At Nuneaton I conversed with a gentleman who gave me a little of his history, some of which was remarkable, especially that part relating to his courtship and marriage. “Ah!” said my friend with a tone of sadness, “I had the misfortune to lose my wife by cruel death, and was left with four little children to get through the world as best we could. It was a sad blow, sir. I don’t know whether you have ever undergone such a trial, but my experience of it is that it is one of the greatest misfortunes that can ever befall mortal man, and I’ve nothing but pity for the man who has had to undergo the sad loss. Oh! it’s terrible, sir. After you have been toiling hard all day in the cold rain, frost, and snow, and then to go home to find no one to warm your slippers, or to speak a kind, soothing, and cheering word to you, was more than I could bear. To sit and eat your bread and butter and drink your tea alone, while the servants and the children were playing in the streets, was enough to turn any man into a wild animal.” I said to him, “Certainly it is a terrible ordeal, and one that I should not like to pass through.” “Yes it is,” said my friend, almost in whimpering tones. “Well, how did you get out of your sad difficulty?” I said. “Well, sir, things went on for some months in a path in which there seemed nothing but vexation. The servants were quarrelling, the children were neglected, and bills seemed to be coming in without end; and while I was brooding over these things one afternoon, in came a minister from Derby, and he saw the fix I was in, and that I could not get him as nice a cup of tea as formerly; and, to help me out of my difficulty, he said, ‘My dear brother, when the proper time comes, I know where there’s a wife that will suit you.’ ‘Do you?’ I said to my ministerial friend. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I do.’ At this I pricked up my ears, and he said, ‘I am going to their house for tea next week, and if you like you shall go with me.’ ‘All right,’ I said. Nothing more passed that evening on the subject. During the week he wrote to me, asking me to meet him at Derby station. Of course I thought I would go; they could not take anything of me, and I went. In going to the house I began to get into a nervous stew. On the way my friend said, ‘Now there are two sisters in the house living with their mother. It will be the one with a blue ribbon round her waist who I think will suit you. After they have been in their room to dress for the afternoon she generally comes out the first.’ ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’ll keep my eyes open.’ At the door the mother met us, and gave us a hearty welcome. The young ladies were in their room, and I was playing with my fingers upon the arm of the sofa. Presently a young lady came downstairs. Of course I had my eyes upon the waistband, to see whether it was a blue one; but, to my astonishment, it was green. In a few minutes the other young lady came downstairs with the blue ribbon round her waist. I concluded that this was the one my friend the parson had selected for me. Tea was got ready, and instead of entering freely into the general conversation, I kept looking first at one and the other of the young ladies at tea, and playing with my fingers between time. When tea was over and the service ended, on the way home my friend the parson said, ‘Well, which of the two do you like best?’ ‘Oh!’ I said, ‘I’m not particular; I’ll take to either of them; but as the eldest is nearer to my age, I think I will make love to her,’ taking it all as a joke. Nothing more was said. During the next week I was a long way from home on business, and I ventured to write to Deborah, telling her who I was, and what little game I was up to, and asking her to meet me at the station to have a chat together on the subject about which I wrote. The young lady was, so I’ve been told since, dumbfounded, and said to her sister, ‘Of all the men in the world I will not have him; I don’t like him a bit. He did not at all seem to make himself comfortable at tea. I shall not go to meet him.’ ‘Well,’ said the other sister with the green waistband, ‘If you don’t go I shall. He will suit me.’ ‘Well,’ said the one with the blue waistband, ‘if he will suit you he will suit me, and I will go to meet him at the station.’ Accordingly I got out of the train, so that she might know me again, and on we went to Derby and made matters square; and—would you believe me, sir?—in three weeks from that time we were married.” I said, “Well, bless me!” The rapidity of his courting expedition almost took the wind out of me. The station bell now rang. I jumped into the train, and as I was moving off towards Leicester I bade my new friend good-bye; and he, in return, waving his hand, said, “I will tell you the rest another day, and what we saw on our wedding tour in London, Antwerp, Brussels, Mastricht, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam.” “All right,” I said, and we puffed away, leaving quite a pother behind.
In the train were two young female “school teachers,” who had been a “gipsying” to Coventry by the “special” from Leicester on the Saturday afternoon, and, whether by accident or design, they had been left behind. I questioned them about the suspicious circumstance attached to such a course, to which they replied, “As soon as we arrived at the station, and found that the train had been gone five minutes, we nearly cried our eyes out. Fortunately we had friends in Coventry with whom we stayed all night.”
I told them to be good girls and do better for the future, to which they replied, “We will,” and I left them to make my way down Belgrave Gate to my sister-in-law’s. After tea we went to St. Mark’s church, and heard a smiling young curate, the Rev. A. F. Maskew, preach a good, practical, telling sermon, on the occasion of returning thanks to Almighty God for the success that has attended our army and navy and the termination of the war in Egypt. The Rev. C. B. — was away on his holiday. After the service the congregation stood up and heartily joined the choir in singing, “God save the Queen.” To which I responded with all my heart, “Amen! God bless our blessed Queen.”
Right always comes right. After service I took a walk, with “a young lady” of some forty-five gentle summers and hard winters at my left side, to visit the new park in the abbey meadows. The sight was most enchanting. Few lovers were on the walks with their arms entwined round each other’s waists. The artificial lakes, hills, and rockeries were seen with solemn grandeur by the aid of distant lamps. The moving murmuringly forward of the “soar” waters beneath our feet, as we stood on the bridge, lighted up with silver streaks of distant lamps, and the pealing forth of the soft, heavenly, riveting, and mesmerizing hymns and chimes of the evening bells of St. Mark’s and St. Saviour’s, made me feel that all the troubles, trials, opposition, misrepresentation, and hardship I had passed through were suddenly transformed into pleasures, leading up to the indescribable panoramic views that appeared before my vision. As it passed away—or, I should say, I passed from it—another one opened up which led me on and on in spirit to the heavenly rest and everlasting beauty in store. The Rev. Richard Wilton says—
“Let Nature’s music still the ear delight,
And gracious echoes mortal cares allay,
Till “wood-notes” ’mid angelic warbling cease,
And “church bells” ring us to eternal peace.”
In a few minutes after this I was between the sheets, and I could have said with John Harris, as sleep stole gently into my room—
“Hark! What is that? The spirit of the vale?
Or is it some bright angel by the lake?”
And the last I remember was, I was muttering over “by” “by” “the” “lake,” “by” “by” “the” “the” “lake,” “la—la,” and I was bound fast to the bed.
A quondam friend bade me “good morning,” and then jumped into a “first class” to recite his “R’s” and “S’s” so as to give them the finishing touch correctly the next Sunday morning, while I enjoyed the honour and pleasure of a “third.” We arrived together at Nottingham, and I made my way to a “temperance hotel,” not half a mile from the station, with “first-class” appearances outside, but with “third-class” bedroom accommodation. My room was a “top back,” overlooking well-known old friends, viz., bricks, tiles, terra-cotta, sanitary pipes, encaustic tiles, &c, with a board in the corner covered with oilcloth for a washing stand, and a tea saucer for a “soap tray.” The bed was hard, and the blind was of a material that needed no washing; in fact, the room was bare, cheerless, comfortless, and cold. I strolled into the market-place, and was soon talking to some old-fashioned Staffordshire gipsies with short skirts, and apparently, thick legs, heavy boots, with plenty of colour about their “head-gear,” who, taking all things into consideration, were not bad specimens of gipsies of the present day.
After this I spent a short time with my old friend, Mr. William Bradshaw, a name which has been well known in the midland counties for many long years. Writing and gossiping consumed the remainder of the day; and at ten o’clock I mounted and climbed nearer heaven to rub my eyes again at peep o’ day. Between four and five o’clock I was in and out of my hard bed a dozen times, guessing the time and groping in the dark, for fear I might miss the train to Bulwell Forest. At last I got so fidgety that I was determined to get up, “hit or miss.” I dressed, and then went downstairs to find my way out into the street; but, not having an angel, like Peter, to open the doors for me, I had to ring and ring and shout sufficient to awaken all in the house; if they had been as deaf as posts, I could not have had a greater difficulty to awaken them. At last the landlord made his appearance with his shirt on, and his hair on an end like a frightened ghost. Owing to my early movements, and being a suspicious-looking customer, I had to pay my bill, and out I went about half-past five. My train started for Bulwell at six o’clock, and at six thirty I was among the gipsies upon the forest. There were four vans full of gipsies of all sorts and sizes, just turning out of their “bed;” so dirty were they that I should not have been surprised if the “beds” had run away with them. “Smiths” and “Winters” were the two prominent names. “Bless me,” I said, there are “gipsy Smiths here, there, and everywhere.” “Yes, you are right, my good mon,” said Mrs. Gipsy Winter in a Staffordshire twang. In the four vans there would be twelve adults and eighteen poor, rough, dirty, neglected little gipsy children, not one of whom could read or write. The policeman said to me, “The gipsies that come on this forest and about these parts are a rough, dirty, bad lot, and no mistake. Nowt comes amiss that they can lay their hands upon, I can assure you.” I had a chat with Mrs. Gipsy Winter, and told her what my object was, viz., to bring their vans under registration, and also to give their children a free education; to which she replied with delight, “Lor, bless you, my good mon, I’m reight glad you big fokes are going to do sommat in the way o’ givin’ our childer a bit o’ eddication, for they’re nowt as it is. They are growin’ up as ignorant as osses; they conner tell a ‘b’ from a bull’s foot. I conner read mysen, but I should like our childer to be able to read and write. Han you got one o’ your eddication pass books wi’ yer? cause if yer han, I’ll ha’ one.” I told her that the Act was not passed authorizing the use of them; at which she held down her head, and said, “I suppose we mun wait a long time fust.” “Yes,” I said, “it will not be this year.”