Читать книгу I've been a Gipsying. Rambles among our Gipsies and their children in their tents and vans онлайн

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At Victoria Park Station the platelayers were at work, and when I inquired the cause, I was told that the Queen’s carriages were to pass over the line to Loughton at eleven o’clock “to try the metals,” and to see that the platform was back enough to allow sufficient space for the footboards of the royal carriages. In some cases there was not sufficient space, and the line had to be swung a little to enable the carriages to pass.

At Stratford I had a few minutes to wait, and a little conversation with the stationmaster soon satisfied me that he was an observing and common-sense Christian, with a kind heart and good wishes for the poor gipsy children.

I arrived at Loughton in time to join in the morning service conducted by the Wesleyans in a neat iron chapel. The service was good, plain, and homely, and as such I enjoyed it. Of course, being a stranger in “these parts,” I was eyed o’er with “wondering curiosity.” In the chapel there was a tall old man who sat and stood pensively, with his head bending low, during the services, and whom, without much hesitation, I set down as a gipsy. He did not seem to enjoy the service. On inquiry afterwards, I found that my surmise was correct, and that the tall man was a gipsy Smith, of some seventy winters, who was born under a tent upon Epping Forest, amongst the brambles, furze, and heather, with the clouds for a shelter from the sun’s fierce rays in summer, and the slender tent covering, with the dying embers of a stick fire, to keep body and soul together in the midst of the wintry blasts, drifting hail, snow, and sleet, and keen biting frosts to “nip the toes.”