Part 6

A few yards from where I was standing I noticed, by the aid of gas, naptha, and paraffin, a gipsyish-looking man standing, opposite one of the cottages, with his arms folded over the palings. I soon found out that he was a gipsy, but had recently taken to house-dwelling, and was now engaged in labourer’s work with bricklayers. He invited me into his comfortably furnished house, and introduced me to his tidy wife, who was not a gipsy, and two good-looking little children. I had a few minutes’ chat with them. He gave me a short account of the suffering, trials, and hardships which he endured while tramping the country, and living in tents, and under vans, and on the roadside. “In early life,” he said, “when I was quite a child, I was placed with my uncle, who is a gipsy horsedealer, to live with him and my aunt, in their van. For a time they behaved well to me, and I slept in the van at nights. From some cause or other, which I have never been able to make out, I was sent to sleep under the van with the dogs’, and to lie upon straw with but little covering. My food now was such as I could pick up—turnips, potatoes, or any mortal thing that I could lay my hands upon. In the winter time I have had to gnaw and nibble a cold turnip for my dinner like a sheep. I used to have to run about in all weathers to do the dirty work of my uncle, mind his horses, ponies, and donkeys in the lanes and fields, for which he would not give me either food, clothing, or lodgings, other than what I looked out for myself. My clothing I used to beg, and, when once put upon my back, there they stuck till they dropped off by pieces. I had a hard time of it for many years, I can tell you, and no mistake. My uncle is now a gentleman horsedealer, and keeps his carriage and his servants to wait upon him. He is well known in London. If he meets or sees me in the streets he turns his head another way, and won’t look at me, though I helped to make his fortune. Every dog has its day, and my turn may come. We gave up drink, and I go to the church and chapel when I have the chance, and I am all the better for it, thank God. I may be as well off as my cruel old uncle some day.” I shook hands with this gipsy family, and bade them God speed, and turned again into the fair and among the gipsy tents. Some of the gipsy and other travelling children were running about picking up scraps and crumbs that had fallen from the bad man’s table. Every piece of paper that had the appearance of having been folded up was eyed over with eager curiosity and wonder by the poor little urchins before they would believe that it was full of emptiness.

The women were putting the little gipsies to bed, and their evening prayers in many cases were oaths. They had never been taught to lisp the evening prayer—

“Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me, Bless Thy little lamb to-night; Through the darkness be Thou near me, Keep me safe till morning light.”

They threw off their outer garments, rolled under some old, dirty, filthy rags at one end of their little tent, crouching together like so many pigs, and snoozed and snored away till morning, except when they were trampled upon or wakened by their drunken gipsy parents. It is horrible to think that not one of this number, between six and seven hundred men, women, and children—so far as I have been able to make out—ever attended a place of worship on Sundays, or offered a prayer to God at eventide. Sin! sin! wretchedness, misery, and degradation from the year’s beginning to the year’s end! Would to God that a comet from His throne, as they sit under the starlight of heaven, would flash and flash upon their mental vision till they asked themselves the question, “Whither are we bound?” Christian England!

“Up! a great work lies before you, Duty’s standard waveth o’er you.

Stretch a hand to save the sinking Carried down sin’s tide unthinking.”

“The pangs of hell,” as the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon says in the _Christian Herald_, March 31, 1880, “do not alarm them, and the joys of heaven do not entice them” to do their duty. With tears of blood I would say, Oh that the voice of Parliament and the action of the Government were seen and heard taking steps to educate the poor gipsy children, so that they may be enabled to read and repeat prayers—even if their parents have lost parental regard and affection for their own offspring.

The business of the day was now over, and it was evident that the time had arrived for “paying off old scores.” The men and women had begun to collect together in groups. Murmurings and grumblings were heard. The tumult increased, and presently from one group shouts of “Give it him, Jock” were echoing in the air, disturbing the stillness of the night. Thumps, thuds, and shrieks followed each other in rapid succession. I closed in with the bystanders. Blood began to flow from the “millers,” who looked murderously savage at each other. Thus they went on “up and down Welsh fashion” for a few minutes, till one gipsy woman cried out, “He’s broken Jock’s nose, a beast him.” The policeman came now quietly along as if his visit would have done on the morrow. One woman shouted out, “Bobby is coming, now it is all over.” To me it looked as if “Bobby” did not like the job of quelling gipsy rows; if he had to quell them it would seem that he had rather they let off some of the steam got up by revenge, spite, and beer before he tackled them.

While this gang of gipsies were separating, another row was going on near to a large public-house, to which I hastened, and arrived in time to see one of them “throw up the sponge.” There were no less than half a dozen fights in less than half an hour. It was now half-past eleven, and I began to think that it was quite time that I looked out for my night’s lodging, so I entered into council with the policeman. We visited eating-houses, coffee-houses, lodging-houses, public-houses, and shops in Forest Gate without success. The policeman advised me to walk to Stratford. This I could not do, for I began to feel rather queer and giddy; my only prospect was either to pass the night at the station, on the “Flats,” or return by the last train. No time was to be lost. I hastily took my ticket, and almost rolled and tumbled down the steps and into the train, which took me to Fenchurch Street Station, in a somewhat bewildered state as to my next move forward. For a minute or two I stood still, lost in wonder. The policeman soon appeared on the scene with his “Please move on” and gruff voice. I told him I wanted to “move on,” if he would tell me where to move to. “There are,” answered the policeman, “plenty of shops to move into in London, if that is what you mean. It depends what sort of shop you want. If you have got plenty of money, there is the ‘Three Nuns.’” And he also pointed out one or two other first-class places in Aldgate. I bade the policeman good night, and went across the street to look at the “Three Nuns,” which was being closed for the night. The outside of the place indicated to me that I should have to dip more deeply into my pocket than my financial position would allow, and I turned to look for fresh quarters in Aldgate. It was now past twelve o’clock, and all the places, except one or two, were closed. On the door of an eating-house and coffee-shop I espied a light, and thither I went. Fortunately the servants were about, and the landlady was enjoying her midnight meal. A bed was promised, and after a long chat with the landlady and some supper, I was shown into my room, the appearance of which I did not like; but it was “Hobson’s choice, that or none.” There were two locks upon the door, and I had taken the precaution to have plenty of candles and matches with me. It looked as if a broken-down gentleman had been occupying it for some time, who had suddenly decamped, leaving no traces of his whereabouts. There was but little clothing upon the bed, and the springs were broken and “humpy.” I turned into it to do the best I could till morning. The smell of the room was that of sin. The rattling about the stairs during the whole of the night was not of a nature to produce a soothing sensation. I felt with Charles Wesley, when he wrote

“God of my life, whose gracious power Through varied deaths my soul hath led, Or turned aside the fatal hour, Or lifted up my sinking head.”

It would have been helpful if I could have sung out in this miserable abode, for such it was to me—

“My song shall wake with opening light, And cheer the dark and silent night.”

I tossed about nearly all night, and at seven o’clock I turned out to get an early breakfast, and to make my way back to “Wanstead Flats” to have a last peep at my gipsy friends. I arrived about eight o’clock. Some of the show folks and show keepers must have had but little sleep, for I found them moving off the Flats for a run out to their country seats, leaving behind them the seeds of sin, sown by ignorance, fostered by an evil heart, and watered by oaths and curses.

I turned in to have another chat with my gipsy friends, who had taken to house-dwelling, and to listen to their pretty little girl singing as only children can sing

“Whither, pilgrims, are you going?”

which caused me to undergo a process of screwing up my feeling, and winking and blinking to avoid any sign of weakness becoming visible.

What a blessed future there would be for our gipsies and other vagabonds, if all their children could sing with tear-fetching pathos, “Whither, pilgrims, are you going,” in a way that would bring their parents often to their knees!

I bade them good-bye, and made my way back to London and home. I was far from well, and it was fortunate I had sent word over-night to my wife, asking her to meet me part of the way from the station, as I was coming by the last train.

The night was dark, very dark and wet, and with a giddy sensation creeping over me, I stepped out of the train and began to wend my way home, reeling about like a drunken man. I staggered and walked fairly well for more than half the distance, till I felt that I must pull up or I should tumble. For a few minutes I stood by a gate, my forehead and hands felt as cold as a lobster, with a clammy sweat upon them. I felt at my pulse, but the deadness of my fingers rendered them insensible to the throbbings of the human gauge fixed in our wrists.

Not a star in the heavens was visible to send its little twinkling cheer. If the bright brilliant guiding lamps of heaven had receded ten degrees backwards into the dark boundless space, the heavens could not have been darker. Everything was as still as death, and I did not seem to be making any headway at all. Neither sound of man nor horse could be heard. Oh! how I did wish and pray that somebody would pass by to give me a lift. I made another start, and had got as far as a heap of stones on the side of the road, when I felt that if I were to swoon, or to have a fit, or die, it would be better to be off the road. I was just going to sit upon the heap of stones, and had dropped my “Gladstone bags,” when I heard the patter of some little feet in the distance. I pricked up my ears, and shouted out as loud as I could, “Halloo, who’s there.” The answer came from my wife and little folks, “It is we.” I was steadied home between them, and found to my joy a good fire and supper awaiting me. I then thanked God for all His mercies and retired to my couch, feeling as Richard Wilton, M.A., felt when he penned the following lines for the _Christian Miscellany_, 1882—

“Some fruit of labour will remain, And bending ears shall whisper low, Not all in vain.”

Rambles among the Gipsies at Northampton Races.

IN the midst of doubts and perplexities, sometimes inspired with confidence and at other times full of misgivings, and with my future course completely hidden from me as if I had been encircled by the blackest midnight darkness, with only one little bright star to be seen, I mustered up the little courage left in me; and with great difficulty and many tears of sorrow and disappointment, I started by the first train, with as light a load of troubles as possible under the circumstances, to find my way to Northampton races, to pick up such facts and information relating to the poor little gipsy tramps that Providence placed in my way, or I could collect together.

After the usual jostling, crushing, and scrambling by road and rail, smoke, oaths, betting, gambling, and swearing, I found myself seated in a tramcar in company with one gentleman only, and, strange to say, of the name of “Smith,” but not a “gipsy Smith,” nor a racing “Smith,” of whom there are a few; in fact, there are more gipsies of the name of “Smith” than there are of any other name. It may be fortunate or unfortunate for me that I cannot trace my lineage to a “gipsy Smith,” and that my birthplace was not under some hedge bottom, with the wide, wide world as a larder that never needed replenishing by hard toil. All required of the “gipsy kings” of the ditch bank, now as in days of yore—so long as the present laws are winked at, and others intended to reach them are shelved—is to “rise, kill, and eat,” for to-morrow we die, and the devil take the hindmost. My friend Mr. Smith was left in the car, and I sped my way upon the course. I had not been long in wandering about before I was joined by a respectable-looking old man, who evidently had done his share of hard work on “leather and nails,” and was on the lookout for ease and fresh air during the remainder of his pilgrimage to the one of two places in store for him. After a few minutes’ conversation about the “ities” and “isms” rampant at Northampton, and our various views upon them, we separated at the edge of the gipsy encampment, wigwams, squalor, and filth. I took the right turning—at least I have no doubt about its proving so in the long run—and he took the left turning; and to this day we have not run against each other again.

The gipsies, _Push_-gipsies, and Gorgios were hard at work putting up their tents and establishments, and I in the meantime walked and trotted the course in a morning’s airing fashion, coming in contact occasionally with a sceptic, infidel, and freethinker. These were turned away in my rough fashion, and my wandering racing meditations brought forth some of the following seeds of thought as I paced backwards and forwards upon the turf. At any rate they are problems, maxims, and aphorisms—such as they are—that have appeared before my vision in my gipsy rambles as I have been working out my gipsy plans, and are, I think, as worthy of a place here as the misleading gipsy lore and lies we have read and heard of. Some of these will probably die as they bud into life, others may keep green for a little time, and there may be a few that will live and cause a few wanderers to take notes of the journey:

Little, cramped, and twisted ideas of God are the outcome of froth and foam, set in motion by thwarted conceit and mortified vanity.

Vaunted scepticism is the poisonous fungus of decaying minds and rotten ideas.

Infidelity is hellish divinity gone mad.

Nihilists and Fenians are crawlers, who crawl out of rotten heaps of wrongs, which the light of day turns into devil-flies, with fiery hate in their eyes and poisonous stings in their tails.

Socialists and Communists are the rotten toads of society, whose love for the country’s welfare consists in inflating themselves till they burst, like the frog in the fable.

Infidels and sceptics are the devil’s bats, with one of their wings cropped shorter than the other.

The froth, foams, and fumes of sceptics and infidels are only a little hellish mist that temporarily dims our eyeglasses, which the sun of truth dispels with laughing smiles.

The soft tears of love are the nightly mist-drops of heaven, which the dawn of the eternity turns into the everlasting snowdrops of paradise.

Our godly prayers sent heavenward are preserved by our heavenly Father, and will, on our arrival on the shores of paradise, become the merry pealing bells of heaven which will chime through eternal ages.

In the spirit of disobedience there is an unseen power that can draw down the greatest curse of Heaven.

The spirit of love is a heavenly wand that causes everything to laugh and dance that comes under its influence.

The spirit of hate is a Satanic rod of such baneful influence that it withers and kills everything that it touches.

Our loving, trickling tears of penitence and contrition are being collected by God to form the pure, transparent streams and rivers of joy and gladness which are to run through the celestial city; and those whose lot it has been to shed many upon earth will have increased happiness in heaven from the fact that they have contributed more largely to make heaven more beautiful and lovely by adding to the refreshing streams of paradise.

The prayers of trouble of God’s children upon earth are being reset in heaven to angelic music, which, on our landing upon the heavenly shores, are to be our songs of joy and praise.

Selfish, hollow, hypocritical, sleek-tongued deceivers are the four-faced and four-headed Satanic demons of society. Their home is among the mud; they can smile in the sunshine; but their deeds are dirty and poisonous. They are difficult to catch, but more difficult to hold when caught.

Pop-gun liberality, when it is the outcome of a little, bad heart, selfishness, and pride, may be compared to bubbles rising upon putrid waters. In the distance, and with a smiling sun, the various colours present a beautiful enchanting appearance; but as you near them the blackness, fitfulness, and stench is observable, and you turn away disgusted.

A double-headed face without eyes is he who spends a lifetime in wrecking others to hoard up ill-gotten gold, which, when in the last extremity and in fear of being wrecked himself, he throws overboard to some benevolent object, trusting to God’s lovingkindness and tender mercies to turn it into a lifeboat that will bring him safe to land.

As the sun is the centre of our solar system of heavenly bodies, giving light to the eleven illuminating planets of various colours, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Pallas, Juno, Vesta, Jupiter, Saturn, and the _Georgium Sidus_ moving round it, so in like manner is LOVE the centre of the heavenly graces, giving light and beauty to the eleven Christian characteristics, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, industry, honesty, temperance, and chastity.

Every action of retaliation is a bunch of hard prickles, and it has in the centre of it a wasps’ nest, and the buzzing of the wasps can be heard and their stings felt by the bystanders; while every act of love is a collection of perfumed, fragrance-scented oils, with a cooing dove on the top as a guard.

Retaliation and revenge are a dark cave, sending forth sulphurous fumes and the groans of hell; while forgiveness and love are a lovely garden of fragrant flowers, with cooing doves and rippling water-brooks in the midst, sending forth heavenly music.

As the process of “inoculation” applied to flowers gives to us the most beautiful coloured, tinted, edged, and lovely flowers, so in like manner it is with the Spirit of Christ. When once the Spirit of Christ is brought into contact with our human nature, refined sentiment and feelings—the Christian graces—soon become manifest.

As the wind and storm shake off the fruit which has the least hold upon the tree, so in like manner it is with the members of Christian Churches and the State. Those members and citizens the most careless, loveless, and cold, who have the least hold upon the Church, God, and the State, storms and persecution readily bring to the ground.

Death-wishers, with evil hearts, in pursuit of a good man, are the parents and life-bearers of immortal fame, which will sit upon the object of their malice, hate, and spite as a crown of precious jewels; and that which they intended and still intend to be the arrow of death God has turned and is turning into a tree of life, ever budding, blossoming, and teeming with endless delicious fruits.

Hope is the magic Luna of heaven let down and swinging to and fro in earth by golden cords, which answers to the call of young or old, rich or poor, wise or simple, learned or ignorant, and transfers darkness into light, hell into heaven, and devils into saints. Under its power poverty becomes riches, tears of sorrow songs of joy, sickness health, and death life.

The last man stands the first on a backward course.

An idle man is the devil’s standard-bearer, and works harder and does more service by his example than any man in the black force.

The first man who arrives at the top of a hill is the man to live the longest, see the most, and enjoy the most happiness.

Mysterious actions, according to the intent of the author, are either the seeds of life or the seeds of death.

As fire and cooking brings out the sweetness of food to make it digestible, so in like manner the fiery trials of affliction bring out the sweetness of a Christian character, making his path through life pleasant, agreeable, and profitable.

Private prayer is the Christian’s log, which indicates the rate he travels towards heaven, and Christlike acts of benevolence are the log-book in which his speed is registered.

When a professing Christian dances about among the members of Christian Churches solely for the sake of trade and filthy lucre, it may be taken as an indication that he has stuck a broom upon his masthead, and is open for sale to the highest bidder.

Birds, bees, and wasps pick the finest and sweetest fruit, so in like manner naughty men, women, and children pick at the sweetest children of heaven whom God loves and smiles upon.

False, misleading sentiment is the devil’s tonic sol-fa, set to music to suit his hearers.