Morning dawned and found me with wakeful eyes ready to receive it. After breakfast I began to prepare for my journey through deep snow which had fallen evenly upon the ground to the height of the stone walls. I found that the postman with his cart had begun to prepare for the journey, and he calculated that if all were straight it would take him five hours to “do the eight miles.” “Mine host” would not consent to this arrangement, and the next best thing was to hire a horse and trap. So through the deep snow we started. I had not got very far before my muffler was frozen and icicles hung round my beard like little diamonds. A few carts and waggons had been pulled over the snow in places by the farmers, and had left a few tracks. Notwithstanding these our old hunter was not long before he began to “puff and blow.” My gigman said, “I don’t know whether we shall be able to get through to Yetholm, but we will go as far as we can. We can but turn back if we can get no further.”
Our steed did not require pulling up to stop him. Of his own instinct he stopped pretty frequently. I said to the man, “Our horse seems to be short of ‘puff.’” “Yes,” said the gigman; “his wind is touched a little, but nothing to hurt. He will be all right if we can once pull through.” Sometimes we went into the ditches. How deep they were before the snow fell I don’t know. I should think some of them were pretty deep. Thanks to the Almighty, the bottom of our gig would not let us topple over. Many times I began to wonder where we should find a resting-place for the night. I said to my gigman as we went ploughing through the snow in one of the ditches, “In case we get stuck fast, what shall we do next?” “Well,” said the gigman, “we shall have to leave the trap behind and return to Kelso as best we can. We shall both have to get upon the horse’s back, and if he will not carry us we must take turn and turn about. It won’t do to stop on the road to perish.” I began to “pump” my gigman in order to know whether I was in the hands of one who understood his business. I wanted my fears settling upon this point.
I said, “How long have you been a coachman?” “Between twenty and thirty years,” he said. “And have you ever had a ‘spill’ or been stuck fast?” “I have only had one ‘pitch in’ and never a ‘spill.’” This news gave me confidence in my man, and on we kept ploughing away. A strong contrast presented itself to our view close to a cottage just off the roadside. There was a fine dark woman with a bright scarlet hood and cloak on her big body, doing something upon one of the hedges. It struck me that she was bird-liming, for the London markets, the poor linnets that choose to be caged rather than to perish.
The sights along the road were most lively, and I shall never forget it as long as the breath is in my body. The excitement “on the road,” the bubbling sympathy within my breast for the poor perishing rabbits, hares, partridges, and crows upon our path, the dangers of the way, and the magnificent grandeur of the scenery, were of such a nature as to cause me to forget the biting cold at work benumbing my nose, fingers, and toes. The Scotch firs in the dales and vales along our path and on the hillsides never appeared more grand and beautiful. They were artistically touched by the hand of God. The pure white lovely prismatic children of the clouds and cold boundless space had descended softly from heaven, as if loth to leave their pure abode for a resting-place in the mud; but before doing so they appeared anxious to adorn the trees of nature with the beauties of ethereal space, and in such a manner as to cause one’s heart to glow with gratitude towards God, the Giver of all good. The boughs were bent downwards, heavily laden with the angelic snowflakes; the whole trees presenting a spiral sight, leading your eyes and mind upwards toward heaven. At the extreme tips of the branches the snow had formed a kind of white clapperless bells. As I passed under the heavily-laden trees I felt that I should like to have helped them to bear their burden, and also to keep the prismatic children of the clouds and infinitude from settling into their dirty resting-places. Nature seemed to speak through the beautiful snow-adorned trees, and wintry-capped hills and covered valleys with a warm loving tenderness that I had never experienced before.
Upon the fences the snow had come softly and stealthily down, apparently as if in gentle wavelets, which presented the appearance of fold upon fold, overhanging waves upon waves in beautiful round and soft designs; and as I beheld it I felt for a few minutes that it would be a real pleasure, with joy and gladness running through my bones, and smiles forcing themselves upon my face, to roll, plunge, tumble, and fluster under its overhanging laps and waved folds, which seemed to speak invitingly, and with open arms, to those who cast a sympathetic glance at them. Never in this world did snow appear more to be like the downs of heaven than upon this occasion, notwithstanding the biting cold day. On this journey the live things seemed to be dying, while the dead things seemed to be living.
We had now been on the road ploughing away over two hours among the snow, and still we were not at the end of our journey. We had had many escapes of a spill, with the consolation that we should not have been hurt, except in case the iron heels of our beast had come sharply in contact with our almost frost-bitten noses. As we topped the hills and neared Yetholm it was manifest that the rude hand of storm and tempest had been busily at work among the trees at some not very remote period. Hundreds had been uprooted, some of which were left to tell the tale. Not a public-house was to be seen on the way. There was a kind of cabin a little off the roadside, on which was stuck a piece of board, showing that tea, tobacco, coffee, and snuff were sold there. Among the hills in the distance Yetholm was observed. The thought that had run freely through my mind, that I might not reach Yetholm, had now vanished.
The veritable gipsy town was in sight, and our steed pricked up his ears and quickened his pace. The blood which had imperceptibly been freezing in my veins seemed to glow again. The use of my hands and feet seemed to be coming round, and into a public-house I stumbled at half past one to get a cup of tea, “a cheer up,” and thorough warming. After which I set out with my bag in one hand loaded with Testaments, supplied to me by a friend and the Christian Knowledge Society; picture cards, supplied to me by the Religious Tract Society; and Our Boys and Girls, supplied to me by the Wesleyan Sunday-School Union; while in the other hand I carried a quantity of oranges and tobacco, purchased from Mr. Laidlaw’s, a tradesman in the place. With this “stock-in-trade” for the big and little gipsies at Kirk Yetholm I started my tramp.
The nestling and nuzzling of the gipsy hypocrites beneath the walls of the church at Kirk Yetholm, when they first landed in this country and for centuries onward, is only in accord with their first appearance in many parts of England. There can be no doubt that when the gipsies came from the Continent they came as hypocritical, religious, popish pilgrims, and succeeded well for a time in inveigling themselves into the good graces and pockets of the well-to-do English men and women, so that many of them were able to dress in scarlet and gold till they were found out, as I have shown elsewhere.
Kirk Yetholm, the gipsy town, is about half a mile from Town Yetholm.
