We were soon comfortably settled in this place, and when, after having had a good tea, I was sitting smoking, and enjoying a newspaper, I felt more pleased than ashamed of what I had done; for I was going to bed with an easy stomach, and had coppers in my pocket for a good breakfast. Therefore, when a fellow lodger, a hawker, who was now taking an inventory of his wares, and who had probably seen and heard us singing that day, when following his own calling—when this man enquired of me if the town was good for gridlers, I answered him very pleasantly indeed, that there was nothing to complain of.
After breakfast, the next morning, my companion of the preceding day proposed putting in a good eight hours’ work, but I at once cut him short saying that such a business was not in my line. Now, several women were at this place; some of them were married, and some single, and most of them made and sold fancy work of embroidery. After I had spoken so decisively to my companion he had sat near to one of these women, at the other end of the kitchen. This woman, who seemed to be the wife of a knife and scissors grinder, had a little girl of about seven years of age. “Yes,” said this woman, in answer to some question my companion had made, “you can have the kid all day; it’s not the first time, by a long way, for Mary Ann to be used by gridlers, and she knows as well as you what’s wanted of her.” Not long after this remark my companion and the woman’s child left the kitchen together. This I, subsequently, often saw done. Almost any woman, if she called herself a true traveller, would lend her child for this purpose; the woman or child, of course, deriving some part of the profit: so that when a man is seen with one or more children, it is not always to be granted that he is the father of them. These children are rarely subjected to ill usage—except that of enforced tramping—but are more often spoilt by indulgence, especially if they show early signs of that cunning which is needed for their future, and which is the boast of their parents.
What a merry lot of beggars were assembled here; and how busy they all seemed to be, making articles for sale, and washing and mending their clothes! two or three of them sitting shirtless during the process of drying.
It has become a common expression to say “dirty tramp,” or, “as dirty as a tramp”; but this is not always true, except occasionally in the large cities; although such a term may be applied morally to them all. There is one species of tramp who wanders from workhouse to workhouse; and this man, having every night to conform strictly to the laws of cleanliness, is no less clean, and often cleaner, than a number of people whose houses contain bath rooms which they seldom use. Another species of tramp is proud of being a good beggar, who scorns the workhouse, but who knows well that a clean appearance is essential to his success. For this reason, anyone that enters a common lodging house can at once see what efforts are being made to this end. It seems strange to say, but the dirtiest looking tramp is often the most honest and respectable, for he has not the courage to beg either food or clothes, nor will he enter the doors of a workhouse. I have seen this so often the case that I would much prefer to believe a dirty ragged tramp who might tell me that he had a good home six months previous, than to believe his cleaner namesake, who seems so eager to impart this information unsolicited. It is certainly the man who has had a good home, and has been waited on by other hands, who soon succumbs to a filthy condition, when it becomes necessary to wait on himself by washing and patching his own clothes; and the higher his former position has been the lower he sinks in the social strata.
It is no difficult matter to get company when travelling. The pedlar, whom I have mentioned before, asked me if I was going towards Coventry, and if I intended to do business on the road. To this question I answered that such might be the case, but I could not say for sure—at the same time knowing that it was very unlikely. “Come along then,” he said, “and do business if you feel inclined; but, I warn you, it is a very poor road for a gridler.” We started at once, and, in the course of our journey I told him everything—my first experience of gridling and my dislike to it, and how my wares had been spoilt by the rain, which had prevented me, through having no stock, nor money to buy it, from earning my living in a respectable manner as a pedlar. “Of course,” he said, “you have a pedlar’s certificate?” I answered him in the affirmative, and added that I had not earned one penny with it up to that moment.
As we jogged along talking in this way, we came to a small village, when the pedlar, stopping short, asked if I would like to help him to do a little trade. Knowing that something had to be done, as I had but twopence halfpenny in my pocket, I assured him that I would. Hearing this he took two bundles of laces from his pack, leather and mohair,
