5.1 A.J. Hackett’s main bungee jumping website 160
Fig. 5.2 The Kawarau Bridge bungee website 164
Fig. 5.3 Selfie shot of young male bungee jumper 165

xv
xvi      List of Figures

Fig. 5.4 Selfie shot of young female bungee jumper 166

Fig. 5.5 Poster of the Nevis bungee 172
Fig. 5.6 The Kawarau Bridge bungee site 173
Fig. 5.7 View from the Kawarau Bridge jumping platform 174
Fig. 5.8 The 47-meter jump with the yellow dingy visibly parked,
which is responsible for getting jumpers afterwards
and bringing them safely back to land 174
Fig. 5.9 The infamous “edge”, the location from where bungee
jumpers jump, leap or dive, which simultaneously serves
as their performance platform 179
Fig. 7.1 The location and memorial of the Saxeten Brook Tragedy
from 1999 224
Fig. 7.2 The Memorial Park Plaque 225
Fig. 7.3 Screenshot of a YouTube video 227
Fig. 7.4 Do you speak tourism? Editorial 228
Fig. 7.5 News about English version of a local and regional
newspaper 229
Fig. 7.6 English Spotlight—the first English newspaper
in the region and apparently also in Europe 232
 List of Tables

Table 1.1 Soft and hard adventure activities by US residents

(Adapted from Muller and Cleaver 2000) 30
Table 3.1 Mixed methods used in this study (Adapted from Büscher
et al. 2010) 75
Table 3.2 Attributes of tourists and travelers ascribed by travelers
in Week’s (2012) study 86
Table 4.1 Aspects of mobility signifying network capital
(Cohen and Gössling 2015) 125
Table 7.1 Guidelines for fieldwork 203
Table 7.2 Aims of observational research (based on Bryman 1988) 218

xvii
 1
Theorizing Mobility, Place and Adventure
Tourism

1.1 Introduction
because you get paid so little here (laughs) you can never afford to go
back, and my family isn’t loaded so […]and the best times you know,
when I took, I took the past four winters off, I had three months off each
so I’ve done 260 days of boarding in the past four years, that’s fucking
awesome you know?

The above quote comes from a 33-year-old British man who at the
time of my fieldwork in Queenstown, New Zealand, considered
to be the world’s adventure capital, had been living and working as a
grounds person for a skydiving company for five years. For him, the
little amount of money he earns in the adventure tourism industry is
outweighed by his nonworking leisure time activities such as snow-
boarding, which carry much more cultural, network and thus sym-
bolic capital within the subculture of the adventure tourism industry.
From my 10-year comparative ethnographic study on the adventure
tourism industry and long residency in Interlaken, Switzerland, I argue
that the adventure tourism industry is located at the interface of labor,
leisure, travel, mobility and migration, where boundaries are not only
© The Author(s) 2020 1
K. Gonçalves, Labour Policies, Language Use and the ‘New’ Economy,
Language and Globalization, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48705-8_1
2    
K. Gonçalves

becoming “blurry”, but in line with Duncan et al. (2013), also collaps-
ing. This means viewing the margins of work and leisure, labor and play
as not necessarily separated or clearly regulated spheres of daily social
practice.
This man’s quote above also resonates with Giddens’ concern about
the “mobile nature of self-identity” (1991: 81) within postindustrial
lifestyles where personal choice and a plurality of lifestyle options reign.
Indeed, for some privileged individuals, like the one above, choices are
“part of a new cultural tendency, and indeed compulsion, to develop
life plans and relationship stories in ever more inventive ways” (Elliott
and Urry 2010: 90–91). Individuals involved in the adventure tourism
industry from the time of its establishment in the 1980s have and con-
tinue to lead alternative lifestyles that are characterized by particular
sociocultural, political-economic trends, where work and leisure have
become meshed and imbued with different sociocultural values and
thus symbolic meaning for the ideological construction of identity both
individually and collectively.
In fact, this particular individual and the many more that I spoke
with during my time in both Interlaken and Queenstown is a prime
example of the “mobile lifestyle resident” and western nomad, whose
identities and life experiences are characterized by choice, shifting
mobilities and lifestyle experimentation due to the development of
niche markets within the global new economy, where tourism, and
more specifically, adventure tourism, a now global and cultural industry,
relies on the commodification of experience, thrill and risk. Like many
other forms of cultural tourism, adventure tourism becomes a dominant
site for the mobility of ideas, capital, resources and individuals, where
places, characterized principally by their topographical features and
laidback lifestyles, are specifically equipped, toured and performed by
different groups of people both on and offline.
The quote above encompasses many of the themes discussed through-
out this book that have to do with labor, leisure, mobility, adventure,
place and performance. The data for this study stems from a decade
of ethnographic work based on my long-term residency in Interlaken,
Switzerland (2001–2014) and personal experience within the adven-
ture tourism industry itself, which I discuss in more detail in both
 1 Theorizing Mobility, Place and Adventure Tourism    
3

Chapters 3 and 7. Adventure tourism constitutes a major mode of tour-

ist mobility—and one that is growing rapidly (Swarbrooke et al. 2003;
McKay 2014). Within the context of adventure tourism, Interlaken,
Switzerland and Queenstown, New Zealand have both become major
global destinations, Interlaken due to its central geographical location
within Europe and access to some of the highest peaks in the Swiss Alps
and Queenstown because of its location in the Southern Alps marked
by its “Global Adventure Badge” (Lonely Planet 2010: 301). Both
towns are of similar size (15,000 inhabitants) and economically thrive
on tourism. In fact, over 90% of the local economies of Interlaken
and Queenstown are generated through tourism (Berwert 2006; Van
Uden 2013), which are relevant for both countries’ national economies,
making them key players within the global market of tourism.
With anywhere from 2 to 3 million visitors passing through annu-
ally, both places have become magnets for lifestyle mobility residents,
lifestyle migrants, transnational migrant workers and adventure seekers
(which I define in Chapter 3), making them ideal sites for investigating
the social production of place, and how it has become meaningful for
different groups of people (Tuan 1977; Agnew 1987; Cresswell 2004;
Jaworski and Thurlow 2004; Massey 2005; Thurlow and Jaworski 2010,
2011a, b; Gonçalves 2018) as well as examining how places are embod-
ied and performed linguistically, visually and thus semiotically by tour-
ists, locals, tourism operators and marketing agencies to name but a few
key social actors. In fact, it is precisely because these diverse groups of
people and the combination of the anchored and the mobile feed off of
each other that Interlaken and Queenstown become fascinating sites for
social scientific inquiry and sociolinguistics more specifically.
For the most part, sociolinguists, applied linguists and linguistic
anthropologists have been concerned with investigating language in
tourism “as an important window into contemporary forms of eco-
nomic, political and social change” (Heller et al. 2014: 425). As such,
scholars have focused their attention on fleeting encounters between
hosts and guests, the symbolic (and meta symbolic) uses of lan-
guage within tourism domains, tensions between commodification
and authenticity, performances of self and other, and contestations of
identity claims with respect to individuals’ multilingual repertoires.
4    
K. Gonçalves

These are some of the ways in which Heller et al. (2014) propose tour-
ism can be used “as a lens for a broader discussion of the sociolinguistics
of late modernity” (ibid.). In these ways, scholars of language share a
common concern with other social scientists (primarily sociologists and
human geographers) around contested notions of “community”, “iden-
tity” and “place”. As scholars of language, a primary aim has been to
better understand how language(s), multilingual repertoires and circu-
lating discourses and other semiotic systems are deployed for reasons
of authentication, commodification and meaning-making within the
“new” economy that “foregrounds an intensified circulation of human,
material, and symbolic resources” (Heller et al. 2014: 428).
In this book, which is situated within the subfield of the “sociolin-
guistics of tourism”, I am concerned with various complex processes
pertaining to tourism and of adventure tourism in particular. First, I
am concerned with the circulation of people as both tourists and trans-
national migrant workers in two global adventure meccas since these
two distinct groups of people are currently considered to be the larg-
est groups traversing the world to date, but for very different socioec-
onomic and political reasons. Second, I am interested in the ways in
which places are experienced, performed and sold, and thus adopt a
performative approach to place in my discussion of place-making prac-
tices. Third, I am interested in the semiotic industry of tourism and the
commodification of adventure both online and offline, where thrill, risk
and safety of “embodied challenges” are bottled up, packaged and sold
linguistically, visually and thus semiotically, where individuals’ identities
and bodies are reassessed and imbued with cultural, social and network
capital. Fourth, I am interested in current theories of mobility that epis-
temologically question the boundaries and breakdown between labor,
migration and leisure happening in contemporary times where the cir-
culation of individuals, material and symbolic resources are taking place
at rapid speeds. This discussion centers around places of play where
a kind of post-precariat workforce has emerged as a result of distinct
labor and immigration policies that have been created in order to both
facilitate and block movement of people between certain nation-states
in order to remain competitive within the global new economy. How
mobility is theoretically being accounted for and empirically captured
 1 Theorizing Mobility, Place and Adventure Tourism    
5

in postmodern times does not only pertain to the participants of this

study and my discussion of adventure tourism hubs, but also to me as a
researcher and the methodological approach taken in this study, which
is one of a global, multi-sited and mobile ethnography. Engaging in this
type of method means that the research being carried out is inevitably
epistemologically linked with mobility, and contributes to the existing
literature on the sociolinguistics of tourism. All of these concerns and
interests are discussed throughout various chapters in the book. I have
written this book in a style that I hope is accessible to students at the
graduate level (and above) and for individuals in sociolinguistics as well
as tourism studies that are concerned with the intersection of language,
labor, mobility/migration and leisure. In the next section, I discuss con-
cepts such as mobilities, tourism, place and adventure in order to better
understand how these notions have been discussed and theorized from
different interdisciplinary perspectives.

1.2 Mobility and Mobilities

We are currently living in what Elliott and Urry have termed the
“golden age of mobility” (2010: ix), where people seem to be moving
more than ever before. In his 2007 book entitled Mobilities, Urry states
that “it sometimes seems as if all the world were on the move” and con-
tinues by listing what he perceives to be “all the world” (2007: 3):

The early retired, international students, terrorists, members of diasporas,

holiday makers, business people, slaves, sports stars, asylum seekers, ref-
ugees, backpackers, commuters, young mobile professionals, prostitutes,
- these and many others – seem to find the contemporary world is their
oyster or at least their destiny.

The individuals or groups of people mentioned above move around for

different reasons. While some are mobile because they can be and due
to their socioeconomic status such as holidaymakers, others, like refu-
gees and asylum seekers may not necessarily be afforded such choices
due to their sociopolitical situation. Regardless of what type of mobility
6    
K. Gonçalves

one is afforded, the scale of such travel is “immense” and considered by

Sheller and Urry to be “the largest peaceful movement of people, flows,
goods and capital” (2004: 3). The social changes implicated in such
movements are connected to and perhaps even considered to be the
consequence of certain processes of globalization (Giddens 1990, 2000)
as well as innovative and mobile technologies within late or “new”
modernity (Beck 1982; Giddens 2000) or what Bauman calls “liquid
modernity” (2000).
The movement and contact of people, goods and capital has always
been and continues to flow. Never before have Western societies experi-
enced the pace and rate of such mobility, movement and “global com-
plexities” (Thrift 1999; Urry 2003) whether we view them as “scapes”
(Urry 2003) “flows” (Appadurai 2001; Pennycook 2007) “fluids” (Mol
and Law 1994), “regions” or “networks” (Castells 1996, 2000, 2001)
(but cf. Britain 2016 for a counter-argument). We have come a long
way since the industrial revolution and the invention of the railroad
(Schivelbusch 1986; Thrift 1996), which is considered to be a salient
milestone within the context of mobility and the time-space compres-
sion (Cresswell 2006; Massey 1993; Urry 2003). We live in a world,
where individuals, if afforded monetary funds and the luxury of time,
can book a flight from point A to point B in a matter of minutes with
just a few clicks of a button. For Giddens, we are living in a world that
has never before existed which he terms “a global cosmopolitan soci-
ety” (2010: 19) and as the first generation to experience and live in this
kind of fast-paced, digitized and highly mobile society, we have yet to
experience the consequences.
Indeed, many of us residing in the Western world live mobile lives,
where travel has not only become routine, but for many has become a
necessity and possibly even, a chore. With the invention of the mobile
phone and all things “smart”, access to information and virtual travel is
not only possible, but instantaneous. At the same time, it is important
to realize that this access and speed also has the potential in many ways
to stymy mobility. Nevertheless, it is astonishing to witness how techno-
logical gadgets continue to change so rapidly with new, better and faster
functions and connections. We live in an age where four-year-olds have
their own user names and even infants are able to maneuver ipads.
 1 Theorizing Mobility, Place and Adventure Tourism    
7

As an academic, being mobile is by no means foreign to me, but part

of my job and daily routine. At the time of finishing this book, I was
commuting every fortnight from Oslo, Norway where I work, to a small
alpine village in Austria, where my family resides. Not only do I com-
mute transnationally on a regular basis, but during university holidays,
I move countries to visit my family in the States and attend conferences
in all parts of the world. Booking a flight and hopping on a plane has
become second nature to me and living out of a suitcase is something
I can easily do although I don’t always like it (Gonçalves 2019). Being
mobile and experiencing travel nowadays is considered to be the epit-
ome and “part of the problem” (Minca and Oakes 2006: 1) of being
modern (Sennett 1994; Cresswell 2006). And as a result, the terms
mobility and modernity cannot be used without reference to the other.
The rate of my mobility slowed down a bit after having a child, but
being on the move comes easily to me, and a process that I did not
think about very seriously over the last few years. Elliott and Urry claim
that, “people today travel 23 billion kilometers each year. By 2050 it is
predicted that, if resource constraints do not intervene, this will increase
fourfold to 106 billion kilometers each year” (2010: ix). Looking at
these figures, one might question if really all the world is on the move?
According to Mazareanu (2020) the year 2020 is expected to set a new
record in terms of scheduled airline passengers with over 4.72 billion,
which is around 137% higher than in 2004. These numbers will surely
be affected by the recent coronavirus virus outbreak, but nevertheless
these figures are projected to increase in the future. Indeed, we have to
keep in mind that different types of mobility are reserved for different
kinds of people, which often reflect their socioeconomic or sociopoliti-
cal status. Increased numbers of airline passengers worldwide reflect the
growth of the global middle-class and resonate with Thurlow’s discus-
sion of performing “post-class” ideologies that within the global polit-
ical economy of life, everyone on a plane is elite and privileged (2016:
489). Despite knowing this, I was nevertheless surprised when we
recently hired a 20-year-old au pair from the UK, who was still wait-
ing for her passport to come through in order to travel. I know and am
even related to many nonmobile people like certain family members in
Brazil and friends in the US who do not have passports, but because
8    
K. Gonçalves

of my intercultural upbringing and current employment, I have been

granted numerous possibilities and opportunities for being on the move
for quite some time. And while being mobile bears positive connota-
tions like freedom, excitement and novelty, individuals that lead such
lifestyles are also confronted with anxiety, emotional disconnection and
depression (Elliott and Urry 2010: 9; Gonçalves 2018, 2019). It is now,
with our au pair that questions of mobility have and continue to enter
our family discussions regularly.
Before her employment with us, our au pair had never left England
and after just 3 days with our family, she had already traveled to two
different countries. She experiences mobility differently in Switzerland
and Austria than she did in the UK. In the UK, she either walked every-
where or used her bike. She does not drive herself but is often a passen-
ger in cars of others. When we are in Switzerland, she either walks, uses
a bike, hops on a bus and occasionally, even uses the train. In Austria,
she walks or is a passenger in someone’s car or a passenger in the local
village shuttle bus. Because she was not used to being on a train in the
UK very often, the first time she used a train in Switzerland on her own
was connected to feelings of nervousness, anxiety and even fear. She
was nervous she would get the wrong train, afraid she would miss the
stop, anxious about getting lost and scared to ask anyone any questions
because she did not speak Standard German or the local Swiss German
“Bernese” dialect. These were the issues I was confronted with from her
before she set off to explore the small Alpine village of Wengen (and go
sightseeing) on one of her days off. Instead of being relaxed and even
excited for the time off and perhaps even short “adventure”, she was
absolutely overwhelmed by several factors, namely, being in a foreign
country, being on her own, employing different means of transportation
she was not familiar with, and not speaking the local language. She was
responsible for herself during this time and had to make certain deci-
sions she was not used to making. Taken out of this specific context,
one could look at these factors and connect them to the terms “tourist”
and “tourism”, terms that have been and continue to be disputed within
different academic circles and which I will come back to a bit later.
Before delving into definitions though, one might think of tour-
ism as having positive connotations attached to leisure activities, an
 1 Theorizing Mobility, Place and Adventure Tourism    
9

unstructured timetable, various options of how to spend one’s time, but

this was clearly not how our au pair viewed her time off to go “sight-
seeing”. Franklin states that, “tourism is often something of a paradox”
because “it is commonly portrayed as an escape from work and essen-
tially about pleasure but so many forms and experiences of tourism seem
to involve, on the face of it, the opposite” (2003: 3, italics in original).
Franklin’s description of tourism fits in well with what our au pair expe-
rienced that day. She was not experiencing pleasure or an escape by any
means, but was in fact quite stressed out about her upcoming journey.
While she may not have had a timetable to stick to, she had to stick
to the train’s timetable. In order to make and take the right train, she
had to calculate how many minutes she required to be at the station
in advance, which influenced how she would get to the train station
in the first place, either by taking her bike or walking. Then she had
to calculate the time she wanted to spend up in Wengen based on the
number of trains available to get back home again later that evening.
For her, this meant more choices, more options, more calculations and
ultimately more stress rather than a day off considered to be fun, relax-
ing and even pleasurable. Bauman has commented on such experiences
when he states, “there are many hardships one needs to suffer for the
sake of tourist’s freedom: the impossibility of slowing down, uncertainty
wrapping every choice [and] risks attached to every decision” (1998:
98). Such hardships were ones that our au pair did experience on that
particular day, but eventually she was able to overcome them and she
even managed to enjoy herself as well as the scenic mountain landscapes
from Wengen. This anecdote about our au pair exemplifies how certain
acts of mobility and tourist performances go hand in hand. Sheller and
Urry (2004: 5) assert that, “tourism and mobility cannot be viewed as
two separate entities but part and parcel of the same set of complex and
interconnected systems”.
At this point it makes sense to review some of the literature sur-
rounding these theoretical frameworks, concepts and definitions, many
of which are not only contested, but “fuzzy”. Coming back to my au
pair anecdote, which I initially described as a form of “tourism”, could
in fact be considered problematic because of tourism’s status. Tourism,
because it is often equated with travel, day-tripping and even culture
10    
K. Gonçalves

has been epistemologically questioned (Rojek and Urry 1997), which

will be discussed in the following sections that address the discourse of
escapism, the “touristic manner” and the tourism industry.

1.3 The Discourse of Escapism

Scholars in both the past and present have conceptualized tourism and
modernity as a circulating discourse of escapism. According to Urry
(2002: 5):

If people do not travel, they lose status: travel is the marker of status. It is
a crucial element of modern life to feel that travel and holidays are neces-
sary. ‘I need a holiday’ is the surest reflection of a modern discourse based
on the idea that people’s physical and mental health will be restored if
only they can ‘get away’ from time to time.

Gottlieb asserts that individuals partaking on a vacation or holiday

are precisely looking for the inversion of the everyday (1982) while
Robinson makes a distinction between the pleasurable experiences tour-
ism offers to individuals as being out of the ordinary or even extraordi-
nary from their everyday lives (1976: 1570). This is what Löfgren terms
the “optimistic tone of the Enlightenment”:

[….] where the credo of modernity is ‘life can always be improved’. To

be part of the modern project is to be on the move, advancing through
unknown terrain, making new discoveries, getting rid of old habits and
traditions, striding freely forward with an open, but also restless mind.
(1999: 268)

The urge to escape from “normal life” as Franklin calls it emerged in the
late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries due to the “new domesticity of
the urban bourgeoisie” where work regulation and wage labor contrib-
uted to the concept of “free” leisure time within a new industrial soci-
ety (Löfgren 1999: 269). Embarking on a holiday meant leaving one’s
home and workplace by physically going to another place, where work
 1 Theorizing Mobility, Place and Adventure Tourism    
11

demands and daily routines were diminished, a time when “vacation life
became territorialized hedonism” (ibid.). In The Art of Travel, De Botton
(2002) talks about the French writer and poet Charles Baudelaire, who
wrote extensively about the paradoxes of traveling in the mid to late
nineteenth century. In one of his writings, he draws on the metaphors
of hospitals and patients to express his ambivalent views about traveling
and individuals’ desires to be in different places:

Life is a hospital in which every patient is obsessed with changing beds:

this one wants to suffer in front of the radiator, and that one thinks he’d
get better if he was by the window […] it always seems to me that I’ll be
well where I am not, and this question of moving is one that I’m forever
entertaining with my soul. (Baudelaire, as quoted in De Botton 2002: 32)

For Baudelaire, traveling and physically moving from one’s current loca-
tion to another is an act individuals’ have become “obsessed” with, truly
believing that a change of scenery would heal the wounds, ailments and
diseases of their daily sufferings. Moreover, he too readily admits that he
is convinced of correlating happiness and well-being to the alteration of
place although frankly questioning the ideas of movement and mobility
altogether. The discourse of moving places, escapism and its relation to
one’s well-being has been circulating for well over a century and as a
result, become an ideology of modern times. According to Kracauer:

more and more travel is becoming the incomparable occasion to be some-

where other than the very place one habitually is. It fulfills its decisive
function as spatial transformation, as a temporary change of location […]
travel has been reduced to a pure experience of space. (1995: 66)

Kracauer draws on the contrasts of being home versus being somewhere

else highlighting the saliency between the familiar and unfamiliar, the
known versus the unknown and perhaps even the mundane versus the
exciting. For Franklin, different scholars have varying explanations of
tourism, whether it is drawing on contrasts or employing the metaphor
12    
K. Gonçalves

of escape “highlighting the essential problematic conditions of everyday

life in modern capitalist societies” (2003: 29). He goes on further to
postulate that:

For many the realm of work, whether at home or in the labour market,
involves a series of pressured, alienating and stressful conditions that
require the occasional timeout. A change being as good as a rest? Probably
not. And are holidays truly restful or do they demand energy, hard work
and endurance? Mine frequently do. (Franklin 2003: 29)

The notion of escapism is also mentioned in Minca and Oakes’s

(2006: 14) introductory chapter about the paradoxes of travel. They state
that “while we like to think of travel as an escape of place, we have come
to believe that such an escape is a comforting myth and at worst an ide-
ology of control” (2006: 1). A few pages later, however, they admit to
how it can be perceived and conceived by others when they state:

Travel, we suggest, emerges from an impulse to order the world; it can be

conceived as a kind of escape from the disorder that confronts us in place.
To take to the road, to disavow, if only temporarily, one’s home place for
the open space of mobility, is to pay homage to our need for order. And
the space of travel offers “a special form of comfort, a reassuring presence”
(Casey 1997: 338). Travel seems to bring us closer to the abstract qualities
of space as opposed to lived messiness of place, to the universal categories
that space allows for.

For Minca and Oakes, traveling is still very much connected to chang-
ing one’s physical environment even if for a short time. For them, travel
allows individuals to, in some ways, order our world and perhaps cate-
gorize our time by delegating free and leisure time as opposed to work-
ing time, where designated chunks of time are reserved for particular
activities or specific ways of behaving, i.e., relaxing on holiday versus
concentrating on work tasks. For these scholars, thinking about these
distinct types of behaviors and performances is correlated onto differ-
ent places and spaces even if only temporarily and ideologically. Like
much of the work done in human geography, these scholars also view
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 In the fulness of time, and when our domestic seemed doomed to a
life of single blessedness, a wooer at last appeared in the person of
Peter Pearson, the pensioner. Peter had lost his wife; and six months
after her decease, he came to the conclusion that it is not good—that
it is utterly uncomfortable, in fact—for man to be alone. And so he
looked favourably upon Nanny Welsh, admired her proportions,
estimated her energy at its true value, and finally managed to make
his way into the manse kitchen of an evening. It must have cost him a
considerable effort to effect this at first, as he regarded the minister
with great awe. Peter had been in the artillery force. He had served in
Spain and South America, and returned home, not disabled, but “dull
of hearing,” to enjoy his hard-won pension. He was a quiet and
stolid, but kind-hearted man. He was very uncommunicative as
regarded his military service and exploits. It was impossible to force
or coax him to “fight his battles o’er again” by the fireside. Whether it
was owing to want of narrative power, or to some dark remembrance
that overshadowed his mind, Peter invariably maintained discreet
silence when soldiers and war became the topics of conversation. On
one occasion he was asked if he had ever been at Chili, and his
answer was, “I’ve been at Gibraltar at ony rate!” This sounds
somewhat like the reply of the smart youth who, when it was
inquired of him, if he had ever been in Paris, quickly responded, “No;
but my brother has been to Crail!”
The wooing of Peter Pearson, pensioner, and Nanny Welsh,
spinster, might have formed a new era in the history of courtship. No
sighs were heard. No side-long, loving glances passed between them.
There was no tremulous pressure of the hands, or tingling touch of
meeting lips. Peter was “senselessly ceevil,” although, I verily believe,
if he had attempted to kiss Nanny she would have brained him on the
spot with the beetle, and left the warrior to die ingloriously on the
hearthstone. No, they did not wish to make “auld fules” of
themselves. They wooed in their own way, and understood each
other perfectly well. Peter sat by the hearth, smoking his twist
peacefully, and squirting out the juice as he had done at camp-fires
in former years; and Nanny went about cleaning dishes, lifting
tables, and arranging chairs, and only exchanging occasional words
with her future husband. She was never so talkative when Peter was
present as when he was absent. It was only on rare occasions that she
ventured to sit down on a chair beside him. She seemed always afraid
of being caught doing anything so indecorous in the manse kitchen. I
scarcely think that Peter required to propose. It was a tacit
understanding, and their marriage-day was fixed, apparently, by
mutual uncommunicated arrangement.
On the night before the bridal some of the neighbouring domestics
and other women invaded the kitchen, and subjected Nanny to the
painful pleasure of feet-washing—a ceremony somewhat different
from the annual performance at Vienna. She kicked furiously at first,
calling her tormentors impudent hizzies and limmers; but she was
compelled at last to succumb, and yielded with more reluctance than
grace.
The marriage was celebrated quietly in the manse next day, and
the youngest of the family sat crowing on Nanny’s knee, while she
was being told the sum and substance of her duties as a wife. No
sooner was the ceremony concluded, than she tucked up her wedding
gown, and expressed her desire and determination to “see a’ things
putten richt i’ the kitchen afore she gaed awa’.” Peter had leased a
cottage in a little way-side village, about two miles distant from the
manse, and this was the extent of their marriage jaunt. No doubt the
evening would be spent hilariously by their friends and
acquaintances, who would drink the health of the “happy pair” with
overflowing bumpers.
Peter and Nanny lived very happily together, although “the gray
mare was the better horse.” She continued to be as industrious as
ever, and the pensioner managed to eke out his government pay by
what is called, in some parts of the country, “orra wark.” Nanny came
regularly every Sabbath to the manse between sermons, and took
pot-luck with the family. We were always glad to see her, and hear
her invariable, “Losh, laddie, is that you?” Many a time and oft we all
visited her cottage in a body, and what glorious teas she used to give
us! Still do I remember, and not without stomachic regrets, the
mountains of bannocks, the hills of cakes, the hillocks of cookies, the
ridges of butter, the red congealed pools of jelly, and the three tea-
spoonfuls of sugar in each cup! It was a never-to-be-forgotten treat.
Compare Nanny’s tea-parties with the fashionable “cookey-shines” of
the present generation! But, soft; that way madness lies! The good
woman had a garden too; and how we youngsters pitched into her
carrots, currants, and gooseberries, or rather, to speak correctly,
pitched them into ourselves. We remembered her own advice about
not returning home “garavishin’ and eatin’.” She prided herself
greatly upon her powers of pig-feeding, and next to the pleasure of
seeing us feasting like locusts was the delight she experienced in
contemplating, with folded arms, her precious pig devouring its meal
of potatoes and greens. “Isn’t it a bonny beastie?—did you ever see
sic a bonny beastie?” she would frequently exclaim. I never saw so
much affection bestowed before or since upon the lowest of the lower
animals. The pig knew her perfectly well, and responded to her
laudatory phrases by complacent grunts. Between Peter and the pig,
I am verily persuaded, she led a happier life than imperial princes in
their palaces. No little artilleryman ever made his appearance to
disturb the harmony of the house by tying crackers to the cat’s tail.
Nanny’s first visit to Edinburgh formed a rare episode in her life.
This happened a good many years after her marriage. The ride on the
top of the coach through the kingdom of Fife, she described as
“fearsome;” and the horses dashing up hill and down, excited her
liveliest compassion. When asked how she felt after her sail between
Kirkcaldy and Leith (the day was pleasant and the water smooth),
her reply was—“Wonnerfu’—wonnerfu’ weel, after sic a voyage!” The
streets of the city, the high houses, the multitudinous shops, and the
crowds of people, excited her rustic astonishment beyond all bounds.
“Is’t a market the day?” she would interject—“whaur’s a’ the folk
gaun?” Her own appearance on the pavement attracted the notice of
passers-by; and no wonder. Figure a big-boned, ungainly woman,
with long, freckled face and open mouth, and dressed in defiance of
the fashion of the time, striding up the Bridges, and “glowering” into
everybody’s face, as if she expected to see her “aunty’s second
cousin”—figure such a person, and you will form a respectable
picture of Nanny Welsh, alias Mrs Pearson, as she appeared many
years ago on the streets of Modern Athens. She could never go out
alone from the house where she was staying without losing herself.
Once she went to the shop next door, and it took her an hour to find
the way back again. On another occasion, when she had taken a
longer trip than usual, she went completely off her reckoning, forgot
the name of the street, mistook the part of the town, and asked every
person she met, gentle or simple, swells or sweeps, “Gin they kent
whaur Mrs So-and-so stopit!” I never learned correctly how she got
out of that scrape. All she could say was that “a ceevil man brocht her
to the bottom o’ the stair.” She was perfectly dumfoundered when
she saw and heard that the people of Edinburgh had to buy the “bits
o’ sticks” with which they kindled their fires in the morning. She
protested that she could bring “a barrowfu’ o’ rosity roots frae the
wuds that would keep her chimley gaun for a fortnicht.” Going to the
market to buy vegetables she looked upon as perfectly preposterous.
“Flingin’ awa,” she would say, “gude white saxpences an’ shillin’s for
neeps, carrots, ingans, an’ kail—it beats a’!”
The open-mouthed wonder of Nanny reached its height when one
night, after long and urgent solicitation, she was persuaded to go
under good protection to the Theatre Royal. Mackay was then in the
zenith of his fame, and attracted crowded houses, more especially by
his unique representation of Bailie Nicol Jarvie. Nanny was taken to
the pit. The blaze of light, the galleries rising one above another, the
gaily-dressed ladies, the sea of faces surging from floor to roof, the
whistling, hooting, and laughing—all these mingled together
produced a bewildering effect upon the poor woman, and her
bewilderment increased as the curtain rose and the play proceeded.
She was speechless for about an hour—she did nothing but gape and
gaze. A human being suddenly transported into some brilliant and
magical hall, or into another world, could scarcely have betrayed
more abject astonishment. At last her wonder found vent, and she
exclaimed in the hearing, and much to the amusement, of those who
surrounded her—“Tak me awa—tak me awa—this is no a place for me
—I’m just Peter Pearson’s ain wife!” She would not be persuaded to
remain even when the Bailie kept the house dissolved in loosened
laughter. The idea seemed to be strong in her mind that the people
were all laughing at her. She was the best actress, although the most
unconscious one, in the whole house. What a capital pair the Bailie
and Nanny would have made! She would have beat Miss Nicol. Her
first appearance on the stage would have been a perfect triumph—it
would have secured the fame and fortune of Mrs Pearson. Nanny
never liked to be asked her opinion of the Edinburgh theatre. She
only shook her head, and appeared to regard it as something akin to
Pandemonium.
Nanny’s stories about the sayings and doings of the Edinburgh
people served her for fireside talk many a winter evening after she
returned home to Peter Pearson. Peter, who had seen more of the
world, used to take a quiet chuckle to himself when she finished her
description of some “ferlie” that had excited her astonishment or
admiration. The gilded wonders above shop doors—the Highlanders
taking pinches of snuff—the wool-packs—the great glittering
spectacles—the rams’ heads and horns—these had excited her rustic
curiosity almost as much as they attract the interest of a child. Poor
honest Nanny! she has now slept for years where the “rude
forefathers of the hamlet sleep,” and Peter, after life’s fitful fever,
sleeps well by her side.—Pax Vobiscum!
 LADY JEAN:
A TALE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

Chapter I.
The Yerl o’ Wigton had three dauchters,
O braw walie! they were bonnie!
The youngest o’ them and the bonniest too,
Has fallen in love wi’ Richie Storie.
Old Ballad.

The Earl of Wigton, whose name figures in Scottish annals of the

reign of Charles II., had three daughters, named Lady Frances, Lady
Grizel, and Lady Jean,—the last being by several years the youngest,
and by many degrees the most beautiful. All the three usually resided
with their mother at the chief seat of the family, Cumbernauld
House, in Stirlingshire; but the two eldest were occasionally
permitted to attend their father in Edinburgh, in order that they
might have some chance of obtaining lovers at the court held there
by the Duke of Lauderdale, while Lady Jean was kept constantly at
home, and debarred from the society of the capital, lest her superior
beauty might interfere with and foil the attractions of her sisters,
who, according to the notion of that age, had a sort of “right of
primogeniture” in matrimony, as well as in what was called
“heirship.”
It may be easily imagined that, while the two marriageable ladies
were enjoying all the delights of a third flat in one of the “closes” of
the Canongate, spending their days in seeing beaux, and their nights
in dreaming of them, Lady Jean led no pleasant life amidst the
remote and solitary splendour of Cumbernauld, where her chief
employment was the disagreeable one of attending her mother, a
very infirm and querulous old dame, much given (it was said) to
strong waters. At the period when our tale opens, Lady Jean’s
charms, though never seen in the capital, had begun to make some
noise there; and the curiosity excited respecting them amongst the
juvenile party of the vice-regal court, had induced Lord Wigton to
confine her ladyship even more strictly than heretofore, lest
perchance some gallant might make a pilgrimage to his country seat,
in order to behold her, and from less to more, induce her to quit her
retirement, in such a way as would effectually discomfit his schemes
for the pre-advancement of his elder daughters. He had been at pains
to send an express to Cumbernauld, ordering Lady Jean to be
confined to the precincts of the house and the terrace-garden, and to
be closely attended in all her movements by a trusty domestic. The
consequence was that the young lady complained most piteously to
her deaf old lady-mother of the tedium and listlessness of her life,
and wished with all her heart that she was as ugly, old, and happy as
her sisters.
Lord Wigton was not insensible to the cruelty of his policy,
however well he might be convinced of its advantage and necessity.
He loved his youngest daughter more than the rest; and it was only
in obedience to what he conceived to be the commands of duty, that
he subjected her to the restraint. His lordship, therefore, felt anxious
to alleviate in some measure the désagrémens of her solitary
confinement; and knowing her to be fond of music, he had sent to
her by the last messenger a theorbo lute, with which he thought she
would be able to amuse herself in a way very much to her mind,—not
considering that, as she could not play upon the instrument, it would
be little better to her than an unmeaning toy. By the return of his
messenger, he received a letter from Lady Jean, thanking him for the
theorbo, but making him aware of his oversight, and begging him to
send some person who could teach her to play.
The earl, whose acquirements in the philosophy of politics had
never been questioned, felt ashamed of having committed such a
solecism in so trivial a matter; and like all men anxious to repair or
conceal an error in judgment, immediately ran into another of ten
times greater consequence and magnitude: he gratified his daughter
in her wish.
 The gentry of Scotland were at that time in the custom of
occasionally employing a species of servants, whose
accomplishments and duties would now appear of a very anomalous
character, though at that time naturally arising from the peculiar
situation of this country, in respect to its southern neighbour. They
were, in general, humble men who had travelled a good deal, and
acquired many foreign accomplishments; who, returning to their
native country after an absence of a few years, usually entered into
the service of the higher class of families, partly as ordinary livery-
men, and partly with the purpose of instructing the youth of both
sexes, as they grew up and required such exercises, in dancing,
music, writing, &c., besides a vast variety of other arts,
comprehended in the general phrase of “breeding.” Though these
men received much higher wages, and were a thousand times more
unmanageable than common serving men, they served a good
purpose in those days, when young people had scarcely any other
opportunities of acquiring the ornamental branches of education,
except by going abroad.
It so happened, that not many days after Lord Wigton received his
daughter’s letter, he was applied to for employment by one of these
useful personages, a tall and handsome youth, apparently five-and-
twenty, with dark, Italian-looking features, a slight moustache, and
as much foreign peculiarity in his dress as indicated that he was just
returned from his travels. After putting a few questions, his lordship
discovered that the youth was possessed of many agreeable
accomplishments; was, in particular, perfectly well qualified to teach
the theorbo, and had no objection to entering the service of a young
lady of quality, only with the proviso that he was to be spared the
disgrace of a livery. Lord Wigton then made no scruple in engaging
him for a certain period; and next day saw the youth on the way to
Cumbernauld, with a letter from his lordship to Lady Jean, setting
forth all his good qualities, and containing among other endearing
expressions, a hope that she would both benefit by his instructions,
and be in the meantime content on their account with her present
residence.
Any occurrence at Cumbernauld of higher import than the
breaking of a needle in embroidering, or the miscarriage of a brewing
of currant-wine, would have been quite an incident in the eyes of
Lady Jean; and even to have given alms at the castle-gate to an
extraordinary beggar, or to see so much as a “stranger” in the candle,
might have supplied her with amusement infinite, and speculation
boundless. What, then, must have been her delight, when the goodly
and youthful figure of Richard Storie alighted one dull summer
afternoon at the gate, and when the credentials he presented
disclosed to her the agreeable purpose of his mission! Her joy knew
no bounds; nor did she know in what terms to welcome the stranger;
she ran from one end of the house to the other, up stairs and down
stairs, in search of she knew not what; and finally, in her transports,
she shook her mother out of a drunken slumber, which the old lady
was enjoying as usual in her large chair in the parlour.
Master Richard, as he was commonly designated, soon found
himself comfortably established in the good graces of the whole
household of Cumbernauld, and not less so in the particular favour
of his young mistress. Even the sour old lady of the large chair was
pleased with his handsome appearance, and was occasionally seen to
give a preternatural nod and smile at some of his musical
exhibitions, as much as to say she knew when he performed well, and
was willing to encourage humble merit. As for Lady Jean, whose
disposition was equally lively and generous, she could not express, in
sufficiently warm terms, her admiration of his performances, or the
delight she experienced from them. Nor was she ever content
without having Master Richard in her presence, either to play
himself, or to teach her the enchanting art. She was a most apt
scholar—so apt, that in a few days she was able to accompany him
with the theorbo and voice, while he played upon an ancient
harpsichord belonging to the old lady, which he had rescued from a
lumber room, and had been at some pains to repair. The exclusive
preference thus given to music for the time threw his other
accomplishments into the shade, while it, moreover, occasioned his
more constant presence in the apartments of the ladies than he
would have been otherwise entitled to. The consequence was, that in
a short time he almost ceased to be looked upon as a servant, and
began gradually to assume the more interesting character of a friend
and equal.
It was Lady Jean’s practice to take a walk, prescribed by her father,
every day in the garden, on which occasions the countess conceived
herself as acting up to the letter of her husband’s commands, when
she ordered Master Richard to attend his pupil. This arrangement
was exceedingly agreeable to Lady Jean, as they sometimes took out
the theorbo, and added music to the pleasures of the walk. Another
out-of-doors amusement, in which music formed a chief part, was
suggested to them by the appropriate frontispiece of a book of
instruction for the theorbo, which Master Richard had brought with
him from Edinburgh. This engraving represented a beautiful young
shepherdess, dressed in the fashionable costume of that period: a
stupendous tower of hair hung round with diamonds, and a
voluminous silk gown with a jewel-adorned stomacher, a theorbo in
her arms, and a crook by her side,—sitting on a flowery bank under a
tree, with sheep planted at regular distances around her. At a little
distance appeared a shepherd with dressed hair, long-skirted coat,
and silk stockings, who seemed to survey his mistress with a
languishing air of admiration, that appeared singularly ridiculous as
contrasted with the coquettish and contemptuous aspect of the lady.
The plate referred to a particular song in the book, entitled “A
Dialogue betwixt Strephon and Lydia; or the proud Shepherdess’s
Courtship,” the music of which was exceedingly beautiful, while the
verses were the tamest and most affected trash imaginable.
It occurred to Lady Jean’s lively fancy, that if she and her teacher
were to personify the shepherdess and shepherd, and thus, as it
were, to transform the song to a sort of opera, making the terrace-
garden the scene, not a little amusement might be added to the
pleasure she experienced from the mere music alone. This fancy was
easily reduced to execution; for, by seating herself under a tree, in
her ordinary dress, with the horticultural implement called a rake by
her side, she looked the very Lydia of the copperplate; while Richard,
standing at his customary respectful distance, with his handsome
person and somewhat foreign apparel, was a sufficiently good
representation of Strephon. After arranging themselves thus, Master
Richard opened the drama by addressing Lady Jean in the first verse
of the song, which contained, besides some description of sunrise, a
comparison between the beauties of nature, at that delightful period,
and the charms of Lydia, the superiority being of course awarded to
the latter. Lady Jean, with the help of the theorbo, replied to this in a
very disdainful style, affecting to hold the compliments of lovers very
cheap, and asseverating that she had no regard for any being on
earth besides her father and mother, and no care but for these dear
innocent sheep (here she looked kindly aside upon a neighbouring
bed of cabbages), which they had entrusted to her charge. Other
verses of similar nonsense succeeded, during which the
representative of the fair Lydia could not help feeling rather more
emotion at hearing the ardent addresses of Strephon than was
strictly consistent with her part.
At last it was her duty to rise and walk softly away from her swain,
declaring herself utterly insensible to both his praises and his
passion, and her resolution never again to see or speak to him. This
she did in admirable style, though perhaps rather with the dignified
gait and sweeping majesty of a tragedy-queen, than with anything
like the pettish or sullen strut of a disdainful rustic. Meanwhile,
Strephon was supposed to be left inconsolable. Her ladyship
continued to support her assumed character for a few yards, till a
turn of the walk concealed her from Master Richard; when, resuming
her natural manner, she turned back, with sparkling eyes, in order to
ask his opinion of her performance, and it was with some confusion,
and no little surprise, that on bursting again into his sight, she
discovered that Richard had not yet thrown off his character. He was
standing still as she had left him, fixed immovably upon the spot in
an attitude expressive of sorrow for her departure, and bending
forward as if imploring her return. It was the expression of his face
that astonished her most; for it was not at all an expression
appropriate to either his own character or to that which he had
assumed. It was an expression of earnest and impassioned
admiration; his whole soul seemed thrown into her face, which was
directed towards her, or rather the place where she had disappeared;
and his eyes were projected in the same direction, with such a look as
that perhaps of an enraptured saint of old at the moment when a
divinity parted from his presence. This lasted, however, but for a
moment, for scarcely had that minute space of time elapsed before
Richard, startled from his reverie by Lady Jean’s sudden return,
dismissed from his face all trace of any extraordinary expression, and
stood before her, endeavouring to appear, just what he was, her
ladyship’s respectful servant and teacher. Nevertheless, this
transformation did not take place so quickly as to prevent her
ladyship from observing the present expression, nor was it
accomplished with such address as to leave her room for passing it
over as unobserved. She was surprised—she hesitated—she seemed,
in spite of herself, conscious of something awkward—and finally she
blushed slightly. Richard caught the contagion of her confusion in a
double degree; and Lady Jean again became more confused on
observing that he was aware of her confusion. Richard was the first
to recover himself and speak. He made some remarks upon her
singing and acting—not, however, upon her admirable performance
of the latter part of the drama; this encouraged her also to speak, and
both soon became somewhat composed. Shortly afterwards they
returned to the house; but from that moment a chain of the most
delicate, yet indissoluble sympathies began to connect the hearts of
these youthful beings, so alike in all natural qualities, and so
dissimilar in every extraneous thing which the world is accustomed
to value.
After this interview there took place a slight estrangement between
Master Richard and Lady Jean that lasted a few days, during which
they had much less of conversation and music than for some time
before. Both observed this circumstance; but each ascribed it to
accident, while it was in reality occasioned by mutual reserve. Master
Richard was afraid that Lady Jean might be offended were he to
propose anything like a repetition of the garden drama; and Lady
Jean, on her part, could not, consistently with the rules of maidenly
modesty, utter even a hint at such a thing, however she might
secretly wish or long for it. The very consciousness, reciprocally felt,
of having something on their minds, of which neither durst speak,
was sufficient to produce this reserve, even though the emotions of
the “tender passion” had not come in, as they did, for a large share of
the cause.
At length, however, this reserve was so far softened down, that
they began to resume their former practice of walking together in the
garden; but, though the theorbo continued to make one of the party,
no more operatic performances took place. Nevertheless, the mutual
affection which had taken root in their hearts, experienced on this
account no abatement, but, on the contrary, continued to increase.
As for Master Richard, it was no wonder that he should be deeply
smitten with the charms of his mistress; for, ever as he stole a long,
furtive glance at her graceful form, he thought he had never seen in
Spain or Italy any such specimens of female loveliness; and (if we
may let the reader so far into the secret) he had indeed come to
Cumbernauld with the very purpose of falling in love.
Different causes had operated upon Lady Jean. Richard being the
first love-worthy object she had seen since the period when the
female heart becomes most susceptible,—the admiration with which
she knew he beheld her,—his musical accomplishments, which had
tended so much to her gratification,—all conspired to render him
precious in her sight. In the words of a beautiful modern ballad, “all
impulses of soul and sense had thrilled” her gentle and guileless
heart—
——hopes, and fears that kindled hopes,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes, long subdued,
Subdued and cherished long,

had exercised their tender and delightful influence over her; like a
flower thrown upon one of the streams of her own native land, whose
course was through the beauties, the splendours, and the terrors of
nature, she was borne away in a dream, the magic scenery of which
was alternately pleasing, fearful, and glorious, and from which she
could no more awake than could the flower restrain its course on the
gliding waters. The habit of contemplating her lover every day, and
that in the dignified character of an instructor, gradually blinded her
in a great measure to his humbler quality, and to the probable
sentiments of her father and the world upon the subject of her
passion. If by any chance such a consideration was forced upon her
notice, and she found occasion to tremble lest the sentiments in
which she was so luxuriously indulging should end in disgrace and
disaster, she soon quieted her fears, by reverting to an idea which
had lately occurred to her, namely, that Richard was not what he
seemed. She had heard and read of love assuming strange disguises.
A Lord Belhaven, in the immediately preceding period of the civil
war, had taken refuge from the fury of Cromwell in the service of an
English nobleman, whose daughter’s heart he won under the disguise
of a gardener, and whom, on the recurrence of better times, he
carried home to Scotland as his lady. This story was then quite
popular, and at least one of the parties still survived to attest its
truth. But even in nursery tales Lady Jean could find examples which
justified her own passion. The vilest animals, she knew, on finding
some beautiful dame, who was so disinterested as to fall in love with
them, usually turned out to be the most handsome princes that ever
were seen, who invariably married and made happy the ladies whose
affection had restored them to their natural form and just
inheritance. “Who knows,” she thought, “but Richard may some day,
in a transport of passion, throw open his coat, exhibit the star of
nobility glittering on his breast, and ask me to become a countess!”
Such are the excuses which love suggests to reason, and which the
reason of lovers easily accepts; while those who are neither youthful
nor in love wonder at the hallucination of their impassioned juniors.
Experience soon teaches us that this world is not one of romance,
and that few incidents in life ever occur out of the ordinary way. But
before we acquire this experience by actual observation, we all of us
regard things in a very different light. The truth seems to be that, in
the eyes of youth, “the days of chivalry” do not appear to be gone; our
ideas are then contemporary, or on a par with the early romantic
ages of the world; and it is only by mingling with mature men, and
looking at things as they are, that we at length advance towards, and
ultimately settle down in the real era of our existence. Was there
ever yet a youth who did not feel some chivalrous impulses,—some
thirst for more glorious scenes than those around him,—some
aspirations after lofty passion and supreme excellence—or who did
not cherish some pure firstlove that could not prudentially be
gratified?
The greater part of the rest of the summer passed away before the
lovers came to an eclaircissement; and such, indeed, was their
mutual reserve upon the subject, that had it not been for the
occurrence of a singular and deciding circumstance, there appeared
little probability of this ever otherwise taking place. The Earl of
Home, a gay and somewhat foolish young nobleman, one morning,
after attending a convivial party, where the charms of Lady Jean
Fleming formed the principal topic of discourse, left Edinburgh, and
took the way to Cumbernauld, on the very pilgrimage, and with the
very purpose, which Lord Wigton had before anticipated. Resolved
first to see, then to love, and lastly to run away with the young lady,
his lordship skulked about for a few days, and at last had the
pleasure of seeing the hidden beauty over the garden-wall, as she was
walking with Master Richard. He thought he had never seen any lady
who could be at all compared to Lady Jean, and, as a matter of
course, resolved to make her his own, and surprise all his
companions at Edinburgh with his success and her beauty. He
watched again next day, and happening to meet Master Richard out
of the bounds of Cumbernauld policy, accosted him, with the
intention of securing his services in making his way towards Lady
Jean. After a few words of course, he proposed the subject to
Richard, and offered a considerable bribe, to induce him to work for
his interest. Richard at first rejected the offer, but immediately after,
on bethinking himself, saw fit to accept it. He was to mention his
lordship’s purpose to Lady Jean, and to prepare the way for a private
interview with her. On the afternoon of the succeeding day, he was to
meet Lord Home at the same place, and tell him how Lady Jean had
received his proposals. With this they parted—Richard to muse on
this unexpected circumstance, which he saw might blast all his
hopes, unless he should resolve upon prompt and active measures,
and the Earl of Home to enjoy himself at the humble inn of the
village of Cumbernauld, where he had for the last few days enacted
the character of “the daft lad frae Edinburgh, that seemed to hae
mair siller than sense.”
On the morning of the tenth day after Master Richard’s first
interview with Lord Home, that faithful serving-man found himself
jogging swiftly along the road to Edinburgh, mounted on a stout nag,
with the fair Lady Jean seated comfortably on a pillion behind him.
It was a fine morning in autumn, and the road had a peculiarly gay
appearance from the multitude of country people, mounted and
dismounted, who seemed also hastening towards the capital. Master
Richard, upon inquiry, discovered that it was the “market-day,” a
circumstance which seemed favourable to his design, by the
additional assurance it gave him of not being recognised among the
extraordinary number of strangers who might be expected to crowd
the city on such an occasion.
The lovers approached the city by the west, and the first street they
entered was the suburban one called Portsburgh, which leads
towards the great market-place of Edinburgh. Here Richard,
impatient as he was, found himself obliged, like many other rustic
cavaliers, to reduce the pace of his horse to a walk, on account of the
narrowness and crowded state of the street. This he felt the more
disagreeable, as it subjected him and his interesting companion to
the close and leisurely scrutiny of the inhabitants. Both had
endeavoured to disguise everything remarkable in their appearance,
so far as dress and demeanour could be disguised; yet, as Lady Jean
could not conceal her extraordinary beauty, and Richard had not
found it possible to part with a slight and dearly beloved moustache,
it naturally followed that they were honoured with a good deal of
staring. Many an urchin upon the street threw up his arms as they
passed along, exclaiming, “Oh! the black-bearded man!” or, “Oh! the
bonnie leddie!”—the men all admired Lady Jean, the women Master
Richard—and many an old shoemaker ogled them earnestly over his
half-door, with his spectacles pushed up above his dingy cowl. The
lovers, who had thus to run a sort of gauntlet of admiration and
remark, were glad when they reached an inn, which Richard, who
was slightly acquainted with the town, knew to be a proper place for
the performance of a “half-merk marriage.”
They alighted, and were civilly received by an obsequious landlady,
who conducted them into an apartment at the back of the house.
There Lady Jean was for a short time left to make some
arrangements about her dress, while Richard disclosed to the
landlady in another room the purpose upon which he was come to
her house, and consulted her about procuring a clergyman. The
dame of the house, to whom a clandestine marriage was the merest
matter of course, showed the utmost willingness to facilitate the
design of her guests, and said that she believed a clerical official
might be procured in a few minutes, provided that neither had any
scruples of conscience, as “most part o’ fouk frae the west had,” in
accepting the services of an episcopal clergyman. The lover assured
her that so far from having any objection to a “government minister”
(for so they were sometimes termed), he would prefer such to any
other, as both he and his bride belonged to that persuasion. The
landlady heard this declaration with complacency, which showed
that she loved her guests the better for it, and told Richard, that if he
pleased, she would immediately introduce him to the Dean of St
Giles, who, honest man, was just now taking his “meridian” in the
little back garret-parlour, along with his friend and gossip, Bowed
Andrew, the waiter of the West Port. To this Richard joyfully
assented, and speedily he and Lady Jean were joined in their room
by the said Dean,—a squat little gentleman, with a drunken but
important-looking face, and an air of consequentiality even in his
stagger that was partly imposing and partly ridiculous. He addressed
his clients with a patronizing simper, of which the effect was
grievously disconcerted by an unlucky hiccup, and in a speech which
might have had the intended tone of paternal and reverend
authority, had it not been smattered and degraded into shreds by the
crapulous insufficiency of his tongue. Richard cut short his ill-
sustained attempts at dignity by requesting him to partake of some
liquor. His reverence almost leaped at the proffered jug, which
contained ale. He first took a tasting, then a sip—shaking his head
between—next a small draught, with a still more convulsion-like
shake of the head; and, lastly, he took a hearty and persevering swill,
from the effects of which his lungs did not recover for at least twenty
respirations. The impatient lover then begged him to proceed with
the ceremony; which he forthwith commenced in presence of the
landlady and the above-mentioned Bowed Andrew; and in a few
minutes Richard and Lady Jean were united in the holy bonds of
matrimony.
 Chapter II.

When the ceremony was concluded, and both the clergyman and
the witnesses had been satisfied and dismissed, the lovers left the
house, with the design of walking forward into the city. In conformity
to a previous arrangement, Lady Jean walked first, like a lady of
quality, and Richard followed closely behind, with the dress and
deportment of her servant. Her ladyship was dressed in her finest
suit, and adorned with her finest jewels, all of which she had brought
from Cumbernauld on purpose, in a mail or leathern trunk—for such
was the name then given to the convenience now entitled a
portmanteau. Her step was light, and her bearing gay, as she moved
along; not on account of the success which had attended her
expedition, or her satisfaction in being now united to the man of her
choice, but because she anticipated the highest pleasure in the sight
of a place whereof she had heard such wonderful stories, and from a
participation in whose delights she had been so long withheld.
Like all persons educated in the country, she had been regaled in
her childhood with magnificent descriptions of the capital—of its
buildings, that seemed to mingle with the clouds—its shops, which
apparently contained more wealth than all the world beside—of its
paved streets (for paved streets were then wonders in Scotland)—
and, above all, of the grand folks that thronged its Highgates, its
Canongates, and its Cowgates—people whose lives seemed a
perpetual holiday, whose attire was ever new, and who all lived in
their several palaces.
Though, of course, Edinburgh had then little to boast of, the
country people who occasionally visited it did not regard it with less
admiration than that with which the peasantry of our own day may
be supposed to view it, now that it is something so very different. It
was then, as well as now, the capital of the country, and, as such,
bore the same disproportion in point of magnificence to inferior
towns, and to the country in general. In one respect it was superior to
what it is in the present day, namely, in being the seat of government
and of a court. Lady Jean had often heard all its glorious peculiarities
described by her sisters, who, moreover, took occasion to colour the
picture too highly, in order to raise her envy, and make themselves
appear great in their alliance and association with so much
greatness. She was, therefore, prepared to see a scene of the utmost
splendour—a scene in which nothing horrible or paltry mingled, but
which was altogether calculated to awe or to delight the senses.
Her ladyship was destined to be disappointed at the
commencement, at least, of her acquaintance with the city. The first
remarkable object which struck her eye, after leaving the inn, was the
high “bow,” or arch, of the gate called the West Port. In this itself
there was nothing worthy of particular attention, and she rather
directed her eyes through the opening beneath, which half disclosed
a wide space beyond, apparently crowded with people. But when she
came close up to the gate, and cast, before passing, a last glance at
the arch, she shuddered at the sight then presented to her eyes. On
the very pinnacle of the arch was stuck the ghastly and weather-worn
remains of a human head, the features of which, half flesh, half bone,
were shaded and rendered still more indistinctly horrible by the long
dark hair, which hung in meagre tresses around them.
“Oh, Richard, Richard!” she exclaimed, stopping and turning
round, “what is that dreadful-looking thing?”
“That, madam,” said Richard, without any emotion, “is the broken
remnant of a west country preacher, spiked up there to warn his
countrymen who may approach this port, against doing anything to
incur the fate which has overtaken himself. Methinks he has
preached to small purpose, for yonder stands the gallows, ready, I
suppose, to bring him some brother in affliction.”
“Horrible!” exclaimed Lady Jean; “and is this really the fine town
of Edinburgh, where I was taught to expect so many grand sights? I
thought it was just one universal palace, and it turns out to be a great
charnel-house!”
“It is indeed more like that than anything else at times,” said
Richard; “but, my dear Lady Jean, you are not going to start at this
bugbear, which the very children, you see, do not heed in passing.”
“Indeed, I think, Richard,” answered her ladyship, “if Edinburgh is
to be at all like this, it would be just as good to turn back at once, and
postpone our visit to better times.”
 “But it is not all like this,” replied Richard; “I assure you it is not.
For Heaven’s sake, my lady, move on. The people are beginning to
stare at us. You shall soon see grand sights enough, if we were once
fairly out of this place. Make for the opposite corner of the
Grassmarket, and ascend the street to the left of that horrible gibbet.
We may yet get past it before the criminals are produced.”
Thus admonished, Lady Jean passed, not without a shudder,
under the dreadful arch, and entered the spacious oblong square
called the Grassmarket. This place was crowded at the west end with
rustics engaged in all the bustle of a grain and cattle market, and at
the eastern and most distant extremity, with a mob of idlers, who
had gathered around the gibbet in order to witness the awful
ceremony that was about to take place. The crowd, which was
scarcely so dense as that which attends the rarer scene of a modern
execution, made way on both sides for Lady Jean as she moved
along; and wherever she went, she left behind her a “wake,” as it
were, of admiration and confusion. So exquisite and so new a beauty,
so splendid a suit of female attire, and so stout and handsome an
attendant—these were all calculated to inspire reverence in the
minds of the beholders. Her carriage at the same time was so stately
and so graceful, that no one could be so rude as to interrupt or
disturb it. The people, therefore, parted when she approached, and
left a free passage for her on all sides, as if she had been an angel or a
spirit come to walk amidst a mortal crowd, and whose person could
not be touched, and might scarcely be beheld—whose motions were
not to be interfered with by those among whom she chose to walk—
but who was to be received with prostration of spirit, and permitted
to depart as she had come, unquestioned and unapproached. In
traversing the Grassmarket, two or three young coxcombs, with
voluminous wigs, short cloaks, rapiers, and rose-knots at their knees
and shoes, who, on observing her at a distance, had prepared to treat
her with a condescending stare, fell back, awed and confounded, at
her near approach, and spent the gaze, perhaps, upon the humbler
mark of her follower, or upon vacancy.
Having at length passed the gibbet, Lady Jean began to ascend the
steep and tortuous street denominated the West Bow. She had
hitherto been unable to direct any attention to what she was most
anxious to behold,—the scenic wonders of the capital. But having