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

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It was about 10.30. The mouths and hearts of those who were left began to breed venomous, waspish words. At any rate, all the more steady and sensible part of the sightseers were wending their way homewards. Others were making for the beershops and public-houses, and the riff-raff were loitering about for what they could pick up. Policemen seemed to be creeping upon the ground, buttoned up to the throat, and ready for any emergency.

A few yards from where I was standing I noticed, by the aid of gas, naptha, and paraffin, a gipsyish-looking man standing, opposite one of the cottages, with his arms folded over the palings. I soon found out that he was a gipsy, but had recently taken to house-dwelling, and was now engaged in labourer’s work with bricklayers. He invited me into his comfortably furnished house, and introduced me to his tidy wife, who was not a gipsy, and two good-looking little children. I had a few minutes’ chat with them. He gave me a short account of the suffering, trials, and hardships which he endured while tramping the country, and living in tents, and under vans, and on the roadside. “In early life,” he said, “when I was quite a child, I was placed with my uncle, who is a gipsy horsedealer, to live with him and my aunt, in their van. For a time they behaved well to me, and I slept in the van at nights. From some cause or other, which I have never been able to make out, I was sent to sleep under the van with the dogs’, and to lie upon straw with but little covering. My food now was such as I could pick up—turnips, potatoes, or any mortal thing that I could lay my hands upon. In the winter time I have had to gnaw and nibble a cold turnip for my dinner like a sheep. I used to have to run about in all weathers to do the dirty work of my uncle, mind his horses, ponies, and donkeys in the lanes and fields, for which he would not give me either food, clothing, or lodgings, other than what I looked out for myself. My clothing I used to beg, and, when once put upon my back, there they stuck till they dropped off by pieces. I had a hard time of it for many years, I can tell you, and no mistake. My uncle is now a gentleman horsedealer, and keeps his carriage and his servants to wait upon him. He is well known in London. If he meets or sees me in the streets he turns his head another way, and won’t look at me, though I helped to make his fortune. Every dog has its day, and my turn may come. We gave up drink, and I go to the church and chapel when I have the chance, and I am all the better for it, thank God. I may be as well off as my cruel old uncle some day.” I shook hands with this gipsy family, and bade them God speed, and turned again into the fair and among the gipsy tents. Some of the gipsy and other travelling children were running about picking up scraps and crumbs that had fallen from the bad man’s table. Every piece of paper that had the appearance of having been folded up was eyed over with eager curiosity and wonder by the poor little urchins before they would believe that it was full of emptiness.