In the midst of this large group of idle men and women, ragged, dirty, unkempt, and ignorant children with matted hair, there were two of the Smith damsels—say, of about eighteen or twenty years—dressed in all the gay and lively colours imaginable, whose business was not to attend to the cocoa-nut “set outs,” but to wheedle their way with gipsy fascination amongst the crowd of race-goers, to gain “coppers” in all sorts of questionable ways of those “greenhorns” who choose to listen to their “witching” tales of gipsydom. Their “lurchers” and “snap” dogs came and smelt at my pantaloons, and skulked away with their tails between their legs.
Upon the course there were over thirty adult gipsies, and nearly forty children living in tents and vans, and connected in one way or other with the gipsy Smiths, Greens, Hollands, Stanleys, and Claytons, not one of whom—excepting one Stanley—could read and write a simple sentence out of any book, and attended neither a place of worship nor any Sunday or day school. When I explained to them the plan I proposed for registering their vans, and bringing the children within reach of the schoolmaster, they one and all agreed to it without any hesitation, and said as follows, that “it would be the best thing in the world, and unitedly expressed more than once, ‘Thank you, sir,’ ‘Thank you, sir.’”
Rain was now coming down, and the races were about to commence; therefore my gipsy congregation had begun to find its way to the various cocoa-nut establishments to begin business in earnest. With this exodus going on around me, and in the midst of oaths, swearing, betting, banging, cheating, lying, shouting, and thrashing, I turned quickly into Alfred Clayton’s van to have a friendly chat with him with “closed doors.” The conversation I had with him earlier in the afternoon led me to think that some kind of influence had been at work with him that one does not see in a thousand times among gipsies. Evidently a softening process had taken hold of him which I wanted to hear more about. With his wife and another gipsy friend in charge of his cocoa-nut business, we closed the door of the van, and he began his tale in answer to my questions. I asked him whether they had always been gipsies. To which he answered as follows: “My grandfather was a ‘stockiner’ at Barlestone, and lived in a cottage there; but in course of time he began to do a little hawking, first out of a basket round the villages, and then in a cart round the country. He then took to a van; and the same thing may be said of the Claytons. Originally they were ‘stockiners’ at Barwell, a village close to Barlestone, and began to travel as my grandfather and father had done. Thus you will see that the two families of gipsies, Claytons and Hollands, are mixed up pretty much. My father is, as you know, a Holland, and my mother a Clayton, whose name I take. At the present time, out of the original family of Hollands at Barlestone, and the original family of Claytons at Barwell, there are seven families of Hollands travelling the country at the present time, and fifteen families of Claytons travelling in various parts of Staffordshire and other places.” From the original two families it will be seen that there are over a hundred and fifty men, women, and children who have taken to gipsying within the last fifty years, not half a dozen of whom can read and write, with all the attendant consequences of this kind of a vagabond rambling life; which the more we look into, it is plain that Christianity and civilization, as we have put them forth to reclaim those of our own brothers and sisters near home, have proved a failure, not on account of the blessed influences of themselves being not powerful enough, but in the lack of the application of them to the gipsies by those who profess to have received those world-moving principles in their hearts. In the midst of this dark mass of human beings moving to and fro upon our lovely England, one little cheering ray is to be seen. Alfred Clayton tells us this. When he was staying at Leicester with his van some three years since, he stole like a thief in the night into the “Salvation Warehouse” at the bottom of Belgrave Gate, and while he was there an influence penetrated through the hardened coats of ignorance and crime, and the ramification of sin in all its worst shape to the depth of his heart, and awakened a chord of sympathy in his nature which has not died out, or wholly left him to this day. “Jesus the name high over all” caused him to open his ears in a manner they had never been opened before, and wonder what it all meant. This visit to the “Salvation warehouse” was not lost upon him, or without its effects upon his conduct. One cold wintry day, some two years ago, he was staying with his wife and family in this van on the roadside between Atherstone and Hinckley, when a youth, apparently about eighteen years old, came limping along the road, dressed in what had once been a fashionable suit of clothes, but now was little better than rags. His face was thin and pale, and his fingers long, and his neck bare. Upon his feet were two odd old worn-out shoes, and without stockings upon his legs; and as the forlorn youth neared the van and its occupants at dusk, he said, “Will you please give me a bit of bread, for I feel very hungry.” Clayton said, without much inquiry and hesitation, “Come into the van and warm yourself,” and while the youth was doing so, they got ready a crust of bread and cheese and some tea, which were devoured ravenously. Clayton learned that the stranger was related to one of the leading manufacturers named at Leicester, and well known as being rich; but unfortunately for the poor youth, his father died, and his stepmother had sold everything and cleared away to America, leaving this well-educated lad without any money, or means of earning money, to grapple with the world and its difficulties for a livelihood as best he could. Clayton, in the kindness of his heart, took the youth into the van, and he travelled up and down the country with them as one of their own during the space of two years, when owing to “his being a gentleman,” and a “capital scollard,” he was helpful to the gipsy family in more ways than one. After the two years’ gipsying spent by the youth with his kind friends the Claytons in rambling about the country, some kind friends at Atherstone took pity on him, and he is there to-day, gradually working his position back into civilized society, and a respectable member of the community, notwithstanding the treatment he has received at the hands of his cruel stepmother. After the meeting at the “Salvation Warehouse” Clayton had been seen and heard more than once, checking swearing and other sins so common to gipsies; but had never finally decided to leave gipsying and begin a better life until last Christmas. The steps which led up to his “great resolve,” he related to me as follows: “Mr. Smith, you must know that I have been about as bad a man as could be found anywhere. I felt at times, through drink and other things, that I would as soon murder somebody as I would eat my supper; in fact, I didn’t care what I did; and things went on in this way till my little girl, about three years old, and who I loved to the bottom of my heart, was taken ill and died. She had such bright eyes, a lovely face, and curls upon her head. She was my darling pet, and always met me with a smile; but she died and lies buried in Polesworth churchyard.” At this Clayton burst into crying and sobbing like a child. “I vowed,” said Clayton, “on the day, at the side of the grave, she, my poor darling, was buried, that I would not touch drink for a month, and do you know, Mr. Smith of Coalville, when the month was gone, I did not feel to crave for drink any more, and I have not had any up till now.” He now dried his eyes, and his face brightened up with a smile, and I said to him in the van, “Let us kneel down and thank God for helping you to make this resolution, and for grace to help you to keep it.” In the midst of the hum, shouting, and swearing of the races, we shut the door of the van; and after we had got off our knees, he knelt down again and again, and began to pray, with tears in his eyes, as follows:—
“O Lord Jesus, Thou knowest that I have been a bad sinner. O God, thou knowest I have been very wicked in many ways, and done many things I should not have done; but Thou hast told me to come to Thee and Thou wilt forgive me. Do my God forgive me for all the wrong I have done, and help me to be a better man, and never touch drink again any more, for Thou knowest it has been my ruin. Help me to live a good life, so that I may meet my little darling in heaven, who lies in Polesworth churchyard. Do, O Lord, bless my wife and my other little children, and make them all good. Oh do, my heavenly Father help my mother to give over swearing and bad things. Thou canst do it. Do Thou bless my father, and my brothers, and all my relations, and Mr. Smith in his work, and for being so good to us, so that we may all meet in heaven, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.
“Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.”
After Clayton had dried his eyes we got up, to behold, over the top of the bottom half of his van door, the riders, dressed in red, scarlet, yellow, green, blue, crimson, and orange, with a deep black shade to be seen underneath, galloping to hell with hordes of gamblers at their heels as fast as their poor, cruelly treated steeds could carry them, all leaving footprints behind them for young beginners to follow. I said to Clayton, “Are you not tired of this kind of life?” And he said he was. “It is no good for anybody,” said Clayton, “and I am going to leave it. This is my last day with the ‘cocoa-nuts.’ I shall start in the morning—Saturday—for Coventry and Atherstone, where I mean to settle down and bring my children up like other folks. I have taken a house and am going to furnish it, and a gentleman is going to give me a chance of learning a trade, for which I thank God.”
As the shouts of the hell-bound multitude were dying away, and the gains and losses reckoned up, Clayton’s three little gipsy children, with their lovely features, curls, and bright blue eyes, came toddling up the steps to the van door, calling out, “Dad, let us in; dad, let us in.” The door was opened, and the little dears comfortably seated by our side. I gave them a few pictures, some coppers, stroked their hair, and “chucked their chin,” and bade them good-bye in the midst of a shower of rain, to meet again some day with the bright sun shining overhead and a clear sky without a cloud to be seen anywhere. For the present I must say with John Harris in his Wayside Pictures—
“Where Thou leadest it is best;
Cheer me with the thought of rest,
Till I gain the upper shore,
And my tent is struck no more.”
Rambles among the Gipsies at Boughton Green Fair.
I HAD heard much and often about the Boughton Green Fair, and the vast number of gipsies, semi-gipsies, and other tramps, scamps, vagabonds, hawkers, farmers, tradesmen, the fast and loose, riff-raff and respectable, gathered together from all quarters once a year upon this ancient Green for a “fairing.” Tradesmen and farmers exhibited their wares, live stock, and implements of husbandry; and others set forth their articles of torture, things of fashion, painted faces, “tomfoolery,” and “bosh,” to those who like to tramp thither in sunshine and storm with plenty of money in their pockets for revel and debauch.