One of the horses belonging to one of the gipsy vans had had nearly enough of it; and for the life of him the gipsy could not get the poor old horse to stir a peg, except to kick, and this it could do as well, if not better, than a “four-year-old.” I expected every minute to see the van over on its side, and the woman and children sprawling in the road. Fortunately, a few fellow-gipsy brothers put their shoulders to the wheel, and wheeled it off to right quarters.
In other vans “rock” and “toffy” making was going on with vengeance. I’ll take one case to show the kind of process carried out, and what town’s children and others have to swallow during feasts, mops, and fair time.
Surrounded by several vans and carts there was a fire in an old bucket, round which stood men, women, and a lot of poor little gipsy roadside Arabs. Presently into the pot over the fire—a large old kettle—a gipsy woman puts a lot of the commonest dirty-looking sugar, and some butter, or “butterine,” and when it has begun to boil, one of the children stirs it with a dirty stick for a time. After the boiling process is over, it is taken out and handed to the man or woman, as the case may be, to be “pulled” or twisted into the long walking-stick shape you see on some of the low, dirty gingerbread stalls attending fairs. A light-coloured “rock,” or “toffy,” is made by adding lighter-coloured sugar and flour.
The light-coloured “rock” and the dark-coloured “rock” are then mixed and twisted together, forming what is called the “scrodled rock.” The mixing process gives the hands of the mixers a clean appearance inside, contrasting strongly with the back of the hands, which at times, with this class of folks, resemble very much in colour the backs of tortoises or toads. George Herbert, in the “Fuller Worthies” Library, might almost have seen and tasted some such like, when he wrote—
“A sweetmeat of hell’s table, not of earth.”
A few yards from this manufacturing process there were man, woman, and two little children “as clean as pinks,” and a boy, who was scrubbing himself, head and shoulders, down to the waist, till he was “all of a white lather.” This case, and the few others I saw of a similar nature, were the “new comers on the road.” I expect to hear of their rising as a cow’s tail grows.
A laughable incident occurred while I was standing by watching the boy scrub at his head as if he meant to fetch the hair up by “the roots.” From beneath one of the vans a big black dog sallied forth down the fair with a piece of white paper in its mouth, carefully wrapped up, and much resembling a parcel of sandwiches. No sooner was the dog in the fair than some of the gipsies were after it, crying out, “Stop it! Stop it!” At first the dog would not listen; ultimately it stopped. The gipsies came up to the frightened animal. Everybody expected the dog had run away with something valuable in the shape of eatables, if nothing else. One big gipsy cried out to the dog, “Down with it! Down with it!” The dog did as it was told. This was no sooner done than the gipsy picked up the paper, and began to carefully unwrap it, when, to the horror of the gipsy and a few others who had taken part in the chase, and roars of laughter of onlookers, it turned out to be a paper containing a few bloaters’ heads and other unpalatable trifles. The parcel was dropped much quicker than it was picked up. Another laugh burst forth. The huntsmen pinched their noses and slunk away. One said, “I thought he had got somebody’s grub.”
I now came upon Mr. Bachelor Nabob Brown, a chimney-sweeping gipsy—and a most curious stick he was—in charge of a weighing machine and a few other trifles. He was just turning out of his bed, which had been in his cart, covered with a yellow sheet. Nine o’clock was the time he had promised overnight to be ready for a stroll. He got up, gave himself a rub, yawn, and a stretch, and set to work lighting his fire in the usual gipsying drawing-room fireplace among the other gipsies. Of course washing was out of the question. He boiled his water, stewed his tea, frizzled his bloater, and then set to work upon his breakfast with a strong smell of paraffin oil pervading the whole of the contents of his “larder.” Nabob Brown combed his hair with his fingers, threw on his patched and ragged old pilot Chesterfield, and off we started for a tramp to the outskirts of Oxford. We had not gone far before he began to apologize for not being dressed as a gentleman, and said, “You don’t mind, sir, do you, at me walking along with you in this cut and figure?” I said, “Oh no, I do not mind in the least. Very few know me personally in Oxford, but it would make no difference to me if they did. If it would help on the cause of the gipsy children, I would as soon have my dinner with a gipsy as with a prince.” “All right, my friend,” said Mr. Nabob Brown; “I’m glad to hear you say that. I know who I am talking to.” In going along I said to Nabob, “I should like to know a little about your family.” “All right,” he said; “that’s just what I wanted. Let me tell you, sir, that the ‘Browns’ are amongst the best families in the land. In our family are dukes, lords, M.P.’s, and squires without end, and never a one has done anything wrong. They are all high-class and first-rate folks. In everything that is good a ‘Brown’ starts it. I feel proud that my name is ‘Brown.’” I said, “I thought Smith was not a bad name.” “They are nothing like the ‘Browns,’” said Nabob. “Smiths stand second, Browns stand first. I shall come in for a fortune one of these days before long, and I shall not forget you. Will you give me your address?” I said, “Yes, with pleasure; I shall be glad to have the prospect of a fortune again for my children’s sake.” “All right, give me your card.” I handed him my card, and the poor “cracked” fellow wrapped it up and put it into his pocket.
Mr. Nabob Brown stopped, rubbed and scratched in the street, and commenced again as follows:
“I am one of fifteen children, and the only one living, thank God. My father was George Brown, who served thirty-five years in the Fifty-second Light Infantry. He was present at the battles of Waterloo, Salamanca, and Badajoz; after which he was pensioned off. He spent three years in Chelsea Hospital, and was then taken to the soldiers’ madhouse at Norwich, and there he died. People say that I am getting like him, but they are fools and don’t know what they are talking about. I’m as sensible as any man in the country—don’t you think so?” I told him I did “not like answering questions of that kind without longer experience.” “My father was of a drunken family, and it was in one of his drunken fits when he tumbled me downstairs and put out one of the joints of my backbone.” We now came to a dead stand opposite one of the colleges and near to some large houses. People big and little, gentle and simple, were passing to and fro. He now turned his back towards me and bent his bead low to the wall. He then turned up the tail ends of his old coat, exhibiting his under ragged garments, and took hold of my hand and poked my finger into a small dent in the slight bend upon his back. Of course I consented. He next took off his old hat and poked my finger into a hole upon his head. All the time his tongue was going at the rate of “nineteen to the dozen.” Mr. Nabob’s arms began to swing backwards and forwards, and he shouted out, “I live by excitement; without it I should die.” Children began to stare and gather round us, but before doing so I said, “I suppose you cannot stand drink?” “Oh dear no! I have been teetotal these twenty-five years, on and off, and am religions in my heart, but I doesn’t always show it. I goes to church sometimes. I’m a Church of England man; but then you know, sir, we in our profession cannot do without telling lies sometimes. I’m giving up all bad things, women and everything else. If it was not for being religious at my heart I should have been dead long ago.” He now began to “dance and caper about the road.” Fortunately we were close to the grounds round Christ Church College, and very few saw his megrims.