Part 19

At four o’clock, with darkness creeping on, and a halter upon the pony’s head, she commenced to tramp, dressed in rags and trashes, and almost an empty craw, from Spilsby back to Heckington, a distance of between thirty and forty miles. Fortunately there was a little moonlight for a good part of the night, which enabled her to get upon the pony’s back to see the guide-posts. Several times she took the wrong turning where there was no guide-post to direct her, but by perseverance righted herself again. The pony was a little lame, and she could not ride, and on they tramped together, occasionally resting by the road side as the silent hours of the cold winterly night quietly and leisurely passed into the future unseen and unknown, except such of it as has been revealed to us by the Great Creator Himself. About two o’clock the next day she arrived at the van door with her old grey pony, and since then they have travelled hundreds of miles together, sometimes pushing, and sometimes pulling along the lanes of life. I asked her if she was not afraid to travel along the lonely lanes and roads leading to Spilsby at the midnight hour. She answered, “The Lord love you, I should at other times, but I did not feel a bit afraid on this night. I wanted to get home with the pony and to see my children, and this kept me a-going forward. Since then,” said the poor woman, “we’ve had a hard time of it; in fact, for the last two years we’ve had only six pennyworth of meat, and six pennyworth of bacon in the van. We live on what we can pick up, but chiefly on dry bread and tea.” She told me herself that for more than a fortnight together she had on only an old dress, a chemise in shreds, and a pair of old boots to move among the fashionable and gay at the fairs, races, and feasts. Thank God for the hope that dwells within the breasts of these at the bottom of the social scale that brighter days will come. Her little girls had not been undressed and washed for weeks, as they had nothing else to put on while they were being washed; and in this way many thousands of English men, women, and children are drifting into damning English gipsy customs, sins, and degrading and depraving habits, beneath, and encouraged by, the smiles, winks, and gabble of our backwood gipsy, gem collectors, and sentimental and sensational writers, who do not care a straw for those whom they are enticing on to ruin, so long as the gold and silver bits drop into their pockets.

It is time we roused ourselves, and, with Mr. Ellis in the _Quiver_ for 1878, cried out at the top of our voices, and in prayer from the depths of our whole souls—

“Oh, help them, then, if ye are men, Stretch out thine hand to save. Let them not sink beneath the brink O’ the surging ocean wave.”

Rambles among the Gipsies. Upon Bulwell Forest. At the Social Science Congress, Nottingham.

“Not all in vain good seed I sow, As up and down the world I go; Scattering in faith the precious grain, And waiting till the sun and rain Of heavenly influence bid it grow.”

Rev. RICHARD WILTON, M.A. _Christian Miscellany_, October, 1882.

SUNDAY morning, September the 24th, was most lovely and delightful. The buzzing and darting bats were not to be seen. They had retired among the ruins of old tumbledown walls, creaking doors, and thatch. The horrible sneaking rats had crept into their holes, ashamed of daylight. The owl had retired to a dark, dusky nook among the perishing barn stone walls, to sleep and fatten upon its ill-gotten carrion and the tender bones of the sweet chirping, variegated songsters that had been unfortunate enough to come beneath its ravenous clutches. The bright sun was shedding its light, tinged with a little of the autumnal golden hue, upon our rough, rugged, and antiquated dwelling. The robin seemed more proud than ever to show its beautiful red breast, and to get ready to pipe forth the praises of Jehovah from the branches of the old yew trees near the orchard. The swallows were darting by our windows, as if nervous about their long flight, and anxious to have as many peeps at us as possible before bidding us good-bye for their long journey far, far away. Our fowls had, according to their usual custom on Sunday mornings, gathered themselves together under the shed in the yard to listen to the intonation of their friend “Tom.” The sheep and cattle were grazing in the meadows, and sheaves of golden corn stood upright in the fields, inviting the farmers to carry them home to fill the barns of the rich, the coffers of the banker, the empty bellies of the poor widow, toilers in the field and brickyard, dwellers in canal-boat cabins, and gipsy tents, vans, and wigwams. Our village church bells had begun to ring, and my wife was, of necessity, breaking the Sabbath by restoring with her bodkin and thread some of my habiliments while I stood bolt upright, so as to make me presentable at court, which process caused a twitter among our “olive branches.” I now scraped together all the money I could, and with my “Gladstone bag” in hand, containing among other things my Sunday’s dinner, consisting of a slice of bread and butter and an apple, and my seedy-looking overcoat, turned the best side towards London, I started to the station. The bells were chiming and pealing soft and low, and our little folks were tripping off to church with their curls dangling down their backs, and dressed in their best “bib and tucker.” On the way I came upon an Irishman sitting upon a stone minding some sheep that were munching grass by the roadside. For his companion he had, as the Rev. Mr. Vine says in the _Wesleyan Methodist Magazine_, February, 1877,

“Naught but the sky, the rough hewn rocks, Green belts of grass, and fleecy flocks.”

To me it seemed as if he had a small crucifix in his hand, and was counting beads; if so, I interrupted him by calling out “Good morning,” to which Pat responded, “Good morning, yer honour; an’ it is a fine morning, yer honour.” I left him in his devotion, and next came upon a couple of dirty shoemakers from Daventry, with as much watercress in their arms as they could carry, stolen from the water-brook close by while the farmers were in church and the dogs tied up.

I now ran against a youth from the station who was gathering blackberries. At his feet, in the hedge-bottom, a hare was quietly nestling. Poor fellow! he let his blackberries fall to grasp the hare, which allowed him the moment’s pleasure of catching its tail, but, much to the chagrin of the youth, did not leave it behind, forcibly illustrating the case of the dog in Æsop’s Fables crossing a plank with a piece of meat in its mouth, which it let fall to grasp the shadow. “Oh!” said the flushed youth, “I nearly caught it.”

In the train there were several gentlemen. One was reading the _Christian World_, and another was reading a sporting paper. At Nuneaton I had two hours to wait for the next train to Leicester. The interval was spent in pacing backwards and forwards upon the platform, and in eating with a thankful heart my Sunday’s dinner, which, not to say the least of, was not too rich for my digestive organs.

I fared better than an old gipsy woman, Boswell, who, with her daughter-in-law—a gipsy Smith from London—and their five poor half-starved gipsy children, came to our door recently. The old woman, Boswell, had only an outer old frock upon her, with two or three old rags underneath. She had no “shift” on, as she said. This family of travelling gipsies consisted of two men, mother and daughter-in-law, and five children, the whole of whom “slept under their tilted barrow” at Buckby wharf in a hedge-bottom. Not one of this lot could tell a letter.

At Nuneaton I conversed with a gentleman who gave me a little of his history, some of which was remarkable, especially that part relating to his courtship and marriage. “Ah!” said my friend with a tone of sadness, “I had the misfortune to lose my wife by cruel death, and was left with four little children to get through the world as best we could. It was a sad blow, sir. I don’t know whether you have ever undergone such a trial, but my experience of it is that it is one of the greatest misfortunes that can ever befall mortal man, and I’ve nothing but pity for the man who has had to undergo the sad loss. Oh! it’s terrible, sir. After you have been toiling hard all day in the cold rain, frost, and snow, and then to go home to find no one to warm your slippers, or to speak a kind, soothing, and cheering word to you, was more than I could bear. To sit and eat your bread and butter and drink your tea alone, while the servants and the children were playing in the streets, was enough to turn any man into a wild animal.” I said to him, “Certainly it is a terrible ordeal, and one that I should not like to pass through.” “Yes it is,” said my friend, almost in whimpering tones. “Well, how did you get out of your sad difficulty?” I said. “Well, sir, things went on for some months in a path in which there seemed nothing but vexation. The servants were quarrelling, the children were neglected, and bills seemed to be coming in without end; and while I was brooding over these things one afternoon, in came a minister from Derby, and he saw the fix I was in, and that I could not get him as nice a cup of tea as formerly; and, to help me out of my difficulty, he said, ‘My dear brother, when the proper time comes, I know where there’s a wife that will suit you.’ ‘Do you?’ I said to my ministerial friend. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I do.’ At this I pricked up my ears, and he said, ‘I am going to their house for tea next week, and if you like you shall go with me.’ ‘All right,’ I said. Nothing more passed that evening on the subject. During the week he wrote to me, asking me to meet him at Derby station. Of course I thought I would go; they could not take anything of me, and I went. In going to the house I began to get into a nervous stew. On the way my friend said, ‘Now there are two sisters in the house living with their mother. It will be the one with a blue ribbon round her waist who I think will suit you. After they have been in their room to dress for the afternoon she generally comes out the first.’ ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’ll keep my eyes open.’ At the door the mother met us, and gave us a hearty welcome. The young ladies were in their room, and I was playing with my fingers upon the arm of the sofa. Presently a young lady came downstairs. Of course I had my eyes upon the waistband, to see whether it was a blue one; but, to my astonishment, it was green. In a few minutes the other young lady came downstairs with the blue ribbon round her waist. I concluded that this was the one my friend the parson had selected for me. Tea was got ready, and instead of entering freely into the general conversation, I kept looking first at one and the other of the young ladies at tea, and playing with my fingers between time. When tea was over and the service ended, on the way home my friend the parson said, ‘Well, which of the two do you like best?’ ‘Oh!’ I said, ‘I’m not particular; I’ll take to either of them; but as the eldest is nearer to my age, I think I will make love to her,’ taking it all as a joke. Nothing more was said. During the next week I was a long way from home on business, and I ventured to write to Deborah, telling her who I was, and what little game I was up to, and asking her to meet me at the station to have a chat together on the subject about which I wrote. The young lady was, so I’ve been told since, dumbfounded, and said to her sister, ‘Of all the men in the world I will not have him; I don’t like him a bit. He did not at all seem to make himself comfortable at tea. I shall not go to meet him.’ ‘Well,’ said the other sister with the green waistband, ‘If you don’t go I shall. He will suit me.’ ‘Well,’ said the one with the blue waistband, ‘if he will suit you he will suit me, and I will go to meet him at the station.’ Accordingly I got out of the train, so that she might know me again, and on we went to Derby and made matters square; and—would you believe me, sir?—in three weeks from that time we were married.” I said, “Well, bless me!” The rapidity of his courting expedition almost took the wind out of me. The station bell now rang. I jumped into the train, and as I was moving off towards Leicester I bade my new friend good-bye; and he, in return, waving his hand, said, “I will tell you the rest another day, and what we saw on our wedding tour in London, Antwerp, Brussels, Mastricht, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam.” “All right,” I said, and we puffed away, leaving quite a pother behind.

In the train were two young female “school teachers,” who had been a “gipsying” to Coventry by the “special” from Leicester on the Saturday afternoon, and, whether by accident or design, they had been left behind. I questioned them about the suspicious circumstance attached to such a course, to which they replied, “As soon as we arrived at the station, and found that the train had been gone five minutes, we nearly cried our eyes out. Fortunately we had friends in Coventry with whom we stayed all night.”

I told them to be good girls and do better for the future, to which they replied, “We will,” and I left them to make my way down Belgrave Gate to my sister-in-law’s. After tea we went to St. Mark’s church, and heard a smiling young curate, the Rev. A. F. Maskew, preach a good, practical, telling sermon, on the occasion of returning thanks to Almighty God for the success that has attended our army and navy and the termination of the war in Egypt. The Rev. C. B. — was away on his holiday. After the service the congregation stood up and heartily joined the choir in singing, “God save the Queen.” To which I responded with all my heart, “Amen! God bless our blessed Queen.”

Right always comes right. After service I took a walk, with “a young lady” of some forty-five gentle summers and hard winters at my left side, to visit the new park in the abbey meadows. The sight was most enchanting. Few lovers were on the walks with their arms entwined round each other’s waists. The artificial lakes, hills, and rockeries were seen with solemn grandeur by the aid of distant lamps. The moving murmuringly forward of the “soar” waters beneath our feet, as we stood on the bridge, lighted up with silver streaks of distant lamps, and the pealing forth of the soft, heavenly, riveting, and mesmerizing hymns and chimes of the evening bells of St. Mark’s and St. Saviour’s, made me feel that all the troubles, trials, opposition, misrepresentation, and hardship I had passed through were suddenly transformed into pleasures, leading up to the indescribable panoramic views that appeared before my vision. As it passed away—or, I should say, I passed from it—another one opened up which led me on and on in spirit to the heavenly rest and everlasting beauty in store. The Rev. Richard Wilton says—

“Let Nature’s music still the ear delight, And gracious echoes mortal cares allay, Till “wood-notes” ’mid angelic warbling cease, And “church bells” ring us to eternal peace.”

In a few minutes after this I was between the sheets, and I could have said with John Harris, as sleep stole gently into my room—

“Hark! What is that? The spirit of the vale? Or is it some bright angel by the lake?”

And the last I remember was, I was muttering over “by” “by” “the” “lake,” “by” “by” “the” “the” “lake,” “la—la,” and I was bound fast to the bed.

A quondam friend bade me “good morning,” and then jumped into a “first class” to recite his “R’s” and “S’s” so as to give them the finishing touch correctly the next Sunday morning, while I enjoyed the honour and pleasure of a “third.” We arrived together at Nottingham, and I made my way to a “temperance hotel,” not half a mile from the station, with “first-class” appearances outside, but with “third-class” bedroom accommodation. My room was a “top back,” overlooking well-known old friends, viz., bricks, tiles, terra-cotta, sanitary pipes, encaustic tiles, &c, with a board in the corner covered with oilcloth for a washing stand, and a tea saucer for a “soap tray.” The bed was hard, and the blind was of a material that needed no washing; in fact, the room was bare, cheerless, comfortless, and cold. I strolled into the market-place, and was soon talking to some old-fashioned Staffordshire gipsies with short skirts, and apparently, thick legs, heavy boots, with plenty of colour about their “head-gear,” who, taking all things into consideration, were not bad specimens of gipsies of the present day.

After this I spent a short time with my old friend, Mr. William Bradshaw, a name which has been well known in the midland counties for many long years. Writing and gossiping consumed the remainder of the day; and at ten o’clock I mounted and climbed nearer heaven to rub my eyes again at peep o’ day. Between four and five o’clock I was in and out of my hard bed a dozen times, guessing the time and groping in the dark, for fear I might miss the train to Bulwell Forest. At last I got so fidgety that I was determined to get up, “hit or miss.” I dressed, and then went downstairs to find my way out into the street; but, not having an angel, like Peter, to open the doors for me, I had to ring and ring and shout sufficient to awaken all in the house; if they had been as deaf as posts, I could not have had a greater difficulty to awaken them. At last the landlord made his appearance with his shirt on, and his hair on an end like a frightened ghost. Owing to my early movements, and being a suspicious-looking customer, I had to pay my bill, and out I went about half-past five. My train started for Bulwell at six o’clock, and at six thirty I was among the gipsies upon the forest. There were four vans full of gipsies of all sorts and sizes, just turning out of their “bed;” so dirty were they that I should not have been surprised if the “beds” had run away with them. “Smiths” and “Winters” were the two prominent names. “Bless me,” I said, there are “gipsy Smiths here, there, and everywhere.” “Yes, you are right, my good mon,” said Mrs. Gipsy Winter in a Staffordshire twang. In the four vans there would be twelve adults and eighteen poor, rough, dirty, neglected little gipsy children, not one of whom could read or write. The policeman said to me, “The gipsies that come on this forest and about these parts are a rough, dirty, bad lot, and no mistake. Nowt comes amiss that they can lay their hands upon, I can assure you.” I had a chat with Mrs. Gipsy Winter, and told her what my object was, viz., to bring their vans under registration, and also to give their children a free education; to which she replied with delight, “Lor, bless you, my good mon, I’m reight glad you big fokes are going to do sommat in the way o’ givin’ our childer a bit o’ eddication, for they’re nowt as it is. They are growin’ up as ignorant as osses; they conner tell a ‘b’ from a bull’s foot. I conner read mysen, but I should like our childer to be able to read and write. Han you got one o’ your eddication pass books wi’ yer? cause if yer han, I’ll ha’ one.” I told her that the Act was not passed authorizing the use of them; at which she held down her head, and said, “I suppose we mun wait a long time fust.” “Yes,” I said, “it will not be this year.”

Mrs. Gipsy Winter had upon her finger a Masonic ring—_i.e._, a ring with the “square” and “compasses” engraved upon it. Of course I felt sure she was not a Freemason, and did not proceed to put her to the test. There never was but one woman a Freemason, and the reason was that she secreted herself in an old clock case while the ceremonies were being performed in the Lodge “close tiled.” The only way out of the awkward difficulty was to make her a Mason forthwith on the spot, and this—so Masonic squib and report has it—was done. This report of “our Masonic sister” is to be taken with a pinch of snuff.

I called to see a family of gipsy Woodwards who have taken a house and are settling down the same as other folk. Those of their children that are able to work are working at the coalpits close by, and the children of school age are sent to school. In the course of time they will become as other workers, helping on the welfare of the country, and at the same time securing their own comfort and happiness. The house did not present the appearance of a fidgety old maid’s drawing-room, but they are up the first steps towards it. Time and encouragement will bring it round in the sweet “good time coming.” “Wait a little longer, boys; wait a little longer.”

It is complete bosh, nonsense, wickedness, and misleading folly for frothy novelists to say that it is impossible for gipsies to settle down to industrious habits and a regular life. I know full well they can, and are willing, many of them, to settle down, if means be taken to bring it about. I will only mention one case, to illustrate many others, viz., a gipsy I know well, who is as pure a gipsy as it is possible to find at this late day. The good old man has had a settled home for forty years, and goes to hard work night and morning amongst the farmers, the same as other labourers do. Aye, and many times he works late and early, dining at times off a crust and a cup of cold water with a thankful heart in the week-day, and sings God’s praises on Sundays.

To come back again to Bulwell Forest. After I had visited the Woodwards I turned into a small coffee-shop to get a cup of tea; and while I was enjoying the penny cup of tea with a halfpenny’s-worth of bread and butter for my breakfast, the landlord said: “One of the young gipsy rascals of the forest came into my shop last week, and made himself too friendly and free with some things that lay upon the table, for which I could have put him into jail; but I did not like to follow it up, and the lot of them have made themselves scarce since.” Another old woman, a seller of the _Nottingham Daily Journal_, _Nottingham Daily Guardian_, _Express_, _&c._, said, “The gipsies often come into my house and want to tell me my fortune; but I always tell them that I know it better than they can tell me, and will have no cotter with them.”

I next came upon a gipsy named L—, who told me of a case of gipsy kidnapping which took place at Macclesfield a year ago, viz., that of a gipsy woman stealing a pretty little girl of tender years out of the streets, belonging to a fairly well-to-do tradesman living in the town. Although the child was advertised for a long time, and large rewards offered, it was not to be found, till one day a gipsy girl went to one of the shops in Macclesfield to sell some gipsy “clothes pegs.” The good woman of the house came to the door. Although five long years had passed away, tears had been dried up again and again, and hundreds of prayers had gone upward to Him who hears prayers and sighs, and the child had grown big and brown, and was dressed in rags and filth, the mother recognized the poor gipsy child standing at her door hawking “pegs” as her own dear little darling “Polly.” Without waiting for the lost child to be washed, dressed, and its hair combed, she embraced her darling little lost daughter covered in rags with fond kisses, which told a tale through the gipsy dirt upon the child’s face, as only a tender-hearted, loving mother can, and straightway called in her friends and neighbours, and said, “Rejoice with me, for I have found this day my long-lost little darling Polly.” A policeman was sent for, the kidnapping gipsy woman was traced, and was sentenced to eighteen months’ hard labour in jail for her wrong-doing.