I could see that there was some cause for the tear-fetching tenderness and sympathy that was manifested, and I gently asked for information, and was told by the good people that during the last month two of the youngest babies had been sent for to live in the angel-world where no tears are seen and sighing heard. A melting, sorrowful sadness seemed to creep over me as I looked round the room. A parent cannot describe the feelings, and no one but a parent can feel them.
The cradle was empty in the corner; the lovely little birds had flown to sing in a lovelier clime. The tender-hearted mother gave way to a woman’s dewy feelings while another verse was sung, in which I could not help joining, owing to having passed through similar circumstances. I had lost more than one little tender lamb, and could enter feelingly into the motherly woman’s misfortunes. I said the children were not lost but gone before, where there are neither tears nor the pinchings of poverty. In the midst of the solemn scene I wended my way upstairs to my humble cot; my softened feelings, wet eyes, and scalding tears prevented me worshipping Morpheus till just as the candle was flickering out in the socket.
I then dropped into a dozing sleep to awake at opening day, after which I bade my friends the gipsies good-bye, and left “the mother bending o’er her beauty buds.”
Rambles among the Gipsies at St. Giles’ Fair, Oxford.
On Saturday, September 4th, 1882, I found myself travelling southward by the aid of a carrier’s waggon and first, second, and third class railway carriages, surrounded by gentlemen, clergymen, tradesmen, farmers, cattle-dealers, labourers, soldiers, snobs, fops, and scamps, and ladies fat and thin, pretty, plain, reserved, lovable, and smiling; and as we neared London the sleeping, yawning, gaping, and slow movements seemed to be giving way to activity, bustle, restlessness, and anxious looks. Stopping, banging, and dashing, and on we sped. In the train I had a pleasant chat with the Rev. Mr. Gibbotson, vicar of Braunston, who related to me some of his experiences with canal-boat children and the gipsies. In one instance a gipsy charged him three shillings and sixpence for grinding his nail scissors; and in another instance a sharp, clever boat boy of twelve had passed the sixth standard, and was in a fair way of becoming a pupil teacher, but in six months spent among the canal children in floating up and down the country, he had learnt some of their wicked and bad habits, which had ruined his career. After changing carriages, I saw at one of the North London stations a woman, who must have imagined that she was in the country, creeping out of one of the compartments with her sweet-looking child of some four or five summers at snail speed, and as if changing would have done to-morrow. She quietly found her way to the carriage door and opened it very gently, and was about to step leisurely upon the platform when the train began to move off. Her eyes were now opened, and with a wild stare she tumbled the child upon the platform, and then in getting out herself she fell upon the footboard. Fortunately for herself and the child, the guard was close by at the time, and with the quickness of lightning he seized the child with one hand and its mother with the other and pulled them upon the platform, the child upon its face and the mother upon her back, and saved their lives in less time than I could twinkle my eye. The child cried, the mother screamed, and the last I saw of them, as we were rounding the curve, was that a porter was picking up the child, and the bewildered mother was gathering herself together as well as she could.
On my way I called at a large block of new mansions in course of erection, and which my son had in hand, and found a joke very nearly carried into tragical and awful effect. The “lift” was not working well, and a gentleman not of a classical or ministerial kind, rather than use his legs in going up the ordinary stairs, preferred using the temporary goods hoist, and said to one of the men as he was jumping into the cage against the wish of friends, “Jump in, and if we must go to hell, we may as well go together.” They had no sooner landed at the top of the building and just cleared the cage, than it dropped to the bottom of the building with terrific force, carrying destruction with it. One minute longer and they would both have been in eternity.
Having fairly landed in London, I made my way to the Religious Tract Society, and the Wesleyan Sunday-school Union, for some pictures, and books, and magazines for the gipsy children, which were gladly given to me, and with my bundles, bags, &c., I turned into my lodging in Museum Street well tired. Overnight I inquired of my host if I could get a ’bus or a cab that would take me to Paddington by nine o’clock on Sunday morning. At this question he shook his head and said, “The ’busses will not be running so early as eight o’clock, and the cabs, what few you will meet, will be on their way home; therefore you will have a difficulty in getting your packages to the station. And if you order one overnight it is ten to one if they will come.” From this answer I could see that my only course was to be up early enough to lug them to the station myself. Six o’clock on Sunday morning found me getting a cup of cold tea and a sandwich for my breakfast, after which I started down Oxford Street with my four parcels, weighing about three-quarters of a hundredweight. No ’busses were to be seen. Here and there were tired, straggling cabmen wending their way home. As I hailed them they shook their heads and on they went. I managed to carry my load about two hundred yards, and then turned off the street to rest, and to leave the few stragglers moving about Oxford Street wondering as to my movements. Not far from Tottenham Court Road I turned off the main street a few yards, and stood with my back to the solitary passers-by, putting a few notes into my pocket-book, when I was startled and somewhat surprised to find two tall young men at my elbow, and without a word one of them deposited upon the Religious Tract Society’s parcel a small book, entitled “A Cure for the Incurable,” which I picked up and read as follows:
“During the journey we were joined by a young man and woman, the latter evidently labouring under some distressing bodily infirmity. The young man took advantage of the vacated scats to place his afflicted companion in a recumbent position, carefully covering her feet with a shawl. I gently alluded to her appearing unwell. ‘Yes, ma’am,’ she replied, ‘I am just dismissed from St. Thomas’s Hospital as incurable.’ The tone of her voice, and the tear which trickled down her pale cheek, instantly awakened my sympathy. Her four children, one a baby, and her dear husband, she said, made it ‘hard to die;’ but she believed God would care for the motherless ones, and cheer the lonely widower. ‘The doctors,’ she added, ‘say I may live some months, but that cure is impossible. So I thought I would rather be in my own cottage, where I could look at my children, and see the flowers outside my door, and have fresh air, than remain in the hospital; though I had everything of the best there, and great kindness shown me. But, ma’am, home is home; and my husband knows how to nurse me better than any one else. I know that I shall not live long; but I shall die at home, and God will comfort my dear husband, and will go through the dark valley with me.’ This brief interview was deeply touching to me, and my tears flowed with theirs.”
Just as I had finished the hasty glance through the little book, and was preparing for another “move on,” I noticed a tall, emaciated, half-clad young woman approaching me from the opposite side of the street. Such a picture of misery I have rarely seen. She did not seem to have more than one loosely-hung old garment upon her, which, as she walked, revealed the shape of her figure, which did not at all seem a bad one; moral deformities had not as yet, to all appearance, begun to tell heavily upon her frame. On presenting herself to me she said, in tones of despair, “Will you please give me sufficient to buy me a cup of coffee? I want it very bad, I can assure you, sir. Do, dear sir.” Her eyes were red either with drink, tears, or anguish. Poor lost soul! thought I; and on she went to ruin and death.