"The Vagabond" introduces the traveller, with heavy "marching" chords in the piano that depict a rough journey through the English countryside.
The vocal line in "Let Beauty Awake" unfolds over long arabesques in the piano, lending a Gallic flavour to the song, though Vaughan Williams would not study in France until 1908.
Kaleidoscopic shifts in mood are presented in "The Roadside Fire", with a lively accompaniment in the piano that lends a playful atmosphere to the first part of the song.
The latter half of the song turns more serious as the traveller envisions private moments with his love, until the sunny music of the opening returns.
The anguish in the vocal line, defined by its chromaticism and its awkward modulations, is doubled in the piano and reinforced by the tolling of low bells throughout.
The text of the song somewhat suggests a Scottish landscape in the days of old of the traveller's past, but there are a number of pentatonic implications too, in the melody of "Whither Must I wander".