Mr. Blythe began to relate some of the gipsy tales; and how many kings’ lives the gipsies had saved, and a number of other things relating to gipsy life, into which I had not time to enter, as I wanted to be on the road again with my gigman before it was dark. The old man’s crippled foot prevented him making some visits with me to the other gipsies in the village, or, as he said, “I should have been only too glad to have done so. The poor things want somebody looking after them, I can assure you.” I emptied nearly the whole of the contents of my bags of books, pictures, tobacco, oranges, and a few coppers upon the gipsy cobbler’s bench, among the awls, nails, waxed-ends, &c., for him to distribute, as a _man_, among the gipsy children and old women in the village; and as a _man_, and with gipsy greetings and good wishes, trusting to Mr. Blythe’s honour, I left them, and they have, with God’s blessing, no doubt been distributed. After a few words of cheer and consolation and several shakes of the hands, which somehow brought out my weakness in tears, I bade Mr. Blythe, the grey-haired, open-faced gipsy, “good-bye,” maybe never to meet again on this side of Jordan. I felt as I stepped out of the door that I could have said with a blind writer in the _Church of England Magazine_—
“Though dark and dreary be my way, Thy light can turn my night to day.”
“Pensive I tread my sad and lonely road, Pain, gloom, and sorrow marked me for their prey.”
I took a stroll through the place to eye the gipsy dwellings over, and by the time I had got to the bridge homeward, a number of poor half-starved gipsy children had gathered round me. I had not gone far before I met some bigger gipsies “working _home_” for the night. I thought I would have five minutes’ chat in the snow with a little old gipsy woman named Sanderson, who had accosted me in the usual gipsy fashion, viz., a curtsy and “Your honour, sir.” I pulled up and deposited my bags in the snow. At this the old woman began to smile; she no doubt thought that she had succeeded in her first step to draw something from me. She was not long in perceiving that I was not a Scotchman, and took pains to tell me her name, and that she was an English gipsy from the neighbourhood of Newcastle. It occurred to me that I would just for once try the old woman’s volubility of thanks, and accordingly I dipped into my bag for an orange; this brought the old woman almost upon her knees with a “Thank yer honour;” each “thanks” was accompanied by low curtsies. I next pulled out a picture card; this she put to her breast and said, “Lord bless yer honour.” I gave her another card, for which she responded with upturned eyes, “May the Lord bless you, my dear good gentleman.” I next gave her some coppers; she again turned up her eyes toward heaven and said with a smile, “May you never want a friend in the world.” I next gave her some tobacco, to which she responded, “May the dear Lord thank you a thousand times.” I ran through all the varieties I had, without exhausting her stock of thanks. I began to think that I must “give it up.” I believe Nisbets, Sunday School Union, Hodder and Stoughton, Partridge, Religious Tract Society, Christian Knowledge Society, and all the wide world-known first class publishing houses in Paternoster Row—and over London there are many of them—would not produce variety of picture books enough to exhaust the different kind of thanks the old gipsy woman had in store; at any rate she would have a curtsy for the last and one to spare for the next gift. I had a Testament in my bag, and as a last present I thought I would give it to her. The old woman took it out of my hand as a hungry starving child takes a piece of bread, with more eagerness than she had shown over either the money or the tobacco, and clasped it to her breast and called out with tears in her eyes in an attitude of prayer, “May the dear Lord Jesus bless you, my dear good gentleman, so long as you shall live, and may you never want a friend.” Tears and curtsies came again pretty freely, I shook hands with the old gipsy, and we parted. The rimy moisture on my spectacles, and the hastiness of my movements prevented me testing the old gipsy woman’s tears, to see whether they were genuine or not. I rather think they were; at any rate it is more pleasant to human nature to have smiles than frowns, even if they come from the devil.