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.