Large numbers of them had been in jail. Their short cropped hair and other symptoms told the black tale.
All the vans, tents, &c., were not to be reckoned as teeming with human wretchedness, squalor, dirt, filth, and sin. Some ditch and mossy bank abodes were as clean as the circumstances would admit of, and the tent and van dwellers were healthy-looking, plump, and clean.
A terrible row commenced among the gipsies over a dog, which ended in bloodshed and murder. Right up at the far corner two men were digging a hole about two feet six inches long, and twelve inches wide, and two feet deep. After it was dug a woman stole stealthily along with a heavy parcel in her arms, covered with a cloth, which might or might not have been a dead dog. As the gipsy woman carrying the mysterious bundle approached, one of the men withdrew to act as a kind of spy guard. For a few minutes he looked about, and then called out crouchingly, and in a loud whisper, “The skies are clear.” The woman ran with death in her arms, the devil in her heart, and a hellish glare upon her features, and deposited her load in the cold, cold ground without a tear or a sigh. No mournful _cortége_ or funeral knell told the tale of what was going on. Within three minutes all was levelled up, and the three departed—where I don’t know; at any rate, I have not seen them since.
Immediately after this sad event I saw coming down the by-lane a School Board officer, a sanitary officer, and a Christian minister. I watched with longing eyes to see what they were going to do. They came nearer and nearer, till they arrived at the gate leading into the meadow. For a few minutes they stood at the gate, which was locked. I liked the looks of them. They looked like brothers of mercy. Their countenances were heavenly. I felt that I could have shouted “Glory.” I hastened to unlock the gate, and the brothers of mercy walked in to lift the children upon the path leading to heaven. Just at this juncture a thunderstorm came on, and the dripping from the leaves overhead woke me up. For a few minutes I did not know where I was, whether in the body or out of it. Feeling as Anna Shipton felt when she wrote in the _Sword and Travel_ for 1871:—