I could not help noticing the vast number of clergymen moving about. The prettily dressed, and not bad-looking woman had charms for some of them—old and young. She had a good head of black hair, as most gipsies have. Probably her witching eyes and tresses tickled the fancies of the clerical onlookers. One grave-looking clergyman walked up the fair very sedately, not seeming to notice such nonsense, but I could see him glancing out of the corner of his eye at the woman and her children as they danced about. It may be that he was there for the same purpose as I was, viz., to see both sides of gipsying, the evil and the good. If such was the case, I am sure that he found it like the Irishman found his wife, nearly “all bad and no good.”
In the fair, and with smiling looks, pleasant tongue, and busy hand, was Mr. Wheelhouse, the Oxford city missionary, trying to sell his heavenly books. A few came and looked, and turned away, notwithstanding the low prices at which he offered his soul-saving wares. Trash! bosh! Dash and a splash into the Oxford English gipsying was what the crowd wanted, and some of them had it to their heart’s content, with shadows of the morrow’s sorrows hanging over them as they dived deep into sin. Occasionally the missionary would have a customer, which caused him to smile like a full-blown rose.
The good old man, as he gave me a parting grip, said, “God bless you in your noble work. I’ve long wanted to see you. God bless you, good-bye,” and he gave me an extra squeeze, and I then jostled into the crowd.
I noticed three or four of the most respectable gipsy-looking men soliciting subscriptions. It could not be for taxes, I thought, for gipsies never pay taxes—at least those who do not hawk and don’t live in houses. I inquired what their loss was, and I was told that a young woman, one of the mainstays of one of the establishments in the fair, had been burnt to death the previous week in one of the vans. The organ, van, and contents had gone to the winds, and the poor woman’s charred black remains consigned to the cold, cold sod, and tears and black crape left to tell the tale. How she came to her untimely end was not fairly cleared up at the inquest. When the great book is opened it will be made clear. I gave them some silver, and when they asked in what name it was to be entered, of course I told them, and they opened their eyes with wondrous curiosity and amazement. I shook hands with them, and for some minutes I was lost in the crowd. I suppose they had been told by wicked outsiders that I had nothing but hard words for the gipsies and travellers.