After shaking hands with this couple I bade them goodbye, and gave them something to read during the dark hours of winter, something in which are buried seeds of a bright spring-time for them both, if they will only follow out the directions given. I then strolled into the fair. I had not gone far before I came upon an old brickmaker, and from him I gleaned some facts showing how wretchedly the Brickyard Act of 1871 is being carried out. After chatting with him for some minutes he apparently took stock of my hair, which has, thank God, grown almost white in the cause of suffering children. Mr. Brickmaker turned quite poetical, and in parting said—
“Take stock, Mr. Knock,
That’s what I have to say, Mr. Grey,”
and he then sidled and smiled away into the crowd.
I had not been long moving to and fro among the gipsies before I learned that two gipsies, whose head-quarters were a few miles from Daventry, were undergoing transportation, one for sheep-stealing, and the other for horse-stealing. The horse-stealing gipsy was caught in his own trap, owing to his being too clever and daring. It came about as follows: A publican and farmer a few miles from here had a fine, beautiful, young black horse, to which the gipsy took a fancy; and it so happened with this gipsy, as with other gipsies of this class, that he had not too much money to spare for purchasing purposes. An old idea ran fresh through his brain, which was, that he could with but little trouble make the horse his own, without money and the bother and trouble of giving back the “shilling for luck” on the completion of the purchase. Accordingly he sallied forth one dark night and took the beautiful animal out of the field, not far from Daventry, and kept it “in close confinement” for three days to undergo doctoring, at the end of which time the stolen horse was quite a different looking animal. The horse now had a white star upon its forehead, and two white fetlocks. Its tail and mane were shortened, and, with the assistance of “ginger,” it put on quite a sharp, frisky appearance. In the meantime he heard that the owner of the horse was much in want of one. “Now,” thought the gipsy, “here’s a fine chance for turning money over quickly, and getting rid of an animal that would turn ‘a tell-tale’ if kept too long.” Consequently the gipsy mounted his steed, and off he trotted to the publican. On arriving at the door he called the innkeeper out to look at a horse that he had for sale, “good, quiet in harness, sound in wind and limb, a good worker, without a blemish, and cheap.” The publican liked the looks of the horse very much, and he asked the gipsy to trot him up and down the road; and off the horse bounded, frisked, and danced about quite lively. The action of the horse was all that was desirable, and the price “right.” In the end the horse was sold, glasses round given, the “luck shilling” returned, the horse was put into the stable, and the gipsy became scarce.
Three days after the “white star” and “white fetlocks” were not to be seen, and the horse began to look “quite different.”
It was brought plainly home to the publican that he had bought back his stolen horse. The gipsy was “hunted up,” tried, and sentenced to a “long term,” where horses are not to be had.
In the fair, or “mop,” there were eight vans, in which there would be about sixteen men and women and thirty children living and sleeping; and, so far as I could gather, only about four could read and write, and these were adults, none of whom were teaching their children anything that would be helpful to them in after life.
Connected with one of the “Aunt Sally” establishments there were man, woman, and three little neglected children, with no other sleeping accommodation than a “bottom” of straw spread under the stall, covered with an old sheet, and warmed in the winter by an oil lamp. The poor woman was the picture of poverty, despair, degradation, and misery. Their stall and “Aunt Sally” were pushed through the country on a small “hand cart.” The family hailed from Leicester, and were in a most wretched, dirty, and ignorant condition. As soon as I saw the man I thought I could recognize his features as those of a posh gipsy I had seen before; and it turned out to be true, for he was no other than a “fishman” who had more than once carried my fish to the station.
In the “mop” I came across a man and woman with four children who hailed from a village a few miles from Daventry, and who had taken to gipsying and were singing in the streets in the midst of mud and drenching rain—
“Beautiful Zion, built above,
Beautiful city that I love,
Beautiful gates of pearly white,
Beautiful temple, God its light.”