A woman who interested me much was also a married woman. Once she had been waitress in an hotel frequented by the gentry, a place I knew well, and travelled with her wages in her pocket to buy clothes. She was still better dressed, a shapely woman, with a face almost handsome, graceful in her movements and a capital worker. Her husband did not look a bad specimen of a working man. Her story was that they had had a comfortable home; he was once a singer in a church choir. But his particular branch of trade failed, and he had to seek a growingly obsolete kind of work where it was to be found. They had tramped north in vain to find it, and were now tramping back to their old neighbourhood in the hope that things would be better. This woman also did not complain, and behaved in a self-respecting manner, not a foul word or reproach; she worked steadily, but was very weary and restless at night. She had a heavy cold on her and grew worse instead of better. I seem to see her sitting wearily up in bed, unable to get the needed repose. They had walked long distances recently.
A more doubtful character was "Pollie," who apparently was well known to the officials. She was left stranded, as her husband, one fine day, being let out of a tramp ward before her, left her behind. She complained bitterly that the men were let out so long before the women, they had time to get "miles out of the road." If she caught him he would "get three months." Meanwhile she intended to visit a sister who would give her a few shillings, and then make tracks for another sister. Her face was not unhandsome, but her nose betrayed the real reason of her misfortunes, and her tongue was ready, and not too clean. She knew the workhouses far and wide, and had had her tussles with the authorities. She had thrown her bread and cheese at a matron who gave her it after hard work, giving another woman a workhouse diet. She had been in prison for "lip." She was, in fact, a tramp proper, and with a little drink and boon companions probably foul-mouthed and violent. But she and Granny were the only ones who used expressions not polite to give point to their opinions, and that only occasionally. They were under no restraint, unless our interior character insensibly sweetened the atmosphere, for no one, not the most travelled, suspected us. We had been "on the road," could refer to workhouse reminiscences, and "knew the country" far and wide. We freely rewarded confidences by real bits of history. As we sang in concert, probably that was thought to be our "line of business." We were complimented on our voices--I, like the husband above mentioned, had once "been in a choir." I felt sure we should have got a good living "on the road." A tramp man who passed us told us he thought we should have been "miles further by now." He watched us, and made in the same direction. I twitted my companion on the loss of a chance for life.