The Gypsy's Parson: his experiences and adventures
by Lincolnshire rector of Ruckland George Hall · English · Gutenberg #46015 · 444,159 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Gypsy's Parson: his experiences and adventures
Author: Lincolnshire rector of Ruckland George Hall
Release date: June 17, 2014 [eBook #46015]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46015
Credits: Transcribed from the J. B. Lippincott edition by David Price
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GYPSY'S PARSON: HIS EXPERIENCES AND ADVENTURES ***
Transcribed from the J. B. Lippincott edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org
[Picture: The Rev. George Hall. Photo: Brigham]
THE
GYPSY’S PARSON
HIS EXPERIENCES AND ADVENTURES
* * * * *
BY
THE REV. GEORGE HALL
RECTOR OF RUCKLAND, LINCOLNSHIRE
* * * * *
_ILLUSTRATED_
* * * * *
PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & CO. LTD.
* * * * *
TO
MY WIFE
MY COMPANION
ON MANY A GYPSY-JAUNT
* * * * *
“_They cast the glamour o’er him_.”
* * * * *
“YOU must forgive us. We are barbarians. . . . We are ruffians of
the sun . . . and we must be forgiven everything.”
“It is easy to forgive in the sun,” Domini said.
“Madame, it is impossible to be anything but lenient in the sun.
That is my experience. . . . But, as I was saying, the sun teaches
one a lesson of charity. When I first came to live in Africa in the
midst of the sand-rascals—eh, Madame, I suppose as a priest I ought
to have been shocked by their goings-on. And, indeed I tried to be,
I conscientiously did my best, but it was no good. I couldn’t be
shocked. The sunshine drove it all out of me. I could only say, ‘It
is not for me to question le bon Dieu, and le bon Dieu has created
these people and set them here in the sand to behave as they do.
What is my business? I can’t convert them. I can’t change their
morals—I must just be a friend to them, cheer them up in their
sorrows, give them a bit if they’re starving, doctor them a
little—I’m a first-rate hand at making an Arab take a pill or a
powder—when they are ill, and I make them at home with the white
marabout.’ That’s what the sun has taught me, and every sand-rascal
and sand-rascal’s child in Amara is a friend of mine.”
“You are fond of the Arabs, then?” she said.
“Of course I am, Madame. I can speak their language, and I’m as much
at home in their tents, and more, than I ever should be at the
Vatican—with all respect to the Holy Father.”
(Conversation between Domini and Father Beret in _The Garden of Allah_,
quoted here by the kind permission of Mr. Robert Hichens.)
PREFACE
NOT a few writers have essayed to study the Gypsies in dusty libraries.
I have companioned with them on fell and common, racecourse and
fairground, on the turfy wayside and in the city’s heart. In my book,
which is a record of actual experiences, I have tried to present the
Gypsies just as I have found them, without minimising their faults or
magnifying their virtues. Most of the Gypsies mentioned in the following
pages have now passed away, and of those who remain, many have, for
obvious reasons, been renamed.
For the majority of the pictures adorning my book, I owe a profound debt
of gratitude to my friend, Mr. Fred Shaw; also, for their kind permission
to include several pictures in my “Romany Gallery,” my cordial thanks are
due to Mrs. Johnson, of Yatton, Rev. H. H. Malleson, Mr. William
Ferguson, Mr. T. J. Lewis, Mr. H. Stimpson, and Mr. F. Wilkinson.
The phonetics contained in this work are based upon a system invented by
my friend, Mr. R. A. Scott Macfie, of the Gypsy Lore Society, whose
innumerable kindnesses I most gratefully acknowledge.
G. H.
RUCKLAND RECTORY,
NEAR LOUTH,
LINCOLNSHIRE.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. GYPSY COURT—MY INITIATION INTO GYPSYDOM 1
II. CHARACTERS OF THE COURT—READING BORROW 16
III. NORTH-COUNTRY GYPSIES 32
IV. MY POACHING PUSSY—A ROMANY BENISON—MY FIRST TASTE 41
OF HEDGEHOG
V. A GYPSY BAPTISM—ROMANY NAMES 52
VI. I MAKE A NEW ACQUAINTANCE 57
VII. THE BLACKPOOL GYPSYRY 71
VIII. A TRENTSIDE FAIR 89
IX. TAKEN FOR TRAMPS—AN EAST ANGLIAN FAMILY 99
X. PETERBOROUGH FAIR 118
XI. A FORGOTTEN HIGHWAY—“ON THE ROAD” WITH 134
JONATHAN—THE PATRIN—THE GHOST OF THE HAYSTACK
XII. THE GYPSY OF THE TOWN 152
XIII. WITH THE YORKSHIRE GYPSIES 172
XIV. A NIGHT WITH THE GYPSIES—THE SWEEP OF LYNN—LONDON 186
GYPSIES—ON EPSOM DOWNS
XV. TINKERS AND GRINDERS 205
XVI. THE INN ON THE RIDGEWAY—TALES BY THE FIRESIDE 213
XVII. HORNCASTLE FAIR 229
XVIII. A GYPSY SEPULCHRE—BURIAL LORE—THE PASSING OF 238
JONATHAN
XIX. _BITSHADO PAWDEL_ (TRANSPORTED) 247
XX. A ROMANY MUNCHAUSEN 256
XXI. THE GYPSY OF THE HILLS—IN THE HEART OF WALES—A 262
WESTMORLAND HORSE FAIR
XXII. FURZEMOOR 278
GLOSSARY OF ROMANY WORDS 291
GYPSY FORE OR CHRISTIAN NAMES 299
INDEX 303
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE GYPSY’S PARSON _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
A ROMANY LASS 6
THE CAMP IN THE LANE 20
A DAUGHTER OF “JASPER PETULENGRO” 28
ON THE MOORLAND 36
A NORTH-COUNTRY GYPSY GIRL 36
ROUND THE CAMP-FIRE 48
A CHILD OF THE CARAVAN 48
A REST BY THE WAY 62
A WAYSIDE IDYL 68
CHILDREN OF THE OPEN AIR 68
ON THE LOOK-OUT 72
THE GYPSY’S PARSON WITH HIS FRIENDS 86
FRIENDS AT THE FAIR 86
A MAID OF THE TENTS 112
ON THE EVE OF THE FAIR 118
MIDLAND GYPSIES 128
SOUTH-COUNTRY GYPSIES 128
NETTING RABBITS 139
’NEATH THE HEDGEROW 139
THE GYPSY’S PARSON ON THE ROAD 142
GYPSIES AT HOME 146
COMRADES 146
“A MOTHER IN EGYPT” 160
HOUSE-DWELLING GYPSIES 172
A GYPSY LAD 184
ON THE RACECOURSE 202
A TINKER OF THE OLDEN TIMES 208
A WELSH GYPSY TINKER 208
A ROMANY FIDDLER 222
HORNCASTLE HORSE FAIR 230
READY FOR THE FAIR 232
YARD OF THE “GEORGE” INN, HORNCASTLE 232
A LONDON GYPSY 246
“BLACK AS A BOZ’LL” 258
OLI PURUM 264
A GYPSY HARPIST 264
A HAPPY PAIR 268
A CHAT BY THE GATE 268
’NEATH CAUTLEY CRAG 272
A BOTTOMLESS POOL 272
A WANDERING MINSTREL 274
BROUGH HILL HORSE FAIR 276
GYPSY CHILDREN 280
CHAPTER I
GYPSY COURT—MY INITIATION INTO GYPSYDOM
A TANGLE of sequestered streets lying around a triple-towered cathedral;
red roofs and gables massed under the ramparts of an ancient castle; a
grey Roman arch lit up every spring-time by the wallflower’s mimic gold;
an old-world Bailgate over whose tavern yards drifted the sleepy music of
the minster chimes; a crooked by-lane leading down to a wide common loved
by the winds of heaven—these were the surroundings of my childhood’s home
in that hilltop portion of Lincoln which has never quite thrown off its
medieval drowsiness.
Not far from my father’s doorstep, as you looked towards the common, lay
a narrow court lined with poor tenements, and terminating in a bare yard
bounded by a squat wall. Every detail of this alley stands out in my
memory with the sharpness of a photograph; the cramped perspective of the
place as you entered it from our lane, the dreary-looking houses with
their mud-floored living-rooms fronting upon the roadway, the paintless
doors and windows, the blackened chimneys showing rakish against the sky,
all combined to make a picture of dun-coloured misery. There were, it is
true, a few redeeming features gilding the prevailing drabness of the
scene. The entrance to the court had a southerly outlook upon green
fields stretching up to the verge of the Castle Dyking, or, to revive its
more gruesome name, “Hangman’s Ditch,” so called from the grim
associations of a bygone day. From these fields a clean air blew through
the court, rendering it a less unwholesome haunt for the strange folk who
dwelt within its precincts; while not half a mile distant lay the breezy
common, a glorious playground for the children of Upper Lincoln.
Seeing that this court and its denizens were destined in the order of
things to make a profound impression upon my childish imagination, I may
as well develop the picture rising so vividly before my mind’s eye.
It was somewhere in the fifties of the last century, a few years, that is
to say, before my entrance into the world, that several families of
dark-featured “travellers” had pitched upon the court for their Gypsyry,
a proceeding at which our quiet lane at first shrugged its shoulders,
then focussed an interested gaze upon the intruders and their ways, and
finally lapsed into an indulgent toleration of them. Thus from day to
day throughout my early years, there might have been seen emerging from
the recesses of Gypsy Court swarthy men in twos and threes accompanied by
the poacher’s useful lurcher; nut-brown girls with their black hair
carelessly caught up in orange or crimson kerchiefs; wrinkled crones
smoking short clays, as gaily they drove forth in their rickety
donkey-carts; buxom mothers carrying babies slung, Indian fashion, across
their shoulders, and bearing on their arms baskets replete with pegs,
skewers, and small tin-ware of home manufacture. As for children, troops
of the brown imps were generally in evidence, their eldritch shrieks
rending the air between the portals of the little court and the gate
opening upon the common.
No observes could possibly miss the fighting scenes and the ringing
shouts which made the court echo again. A passionate folk are the
Gypsies, a provoking word being at any time sufficient to call forth a
blow. Even as I write these words, visions of gory fists and faces
obtrude themselves through the mists of past days.
However, the Gypsies were never reported to be otherwise than polite
towards the outsider who ventured into the alley. Diplomats rather than
hooligans were they. “Let’s ’eave ’alf a brick at ’im,” is not the
Gypsy’s way with a stranger who happens to stroll into the camp. At the
same time I would not have it imagined that the inhabitants of the
squalid court were of the best black Romany breed; far from it, they were
mostly of diluted blood, else how came they to turn sedentary at all?
For pure Gypsies (or _Romanitshelaw_, as they call themselves), the
aristocrats of their race, abhor settled life, preferring to die on the
road rather than wither inside four walls.
On the occasion of a horse fair in the city, our lane would resound with
the clanging of hoofs beyond the ordinary, and in front of the taverns
there was much rattling of whipstocks on the insides of hard hats, in
order to enliven some weedy “screw,” and so reward its owner for hours of
patient “doctoring” in a corner well screened from prying eyes. Then
when the autumnal rains set in, and the leaves began to flutter down in
showers, there would come from afar the rumbling of Romany “homes on
wheels,” driven townwards by the oncoming of winter. To me it was always
a saddening sight to watch the travel-stained wanderers hying to their
winter quarters through miry streets heavy with mist and gloom.
_Staruben sî gav_ (town is a prison), an ancient vagabond was heard to
remark on a like occasion.
A spectacle far more inspiriting was the departure of a Gypsy cavalcade
from the city on a gay spring morning. For into the dingy purlieus where
the travellers had wintered more or less cheerlessly, stray sunbeams and
soft airs had begun to penetrate. Tidings had reached them that away in
the open something had stirred, or called, or breathed along the furzy
lanes and among the tree boughs, and forthwith every Romany sojourner
within the ash-strewn yards of the city became eager to resume the free,
roving life of the roads. How often have I longed for the brush of an
artist to depict the company of merry Gypsies—men, women, and bairns,
horses, dogs, and donkeys, jingling pot-carts and living-wagons bedizened
with new paint, starting from the top of our lane for the open country,
just when the wind-rocked woods were burgeoning and every green
hedge-bottom had a sprinkling of purple violets.
Now until my eleventh year I had seen no more than the mere outside of
Romany life, and I might never have had any Gypsy experiences to relate
but for a trivial blood-spilling, which, as I look back upon it, may well
be called my initiation into Gypsydom. Indeed, the small incident I am
about to mention had for me a most important result, insomuch as it made
me akin to Gypsies for the rest of my life.
My earliest schools were dames’ academies—there were two of these
old-time institutions in our lane. Approached by a dark passage, the
second of these had for its lecture-hall a large brick-floored room,
whose presiding spirit was a dwarfish lady of sixty-five or more, before
whom we sat in rows at long desks. The school consisted of about a score
of children who were awed into subjection by a threatening rod of supple
ash, half as long again as the tapering stick around which the
scarlet-runners in your kitchen garden love to entwine themselves. This
dread implement of discipline, reared in a recess near our mistress’s
desk, would oft descend upon the head of a chattering boy or girl, and to
the tip of that rod my own pate was no stranger.
[Picture: A Romany Lass. Photo: Valentine & Sons]
Among my acquaintances at this school was a Gypsy girl whose parents
dwelt at the sunny end of the aforementioned court. A year or two my
senior, Sibby Smith was a shapely lass, having soft hazel eyes and a
wealth of dark hair crowning an olive-tinted face. Lissom as whalebone,
she had a pretty way of capering along the lanes with hedgerow berries or
leaves of autumn’s painting in her hair, and I, a silent, retiring boy,
would watch her movements with admiring eyes. Fittingly upon that lithe
form sat a garb of tawny-brown, with here a wisp of red and there a tag
of yellow, mingled as on the wings of a butterfly. The girl had a
harum-scarum brother, Snakey by name and slippery by nature, a little
older than herself, with whom out of school hours she would be off and
away searching the bushes for birds’ nests, or ransacking the thickets
for nuts; and one day in school I remember how she pulled out
inadvertently with her handkerchief a catapult—a Gypsy can bring down a
pheasant with the like—and falling with a clatter at our teacher’s feet,
the unholy weapon was straightway confiscated, whereat Sibby’s face grew
darker by a shade, as with her pen-nib she savagely stabbed the desk on
which our copybooks were outspread. A roamer in all the copses and lanes
around our city, and enjoying the freedom of the camps which tarried for
little or for long in the old brickyards fringing the common, this
schoolmate of mine expressed the out-of-door spirit in her very gait, and
as she pirouetted along the causeway, you caught from her flying figure
the smell of wood smoke and the mossy odour of deep dingles.
In all the world it is hard to find the elusive Gypsy’s compeer.
Whimsical as the wind, and brimful of mischief as an elf of the wilds,
Sibby was to me the embodiment of bewitching mystery. From a hillock by
the hedge I have watched her seize a skittish pony by the mane and,
leaping astride its back, gallop madly along a lane, to return a few
moments later, breathless and dishevelled. This was her frolicsome mood.
Never very far below the surface of the Gypsy nature lurks a feeling of
disdain, waxing fierce at times towards everything and everybody outside
the Romany world. To this mood the Gypsy life appears to be the only
life worth living, and the Gypsy is the only real man in the world. All
other ways and all alien folk are suspect. There were times therefore
when Sibby’s eyes would pierce me through with arrows of detestation as
though one had hailed from beneath the eaves of a constabulary. Yet the
next day, every shred of this dark feeling would be flung to the winds,
as under a scented may-bush the girl was romancing merrily or instructing
me in the peculiar whistle giving warning of the approach of Velveteens
or a policeman.
Is there in the whole bag of humanity, I wonder, a nut harder to crack
than the Gypsy?
One afternoon in turning a corner sharply on my way home from school, it
happened that I ran full tilt into Sibby Smith, and before I could say
“Jack Robinson” I received such a blow on the mouth as sent me sprawling
all my length on the road. There was, I suppose, something ludicrous in
the sight of a prostrate boy with his legs in the air; so at least the
girl seemed to think, for immediately she burst into laughter, and her
merriment being ever of an infectious sort, I found myself laughing too,
though inwardly I thought my punishment unmerited. A moment later,
however, as I stood wiping the blood from my lips, the puzzle was
explained. There in the dust lay a half-eaten, red-cheeked apple which
the Gypsy had been munching when the shock of the collision sent it
flying from her hand; hence the blow that descended upon me so swiftly.
Nor after the lapse of nearly forty years have I forgotten the forceful
stroke that laid me low on that autumn afternoon.
On stormy days, when the loud-lunged gusts made a fanfaronade in the
chimney-stacks at home, it was my delight as a boy to seek the brow of
the grassy escarpment overlooking our common, and at that time I knew
nothing more glorious than a tussle with the wind roaring over the
hilltop. Leaping on the springy turf, hatless and bare-armed, fighting a
make-believe giant of sonorous voice, what high glee of spirit was mine!
In those days the escarpment boasted a row of windmills, old-fashioned
structures, built partly of timber and partly of brick and stone, and
loud was the whirring of sails thereabouts in a brisk wind. At the head
of a cleft in the hillside, known as “Hobbler’s Hole,” was a mill which
had fallen into desuetude, and its great sails, shattered by a tempest,
lay in tangled heaps on the thistle-grown plot around the building. To
the tall thistles, tufted with downy seed, came goldfinches, dainty
little fellows, shy as fairies. Hitherward came also visitors of another
kind, for, as might be expected, the unwritten invitation to such a
harvest of firewood had duly spread to Gypsy Court. More than once in
the twilight Sibby got me to help her in carrying off fragments of
timber, and to a boy with _Tiger Tom the Pirate_ secreted in the lining
of his jacket, these small adventures were not without a tang of the
picaresque. As time went on, the door in the basement of the mill and
most of the window-frames were dragged piecemeal from their places to
boil Gypsy kettles, but there still remained the massive ladder giving
access to the dusty chambers wherein nestled the strangest of shadows.
Every youngster who came to play in Hobbler’s Hole knew quite well that
the mill was haunted. Readily enough we climbed the worm-eaten ladder in
broad daylight, and scampered about the resounding floors, or sat at the
frameless windows pelting bits of plaster at the jackdaws flitting to and
fro, but to think of invading the mouldering mill in the dusk hour when
hollow and common were visioned away into shadowy night was another
matter. Ah, then the mill took on an eeriness befitting a very
borderland of goblindom.
Picturing the crumbling ruin and the wrinkled declivity dipping below it
towards the common, I recall how Snakey Smith said one day to me, “I
likes to sit afore a fire on the ground. You don’t feel nothing like so
lonesome as you keeps pushing sticks into the fire and watching ’em burn
away.” The words aptly express a Gypsy’s joy in a fire for its own sake,
regardless of utilitarian considerations. At the moment there may be no
kettle waiting to be boiled, no black stockpot demanding to be slung on
the crooked kettle-prop, yet, for the pure pleasure of the thing, a Gypsy
will light a small pile of dead sticks, and, lounging near, will gaze
wistfully at the spiral of thin, sweet smoke upcurling between the trees
in the lane.
Without a doubt, if “you’s been a bit onlucky,” or, if your sky is cloudy
with sorrow, there is solace in a fire, as in a folk-tale and in the
voice of a violin. Did not Provost M‘Cormick, lawyer and lover of
Gypsies, find his Border Tinklers, amid their brown tents and shaggy
“cuddies,” reciting traditional tales to banish gloom? “Whenever he saw
me dull he wad say, ‘Come on, Mary, and I’ll tell ye a fairy tale,’ and
wi’ his gestures, girns, and granes, he wadna be lang till he had us a’
roarin’.”
A Gypsy who resided in a derelict railway carriage on a Cheshire common,
having lost a dear child, refused to be comforted and even declined to
take food. To his old fiddle he confided his grief, his body swaying to
and fro as he drew forth plaintive airs from the strings.
Wandering one evening in cowslip-time below the decrepit windmill, I came
to a stile in the hedge, and, passing into the lane, I found Sibby and
Snakey heaping dead wood upon a fire on the margin of the common.
“There!” exclaimed the Gypsy girl, “I know’d somebody was a-thinking of
me, ’cos my boots kept coming unlaced.”
“Well, well, you made me jump, _baw_ (mate), you did,” put in her
brother. “How did you _jin_ we were _akai_?” (know we were here).
“See,” said I, “what a pother you are making. I caught a whiff of your
smoke right on top of the hill.”
With that I dropped down beside the fire, and, yielding the soul to the
witchery of red-gold flames dancing against the dark, it was easy enough
to glide into the realm of Faerie. Sibby, who had been lying at full
length before the fire, now gathered herself into a cross-legged posture,
and, lapsing into meditation, sat twisting a black elf-lock round her
forefinger. A touch of the “creepy” world seemed also to have fallen
upon Snakey, for he lay in silence staring into the beyond as though he
had sighted fairy faces peering between the brier sprays; or was it that
the knotted tree-bole leaning from the hedge had begun to make grimaces?
At last the boy awoke with a start. By his side lay a maiden ash-plant
with numerous hearts and rings neatly cut on its green bark, and,
whipping out a knife, he proceeded to add further touches to his _kosht_
(stick). This led me to talk of my own achievement of that day in
carving my initials on a beech tree not far from where we were sitting.
Whereat Sibby remarked—
“Why, it was only last week that me and mother went in our cart past
Dalton Brook, and we pulled up to look at the old tree what has _dui
vastaw_ (two hands) cut into it by Orferus Herren, and there they were
right enough. It was his brother Evergreen who broke his neck by
tumbling headlong into a stone-pit, wasn’t it, Snakey?”
“For sure it was, _pen_ (sister), and our uncles Fennix and Euri were
well-nigh killed the same way right up agen Scotland, as I’ve heard dad
say times and agen.”
“How was that?” I asked.
Then followed Snakey’s story, which, as well as I remember, ran (in his
own words) something like this—
“One night my uncles Fennix and Euri was crossing a moor among the
mountains, a long way up into the North Country. They’d been sitting all
the day in a _kitshima_ (tavern) and at last they begins to think it were
time to be marching to their stopping-place, some five miles away across
the moor, a wery nasty country with deep pits and ponds in it. It was
getting dark and the teeny stars were shining above the mountains. Well,
my uncles made off with a deal of bustle at first along a beaten track,
but after going a mile or two, down comes a fog—a clear thick ’un it
was—and they soon got off the path and were lost. It looked like ’em
having to _besh avrí_ (lie out) all night, as poor Jacob did. Only my
uncles didn’t see no silver ladder with angels dancing up and down on it,
and _mi dîri Duvel_ (God) sitting atop of it. But just as they were
about dead beat after poddling up and down for I can’t tell you how long,
they walked as nigh as nothing over the edge of a deep pit. It were a
narrow shave, for they only managed to save theirselves by clutching at
the bushes atop of the pit. Then what do you think, _baw_? They just
turned round, and there afore ’em stood a terrible crittur rearing itself
up and groaning loud. Their hearts was in their mouths. They thought
their time had come.
“‘If that ain’t a _mulo_ (ghost), my name’s not Fennix,’ whispered my
uncle.
“‘_Keka_’ (No); ‘it’s the wery _Beng_ (Devil) hisself,’ says Euri.
“And there they stands a-dithering like leaves, till at last my uncle
Fennix pulls hisself together and walks on a yard or two, staring hard
afore him, and weren’t Euri glad above a bit to hear his brother say in
his nat’ral voice, ‘Come on, it’s nobbut a blessed _dunnock_ (steer)
after all.’ And with that the crittur kicked up its heels and galloped
away, and by a bit of luck my uncles stumbled right on to a cartway as
led ’em straight to the tents.”
Among Gypsies, when the tale-telling mood is on, story will follow story,
often until drowsiness supervenes; for these folk dearly love a tale, and
are themselves possessed of no small store of family legends and
folk-narratives.
“Now, it’s your turn, sister. Let’s have that tale about Old Ruzlam
Boz’ll’s boy.”
Without stopping for a moment to think, Sibby began to reel off what was
evidently a well-known and favourite story, punctuating her sentences by
picking from her gown and flinging at me sundry prickly balls of burdock
seed, telling of what prowlings in the woods!
“It’s donkey’s ears (_i.e._ long years) since Ruzlam Boz’ll’s wife had a
baby boy born’d in a tent near a spring what bubbled out betwixt two
rocks, and every summer they used to _besh_ (rest) by the same spring.
By and by, when the dear little boy grew big enough, his mammy sent him
every morning to fill the kettle. But one day he got a surprise. There
on the grass by the spring what should he see but a new silver shilling.
Of course he picked it up and put it into his pocket, and never said
nothing about it when he got back to the tent. Next morning he found
double the money at the spring-head, and so it went on until his pockets
were chinking full of silver, and for all that he never breathed no word
about his luck. But one day Old Ruzlam heard the boy rattling the money
in his pockets, and forced him to tell where he got it from. Next
morning the daddy went off, laughing to hisself and thinking of the nice
heap of silver he was going to pick up, but after he had looked up and
down and all over, he found just nothing at all, leastways he saw no
money; but as he stood scratting his head, puzzled-like, there, on one
side of the spring, he saw a dear little teeny old man, and on the other
side a dear little teeny old woman, and, saying never a word, they
stooped down and flung water right into Ruzlam’s eyes. So away he ran
home, and there, if he didn’t find his boy had gone cross-eyed. What’s
more, he never came right agen.”
Thus, by pleasant steps amid scenes not lacking in glamour, I advanced
little by little in my knowledge of these fascinating straylings with
whom no stranger ever yet found it easy to mingle as one of themselves.
CHAPTER II
CHARACTERS OF THE COURT—READING BORROW
A FEW miles outside my native city, there stands on the bank of the Roman
Fossdyke a lonely house known as “Drinsey Nook,” formerly a tavern with
bowling greens, swings, and skittle alleys, a resort of wagonette and
boating parties out for a frolic in the sunshine. Often on bygone summer
eves have I loitered about the old inn gleaming white amid its guardian
trees, but best of all I loved to see the beechen boughs drop their fiery
leaves upon its mossy roof in the fading of the year.
To-day, as of yore, the brown-sailed barges, laden with grain or scented
fir-planks, glide lazily past the place, and a motor-boat will at times
go racing by, to the alarm of the waterhens which had almost come to look
on the sleepy canal as their own.
Does it ever dream of its gay past, I wonder—this old forgotten house
fronting upon the rush-fringed waterway?
One golden October morning, my father, who had a passion for boating on
our local waters, hired a small sailing craft, and, the breezes aiding
us, we were wafted along the Fossdyke as far as the said riparian house
of call. Hour after hour we wandered in the beech woods stretching
behind the inn, resting now on some protruding snag or fallen bole to
watch the squirrels at play, and again pushing our way breast-high
through sheets of changing bracken to the hazel thickets where the nuts
hung in clusters well within reach of our hooked sticks.
Linked with this ramble in the time of the falling leaves is an
impression I have never forgotten. “Look,” said my father, pointing to a
decayed stump of a post almost buried amid dank moss, “this is all that
remains of Tom Otter’s gibbet-tree.” I shuddered as he told how in other
days he had heard the chains clanking in the wind, and he went on to
relate that _his_ father was among the crowd of citizens who, starting
from Lincoln Castle one March morning in the year 1806, followed the
murderer’s corpse until it was hanged in irons on a post thirty feet high
on Saxilby Moor. For several days after the event, the vicinity of the
gibbet resembled a country fair with drinking booths, ballad singers,
Gypsy fiddlers, and fortune-tellers.
The impressions of childhood are enduring; and just as the smell of the
wallflowers after an April shower will revive for you, dear fellow, the
vision of a garden walk under a lichened wall, and the dainty step of
your lady love by your side, so for me the wild scent of withering
bracken in the red autumn glades prompts my fancy to envisage anew the
gruesome scene as depicted by my father on that October day long gone by.
Nor is this all.
To mention the name of Tom Otter is to call up for me more than one
swarthy inhabitant of Gypsy Court who lived to make old bones and sit by
the fire telling tales and smoking black tobacco. I have but to close my
eyes to behold a procession of these “characters” straggling out of the
dark court, their faces and figures lingering for a moment in memory’s
beam of light, then passing again into the shadows. And what strange
stories are wrapped up in the names and lives of some of these folk;
quaint comedy, grim tragedy, riotous passion, tales of love, laughter,
and tears.
There was old Tom, nicknamed “Tom o’ the Gibbet,” whose patronymic was
_Petulengro_, which is Gypsy for Smith.
Each of the great Romany clans, be it known, duplicates its surname, one
form being used before the _gawjê_ (non-Gypsies, aliens); the other form,
of cryptic import, is for the brotherhood of the blood.
Old Tom Petulengro, further known as “Sneezing Tommy,” owing to his
liking for snuff, carried on a thriving trade in wooden meat-skewers and
pegs, and in his backyard you might see him with infinite patience
cutting up willow rods or splitting blocks of close-grained elder-wood;
and for years I never used to hear in church the familiar words of the
Psalmist, “Our bones lie strewn before the pit, like as when one heweth
wood upon the earth,” without seeing that narrow yard with its shining
axe lying midst a litter of chips and splinters. Elder-wood is still in
request for meat-skewers, and to this day not a few country butchers
prefer to use the Gypsy-made article. Old Tom used to say, with a
twinkle in his eye, that he _found_ nearly all his raw material on his
journeys up and down the countryside. For, as you could not fail to
observe, it was a habit with some of the dwellers in Gypsy Court to
absent themselves periodically with their light carts and tents. Halcyon
days were those for the court Gypsies.
Let it be remembered that the County Council legend, “No camping
allowed,” had not yet begun to hit you in the eye from among the bramble
brakes on bits of wayside waste. The rural constable of that time had
not the conveniences his successor enjoys in the bicycle and the village
telephone. There were farmers who still retained a soft place in their
hearts for the Gypsy, and many a country squire viewed the nomads of the
grassy lanes with a kindly eye. If a carriage-horse grew restive in
passing a roadside fire at twilight, up from the hedge-bottom sprang an
obliging fellow who led the animal safely along and thereby won a cheery
word from the squire or his lady. Even Velveteens would hob-nob with the
jovial campers on the lord’s waste, and, quaffing a dram from their black
bottle, would toss a rabbit into the lap of a Romany mother and go on his
way. Here and there of course were tiresome believers in the hoary
policy of harassment and oppression—
“Pack, and be out of this forthwith,
D’you know you have no business here?
‘No, we hain’t got,’ said Samuel Smith,
‘No business to be anywhere.’
So wearily they went away,
Yet soon were camped in t’other lane,
And soon they laughed as wild and gay,
And soon the kettle boiled again.”
[Picture: The Camp in the Lane. Photo: Fred Shaw]
Reverting to Tom Petulengro’s sobriquet, I confess it provoked my
curiosity not a little. Tom _o’ the Gibbet_—what could the strange “tag”
mean? Time passed, even a few years, and one day its origin came to
light during a talk with Ashena Brown, Tom’s married sister, an elderly
Gypsy with a furrowed countenance and deep-set eyes which flashed with
fire as she grew excited in her talk. I can see her bowed figure and
long jetty curls, as in fancy I again stoop to enter the low-ceiled abode
in the smoky court where I listened to her chatter to the persistent
accompaniment of a donkey’s thump, thump, in an adjoining apartment.
“Wonderful fond o’ the County o’ Nottingham was my people,” said the old
lady. “They know’d every stick and stone along the Trentside, and i’ the
Shirewood (Sherwood), and many’s the time we’ve stopped at Five Lane Ends
nigh Drinsey Nook. Why, my poor dear mammy (Lord rest her soul) was once
fired at by a foot-pad as she were coming outen the public upo’ the bank
there. The man’s pistol had nobbut powder in it, for he only meant to
_trash_ (frighten) her into handing up her _lova_ (money), but she had
none about her, for her last _shukora_ (sixpence) had gone in _levina_
(ale). And after that, my mammy allus wore a big _diklo_ (kerchief)
round her head for to hide her cheek as were badly blued by the rascal’s
powder.
“Ay, and I minds how my daddy used to make teeny horseshoes, knife
handles, and netting needles, outen the bits o’ wood he _tshin_’d (cut)
off the gibbet post, and wery good oak it was. Mebbe you’s heard o’ Tom
Otter’s post nigh to the woods? Ah, but p’raps you’s never been tell’d
that our Tom was born’d under it? The night my mammy were took bad, our
tents was a’most blown to bits. The wind banged the old irons agen the
post all night long, as I’ve heard her say. And when they wanted to name
the boy, they couldn’t think of no other name but Tom, for sure as they
tried to get away from it, the name kept coming back again—Tom, Tom,
Tom—till it sort o’ dinned itself into their heads. So at last my daddy
says, ‘Let’s call him Tom and done with it,’ and i’ time, folks got
a-calling him Tom o’ the Gibbet, and it stuck to him, it did. There,
now, I must give that here _maila_ (donkey) a bite o’ summut.”
But I have not done with Tom Otter.
Here is a story even more “creepy” than the last. Ashena is again the
speaker. “I’ them days I’d some delations as did funny things that folks
wouldn’t never think o’ doing nowadays. I’d an uncle as used to talk to
the _Beng_ (Devil). If anything went wrong wi’ a hoss, he’d say,
‘_Beng_, do this, and _Beng_, do that,’ like we talks to the _Duvel_
(God) when we says ’ur prayers. But he weren’t eddicated, you see, he
didn’t know no better. And whenever uncle and aunt used to pass by Tom
Otter’s gibbet, they’d stop and look up at the poor man hanging there,
and they allus _wuser_’d (threw) him a bit o’ _hawben_ (food). They
couldn’t let theirselves go by wi’out doing that.
“And there was a baker from Harby, and whenever he passed by the place he
would put a bread loaf on to the pointed end of a long rod and shove it
into that part o’ the irons where poor Tom’s head was, and sure enough
the bread allus went. The baker got hisself into trouble for doing that,
as I’ve heard our old people say.”
Commenting on a parallel instance, occurring about the year 1779, in
which some women were wont to throw up to a gibbeted man a bunch of
tallow candles for him to eat, the Rev. S. Baring-Gould, in his _Book of
Folk-Lore_, writes: “Obviously the idea was still prevalent that life
continued to exist in the body after execution.”
In the procession of “characters” issuing from the dark court, I see two
familiar figures, the parents of my Gypsy schoolmate, who would surely
have arrested even a stranger’s gaze.
Partly from age, and partly from the habit of his calling, Plato Smith
the tinman stooped somewhat, yet his legs, which were long in comparison
with his body, carried him over the ground fast enough. A nearer view of
the old man’s countenance revealed certain scars concerning which tales
were told to his credit as a fighter. True, he had on one occasion been
worsted by an adversary, for the bridge of his nose diverged somewhat
from the straight line, a record of a telling blow. Always alert, Plato
looked the picture of spryness when soap and water had removed all traces
of the workshop, and he had donned a green cutaway coat, a bright yellow
neckcloth, and a felt “hat of antique shape,” high in the crown and broad
of brim, which was pulled well over his eyes whenever he went out. It
was whispered that none knew better than he how to whistle a horse out of
a field, but in this art I fancy he had grown rusty of late years. To be
sure, his long record as a poacher had brought him occasional lodgments
in the local house of detention, yet so ingrained was this Gypsy habit
that he could hardly refrain from chalking his gun-barrel and sallying
forth on moonlit nights.
A riverside incident associated with Sibby’s father is as fresh in my
memory as if it happened but yesterday. A stream neither broad nor deep
is our homely Witham, crawling onward through fenny flats to the North
Sea. It was here that I learned on summer days to pull an oar in an old
black coble, and to glide steel-shod over the ice in the Christmas
holidays. Along a certain reach of the river, I was initiated by an
elder brother into the mysteries of angling on those tranquil evenings
when the bold perch showed their heads above water, like the fishes that
listened to St. Anthony’s sermon. Now it fell upon a day that my brother
and I were crossing the river by ferry-boat, a few miles outside the
city, our companions being Plato Smith and an ecclesiastic from the
minster-close—four happy anglers were we. At one end of the
flat-bottomed ferry-boat stood the parson fingering his rod and whistling
a lively tune, when, in midstream, there was a sudden hitch in the chain,
flinging the perspiring ferryman upon his face, and at the same time
precipitating our friend from the minster-close headlong into the river.
Never have I seen a wild duck, or a white-pate coot, disappear more
cleanly from sight than did our brother of “the cloth” into the liquid
element. Thanks mainly to Gypsy Plato’s resourcefulness, he was
extricated pretty quickly, and we left him in the care of an innkeeper,
in whose parlour at dusk we met him in borrowed raiment, looking more
than usually pallid of countenance beneath the broad eaves of our kindly
host’s old-fashioned Sunday “topper” padded to fit with a vivid red
handkerchief.
A personality even more striking was Plato’s consort, Abigail, as you saw
her sunning herself under the parapet of the Witham bridge hard by the
“Three Magpies” Inn, her black eyes blinking as a gust from the river
flapped the loose ends of her gay kerchiefs which she wore three or four
deep, meeting on her bosom in old-time style. Hooked like a falcon’s
beak, her nose drooped over her pursed lips towards a prominent chin,
giving her a witchlike mien. Quadrupled strings of corals encircled her
wizened neck, and a black velvet bodice bedecked with silver buttons, a
skirt of bold check pattern, and a poke-bonnet formed her customary
walking attire. Often, on her homeward way after her daily round with
the basket, have I met her puffing a small black pipe as she shuffled
along our lane. By _didakais_ (half-breeds) she was certainly feared,
and they maintained it was bad luck to meet her first thing of a morning,
and were known to turn back on seeing her in the street. “Her eyes make
you feel that queer” was a common saying, and it follows that she ranked
high as a fortune-teller. Seldom a fair passed but you met her in the
noisy throng, chaffing the _gawjê_ (gentiles), or surrounded by a group
of village Johnnies and Mollies eager to have their palms read. What a
picture she made as she stooped to tighten the girths of her shaggy
donkey at whose head stood the wild, dusky Sibby with a spring wind
whisking her black locks about her cheeks, out on the open road beyond
the town, for maid and mother were devoted companions on many a foray
into the villages dotted over Lincoln Heath.
Another conspicuous character of the court was a quaint little hunchback,
a pedlar by trade, whose sad deformity and resentful temper caused him to
become the butt of every street gamin’s joke. He would often be seen in
company with Sammy Noble, a wooden-legged vendor of firewood. The pair,
I regret to say, called too frequently at taverns, and more than once I
have seen them assisted home by kindly policemen, or “peelers,” as they
were then called, who if resurrected to-day in their long black coats and
chimney-pot hats, would surely be taken for nothing short of cathedral
dignitaries.
The hero of the Gypsy colony was a tall athletic fellow, “Soldier”
’Plisti (or Supplistia) Boswell, who also bore the nickname of “Jumping
Jack,” of whom I give a reminiscence or two here.
One day a country squire was driving a pony chaise along a lane, and,
rounding a corner, he came upon a ring of Gypsies roasting hedgehogs.
Imagine his astonishment to see a slender lad spring up, and, running a
few yards, take a flying leap clear over the pony’s back, a feat so
pleasing to the squire that he called the boy to his side and, presenting
him with a bright crown-piece, offered—so the tale runs—“to keep him like
a gentleman for life.” In return for which kindness, the Gypsy was
expected to disown his people, a condition which was not jumped at by
Jack.
’Plisti’s home in Gypsy Court was one day the scene of a singular
incident. A fox closely pursued by the hounds dashed through the open
door of the living-room, where before the fire lay the Gypsy asleep and
snoring. Reynard in his haste managed to sweep the sleeper’s face with
his brush; and mighty was the yell that burst from ’Plisti’s throat on
being thus disturbed, causing the fox to seek refuge in a hovel hard by,
where the dogs fell upon him. A brother of mine who was in the court at
the time obtained possession of the brush, and the trophy was given a
conspicuous place in our home.
In those days it was no unusual course for the Gypsy lads to enlist in
the Militia, and ’Plisti looked every inch a soldier as he marched
homeward from the morning’s drill on the common. In play he would level
his musket at you, and laugh like a merry boy, if you caught his spirit
and made believe that you were wounded. If he was proud of his scarlet
jacket, his characteristic Gypsy vanity led him to glory in shirts of
dyes so resplendent that in comparison the vaunted multi-coloured coat of
Joseph would indeed have been thrown into the shade.
The Gypsy spell cast upon me in childhood was now reinforced by my
discovery of the autobiographical writings of George Borrow. It was in
my teens that I devoured _Lavengro_ in its original three-volume form.
By taper-light in an attic bedroom at home, or in some hollow on the
common where the battered race-cards whitened the base of the gorse
bushes—our old common is the annual scene of the Lincolnshire Handicap—I
thrilled over the boy Borrow’s encounter with the Gypsies in the green
lane at Norman Cross. I followed him through the crowded horse-fair at
Norwich, and into the smoky tents pitched upon Mousehold Heath. But the
episode which impressed me most of all was the fight with the Flaming
Tinman. The _dramatis personæ_ of that narrative would pursue me even
into my dreams. _The Romany Rye_, with its vivid picture of Horncastle
Fair, was pleasant enough reading, though not nearly so fascinating as
_Lavengro_. Little did I think that the coming days were to bring some
of Borrows originals within my ken.
[Picture: A daughter of “Jasper Petulengro”]
How far Borrow’s Gypsies are portraits of individuals, and to what extent
we are able to identify them, are questions which have often been asked.
Don Jorge would probably have denied the charge of individual
portraiture, yet there is no doubt that he had definite prototypes in his
mind’s eye when penning his narratives. Just as in _Guy Mannering_, Sir
Walter Scott portrayed an actual Jean Gordon under the name of Meg
Merrilies, so we know that Borrow has given us his old friend Ambrose
Smith under the now famous cognomen of “Jasper Petulengro,” a fact made
plain by Dr. Knapp in his monumental work {28} familiar to all Gypsy
students. Shortly before his death at Dunbar in October, 1878, Ambrose
Smith and his wife Sanspirela (a Heron before marriage), together with
their family, had been noticed and befriended by Queen Victoria. To wit:
the following entry in _More Leaves from the Journal of a Life in the
Highlands_.
“_August_ 26_th_, 1878.—At half-past three started with Beatrice,
Leopold, and the Duchess in the landau, and four, the Duke, Lady Ely,
General Ponsonby, and Mr. Yorke, going in the second carriage, and
Lord Haddington riding all the way. We drove through the west part
of Dunbar, which was very full, and we were literally pelted with
small nosegays, till the carriage was full of them; then for some
distance past the village of Belheven, Knockendale Hill, where were
stationed in their best attire the queen of the gipsies, an oldish
woman [Sanspirela] with a yellow handkerchief on her head, and a
youngish, very dark, and truly gipsy-like woman in velvet and a red
shawl, and another woman. The queen is a thorough gipsy, with a
scarlet cloak and a yellow handkerchief around her head. Men in red
hunting-coats, all very dark, and all standing on a platform here,
bowed and waved their handkerchiefs.”
In the seventh chapter of _The Romany Rye_, Borrow tells how he one day
got his dinner “entirely off the body of a squirrel which had been shot
the day before by a chal of the name of Piramus, who, besides being a
good shot, was celebrated for his skill in playing on the fiddle.”
Nieces of Piramus Gray, whom I know, have testified to their uncle’s
excellence as a marksman, and on the authority of Sinfai, a daughter of
Piramus, I have been told that Ambrose Smith’s praise of her father’s
fiddling was well founded.
“About a week ago my people and myself” (the speaker is Ambrose,
_i.e._ Jasper Petulengro) “were encamped on a green by a plantation
in the neighbourhood of a great house. In the evening we were making
merry, the girls dancing, while Piramus was playing on the fiddle a
tune of his own composing, to which he had given his own name,
Piramus of Rome, and which is much celebrated amongst our people, and
from which I have been told one of the grand gorgio composers who
once heard it has taken several hints.”
The gifted fiddler was at that time only a slim fellow of twenty-eight
summers. Long years afterwards, when Piramus was a very old man and I a
youth of twenty, I remember seeing him in our Lincolnshire town of Louth,
where he was still tapping with his tinker’s hammer and fondling his
violin in his cottage at the River Head. A story which the old man never
tired of telling was that of his brother Jack’s heroism.
Upon a day, many years ago, the children of Piramus were boating on a
river, and, their craft capsizing, all were flung into the stream. Jack,
who happened to be on the bank, leaped in and saved all but two, the
oldest and the youngest, who were drowned. In his day Piramus had
excelled as a fighter, and certainly the knotty fists of the aged tinman
looked as if they had done service in the bruising line.
Two visitors who loved to cheer the last days of Piramus were his
daughter Sinfai and her husband, Isaac Heron, who have themselves now
passed away. Whenever I think of the tall figure of Old Isaac, I recall
one evening in the summer of 1876, when a camp of the Herons lay just
outside of Lincoln. What appeared to be a Gypsy trial was in progress,
and I remember the inward thrill on beholding those Herons in a ring,
chattering like a flock of daws. Inside the circle stands a young man,
bare-headed, stripped of coat and vest, and gesticulating wildly. Now he
flings his arms about, and now he thrusts his fingers through his shaggy
black hair. On his brow the sweat stands in beads. I can hear the name
“Wilhelmina,” as it comes in a piercing shriek from his lips. The old
men and women are muttering together as calmly they look on. In that
throng were Isaac and Sinfai, along with some of the older Yorkshire
Herons, Golias, Khulai, and others.
In after years I came to know very intimately many members of the clan
Heron, and among them a niece of that weird old hag, Mrs. Herne (to use
Borrow’s spelling of the name), who sent the poisoned cake to Lavengro in
Mumper’s Dingle.
Having had a romantic interest in the Gypsies aroused in me thus early, I
naturally looked forward to the days when I should leave home and meet
the people of the _kawlo rat_ (black blood) in other parts of the
country.
CHAPTER III
NORTH-COUNTRY GYPSIES
A TYPICAL colliery village in a bleak northern county was the scene of my
first curacy. Silhouettes of ugliness were its black pit buildings,
dominated by a mountain of burning refuse exhaling night and day a
poisonous breath which tarnished your brass candlesticks and rendered
noxious the “long, unlovely street” of the parish. What in the name of
wisdom induced me to pitch my tent in such a spot, I can scarcely say at
this distance of time, unless perhaps it was a mad desire to rub against
something rough and rude after having been reared in the drowsy
atmosphere of pastoral Lincolnshire.
But if the picture which met my gaze on parochial rounds possessed no
inspiring feature, you may take my word for it that the setting of the
picture was undeniably charming. Close at hand lay the valley of the
Wear, by whose brown and amber waters, broken by frequent beds of gravel,
I used to wander, trout-rod in hand, or, wading ankle-deep in bluebells,
I added to my store of nature-knowledge by observing the ways of the
wood-folk—the tawny squirrel on his fir-bough, the red-polled woodpecker
hammering at a decayed elm-branch, or a lank heron standing stiff as a
stake on the margin of a pool.
Across the airy uplands at the back of the village runs a road which was
ever a favourite walk of mine. Away in the distance, Durham’s towers
lift their grey stones, and nearer across the fields, “like a roebuck at
bay,” rises the castle, which together with the lordship of Brancepeth,
Geoffrey, grandson of the Norman Gilbert de Nevil, received as dowry with
Emma Bulmer, his Saxon bride. Right well I came to know the weathered
walls of Brancepeth Castle, where in fancy I used to hear the blare of
bugle (_not the motor-horn_), and to a dreamer it is still a place where
“the swords shine and the armour rings.”
One June day I took the byway over the hills, and as I leaned upon a gate
looking towards the castle, a sound of wheels not far off was heard on
the gritty roadway, and from round the corner a party of Gypsies hove in
sight. There were two or three carts bearing the name of Watland, with
several comely people aboard, and lagging in the rear came a pair of
shaggy colts, whipped up by a shock-headed lad of fifteen. When I
greeted these wanderers, they drew rein and descended from the carts, and
standing there in the sunshine on the road, they appeared to me more than
anything like a gang of prehistoric folk risen from some tumulus on the
moor; features, garments, horses, vehicles—all were tinctured with Mother
Earth’s reds and browns picked up from wild heaths, clay-pits, and sandy
lanes. To my mind the sight was an agreeable variation from the daily
procession of miners so black with coal-dust that you could not for the
life of you distinguish Bill from Bob, or Jack from Jerry.
“Are you stopping about here?” I asked, after an exchange of salutations.
“Yes; come and see us to-night on top o’ the moor. We’ll be fixed up by
then.” Turning to his wife, the leader of the party said—
“Ay, doesn’t he remind you of that young priest up yonder by Newcastle,
what used to come and take a cup of tea with us?”
There was something about these Watlands which impressed me. Although
obviously poor, they were light-hearted—I had caught the lilt of a song
before they came in sight. A blithesome spirit of acceptance, a serenity
drawn from Nature’s bosom was theirs, and I could imagine them whistling
cheerily as they bent their heads to buffeting storms.
“Take no thought for the morrow,” is the Gypsy’s own philosophy. Were
real road-folk ever able to tell you the route of the morrow’s itinerary?
Break of day will be time enough to discuss the next stage of the
journey.
Sundown’s fires burned redly behind the black pines, as I found myself on
the moor, a wide expanse tracked by little paths worn by passing feet, a
haunt of whin-chats, grasshoppers, and bright-eyed lizards—sun-lovers
all.
Knowing the whimsicalities of the Gypsy nature, I had half expected to
draw a blank after dawdling through the afternoon at Brancepeth Castle.
I wondered whether my luck would be the same as on a past occasion
whereon it happened that down a green lane I had located a picturesque
lot of Gypsies who might almost have stepped straight out of a Morland
canvas, and most anxious I was to secure a few snapshots, but
unfortunately my camera had been left at home.
“You’ll be here all day, I expect?”
“To be sure we shall, my _rai_, you’ll find us here _koliko sawla_
(to-morrow morning), if you’s a mind to come.”
Preferring to act upon the _carpe diem_ principle, I returned with my
camera as expeditiously as I could, and though but an hour and a half had
elapsed, alas! my birds had flown. Homewards I trudged, a joy-bereft
soul for whom the world had suddenly grown empty.
This leads me to remark that the Gypsies are far from easy to photograph.
The degree of friendship does not enter into the problem. I have known
strangers to pose readily, while old friends have doggedly refused to be
“took.” Once a friend and I had talked one of the reticent Herons into a
willingness to be photographed. Yes, on the morrow he would be “took.”
But with the morrow his mood had changed. “No, _raia_, not for a
thousand pounds.”
I remember photographing a Gypsy girl under curious conditions. Said I,
as she sat upon the grass—
“You’ll allow me to take a little picture? Your hair is so pretty, and
you have a happy face.”
[Picture: A North-Country Gypsy Girl. Photo. H. Stimpson]
But, no, my words were wasted. Bad luck followed that sort of thing, a
cousin of hers had died a fortnight after being “took.”
“But isn’t there some charm for keeping off bad luck?”
Looking thoughtful for a moment, she replied—
“Oh yes, if you’ll give me a pair of bootlaces, you can _lel mi mui_
(take my face) as many times as you _kom_” (like).
I had a pair of laces, _but they were in my boots_. Nothing daunted,
however, I went off to a shop in the village half a mile away, and was
soon back again presenting the laces to the girl with an Oriental salaam.
Then I got my picture.
[Picture: On the Moorland. Photo. Chas. Reid]
Reverting to the Watlands, I was not disappointed. There in a hollow on
the moor I found them squatting around their fires. Wearied by travel,
some of the elders had retired for the night. “_Dik lesti_’s _pîro_”
(look at his foot), said one of the boys, pointing to a man’s bare brown
foot protruding from beneath a tent cover. Within view of Durham’s
twinkling lights we sat, and my tobacco pouch having gone the round, we
were soon deep in the sayings and doings of the Watlands of other days,
for when business is off Gypsies ever talk of Gypsies. As I looked at
these folk, it seemed as though behind them through the dusk peered the
shades of Romanies of an older, weirder sort, who shunned contact with
cities and hated _gawjê_ (non-Gypsies) with a bitterness unknown to-day.
Here is a tale of the old times, obtained from grizzled “Durham” Mike
Watland, and translated more or less into my own words.
“When I was a little fellow, I used to listen with delight to a
blood-curdling story which my grandfather used to tell as we sat
watching the red embers die out at night. One time he found himself
in a strange predicament, and got such a “gliff” as he had never
experienced before. This of course was many years ago, for my
grandfather lived to the age of ninety-four, and I am one of the
third generation of a long-lived family of Gypsies. The ways of our
people were a bit different then. In those days, you saw no harm in
taking anything you had a fancy for, if you could get it. My
grandfather was a young fellow, and on this particular morning he
crossed a moor and came to a hamlet containing three or four
straggling houses, and near one of these stood a cowshed and a low
barn. In passing the shed he saw hanging there a nice porker which
had been killed early that morning, and round it was wrapped a sack
to prevent dogs or cats from gnawing it. All this my grandfather
observed as he hawked his goods at the cottage door, inwardly
resolving to pay Mr. Piggy a visit by night. All was quiet when at a
late hour he re-crossed the moor and arrived at the shed, on entering
which he put out his hands and felt for the pig where he had seen it
hanging in the morning, but, no, it had been removed. It then
occurred to him that for greater safety it might have been carried
into the low-roofed barn, so in he went and felt all along the
cross-beam. He was right. Sure enough the pig’s face struck cold to
his hand. Quickly he cut the rope, and, slinging piggy across his
shoulder, was soon making his way back to the camping-place. But
crossing that rough land with a heavy load was no easy task, and you
may be sure that the farther he went the heavier it became. When
descending a slope, he caught his foot in a hole, and down he tumbled
with his burden. Now as he arose and laid hold of the rope in order
to hoist the pig once more, the moon came out from behind a cloud,
and revealed the face of—_a dead man_! For a moment he stood
mesmerized by fright, then sick at heart he proceeded to acquaint the
nearest constable with the fact. The corpse was identified as that
of a feeble-minded cottager who had hanged himself in the barn.”
One day I was exploring the city of Durham, for my early life in Lincoln
had imbued me with a love of old architecture, and the nave of Durham
minster profoundly gratified my love of the sombre, when, lo, just over
the way, I saw a weather-beaten _vâdo_ (living-van), and near it was the
owner, looking up and down the street as if expecting someone to appear.
Crossing the road, I greeted the Gypsy, who turned out to be one of the
Winters, a North-Country family to whom has been applied (not without
reason) the epithet “wild,” and I remembered how Hoyland, in his
_Historical Survey of the Gypsies_, had written—
“The distinguished Northern poet, Walter Scott, who is Sheriff of
Selkirkshire, has in a very obliging manner communicated the
following statement—‘ . . . some of the most atrocious families have
been extirpated. I allude to the Winters, a Northumberland clan,
who, I fancy, are all buried by this time.’”
But Sheriff Scott was wrong.
The Winters had only changed their haunts, and on being driven out of the
Border Country had moved southward.
As I stood chatting with Mr. Winter, his handsome wife came up with a
hawking-basket on her arm. I shall always remember her in connection
with a story she told me.
“One day I was sitting on a bank under a garden hedge. It was a hot
day and I was very thirsty. I said aloud, ‘Oh, for a drink of beer.’
Just then a voice came over the hedge, a nice, clear, silvery voice
it was, like as if an angel from heaven was a-talking to me—‘You
shall have one, my dearie.’ And in a minute or two a kind lady came
down with a big jug of beer. How I did bless that lady for her
kindness to a poor Gypsy, and I drank the lot. About a month
afterwards, I heard of the death of that lady, and I vowed to myself
and to the _rawni_’s _muli_ (lady’s spirit) that I would never touch
another drop of beer as long as I lived, and I never have done and
never will no more.”
CHAPTER IV
MY POACHING PUSSY—A ROMANY BENISON—MY FIRST TASTE OF HEDGEHOG
MY clerical life has been spent for the most part in green country
places, chiefly amid wind-swept hills. Consequently one has learned to
delight in the creatures that run and fly, the wild things of wood and
wold and brookside, and this love of Nature and her children has never
left me; it has companioned with me throughout my wanderings. Give me
now an elevated crest commanding a broad sweep of field and forest, with
the swift rush of keen air over the furze bushes, a footpath among the
thorn-scrub where the finches chatter, the sedgy bank of a moorland
stream from which I can hear the “flup” of the trout, or the call of the
peewits somersaulting in the sunlight: simple pleasures are these, yet
they bring a world of happiness to a man who loves the wilds more than
cities, and the windy wold better than the stifling street.
Contrary to the popular notion that Lincolnshire is no more than a dreary
expanse of black fenland soil intersected by drains of geometric
straightness, I may point out that there are two well-defined hill ranges
extending almost throughout the county—the chalk and greensand Wolds, and
the limestone “Heights,” running parallel after the manner of the _duplex
spina_ of Virgil’s well-bred horse.
On the western edge of the Wolds, overlooking a richly varied landscape,
nestles the hamlet where I made my first home after marriage, and the
country lying around our hilltop parsonage was an ideal hunting-ground
for a naturalist. Borne on the rude March gales the wild pipe of the
curlew greeted the ear as you met the buffeting gusts along the
unfrequented ridgeways, and over winter snows an observant eye might
trace the badger’s spoor. On summer evenings when the far-away minster
of Lincoln was a purple cameo upon an amber ground, and the shadows
creeping out of the woods began to spread over the hills, a brown owl
would sail by on noiseless wings, or Reynard might be seen trotting
across the sheep-nibbled sward towards the warren below the clustering
firs.
Rambling along the wold one gleaming autumn afternoon, my attention was
attracted by the rapid movements of some diminutive, fluffy-looking
creature, which to a casual saunterer might have been a wren or a
hedgesparrow; but after having stood quietly for a moment or two, a dark
velvety ball of fur darted towards me, and in a most confiding manner ran
over my boots, and sniffed at the stout ash-plant which I invariably
carry with me along the lanes. For some time I stood watching the
unconscious play of this tiny mouse. At last, however, I made a move and
my wee friend fled like a thought to his retreat in the hedge.
On another occasion, I was seated in my old oak stall in the village
church. It was a harvest festival, and a college friend was in the midst
of his sermon, when I distinctly felt something nibbling at the hem of my
cassock. It was a plump grey mouse, and on moving my foot I saw him
speed down the aisle like an arrow. As fortune had it, the ladies in the
front pew, being properly rapt in the eloquent discourse, escaped the
disquieting vision of my church mousie.
These mice incidents, with a few more like them, were strung together and
dispatched to the _Pall Mall Budget_, edited at that time by Mr. Charles
Morley. My literary effort was duly printed, with pleasing sketches from
the pencil of that peerless lover of pussies, Mr. Louis Wain, the then
president of the Cat Club.
It was in the same parish that I had a favourite pussy, “Tony” by name,
who would daily follow me to church, and wait at the vestry door for my
reappearance after matin-prayers. But, alas, he acquired the poaching
habit, a sure path to destruction, as I learned one day to my sorrow in
passing the keeper’s gibbet at the end of a woodland glade.
One of my rambles with this pussy I recall quite vividly. One afternoon
I set off across the wold intending to make pastoral visits upon a few
outlying cottagers. I had got about half a mile from home, and, looking
round, there was Tony just at my heels. I strolled along, and presently
heard a squealing, and out of a clump of nettles came my cat dragging a
plump rabbit. It was dead, and the cat, panting after his effort, looked
up at me, as much as to say, “You’re not going to leave it here, are
you?” Whereupon I remembered the saying of an old Gypsy, “If you had a
dog that brought a hare or a rabbit to your feet, wouldn’t it be flying
in the face of providence to refuse to take it?” So, picking up the
rabbit, I put it in one of the roomy pockets of my long-tailed coat, and
went on. The cat persisted in following. By and by, we drew near to a
disused quarry, where the cat captured a second rabbit, which went into
the other pocket of my long coat. By this time I began to feel the charm
of the sport of that gentleman who sallies forth on “a shiny night at the
season of the year.” The pastoral visits had now perforce to be
abandoned, but on turning my face homeward, oh, horrors! there, not a
hundred yards away, was a man on horseback, accompanied by a dog, and,
seeing them, my cat scooted along a gulley up the hill, and was gone. I
could not disappear quite so easily. However, as I did not altogether
fancy a strange dog sniffing at my coat-tails, I made a detour, and the
horseman passed a good way below me on the slope. You should have seen
my wife smile as I plumped two nice bunnies on the kitchen table. We
observed that those rabbits tasted quite as good as any you purchase at a
game-dealer’s stall in the market.
* * * * *
Gypsies, as all the world knows, are fond of the hedgehog.
They do not keep him as a pet. They eat him, and roast hedgehog
accompanied with sage and onions is a dish for an episcopal table. I
never see one of these prickly fellows without being reminded of several
experiences.
Once in passing along a town street on my way to the Archdeacon’s
Visitation, I noticed not far ahead of me an elderly woman stepping out
with a swinging stride. Her face I could not see, but she wore a
tattered shawl about her shoulders, and her black hair was done up in
small plaits like a horse’s mane at fair-time. “Gypsy,” said I to
myself, and, hastening alongside, I greeted her in the Romany tongue.
The words had a magical effect. Instantly she wheeled round and scanned
me up and down with a puzzled air. There before her, wearing an orthodox
collar and black coat, stood a parson who nevertheless talked like a
Gypsy. Now in common with some ladies of high degree, nearly all Gypsy
women enjoy a whiff of tobacco smoke. This old lady, however, declined a
gift of the weed on the ground that “the brantitus” had troubled her of
late, but she gladly stepped with me into a snug coffeehouse close by,
where over our steaming cups we conversed aloud in the Gypsy language, to
the complete mystification of the prim-looking manageress whose curiosity
kept her hovering near. What that good woman’s thoughts were, I have not
the faintest idea. I only know that she seemed amazed at the sight of a
Gypsy in easy intercourse with a simple-looking cleric who appeared to be
enjoying himself. Both, too, were speaking a queer-sounding language
understandable to each other, but utterly incomprehensible to the
listener. What could it all mean? Well, Gypsies at anyrate are not
without a sense of humour; indeed, no one enjoys a bit of fun more than
they. Taking in the situation at a glance, my Gypsy companion gave me a
sly look, and, waving her hand playfully, exclaimed, “Never mind him,
missis, he’s nobbut an Irishman, and can’t a boy and his mither talk a
word or two in their own language?”
On my taking leave of the Gypsy mother, she bestowed this benison upon
me: “The Lord love you, my son, and _may you always have a big hedgehog
in your mouth_.”
Hedgehog, as I have said, is a dainty dish with Gypsies, and the old
woman was no more than kindly wishing that there might ever be a titbit
ready to slip into my mouth.
* * * * *
I am not likely to forget the occasion of my first actual taste of this
Romany delicacy.
Charley Watland (brother of “Durham” Mike), a wide traveller, had told me
much of the delights of a certain old-fashioned Midland horse-fair,
concluding one of his glowing descriptions by inviting me to meet him in
mid-September at this fair. Thus it came to pass that I set out one fine
morning with my face towards the distant hills of Leicestershire. Of the
day-long journey, I am now concerned only with its closing scenes.
Pushing up a long, tiring hill, I spied over a hedge in the dusk two or
three _vâdê_ (living-vans), some low tents with flickering fires before
them, and dark figures moving to and fro. With what energy I had left, I
climbed over a fence and made straight for the Gypsy fires. A tall
_Romanitshel_, leaning against a tree-bole, was singing snatches of a
song in which I caught the words _Beng_ (Devil) and _puri-dai_
(grandmother), but, on seeing a stranger approach, he ceased. The Romany
greeting, which I flung on the evening air, caused a stoutish woman to
thrust her head from the doorway of the nearest caravan.
“He’s one o’ the Lees, I’ll be bound. He talks like ’em. He’s come back
from over the _pâni_” (water). Which, being interpreted, meant that I
was a “lag’s” boy returned from over-sea. The idea tickled me so that I
laughed outright.
Beside the fire which was burning brightly at the feet of the tall Gypsy
man, children and dogs were rolling over one another in perfect
happiness, and at my elbow a lad, peering into my face, exclaimed—
“I’ll swop _diklo_s (kerchiefs) with you, _rai_.”
“No, you won’t,” I replied; “mine’s silk and yours cotton.”
“_Pen mandi_, _baw_” (Tell me, friend), I inquired of the tall man under
the trees, “Is Charley Watland here this time?”
“_Keka_, _mi pal_, the _puro_’s _poger_’d his _hĕro_ (No, my brother, the
old man’s broken his leg) at Peterborough. He’s got kicked by a hoss,
and he’s in the infirmary.” This was bad news, for I had hoped to meet
my friend here and spend the night with him.
[Picture: Round the camp-fire. Photo. F. R. Hinkins]
A little way across the fields the lights of a village gleamed through
the darkness, and, making my way thither, I sought for a resting-place,
but in vain. Every available bed was already engaged. In and out of the
taverns passed horse-dealers and rollicking Gypsies. Groups of Romany
lads and lasses stood talking in the lane. Burly women with foaming jugs
bumped against you in the shadows. Between the barking of dogs and the
whinnying of horses, a word or two of Romany floated now and then to
one’s ear.
[Picture: A child of the caravan. Photo. Fred Shaw]
Tired after my day in the open air, I turned into a by-lane to think
matters over. A gentle wind rustled the leaves on the trees, and on the
eastern horizon a growing light told of approaching moon-rise. I sat on
a fence and watched Old Silver appear above the hills. Away from the
village, I began to notice the sights and sounds of night. An owl on
velvety wing fluttered by. Little birds cheeped in the thicket behind
me. Field-mice squeaked in the grass on the bank. I began to feel cut
off from the world. What was I to do? Walk about all night? Make a bed
on the bracken in a neighbouring wood? Renew my search for a more
civilized couch in one or other of the adjacent villages? Tramp down the
long dusty road to a small town some few miles off, where I knew of more
than one snug hostelry? Why indeed? Was I not out for adventure? I
resolved to ask the Gypsies to give me a bed. Therefore, without further
ado, I slipped through a gap in the hedge, and made tracks for the Gypsy
fires already mentioned.
“Hello, here’s the _rai_ back again.” It was the tall Gypsy’s wife who
spoke. My tale was soon told, and I was promptly offered a corner under
Arthur West’s tilt-hood placed tent-wise on the ground. Now that my mind
was at ease, I sat me down by the fire near which a savoury smell of
supper arose. It was astonishing how quickly we cleaned the bones of
several bird-like objects set before us.
“Did you ever taste of these little things afore?”
“Well, whatever they are, I shouldn’t mind if they had been larger.”
At this they all laughed aloud.
“_Dawdi_, the _rai_ doesn’t _jin_ he’s _haw_’d _hotshwitshi_” (Fancy, the
gentleman doesn’t know he’s eaten hedgehog).
So this was the much-vaunted Romany dish, nor did it disappoint me. The
blended flavours of pheasant and sucking-pig are still present to my
memory as I recall that moonlit meal washed down by a jug of brown ale.
On awaking next morning, I realized the truth of the saying, “Gypsies get
something straight from heaven which is never known to people who sleep
in stuffy houses and get up to wash in warm water.”
When I recall awakenings in lodgings with the bedclothes, valances,
curtains, falderals, antimacassars, all heavy with suggestions of
humanity, I marvel no more at the Gypsy’s choice of a bed of crisp
bracken or sweet straw, with maybe a wisp of dried river-mint or wild
thyme mingled with it.
Walking bare-foot in the dewy grass with the Gypsy children, we made our
toilet together in the open, with the light airs of the wold playing
about us. Then came breakfast by the wood fire, and during the meal my
host’s donkey affectionately put his cold nose on the bare of my neck.
In a little while we stood on the common where the fair was in full
swing, and, strolling among the horses and dealers, I spied a
curly-haired son of old Horace Boswell, just arrived from Leicester, who
found time to tell me a funny tale about his father.
Since early morn Horace had been riding a lively horse, and, dismounting,
handed the reins to a pal and walked a few yards into the fair. As he
was looking about him, he lighted upon George Smith of Coalville, who,
arching his bushy eyebrows and stroking his great beard, stood shocked at
the sight of a Gypsy walking unsteadily. As a matter of fact, Horace’s
legs had not yet thrown off the cramp of many hours’ riding on a skittish
animal. When solemn George opened his mouth it was to ask a question—
“Do you drink beer, my good man?”
“Well, my kind gentleman,” replied Horace, “afore I answers that
question, I’d reely like to know whether it’s a simple inquiry or an
inwitation.”
This was too much for the worthy philanthropist who, turning swiftly on
his heel, went his way swinging his Gladstone-bag and gingham.
About the middle of the afternoon I sought out my hospitable friend
Arthur West before quitting the fair, and, looking me straight in the
eyes, he said, “Are you quite sure that you have enough _lova_ (money) to
see you home? For if I thought you hadn’t, I should chuck a handful on
the _drom_ (road) and leave it for you to pick up.”
How shall we ever get you to understand the spirit of these wanderers;
you who coddle yourselves in hot, close rooms; who are wedded to the life
of a mill-horse jogging in convention’s dusty track, and whose souls are
imprisoned within the dimensions of a red-ochred flower-pot?
CHAPTER V
A GYPSY BAPTISM—ROMANY NAMES
QUITTING the Wolds, described in the preceding chapter, I took up my
abode in a large village situated on Lincoln Heath, where I had further
opportunities of pursuing my Gypsy studies round about home.
In a sinuous turfy lane which ran behind our house, the Gypsies would
pitch their camp from time to time, and one of these wandering families
conceived the notion of renting a cottage in the village. In my mind’s
eye I can see that little house, wearing a lost, desolate air. It stood
in a walled-in yard, where loose stones lay strewn, and the ridge of the
red-tiled roof sunken in the middle threatened a collapse.
Unaccustomed to sleeping under a roof, and a rickety one at that, the
Gypsies fled in alarm from their chamber one wild, boisterous night,
fearing lest the chimney-pots should tumble in upon them. Near by stood
their green caravan, and snugly abed therein they felt secure from all
harm. Next day a timid rap came at the Rectory door, and a black-eyed
girl whispered in my ear that her mother would like the baby, a few hours
old, to be christened. This I did, and a day or two afterwards I was
agreeably surprised to meet the Gypsy mother with her baby taking the
fresh air on the high road. What mother in any other rank of life could
carry her child in the open so soon after its birth?
“It’s a way we have,” said Walter Heron, when explaining to me that a
plate, cup, and saucer are set apart for the mother’s use during the four
weeks following the birth of a child. The vessels are then destroyed in
accordance with an old puerperal tabu. This custom is still observed in
all good Romany families.
Tom Lee, an English Gypsy, broke up a loaf of bread and strewed the
crumbs around his tent when his son Bendigo was born, for some of the
old-time Gypsies hold the notion that bread possesses a protective magic
against evil influences. Seated one day in the tent of Bendigo Lee on
the South Shore at Blackpool, I questioned him about his father’s
practice. “In the days when I was born,” he replied, “there were people
that could do hurt by looking at you, and I s’pose my _dadus_ (father)
sprinkled the crumbs lest any evil person going by should cast harm upon
me.”
A distinct survival of the belief in the evil eye.
* * * * *
Romany “fore,” or Christian names, {53} are often peculiar, and afford
much material for reflection.
Whence come such names as Khulai, Maireni, Malini, Mori, Shuri? In these
names Sir Richard Temple discerns Indian forms or terminations. The
Anglo-Romany names, Fenela, Siari, and Trenit, have been identified by
Mr. H. T. Crofton with the Continental forms, Vennel, Cihari, and
Tranitza, the last being a common feminine Gypsy name in Hungary.
Euphonious and out-of-the-way names are irresistible to the Gypsy.
“What metal is that box made of, sir?” asked a Gypsy mother on seeing a
gentleman’s cigarette-case.
“Aluminium,” was the reply.
“What a beautiful name for my gell’s baby!”
According to Charles G. Leland, a Gypsy father, hearing two gentlemen
talking about Mount Vesuvius, was greatly impressed by the name, and
consulted with them as to the propriety of giving it to his little boy.
Gypsies dislike to be addressed by their peculiar “fore” or Christian
names in the presence of _gawjê_; hence to the postman, Ènos become Amos,
Fèmi—Amy, and Poley—George, and so on. As a rule, you find a Gypsy is
unwilling to impart his true name to a stranger. May not this reluctance
be due to a lingering subconscious belief that the possession of one’s
true name would enable a stranger to work harmful spells upon the owner?
Time was when the belief was widely spread that the utterance of a man’s
true name drew him to the speaker. Medieval records are full of
legendary accounts of spirits who were summoned by the casual
pronunciation of their names. Until lately there were peasants in the
North of Ireland and Arran who absolutely refused to tell their names to
a stranger because such knowledge, it was believed, would enable him to
“call” them, no matter how far he was from them, and whenever he cared to
do so. They also believed that any spell worked on the written name
would have the same effect as if worked on the owner.
It is a fact that not a few Gypsy surnames are identical with those of
ancient noble families, _e.g._ Boswell, or Bosville (sometimes contracted
to Boss), Gray, Heron, Hearne, or Herne, Lees, Lovells, and Stanleys. It
has been surmised, by way of explanation, that the Gypsies soon after
their arrival in this country adopted the surnames of the owners of the
estates on which particular hordes usually encamped, or the names of
those landed families who afforded protection to the persecuted
wanderers.
Speaking of the Gypsies, Gilbert White of Selborne, says, “One of these
tribes calls itself by the noble name of Stanley.” This mention of the
Stanleys reminds me that once on Gonerby Hill, near Grantham, on the
Great North Road, I met a young man who looked like a mechanic out of
work, yet his bearing was that of a Gypsy. In our talk he admitted that
he was of Romany blood. He had been a horseman in Lord George Sanger’s
circus, but something had gone wrong and he was thrown out of employ. At
first he gave his name as Richardson (not a Gypsy name), but he
afterwards told me that his grandfather, a Stanley, had been transported,
for which reason the family assumed the name of Richardson.
CHAPTER VI
I MAKE A NEW ACQUAINTANCE
FOR several years I was curate-in-charge of a parish abutting upon the
Great North Road, and during that time I used to meet many Gypsies on the
famous highway. There passed along it members of the Boswell clan,
making their way from Edinburgh to London; the dark Herons, after
spending the summer months in the Northern Counties, came by this route
to their winter quarters at Nottingham; a lawless horde of Lovells also
knew this road well. Sometimes these Gypsies would turn aside from the
dusty highway for a brief rest in the green lanes across an adjacent
river, but they rarely tarried longer than a day. With one of these
Gypsies I became intimately acquainted, and this is how our friendship
began.
One May morning I had been strolling along the aforesaid road, and,
turning towards the river where it is spanned by an old mill-bridge, I
loitered there in expectation of the arrival of a pack of otter-hounds,
visitors from another county; for complaints had long been accumulating
to the effect that _Lutra_ had been making depredations among the fish,
game, and poultry all along the reaches of the river. Adjoining the
bridge was a watermill where often might be heard the humming of the
great wheel and the roar of foam-flecked water. Mellowed by time’s
gentle touch, the irregular outlines of the building seemed verily as if
arranged to be imaged on canvas; timbers and weathered stones were
everywhere mottled with rosettes of orange and grey lichen, and when the
sunbeams warmed the tints and tones of the old mill into rich masses of
colour you experienced a thrill which made you wish to repeat it.
A little way off, our river was crossed by a shallow ford rarely used by
vehicular traffic, which mostly passed by the bridge. Once a year,
however, the miller closed the bridge in order to preserve a right-of-way
through his yard, and on this occasion toll was taken of every cart,
while a free way was allowed by the ford. But the astute fellow usually
arranged that the closing of the bridge should coincide with a market day
at the nearest town, and he would choose a time when the river was
swollen by flood-water beyond its ordinary dimensions, thus rendering the
ford a dangerous crossing.
After waiting awhile, a murmur of deep voices broke upon my ear, as with
a rush and a splash about a score of bonny, rough-coated dogs burst into
view round a bend in the stream. It was not in my plans to follow the
dogs, so when the pack and its excited companions had gone by, I
proceeded leisurely along a lane leading towards the green uplands
looking down upon the valley.
A little way up the lane I came upon two dark-featured lads, and, going
up to one of them who was tacking strips of straw-plait upon the top of a
three-legged table, I said—
“You seem very busy this morning.”
“We must do something for a living.”
“You’re certainly a good hand at your business. How long are you
stopping here?”
“That’s more nor I know.” (This with a shrewd look at me from top to
toe.) “Ax grandfather, up yonder wi’ the hosses.”
Higher up the lane, and almost hidden by outlying tangles of bramble and
wild-rose, sat a man of sixty or more, puffing tobacco smoke from his
black clay, and near him on the wayside three horses ripped the tender
grasses.
Looking up at me with a start, the man said—
“Well, you fairly took me by surprise, sir. For a wonder I never heard
you a-coming. I must be getting deaf.”
“_Romanitshel_?” (Gypsy) I queried.
“_Âvali_, _mi tshavo_” (Yes, my son), he replied; “you’s been among our
people, that’s plain, or you wouldn’t talk like you do. Mebbe you’s
heard tell o’ Jonathan Boswell—that’s me. But I must be off now with
these here hosses to the smithy. We’s _besh_in _akai_ (stopping here)
for a day or two. Our wagon’s in the _kitshima_ (tavern) yard just past
the mill.”
“Well, Jonathan, I want you to bring one of those Gypsy-tables the boys
are making to my place this afternoon; don’t fail to come. I shall _dik
avrî_ for _tîro mui_ about _trin ora_” (look out for your face about
three o’clock).
“Right, I’ll be there, _raia_.”
In due course the Gypsy presented himself at my door in company with his
two grandsons, and among them they carried three tables. I had only
asked for one, but Jonathan was such a “find” that I gladly purchased all
the articles and bade the little party follow me into the garden. The
two grandsons displayed a remarkable knowledge of trees, which they were
able to identify not merely by their foliage, but by the character of
their bark. Wild birds they knew by note and flight as well as by
plumage. There is so much a Gypsy boy knows about nature.
How meagre, by contrast, is the information possessed by the average
County Council schoolboy; which reminds me that I was once giving an
object-lesson to a class of fifth-standard children attending our village
school. We were seated on a river bank whose insect life and botanical
treasures I had been pointing out to an interested group of listeners.
As nothing had been said about the scaly denizens of the stream, I
concluded my talk by putting a question to the entire class.
“Hands up, those who can tell me the names of any fish to be found in
this river.”
Quickly a dozen pink palms were uplifted, and I could see that several
lips were bursting with information. Imagine my surprise when I was
informed—“red-herring, sprats, and mackerel.”
On the following evening I went across the fields to see my friends by
the watermill. The amber light of sunset was falling upon green hedge
and rippling river. From a thorn bush a nightingale jug-jugged
deliciously. There was poetry in the air. Nor was it dispelled by the
discovery that my friends had drawn their “house on wheels” into the
grassy lane leading down to the ford.
Seated on a mound of sand, Jonathan was chatting with a stranger who had
the looks of an Irishman. I joined them, but no sooner had I dropped a
word or two of Romany than the stranger arose, saying, “I don’t
understand your talk, so I’d better be going.” He then left us, and,
seeing he had gone away, old Fazenti, Jonathan’s wife, stepped down from
the living-wagon, and our discourse became considerably enlivened by her
presence.
Speaking of _duker_in (fortune-telling), she said, “It’ll go on while the
world lasts,” which was Fazzy’s way of saying that the credulous will be
in the world after the poor have left it. “It’s the hawking-basket that
gi’s us our chance, don’t you _dik_ (see)? I takes care never to be
without my licence, and the _muskro_ (policeman) would have to get up
wery early to catch old Fazzy asleep. Did I ever have any _mulo-mas_?
{61} Many’s the time I’ve had a bit. In spring, when lambs are about,
that’s the time for _mulo-mas_.
“A good country for hedgehogs is this, but we don’t eat ’em in the
spring. The back end of the year is the best time for ’em; there’s a bit
of flesh on ’em then. When you find one, if he’s rolled up in a ball,
you rub his back with a stick right down his spine, and he’ll open out
fast enough. Then you hit him hard on the nose, and he’s as dead as a
door nail. The old way of cooking him was to cover him with clay and
bake him in the fire. When he was cooked you tapped the clay ball, and
the prickles and skin came away with the clay. Nowadays we burn down the
bristles, then shave ’em off, draw and clean him and roast him on a spit
before a hot fire. He’s wery good with _puvengri_s (potatoes), sage, and
onions. _Bouri_s (snails) are good to eat in winter. You get them in a
hard frost from behind old stumps of trees. You put salt on ’em and they
make fine broth. Wery strengthening is _bouri-zimen_” (snail broth).
[Picture: A rest by the way. Photo. Fred Shaw]
While we were conversing, Jonathan’s grandsons passed by with a lurcher.
“A useful dog, that, I should think,” said I.
“_Kushto yek sî dova_ for _shushiaw_ and _kanengrê_” (A good one is that
for rabbits and hares), replied the old man. “I minds well the day I
bought him off a man with a pot-cart as was stopping along with us. We’d
got leave from a farmer to draw into a lane running between some clover
fields, and we were just sitting down to a cup o’ tea when a keeper comes
along and says—
“‘I’m afraid some of you fellows have been up to mischief, because
there’s a hare in a snare along this hedge.’
“‘Then it’s somebody else’s snare, not ours,’ I says, ‘for we’s only just
got here, and yon farmer as give us leave to stop will tell you the same
if you ask him.’
“‘Well, see here,’ says the keeper, ‘there’s a rabbit for your pot. Keep
a sharp look out, and mind you let me know if anybody comes to fetch that
hare. There’s my cottage up yonder.’
“Then he went away, and would you believe it, a bit after the moon got up
we see a man coming across the field and straight to that snare he went,
and as he was taking the hare out of it, there was a tap on his shoulder
from the keeper. Now, who do you think the man was that got catched so
nicely? _It was the willage policeman_. And that night I bought that
here _jukel_ (dog), I did, and me and the dog had a fine time among the
_shushiaw_ (rabbits) after the keeper and the policeman had gone away.
About a week after, the _muskro_ (policeman) had to appear in court, and
a wery poor figure he cut afore the _pukinger_ (magistrate). You see, he
was catched proper, and couldn’t get out of it no-how. The pot-cart man
and me had to go up as witnesses.”
“You’ll know this countryside well, I expect. Do you ever spend the
night in Dark Lane, as I believe they call it?”
“One time we used to stop there a lot, _rai_, but they won’t let us now.
How’smiver, we _hatsh odoi_ (encamp there) for a _râti_ (night) at odd
times, spite of everybody.”
This remark was accompanied by a half-smothered chuckle from Jonathan,
who, while filling his pipe from my tobacco pouch, seemed to be
ruminating upon a reminiscence which presently came out.
The said lane lies pleasantly between a neighbouring village and the
river, and about the month of May the grass down there begins to be
sweet, but woe to the Gypsies whom the constable finds encamped
thereabouts.
Jonathan went on to tell how he and his party once passed a night very
happily there when the may-buds were bursting. And this is how it was
done.
In a wayside tavern the Gypsy had heard it whispered that the County
Police had gone to the town for the annual inspection, which involved a
temporary absence of the constables from their respective localities.
But, to make quite sure of this, on arriving at the village of F—,
Jonathan sought out a certain cottage and thus addressed himself to a
constable’s wife—
“Is the sergeant at home?”
“No, my man. What do you want him for?”
“A pony of mine has gone astray, and I want him to let me know if he
hears anything about it. Perhaps he’ll be at home to-night?”
“He won’t, I’m afraid.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Thus Jonathan camped down Dark Lane with impunity.
One morning shortly after my meeting with Jonathan, a Gypsy mother called
at my Rectory. She led her black-eyed, five-year-old boy by the hand.
Brown as a berry, the handsome little fellow would have served admirably
for an artist’s model, and his mother had many pleasing touches of Gypsy
colour about her attire. From beneath a bright red _diklo_ (kerchief)
which she wore, a few black curls straggled out on to her forehead, and a
gay bodice showed under her green shawl. The woman said that she had
heard so much of me from her father—Jonathan Boswell—that she had come on
purpose to see me. I invited her into the kitchen, and over bread and
cheese and ale we chatted.
“Ain’t we all delated, _raia_, come to think of it? There’s a Man above
as made us all.”
Quickly I made friends with the little boy, and at my request his mother
afforded our household no small delight by leaving her son with us for
the day. The tiny lad was entirely unaccustomed to house ways, and his
behaviour was a study. On seeing a Christmas card with the Christ-child
lying in the manger guarded by a white-winged angel, he exclaimed, “I
know what that is” (pointing to the heavenly visitant); “we often sees
’em flying over the fields. _It’s a seagull_.”
With great readiness he joined in the games of my children, such as
shuttlecock and battledore, skipping, and the like. Sitting at a table
for a meal was evidently a novel experience for the little chap, and it
was amusing to see him slip off his chair and squat on the hearthrug,
putting his plate on his knee as though a Gypsy boy ought not to do
exactly as the _gawjê_, and he used his fingers freely in lieu of fork
and spoon. After the meal we sat round the fire, and talked of his life
on the road.
“I found a hen’s nest in the hedge-bottom, this morning, I did.”
“Any eggs in?” I asked.
“Yes; three.”
“Did you take them?”
“No, I left ’em—_till there was more_.”
Then I told him fairy tales of green woods, ghosts, and goblins, and he
became excited, springing once or twice from his chair, as if he would
like to have danced about the room.
“Oh, I knows a lot about _mulo_s” (ghosts), said the little Gypsy.
“There’s different sorts—milk-white ’uns and coal-black ’uns. When we’re
abed at nights, they come screaming round our wagon and flapping at the
windows. My daddy gets his gun and shoots, then we hears ’em no more for
a bit. But they are soon back agen, and I’m that frit when I hears ’em,
I can’t sleep. When mammy’s going out with her basket of a morning, and
daddy’s gone somewhere to see about a hoss, I daren’t go far into the big
wood agen our stopping-place, ’cos of the black pig what lives there.
Daddy has seen it, and nobody can’t kill it, for you can bang a stick
right through it without hurting it. Mammy allus says, ‘Don’t you never
go into that wood, else the black pig’ll get you.’”
We showed him picture books, and, pointing to an ass and a foal, he said,
“My daddy’s got a little donkey just like that, three months old, and
when it’s bigger I shall ride on it, like that man’s doing in the
pictur’.”
We rambled in the Rectory garden, and he quickly found a hedgehog in its
nest. All the senses of this little fellow were extremely alert.
In the early evening his mother returned for him, and their meeting was a
pretty sight. Placing her hawking-basket on the ground, she picked up
her laddie in her arms and kissed him. Slowly the pair walked away,
casting more than one backward glance at the house.
A few days later, news reached me of a Gypsy arrival in a green lane
about a mile from my Rectory. I therefore hastened across the fields,
and, long before sighting the party, whiffs of wood-smoke, which the
breeze brought my way, told that they were already encamped. On reaching
the spot, Farmer W—’s best bullock pasture, I spied Jonathan’s cart along
with other vehicles drawn up with their backs towards a high hedge.
There were fires on the grass, and from family groups merry voices rang
out on the air. In the lane a troop of children were hovering around a
little black donkey, a pretty young foal, which allowed them to fondle it
to their hearts’ content. What a picture it was which greeted
me—tree-boles, tilt-carts, and hedgerows lit up by the fading sunlight,
and the blue smoke of the fires wafted about the undulating field dipping
down to the river. Quickly I dropped into a corner by one of the fires,
and the mirth was just at its height when up rode Farmer W— on his
chestnut cob.
[Picture: A Wayside Idyl. Photo. Fred Shaw]
“Where’s that scamp of a Boswell?” he shouted angrily.
Jonathan stepped forward, hanging his head somewhat.
“What does all this mean?” asked the farmer. “I thought it was only for
yourself that you begged leave to stop here. Who the divil’s all this
gang?”
“I really couldn’t help it,” said Jonathan. “They stuck to me, and would
come in. They’re all delations of mine, don’t you see, sir?”
A look from the Gypsy made me step forward and plead for the party, which
I did with success.
[Picture: Children of the Open Air. Photo. Fred Shaw]
About the middle of June I was again in Old Boswell’s company. Under a
hedge pink with wild-roses, we sat smoking and waiting for the fair to
begin on Stow Green, a South Lincolnshire common. Already horses were
assembling and dealers were beginning to arrive in all sorts of
conveyances. Hot sunshine blazed down upon the common, whose only
building was a wretched-looking lockup, around which lounged several
representatives of the county constabulary. Wandering in and about the
motley throng, I caught a whisper going the round that a fight was to
take place before the end of the day. It had been explained to me that
this fight was not the result of any quarrel arising at the fair. It had
been arranged long beforehand. Whenever a difference arose between two
families, champions were told off to fight the matter out at Stow Green
Fair.
Somewhere about the middle of the afternoon, as the business began to
slacken, a number of people were seen to move to one corner of the
common. Evidently something was afoot. I wandered across and found a
crowd consisting mainly of Gypsies, and in order to get a better view, I
climbed upon a trestle table outside a booth. In the middle of a ring of
people stood two of the dark Grays, stripped to the waist, and, at a
signal given by an elderly man, the combatants put up their “maulers” and
the fight began. It was by no means a one-sided contest, the men being
well matched with regard to weight and strength. Blow followed blow in
quick succession, and at the first drawing of blood the Gypsy onlookers
became excited, and the entire crowd began to surge to and fro. Of
course, the police hurried up, but soon perceived that it was useless to
interfere.
“Let ’em have it out,” cried many voices. After a breathing space, the
fighters again closed in, and, parting a little, one of them stepped back
a pace or two and, springing towards his opponent, dealt him a heavy blow
which determined the battle, and all was over. At this juncture, the
table on which I and others stood suddenly gave way, and we were
precipitated to the grass, but no harm was done, beyond a few bruises and
the shattering of sundry jugs and glasses.
An echo of a fighting song haunts me as I recall this Gypsy contest on
Stow Green—
“Whack it on the grinders, thump it on the jaw,
Smack it on the tater-trap a dozen times or more.
Slap it on the snuff-box, make the claret fly,
Thump it on the jaw again, never say die.”
After the fair was over I sat under a hedge and took tea with Jonathan
and Fazenti.
A hare’s back adorned my plate.
“Why, mother, I didn’t know that this was in season.”
“My _dinelo_ (simpleton), don’t you _jin_ (know) _it’s always in season
with the likes of us_?”
CHAPTER VII
THE BLACKPOOL GYPSYRY
IT has been said that if an architect, a caterer, and a poet were
commissioned to construct out of our existing south and east coast
resorts a place which, in its appeal to the million, might compare with
Blackpool, they would utterly fail, a saying not to be questioned for a
moment.
Yet the sight which thrilled me most, as I beheld it years ago, was not
the cluster of gilded pleasure-palaces in the town, but the gay Gypsyry
squatting on the sand-dunes at the extremity of the South Shore.
Living-vans of green and gold with their flapping canvas covers; domed
tents whose blankets of red and grey had faded at the touch of sun and
wind; boarden porches and outgrowths of a fantastic character, the work
of Romany carpenters; unabashed advertisements announcing Gypsy queens
patronized by duchesses and lords; bevies of black-eyed, wheedling
witches eager to pounce upon the stroller into Gypsydom; and troops of
fine children, shock-headed and jolly—all these I beheld in the Gypsyry
which is now no more. “Life enjoyed to the last” might well have been
its epitaph.
Those were the days of Old Sarah Boswell and her nephews Kenza and Oscar;
Johnny and Wasti Gray; Elijah Heron and his son Poley; Bendigo and
Morjiana Purum; the vivacious Robinsons; Dolferus Petulengro and Noarus
Tâno; some of whom, alas, “have joined the people whom no true Romany
will call by name.”
[Picture: On the Look-Out. Photo. T. J. Lewis]
Hot June sunshine flooded the sandhills on the afternoon of my entry into
the encampment, which, by the way, was made strategetically from the
rear. Thus it was that I lighted upon the retired tent of the oldest
occupants of the Gypsyry. Unlike the alert and expectant Romany mothers
and maids who hovered about this Gypsy town’s front gate, Ned Boswell’s
widow sat drowsing at the tent door, overpowered by the midsummer heat.
I was about to turn away, intending to revisit the old lady later on,
when her son Alma, the lynx-eyed, popped upon me from round the corner,
and in a sandy hollow a little way off we were soon deep in conversation.
“Now, _rashai_,” said Alma, after we had talked awhile, “there’s one
thing I would like to ask you. Where do you think us _Romanitshel_s
reely origin’d from?”
Here I was confronted by a question which has been asked throughout the
ages, and addressed to myself how many times?
Who are the Gypsies, and where did they come from? Bulky tomes have been
filled with scholarly speculations upon these questions, and so varied
have been the conclusions arrived at that we appear to be no nearer to
the solution of the mystery than when about the year 1777 the German
Rudiger first made known to the world that the Gypsies spoke an Indian
dialect, which discovery is said “to have injured more than it served in
the quest after the origin of the Gypsies, because it has prevented
scholars from searching for it.” Taking philology for our guide, we may
believe that the ancestors of our Gypsies tarried for centuries in
North-West India, a region which they quitted with their faces set
towards the west not later than about 1000 A.D. To quote the words of an
authority {73} on the linguistic side of the problem: “Their language
proves that they once inhabited Northern India, but as no Indian writers
have left any documents describing this people, their mode of life in
India, and the most interesting point of all, why they emigrated, must
for ever remain a matter for conjecture. It is, however, surprising what
can be proved from our present knowledge of their language, which, it is
generally admitted, must rank as an independent eighth among the seven
modern Indian languages of the Aryan stock, based on Sanskrit. To begin
with, the grammatical peculiarities of the language of the Gypsies
resemble those of the modern Aryan languages of India so closely that it
is impossible not to believe that they were developed side by side.
Comparing Gypsy and Hindi, for example, we find that their declensions
are based exactly on the same principle, that neither has a real genitive
case, that both decline their adjectives only when used as nouns. Now it
is generally held that these modern forms came slowly into existence
throughout the eleventh century, when the old synthetical structure of
the Sanskrit was broken up and thrown into confusion, but not quite lost,
while the modern auxiliary verbs and prepositions were as yet hardly
fully established in their stead. Therefore, it is extremely unlikely
that the Gypsies left India before the tenth century, when they could
have carried away with them, so to speak, the germs of the new
construction, absorbed on Indian soil.”
From the words they borrowed from Persia, Armenia, and Greece, we know
that the wanderers passed through these countries on their way westward,
but, since no Arabic or Coptic words are found in the Gypsy tongue, we
infer that they were never in Egypt. The theory of the Egyptian origin
of the _Romanitshel_s probably arose from legends which they themselves
set afloat.
Two stories were repeated by the Gypsies. They said that they were
Egyptian penitents on a seven years’ pilgrimage. The Saracens had
attacked them in Egypt, and, having surrendered to their enemies, they
became Saracens themselves and denied Christ. Now, as a penance, they
were ordered to travel for seven years without sleeping in a bed. A
second story was that their exile was a punishment for the sin of having
refused hospitality to Joseph and the Virgin Mary when they fled into
Egypt with the newborn Christ-child to escape the anger of Herod.
Associated with the Gypsies are other legends which may have been
invented by them for similar purposes. An old tradition asserts that
Caspar, one of the three Magi, was a Gypsy, and that it was he who (as
their ruler) first converted them to the Christian religion. The
Lithuanian Gypsies say that stealing has been permitted in their favour
by God because the Gypsies, being present at the Crucifixion, stole one
of the four nails, and therefore God allows them to steal, and it is not
accounted a sin to them.
Needless to say, the foregoing statements were not delivered to Alma
Boswell. Of their actual history the Anglo-Romany folk know nothing, but
this does not prevent them from holding some curious notions about
themselves. So, in response to Alma’s question about the origin of the
Gypsies, I replied that great scholars believed his race to have come
from India.
“Oh, I think they’re wrong,” said Alma. “Far more likely we came from
the land of Bethlehem. Being a _rashai_ (parson), you’ll know the Bible,
I suppose, from cover to cover. Well, you’ve heard of the man called
Cain. Now, don’t the Old Book say that he went away and married a
black-eyed camper-gal, one of our roving folks? I reckons we sprang from
them. We was the first people what the dear Lord made, and mebbe we
shall be the last on earth. When all the rest is wore out, there’ll
still be a few of our folks travelling with tents and wagons.”
Such was Alma’s idea of the origin of the Gypsies.
“But there,” he continued, “you must read my Uncle Westarus’s big book
all about our people. There was a doctor and a lawyer, wery kind
gentlemen, real _bawrê raiaw_ (swells), who used to talk to my uncle for
hours on end, and they wrote down every word he said, and then he wrote
them a sight of letters, wery long ones, and they are all of ’em in
print. So if you reads that book, you’ll larn all as is’ known about
us.”
Alma’s Uncle Westarus was certainly a remarkable Gypsy, possessing quite
a library, which he carried about with him on his travels. It is on
record that at the age of fifty-five his library included several volumes
of fiction, history, poetry, and science, a large Bible, a Church of
England Prayer Book, Burns’s _Justice_, as well as English, Greek, and
Latin dictionaries.
For the information of those who may not already know it, the volume
designated by Alma “my uncle’s book” is a most valuable _vade mecum_ for
Gypsy students entitled _The Dialect of the English Gypsies_, by Dr. Bath
Smart and Mr. H. T. Crofton.
There was a strong dash of Gypsy pride in Alma’s remark that the Boswells
were the only real Gypsies left. “These others all about us are _kek
tatsho_” (not genuine), he said, with a wave of the hand; “they’re only
half-breeds.”
“But,” I queried, “are not the Herons and Lees good Gypsies?” Then,
veering from his first statement, he admitted that the families I had
named might be allowed a place among the old roots.
Then followed a discussion about grades of Gypsy blood. These were
classified by Alma—
1. The Black _Romanitshel_s, “the real thing.”
2. The _Didakai_s, or half-breeds, who pronounce the Romany words _dik
akai_ (look here) as _did akai_.
3. Hedge-crawlers, or mumpers. “There’s a lot of ’em up London way,”
said Alma. “We’d scorn to go near the likes of them—a _tshikli_ (dirty)
lot, not Gypsies at all.”
In his last remark Alma certainly hit the nail on the head. The
distinction between the Gypsy and the mumper cannot be too strongly
emphasized. Anyone who has known members of our old Gypsy families, such
as the Boswells, Grays, Herons, Lees, Lovells, Smiths, Stanleys, and
Woods, will never again make the grave error of confounding the Gypsy
with the mumper.
Rising from our hollow in the sand, we walked a little way between the
tents, and when Alma took the railway crossing for a ramble in the town,
I betook myself to his mother’s tent. Having just aroused from sleep,
the old lady was somewhat absent-minded, but she was quickly on the alert
at hearing my greeting in Romany.
“What gibberish is it you’re talking, my gentleman?”
“You understand it well enough, I’m thinking, mother.”
So blank was her look, so well-feigned her ignorance, that for the nonce
it seemed that after all the ancient language of the tents was a delusion
and a dream.
Then methought of a plan I had tried before. Having for many years made
a study of Gypsy pedigrees, I have often been able to give a temporary
shock to a Gypsy’s mind by telling him the names of his
great-grandfathers and of his uncles and aunts, paternal and maternal.
“How came you to know all this, Mr. Hall?” my Gypsy will ask. “You
certainly don’t look an old man.”
It was now my turn to pretend ignorance.
“If it’s not being very inquisitive, Mrs. Boswell, I am wondering what
your maiden-name may have been?”
“That I won’t tell you, and nobody in this town knows what it was.”
“Is that really so? Fancy, no one in Blackpool knows your maiden-name.”
“Not a soul.” (This very solemnly.)
“Then what if I can tell you?”
“Well, what was it, my gentleman?” eyeing me curiously.
“You are one of the Drapers—Old Israel’s daughter, if I’m not mistaken”
(looking straight into her large eyes as though reading the information
at the back of her brain), “and your two sisters were Rodi and Lani.”
If a stone figure had spoken, she could scarcely have looked more amazed,
and, quite forgetting herself, she exclaimed—
“_Av adrê_, _mi tshavo_, and _besh tălê_” (Come inside, my son, and sit
down).
Mrs. Boswell’s manner was now so amiable, and her voice so soft, that as
she handed me cake and tea, I felt as if I had known her all my life.
All who have ever met a pure-bred Gypsy will know what Romany politeness
is, and how charming a sense of the fitness of things these wanderers
possess. As one who has worked hard at Gypsy genealogy, I have myself
often been surprised at one thing. A member of the _kawlo rat_ (black
blood) will betray no inquisitiveness in regard to his tiresome
interlocutor who may be a perfect stranger to him. How many of us, I
wonder, would care to be subjected to such an inquisition as we sometimes
inflict upon a Gypsy by our interrogations as to his ancestry? Yet the
Gypsy apparently takes it all with complacence and good humour.
When taking mine ease behind the scenes in a Gypsy camp, it has often
amused me to observe how extremes meet. After all, the tastes of the
high and the low are not so very far removed. If the duchess is proud of
her blue blood and her ancestral tree, so is the Gypsy of her black blood
and lengthy pedigree. I have known “swells” who liked their game so
“high” that it almost ran into the fields again, a taste akin to the
Gypsy’s liking for _mulo-mas_. The Gypsy mother’s love for her black
cutty joins hands with the after-dinner cigarette in my lady’s boudoir.
It goes without saying that politeness is a stamp of both extremes.
In the cool of the evening I wandered inland to a sequestered camp, where
Isaac and Sinfai Heron, those aristocrats of their race, sat by their
fire in an angle where two hedgerows met.
“We likes a bit o’ quiet, you see,” said the slender, gracious Sinfai,
when I asked why they had pitched on a spot so far from Blackpool’s South
Shore.
“Get the _rai_ one o’ the rugs to _besh oprê_” (sit upon), said Isaac to
his grandson Walter, who trotted off briskly to a large tent, and
reappeared with a smartly striped coverlet, which he spread for me
beneath the hedge. A second grandson, with a similar alacrity, set off
at Sinfai’s bidding to find sticks for the fire. The devotion of these
lads to their grandparents seemed to spring from a sense of comradery
rather than reverence, and the quaint deference paid in turn by the old
people to the boys impressed me not a little—a thing I have often
observed in Romany camps.
Old Isaac’s memory carried him back to Mousehold Heath of the long ago,
and, listening to his talk, one could see the brown tents and smoking
fires amid the ling and fern. Among the Gypsies reclining by those fires
were the Smiths, the Maces, the Pinfolds, and the Grays—Sinfai’s folk—and
of course some of the old Herons. Niabai, Isaac’s father, would sit
mending kettles, for, like many of the Gypsies of those days, he was a
tinker by calling, and when on travel would carry his grindstone on his
back. Sometimes of an evening, “Mister Burrow” would walk up on to the
Heath for a chat with Niabai and his wife “Crowy,” so called by reason of
her very dark features. Borrow picked up from Crowy many a Romany _lav_
(word). Gypsy fights were common on the Heath, and at times the fern
would be trampled down by the crowds who came from far and near to
witness these thrilling scenes.
Old Isaac had two uncles of whom he made mention—William Heron, always
known as “the handsome man,” and Robert Heron, known as “the lame man.”
Examples of a remarkable exactness of observation are Borrow’s
pen-portraits of the two last-named brothers contained in the
Introduction to _The Zincali_. The writer does not mention them by name,
but when I submitted a memorized version of these word-pictures to my
friend Isaac he at once recognized his uncles, William and Robert.
Let us open _The Zincali_.
Handsome William is standing by his horse. He is tall, as were all the
men of his clan.
“Almost a giant, for his height could not have been less than six
feet three. It is impossible for the imagination to conceive
anything more perfectly beautiful than were the features of this man,
and the most skilful sculptor of Greece might have taken them as his
model for a hero and a god. The forehead was exceedingly lofty—a
rare thing in a Gypsy; the nose less Roman than Grecian—fine, yet
delicate; the eyes large, overhung with long, drooping lashes, giving
them almost a melancholy expression; it was only when the lashes were
elevated that the Gypsy glance was seen, if that can be called a
glance which is a strange stare, like nothing else in the world. His
complexion was a beautiful olive, and his teeth were of a brilliance
uncommon even amongst these people, who have all fine teeth. He was
dressed in a coarse wagoner’s slop, which, however, was unable to
conceal altogether his noble and Herculean figure. He might be about
twenty-eight.”
William is said to have persisted in carrying his own silver mug in his
coat pocket, and would drink out of no other vessel. “I’d scorn to wet
my lips with a drop of drink out of a _gawjikeno kuro_,” meaning the
publican’s mugs.
Robert, William’s elder brother, remained on horseback, looking “more
like a phantom than anything human. His complexion was the colour of
pale dust, and of that same colour was all that pertained to him, hat and
clothes. His boots were dusty of course, for it was midsummer, and his
very horse was of a dusty dun. His features were whimsically ugly, most
of his teeth were gone, and as to age, he might be thirty or sixty. He
was somewhat lame and halt, but an unequalled rider when once upon his
steed, which he was naturally not very solicitous to quit.”
Robert was always considered the wizard of the clan. Never having been
married, he dispensed with a tent, preferring, like some of the deep
Woods of Wales, to sleep in a barn. He was nicknamed “Church” Robert,
because he was a reader and had a wonderful memory, and sometimes going
to church he listened to lessons and psalms and would afterwards reel
them off like a _roker_in _tshiriklo_ (parrot).
When I made a move to go, Old Isaac drew himself to his full height and
said, “_Av akai apopli_, _rashai_” (Come here again, parson), and the
boys to whom I had mentioned my roving experiences urged me to come and
camp near them. “Let us put up a tent for you here next to ours.”
Sinfai, who walked to the field-gate with me, slipped into my pocket a
_bita delaben_ (small gift), a green wineglass.
A sunset of rare beauty was reddening the sandhills when I returned to
the Gypsyry on the South Shore. For a while I walked up and down in the
miniature fair, and before I turned my face towards the town, lights
began to appear in the tent baulks and the stars came out over the
darkening sea.
Next morning I was walking along the spacious sea-front with Archie Smith
for companion, and in the distance appeared a little man pushing a
grinding-barrow. Quickening our steps, we overtook him and found he was
Elijah Heron on his morning round. I inquired where he was stopping, and
promised to visit him later in the day. My companion, the lively Archie,
was reeling off for my benefit a list of the inhabitants of the South
Shore Gypsyry, and had just mentioned Bendigo Purum, when, rounding a
corner, we met the man himself, a very swarthy Gypsy—almost black, one
might say.
“_Roker_ of the _Beng_,” whispered Archie, “and you’ll _dik lesti_” (see
him).
Farther along in a narrow thoroughfare we observed several Gypsy women
out a-shopping, their gay _diklo_s and blouses making splashes of bright
colour in the crowded street. It seemed to me that Blackpool was alive
with Gypsies. In the afternoon I returned to the South Shore, and,
hearing the strains of a violin proceeding from a gorgeous red blanket
tent in a field near the railway, I made my way thither, and to my joy I
discovered Eros and Lias Robinson at home.
Here is a song which I heard from the lips of Lias—
“_Mandi’s tshori puri dai_
_Jaw_’d _adrê kongri_ to _shun_ the _rashai_;
The _gawjê saw sal_’d as _yoi besh_’d _talê_;
_Yoi dik_’d ’_drê_ the _lil_, but _yoi keka del-aprê_;
The _rashai roker_’d agen _duker_in, _pen_’d _dova sos_ a _laj_,
But _yov keka jin_’d _mandi duker_’d _yov_’s _tshai_,
_Puker_’d _yoi_’d _romer_ a _barvdo rai_.”
_Translation_.
“My poor old mother
Went into church to hear the parson;
The gentiles all laughed as she sat down;
She looked into the book, but she could not read;
The parson talked against fortune-telling, said it was a shame,
But he never knew I had told his daughter’s fortune,
Told her she’d marry a wealthy squire.”
Lias was full of reminiscences of wanderings through the heart of Wales,
and I listened with keen interest to his talk about the deep Woods. In
my readings of Leland’s writings I had come upon the mention of Mat Wood
whom, in after years, I had the good fortune to meet in Wales. During
his Welsh wanderings, Lias had met several sons of John Roberts, the
harpist, concerning whom I had learned much from Groome’s delightful
book, _In Gipsy Tents_. Here I may mention that Old John Roberts was an
occasional visitor to Lincolnshire in days gone by. He travelled widely
with his harp, on which he was a talented player. My wife, who hails
from the Fen country, remembers John’s visits to her native village of
Fleet, near Holbeach in Lincolnshire, where he would play on the parish
green, as well as on the lawns of private houses. A venerable-looking,
bearded man, who might have passed for a clergyman, he was a welcome
guest in the home of my father-in-law, where he would play old airs to a
pianoforte accompaniment.
[Picture: The gypsy’s parson with his friends. Photo. Fred Shaw]
The afternoon and evening which followed my morning ramble were crowded
with Gypsy experiences. At the back of a large tent sat Kenza Boswell
fiddling, while his daughters danced with exceeding grace.
Next, Noarus Tâno, in one of his skittish moods, kept me in fits of
laughter for ten minutes. He was the humorist of the Blackpool camp.
Entirely unaccustomed to controlling his imagination, Noarus will tell an
extraordinary tale in which he himself plays a part, with no other object
than to amuse his hearer, or to lift himself a little higher in your
esteem. And just as no one is expected to believe the narratives of
Baron Munchausen, so the Gypsy in telling his “lying tale” is perfectly
content with the laughter of the listener. This gay spirit of
exaggeration certainly stamps the following tale told by Old Tâno.
[Picture: Friends at the fair. Photo. Fred Shaw]
The scene is the kitchen of the village inn, and poultry-lifting is the
topic of conversation. It is Noarus who speaks—
“There’s a farmer’s wife up in the willage what’s been blaming a
two-legged fox for robbing her hen-roost. I say it’s some low dealer
what comes out of the town with a light cart on a shiny night when
the stormy winds are blowing, so as folks shan’t hear him at work.
You knows the sort, but us Gypsies has a different way. When did you
ever know any of us to meddle with anythink in these here parts?
Don’t your farmers buy ponies off us? Ain’t we highly respected by
the gentle-folk for miles round? Why, there was a squire up in
Yorkshire, a prize-poultry fancier, as know’d my people wery well.
We often camped on his land and never meddled with nothink. He
trusted us so much that he comes down to our tents one day and says
to my daddy—
“‘I want to beg a favour of you, Tâno. I’m going abroad for a while,
and I want you and your son to take charge of my poultry farm while
I’m away.’
“Well, my daddy and me took charge of his prize fowls, and when he
come back again, how do you think he found things, my gentlemen?”
The company, profoundly impressed by the speaker’s discourse,
exclaimed with one voice—
“All right to a feather.”
“Nay, that he never did. _We_’d _ate the hull blessed lot_!”
Mindful of my promise to visit Elijah Heron, I sought out his tent, and I
had to stoop very low to get in the doorway. In my pocket was a heavy,
silver-mounted brier pipe possessing a large amber mouthpiece. This I
presented to the old man, and it was good to see his face light up with
pleasure. “_Tatsheni rup si kova_” (Real silver is this), he said,
pointing to the mountings. “A _swêgler_’s _kek kushto_ without _tuvalo_”
(A pipe’s no good without tobacco), I remarked, handing him a cake of
Black Jack. He lighted up and looked as happy as a king.
Noticing that I was slightly deaf, he recommended oil extracted from
vipers as good for deafness. The mention of snakes took him back to his
sojourn in the Antipodes. “I never talks of _saps_ (snakes) but I thinks
of the days when I was travelling in ’Stralia. One night I got leave
from a farmer to stop near a river, but I didn’t _hatsh odoi_ (remain
there) for more than an hour or two, for I found there was _saps_
about—nasty, hissing critturs. A black man as come down to the river to
water some hosses told me that the _saps_ sometimes _maw_’d (killed)
animals near the river, so I packed up my traps and kept on the road all
night. Give me Old England, I say. I’m right glad to be back here.”
* * * * *
In a little tent hard by, I heard Poley and his wife singing as I said
“Good-night” to Elijah. Happy, twinkling eyes they were that looked out
at me from that little tent door as I passed. I envy you that merry
heart, Poley, that evergreen spirit of yours, and, recalling your face, I
see again the array of Gypsy tents as twilight dropped its purple veil on
Blackpool’s pleasant shore.
CHAPTER VIII
A TRENTSIDE FAIR
OVERNIGHT a welcome rain had fallen upon a thirsty land, and morning
broke cool and grey, with a lively breeze stirring the tree-tops, and
shaking the raindrops from the grasses, as I strode along the banks of
the river Trent, with my face set towards West Stockwith Horse Fair. The
long, dry summer was drawing to a close, and there was an agreeable sense
of novelty in the rain-drenched aspect of the countryside. After a
harvest prematurely ripened by an exuberance of sunshine, brown-cheeked
September was now hastening to splash here a leaf and there a spray with
rich colour, and on this particular morning it seemed to me that reeds,
flags, and willows were taking on autumnal tints earlier than usual.
Occasionally, from the river bank, I spied a water-rat or a coot swimming
amongst the sedges, and once on the path stretching before me a pert
wagtail—the Gypsy bird—foretold, as the Gypsies say, a coming encounter
with roving friends.
Pleasantly enough my early morning walk terminated at the old-world
Trentside village of my destination. By this time, between the vapours
rolling overhead, the sun had appeared, and was gilding the barges moored
to a primitive quay below the long line of straggling houses. On the
Lincolnshire side of the Trent quite a colony of Gypsy vans had drawn up
on a turfy plateau, and their owners were now to be seen crossing the
river by ferry-boat, their laughter floating to me over the water. This
was by no means my first visit to the riverside horse fair, and after
refreshing at one of the inns, I went down the lane to the fair-ground
occupying two fields, in the larger of which were already assembled
horses and dealers in a state of lively commotion beyond a fringe of
ale-booths and luncheon tents; while in the smaller field were gathered
numerous Gypsy families with their carts and smoking fires.
Never in my life do I remember to have witnessed such a horde of ancient
vagabonds of both sexes as on this occasion, and with no little delight I
stood and gazed upon the picture. What struck me in particular was the
motley character of the party. Decrepit great-grandfolks mumbling
together; grandfathers in ragged garb and battered hats; wizened
grandmothers sucking their pipes; aged uncles and aunts in time-stained
tatters; wives in their teens dandling babies; bright-eyed children
drumming happily on the bottoms of inverted pots and pans; merry lads and
lasses, interspersed amongst an assembly of the quaintest rag dolls it
has ever been my fortune to behold. It seemed to me as if all the old
Romany folk of several counties had met together for the last time in
their lives.
Moving into the larger field, I had not gone far before I felt a tug at
my sleeve, and, looking round, I saw the two lads whom I had met with
Jonathan by the watermill. They led me straight to a little covered cart
drawn under the hedge where Boswell was conversing with ’Plisti Smith.
As I have said elsewhere, the play-spirit is strong in the Gypsy, even in
his latter years, and while talking with my two friends up came a
comical-looking Gypsy, Charley Welch, who must have been nearer ninety
than seventy, and, picking up a potato lying on the ground—the large
field had grown a crop of potatoes that summer—he laughingly dropped it
into Jonathan’s coat pocket.
“There, don’t say that Old Charley never gave you nothink.”
After that I walked with Jonathan among the horses, and we came upon
Flash Arno and Black Înan, who found time to accompany us to one of the
refreshment booths where the talk ranged through a variety of topics.
Înan knew Mister Groome, the book-writer, up Edinburgh way. He had met
him there not long before in company with my friend Frampton Boswell. I
soon found that these Gypsies did not hold with folks writing books about
their race and telling the _mumpli gawjê_ (nasty gentiles) about their
ways.
No one loves a little fun more than the Gypsy, and generally he means no
harm by his playful romancing. After all, he is but a grown-up child,
and loves to make-believe. The Gypsy’s world is a haphazard one, in
which luck plays a large part. He knows nothing of the orderly cosmos of
providence or science. I make these remarks by way of prelude to
examples of this spirit.
Who can help laughing inwardly as the Gypsy weaves a romantic tale about
you, all for the benefit of a stranger? And in the course of my
morning’s ramble through West Stockwith Fair I had several experiences of
the kind.
“See that little dealer over there?” said Peter Smith, indicating a small
Gypsy man holding a tall black horse by a halter. The animal looked
gigantic by the side of its owner.
“Come along with me, and while I _roker_ (talk) to him, _maw puker_ a
_lav_” (don’t speak a word). Then we both went up to the little Gypsy,
and with the gravest of countenances Peter began to spin a long romance
all about an imaginary sister of mine who lived at Brighton and was
wanting just such a horse as the one before us. It really was a fine
animal, and I could not refrain from stroking its glossy skin.
Peter continued: “This here gentleman doesn’t ride hisself, you see, but
his sister has asked him to look out for a horse, and this one ’ull just
suit her.” I found it difficult to preserve silence, but somehow I
managed to do so. Finally, Peter took me aside and talked mysteriously
about nothing in particular, and quietly bade me walk away. A few
minutes later I beheld Peter quaffing a large mug of ale evidently at the
little man’s expense.
Moving in and out among the throng, I presently walked out along the
road, and there I came upon Hamalên Smith, who, after some talk,
suggested a bit of fun. Pointing to a Gypsy camp down a lane, he said—
“That’s Belinda Trickett sitting by the fire with her children. Go you
down the lane and have a little game. I’ll stop here and see how you get
on. You don’t know the woman, I suppose?”
“Not I. She’s a stranger to me.”
“That’s all right. Togged as you are, she’ll never take you for a
parson, not she. Mind you look severe-like and say to Belinda, ‘Is your
husband at home? What’s his name?’ It’s Harry, but she’s sure to say
it’s something else.”
Down the lane I went, and, approaching Mrs. Trickett and family, I drew
out a notebook and pencil—a sure way to frighten a Gypsy. Why these
things should suggest “police” I can scarcely say, but they do. The
woman’s clay pipe dropped from her mouth and fell upon the grass, and
beneath the brown of her cheeks a pallor crept. Mrs. Trickett was
alarmed.
“What is your husband’s name?”
“George Smith.”
“When will he be at home?”
“I can’t say. He’s gone to the fair.”
Under their mother’s shawl three tiny children huddled like little brown
partridges beneath an outspread wing, a sight which caused me some
pricking of heart. The biggest child kept saying, “What does the _gawjo_
want, mammy?” Just then I looked up the lane and saw a man coming down,
who by his jaunty air I guessed was the woman’s husband.
“_Kushti sawla_ (Good morning), Mr. Trickett; take a little _tuvalo_.” I
handed him my tobacco pouch. “I’ve come a long way to see you. Ask me
to sit down a bit, now I’ve got here.”
Mrs. Trickett’s face was a study in wonderment, as I sat down for a
friendly chat. “_Dawdi_,” said she, “you did _trasher mandi_ (frighten
me). I thought there was _tshumani oprê_” (something up).
When Hamalên Smith, from the top of the lane, saw that the episode had
arrived at a happy termination, he strolled down the lane and joined us.
A far-travelled Gypsy is Hamalên, and many a tale can he unfold.
“One morning,” said he, “a policeman came up to my wagon and told me
as how twenty-four fowls was missing from the next field to where we
was stopping. Somebody had stole ’em in the night. ‘Of course you
suspects us,’ says I to the policeman, ‘but you’re wrong. We’ve
never touched a feather of ’em.’ However, nothing would do but the
man must search my wagon from top to bottom, and for all his trouble
he found nothing. I know’d very well I hadn’t touched ’em, and I was
telling him the truth.
“‘Wait a bit,’ says he. ‘Didn’t I see _three_ vans in this field
last night as I was going along the high road?’
“‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘My boys have gone on in front with the other
wagons.’
“Says he, ‘That looks suspicious. I must make haste and find them.
Where have they gone?’
“‘I can’t say, for I don’t know myself.’
“‘Well, I shall have to come with you, and you must show me where to
find them.’ The policeman jumped up and sat on the seat along with
me and my wife, and off we went to find the boys. Of course it was
plain to see by the wheel-marks just outside the gate which way they
had turned, but when we got to the cross-roads about three miles
furder on, the road was that hard and dry that no wheel-marks could
be seen. Now I could easily have misled the policeman, but I thought
it best to try to find the boys as quick as I could, for I didn’t
believe for a minute they had done it. Looking down the road, I saw
the boys’ _patrin_ (guiding sign). The policeman didn’t know what I
was looking at, and it wasn’t likely as I should show him our signs,
so I says we’ll take this road, and we turned off to the left.
“‘How did you know which way the boys had gone?’ asked the policeman.
‘Was it some thing tied on that tree bough hanging over the road?’
“‘I never sees nothing on the tree bough,’ says I.
“I thought to myself the policeman must have been reading some tale
about the Gypsies. Anyway, he had heard something about _patrin_s
and such-like, but I wasn’t going to be the one to larn him our
signs, so I changed the subject.
“‘Yon’s my boys on in front,’ says I. The policeman began rubbing
his hands and smiling. At last we caught up with the boys, and the
policeman searched inside the two wagons and found nothing. Then he
says—
“‘I might as well look on the top,’ and he climbed on to the roofs of
the wagons.
“‘Hello, what have we here?’ says he, in a way that made me turn
warm. He lifted up a dead pigeon.
“‘Where did you get that from?’ I asked the boys.
“‘Picked it up a bit o’ way down the road. It had just killed itself
on the telegraph wires by the wood side.’
“After that, the disappointed policeman went away, and the thieves
were never found out.
* * * * *
“Another time we draw’d into a rutted lane lying off the high road.
We had our three wagons, and at night we always covered the big one
up, because we didn’t sleep in it. It was a nice quiet lane, and we
thought there would be nobody to trouble us as there was no willage
near. But about midnight a man knocked on the wagon and woke us up.
“‘What are you doing here?’
“‘No harm, I hope. We’ll clear out first thing in the morning.’ He
said he’d been knocking at the big wagon what was covered up, and he
couldn’t make anybody hear.
“‘Well,’ says I, ‘whatever you do, don’t you touch that big wagon
agen.’
“‘Why, what’s in it?’
“‘Wild beasts, for sure—_a lion and a tiger_.’
“You’d ha’ laughed at the way that man made hisself scarce. Next
morning, as we draw’d out of the lane, we met a policeman.
“‘I hear you have some wild beasts in that big wagon of yours.
Wasn’t it a bit dangerous stopping so near the highway?’
“‘Well, we’re clearing out in good time.’
“‘Get along with you then.’
“A few miles furder on the road we come to a little town, and as it
was market day we pulled up in the big square, and I took the cover
off the big wagon. Just as I was doing this, who should come up but
the policeman we’d met in the early morning.
“‘Where’s those wild beasts of yours?’ says he.
“‘Oh,’ says I, ‘I’ll soon show you.’ And I went inside my brush and
carpet wagon and brought out two big rugs, and I showed him a tiger
skin and a lion skin, both lined with red. ‘There’s my wild beasts,’
said I.
“Talk about laughing, I thought that policeman would never ha’
stopped.”
CHAPTER IX
TAKEN FOR TRAMPS—AN EAST ANGLIAN FAMILY
DAY after day, in the woods around our village, the autumnal gales roared
and ravened with unabated fury, snapping brittle boughs, cracking
decrepit boles, and piling up drifts of brown leaves around grey roots
protruding like half-buried bones through the mossy woodland floor. Then
right in the midst of it all came a spell of calm weather, as if summer
had stolen back to her former haunts in sylvan glade and ferny lane.
Call it by what name you please, this brief season of sunny repose
following upon the heels of the tempestuous equinoctials is a time when
some of us are impelled, as by a primal instinct, to shake off the collar
of routine and take the road leading over the hill into what realm of
adventure beyond.
Fully a week the summer-like interlude had held sway in the land. Upon
the newly-turned furrows shimmered a golden light. A dreamy haze trailed
its filmy skirts over hill and dale. In narrow lanes invisible threads
of spiders’ silk stretched from hedge to hedge, and wayside tangles again
were silvered over with a fine dust suggestive of July. Amid the
lingering clover-flowers bees buzzed and blundered. Through the still
air, leaves of maple and chestnut, like red-winged insects, twirled down
to the grass, and the tall elms in the village churchyard littered their
yellow foliage upon the graves. Everywhere, serenitude, repose, peace,
save in restless hearts chafing at the humdrum of tasks grown monotonous
by reason of long-continued performance. For who with a soul fully awake
can resist the lure of the road at gossamer-time?
Thus it came to pass one afternoon that my wife and I, slipping out of
our drowsy village, took the upland way which after numerous windings
brought us into the Great North Road. Our plans were of the flimsiest.
It mattered little whether we went north or south, so long as we were
absent for a few days. On reaching the far-famed highway we stood under
the branching arms of a finger-post, and tossed pennies to determine the
course of our itinerary. “North” having won the toss, we footed it gaily
in that direction. To be sure, our semi-Gypsy garb, donned for this
jaunt, was not long in taking on a coating of road dust, and we were
about to shake off this clinging powder, when the rattle of wheels was
heard behind us, and almost immediately a dogcart slowed down by our
side, and the driver, a rubicund farmer, amicably invited us to take a
lift, an offer which was gladly accepted, and we climbed aboard the
conveyance.
“I’ve allus had a feeling for folks like you, and I offens give ’em a
lift as I’m passing back’ards and forrards on the ramper. Afore I pulled
up just now I says to myself, ‘They’ve seen better days, I’ll be bound.’
Maybe you’ve been in the army? Leastways, I thought you seemed to hold
yourself up pretty straight in your walk. I’ve done a bit of soldiering
myself. Once at a big do-ment in London, I was in the Queen’s Escort.
Yes, I’ve been about a bit in my time. I dessay you two’s got a goodish
way to go yet afore you come to your night’s lodgings.
“Ay, dear me,” he went on, “we offens has your sort calling at our
place—my farm’s a few miles farther along this way—and one day not long
since a poor chap knocked at our door and asked for work. He was a
parson’s son, so we gave him a lightish job and fed him well and bedded
him in the barn for three or four nights, till his sore feet got right
agen. Poor fellow, he worn’t much good at labouring work, but we liked
to listen to his tales; he could tell you summut now.”
Thus he rambled on after the manner of a garrulous Guardian of the Poor
who had acquired an interest in tramps.
“Yon’s my place among the trees, so I must leave you here.”
We thanked him for his kindly lift, and, rounding a bend in the highway,
were glad to relieve our pent-up feelings in laughter over the good man’s
misconception.
Now, as everyone knows, who has journeyed along it, the fine old turnpike
abounds in travellers of every shade and grade. Not once or twice on its
turfy wayside have I fraternized with “Weary Willies” boiling their tea
in discarded treacle-tins. Even now as we went along, two or three
tramps passed by, one of them coming up to beg a few matches, the others
scarcely giving us a glance.
Hearing the rumble of an approaching vehicle, we looked towards the bend
of the road, and round it came what looked like a carrier’s cart drawn by
a horse apparently old, for it proceeded slowly, and the cart creaked and
jolted as if it, too, were ancient. As it jogged nearer, I saw it
contained but a single occupant—a brown-faced little man who wore a faded
yellow kerchief—and, stepping into the roadway, I greeted him with _sâ
shan_ (how do?). Whereupon he pulled up. “I heard what you said just
now, but you’ve made a mistake. I’m no Romany—I’m a showman, an Aunt
Sally man, bound for Retford.”
Now a Gypsy will frequently deny his blood. Knowing that his kind live
under a ban, he has no desire to draw attention to himself. But, looking
at this Aunt Sally man, I saw that he had told the truth. His face was
freckled. No real Gypsy freckles. After all, as Groome says, “It is not
the caravan that makes the Gypsy, any more than my cat becomes a dog if
she takes to living in a kennel.”
Our road now became a gradual descent into a clean, flower-loving
village, where amid the trees we caught the gleam of a large canvas booth
in a field, and there were knockings of a mallet to be heard. Nor was it
long before we learned what was afoot. Within a tavern’s comfortable
parlour, a coloured playbill informed the world that Harrison’s
travelling theatre would that evening present a sensational drama—_Gypsy
Jack_—and in due time we found ourselves seated among the cottagers and
farm-hands, enjoying a highly entertaining, though garbled, version of
Mr. G. R. Sims’s _Romany Rye_. Opening with a Gypsy encampment in which
the gaily dressed Lees sat talking round a fire in a forest glade, we
were successively shown Joe Hackett’s shop, the race-course at Epsom, the
deck of the _Saratoga_, the cellar near Rotherhithe, and the Thames by
night. The play seemed a not inappropriate episode in our Gypsy jaunt.
Years afterwards, during one Derby week, I saw Mr. Sims’s _Romany Rye_
remarkably well played at a South London theatre. In connection with
this play an amusing story is told. The managers of the Princess’s
Theatre in London were anxious that the new drama should be announced in
the “Agony” column of _The Times_. Like many another one, the
advertisement clerk at _The Times_ office could make nothing whatever of
the mysterious words _Romany Rye_.
“What the deuce is this _Romany Rye_?” he asked the bearer of the strange
document.
“If you please, sir,” said the messenger, whom the manager of the theatre
had sworn to secrecy—“if you please, sir, I think it’s the name of a new
liver-pad.”
“Well,” remarked the official, “_The Times_ is a great paper and can do
without padding. Take it away.”
And the advertisement was declined.
* * * * *
From the door of the canvas theatre it was an easy walk to the little
town of Newark-on-Trent, at one of whose pleasant hostelries we spent the
night, our window overlooking the ruined castle by the waterside. It had
been in our minds to continue our walk next morning along the Great North
Road, but at breakfast a small paragraph in a newspaper brought about a
quick change in our plans. The item of news ran thus—
“_THE ROMANIES AGAIN_.
“Our friends, the gipsy Greys, are still with us in Grimsby, lamented
Mr. Councillor E— last evening, and he wanted to know whether
something could not be done to get them to clear out. The Town Clerk
had assisted them somewhat, and one or two had gone, but there were
still four families encamped at the back of T— Street, New Clee.
Inspector M— said he had visited the encampment and he must say that
the caravans were very clean. They could not be said to create a
nuisance. ‘It is not the tents that are a nuisance,’ replied the
lively representative of the H— Ward, ‘but the parties themselves,
who trespass in the backyards of the houses in that neighbourhood.
It is no uncommon thing on waking up in the morning to find a donkey
or a goat in your backyard or garden.’ The Inspector stated that
Eliza Grey, the owner of the vans, had informed him they would all be
going away in a few days.”
It was the sight of the Romany family name which altered our plans. The
East Anglian Grays are a good type of Gypsy not to be encountered every
day, hence we decided to lose no time in taking the train for Grimsby.
It was a crawling “ordinary” by which we travelled, and at a little
wayside station a few miles out of Newark, a lithe, dark fellow carrying
a pedlar’s basket stepped into our compartment, and at once I recognized
in him my old friend Snakey Petulengro. How his face lit up on seeing
me, for we had not met for years. I was so much struck by his altered
bearing that I could scarcely believe my eyes. He seemed now as gentle
in his manner as once he had been wild. The sight of him brought back
Gypsy Court and all its associations. He said he had left the old home,
his father and mother having passed away. On my inquiring about his
sister Sibby, he said she had married a Gypsy and, tiring of Old England,
had gone to ’Merikay. As Snakey quitted the carriage at Lincoln, an
observant passenger remarked—
“There goes one of Nature’s gentlemen.”
By mid-afternoon the slender hydraulic tower glowed rosily in the
sunlight above Grimsby Docks; and since the fishing-port had no
particular charm for us, we proceeded to Cleethorpes, preferring the more
airy shore and being eager to see the Gypsies. As might be expected, the
summer-like day had brought a goodly number of late holiday-makers to the
sands, and as we moved in and out among the groups near the pier foot, I
heard a donkey-boy address someone not far away—
“Would the lady like a ride?” The lad’s features, bearing, and tone of
voice were distinctly Gypsy, and, seeing he was within hail, I looked
towards him and said—
“_Dova sî kushto maila odoi_” (That’s a good donkey there).
His face beamed with delight, and from his lips sprang the question—
“_Romano Rai_?” (Gypsy gentleman?)
“_Âwa_; _kai shan tîro foki hatsh_in?” (Yes; where are your people
camping?)
In gratitude for the explicit directions he gave, I placed a sixpence in
his hand, and his remark was “_Dova_’s too _kisi_, _raia_” (That’s too
much, sir). “A _hora_ (penny) would have been _dosta_ (enough) for
_mandi_” (me). This boy was one of the Grays, and, following his
instructions, we had no difficulty in locating the Romany camp.
It was early evening when we strolled forth upon an expanse of grass
parcelled into building plots, where in a corner between the hedgerows
were drawn up, with the doorways facing south, several substantial _vâdê_
(caravans) near which some large tents had been erected. The Grays, who
were silently moving to and fro, revealed by their interested
side-glances that they had already heard of somebody’s inquiries
concerning themselves, and when we advanced to offer our civil and
friendly greetings to two women who were washing pots before an outside
fire, every politeness was shown to us. They rose and spread a horse-rug
for us upon the ground. “_Dai ta tshai_” (mother and daughter), thought
I; nor was I wrong. The older woman, diminutive, lean, and somewhat bent
with age, informed me that she was Eliza Gray, and the younger was her
daughter Lena. As we talked by the fire, a goat appeared and rubbed its
nose affectionately against Eliza’s knee. Said she: “This is an old pet
of ours. We’s had it for years. I picked it up in Scotland.”
In late September the sun goes down early, and a chilly wind now set in
from the North Sea. In the baulk of the old lady’s tent a coke brazier
was glowing invitingly, so we all moved under cover, and, seated on a
dais of clean straw covered with rugs, listened to tales and talk, the
brazier’s crimson gleam being our only light. After some discussion of
mutual acquaintances, the conversation drifted towards _duker_in
(fortune-telling), a subject never very far from the thoughts of a Gypsy
woman.
“How I’ve _sal_’d” (laughed), said Eliza, “at those _dinelê gawjê_
(foolish gentiles) what come to our tent to be _duker_’d. One time I put
a crystal on a little table covered with oilcloth, and I ax’d the young
lady if she couldn’t see her sweetheart in it. ‘Yes, I can,’ she says,
‘and it’s just like his face, but oh, lor, in this glass ball he’s got a
tail.’ I nearly laughed straight out, for I’d sort of accidentally put
the crystal on top of a monkey picture. The oilcloth was covered with
all sorts of beastses, don’t you see?”
A superstitious family, the Grays have a characteristic way of recounting
their own traditions. Here is one of Eliza’s tales—
“Once we were stopping by a woodside. The back of our tent was nigh
agen a dry ditch full of dead leaves, and one night we lay abed
listening to sounds, a thing I can’t abide. Well, there was rummy
folk about in them days, so when we hears a footstep in the wood just
t’other side of that there ditch, I ups wi’ the kettle-prop and peeps
outen the tent, and listens, but no, never a sound could I catch; all
was still as the grave. Till long and by last there comes a rustling
in the leaves, and the bushes parts like something trying to make a
way through. Then I lifts up the kettle-prop, and I says to myself,
if blows are to be struck, Liza had better be the first to strike,
when there, straight afore me, stands a woman waving her poor thin
arms about, but saying nothing. At that I drops the kettle-prop and
screams, and my man Perun jumps straight up. ‘They’re killing my
Liza, they are.’ But by that the _muli_ (ghost) had gone like a
flash of lightning. Next morning we ax’d at the keeper’s house down
the lane, and the missis tell’d us as how a _rawni_ (lady) was once
_maw_’d (murdered) in that wood, so it would be her _muli_ as I saw
that night. Oh, yes, I believe in _mulê_, I do.”
During the telling of this tale two of Eliza’s sons, Yoben and Poley,
sauntered up and stood listening behind their sister Lena. It was Yoben
who now added his contribution of ghost-lore.
“Why, yes, of course, mother, there’s _mulê_ (ghosts). Don’t you
remember after Dolferus died, his voice used to speak in the tent to
Delaia? She says it really was his voice as nat’ral as life, and it
made her shiver to hear it. One day she went to a parson for advice.
He told her the next time it spoke, to say: ‘I promise you nothing.
Begone!’ Well, sure enough, the voice came again, and she remembered
to say what the parson had told her, and she never heard the voice no
more. My Uncle Ike asked Delaia one day—
“‘I say, my gal, did you really hear Dolferus’s voice?’
“‘Yes; it was his and no one else’s.’
“‘Is that the _tatshipen_ (truth), my gal?’ Ike seemed anxious to
know the truth of the matter.”
* * * * *
“Dreams is funny things,” put in Poley, “and I’ve had some wery queer
’uns in my time. Once I dreamt I was walking along a narrow shelf of
rock, and on one side of me was a stony wall like a cliff, and on the
other side the edge of the path hung over a terrible steep place.
Right away below was a river of fiery red stuff pouring along. You
could smell it. I thought this rocky road was the path to heaven,
and I was trying to get there, but, ’pon my word, it was no easy
matter. Now I see’d a tiger chained to the rocky wall on my left
hand, and a bit furder on a big lion was tied up. These here
critturs was hard to get past. I had to go wery near the dangerous
edge what looked down on to the burning river. What a fright I was
in; it made the sweat run off me. Sometimes I had to crawl on my
hands and knees to get round a big rock in the middle of the path. I
felt as if I never should get where I wanted to. Well, after a lot
of scrambling and slithering, for my feet gave way sometimes—I had
naily boots on—I got to the top of the path, and in the dazzling
light, like the sun itself on a summer day, there sat a grey-haired,
doubled-up man, a wery aged man, with his chin resting on his hand.
It was the _Duvel_ (God), and when he see’d me coming, he sat up and
held up his hand, forbidding me to go any furder. He didn’t speak a
word, but I knew that his uplifted hand meant ‘Go back.’ And just
then I woke. That’s my dream of trying to get to heaven.”
* * * * *
“There’s a lot about heaven and hell in God’s Book, isn’t there,
_rashai_?” said Old Eliza. “A _rawni_ (lady) used to read all about
them places to us on a Sunday, but that were years ago, and I used to
like to hear her talk about the blessed Saviour riding on a _maila_
(donkey) into the big town. She said they nailed him to a cross on
Good Friday, and when we was young I remember we all used to fast on
that day. We ate no flesh—nothing with blood in it—it would be a sin
to do that. If we took anything to stay our hunger it was nothing
but dry bread, and our drink was water. We didn’t _tuv_ (smoke), and
we didn’t _tov_ our _kokerê_ (wash ourselves) on that day. I don’t
know whether there be such places as heaven and hell. I reckons we
makes our own destiny. Heaven and hell’s inside us; that’s what I
think.”
Lena, however, had her own ideas. “This life is everything there is, I
reckons, and when we’re dead, that’s the end of us. Life is sweet, mind
you, and we’s a right to be as happy as we can. Mother’s getting old,
you see, and has had her fling. I mean to have a good time. Why, last
Sunday me and Poley was going off to get some nuts in the woods, but
mother stopped us—
“It’s _Beng_’s work getting nuts on the dear Lord’s day.”
“Yes,” says Yoben; “I’ve heard our old daddy say that the _Beng_ likes
nuts, and I’d sartinly scorn to go getting them onlucky things on a
Sunday; I wouldn’t like to put myself in the _Beng_’s power, like poor
Zuba Lovell.”
“What about Zuba?” asked my wife.
Then Yoben told a weird tale.
[Picture: A Maid of the Tents]
“A handsome lass was Zuba, but bad luck dogged her like her own
shadow. One night she came back to the camp, for she lived with her
old people, and, throwing down a few coppers she had in her hand, she
said—
“‘There, mother, what do you think of that for a hard day’s work?’
She had done wery badly, you see. Luck never seemed to come her way
at all. And after supper she wandered out a little way from the
camp. The moon and stars was shining as she walked round and round
an old tree, a blasted old stump, black as a gallows-post. As she
kept on walking round it, she said aloud, ‘This game won’t do for me.
It’s money I want and money I’ll have. I’d sell my blood to the
_Beng_ to have plenty of money in my pocket always.’ The words was
hardly out of her mouth when a black thing, like the shadow of the
tree, rose up from the ground, and, lor, there was the wery _Beng_
hisself, and after he’d promised her what she had wished for, he
wanished. And after that no more grumbling from Zuba; no more
complaints about her bad luck. She always had plenty of money now,
and she bought herself trinkets and fine clothes till everybody was
’mazed at her, and of course she had kept it to herself what took
place that night by the old tree. Days and weeks went by, till one
night Zuba was missing from the camp. Her old folks sat up by the
fire waiting for her, but no Zuba came. At last her daddy set out to
look for her, and there by the foot of the tree lay Zuba’s frock and
shawl, and when he took ’em back to his wife’s tent, the poor woman
screamed and fainted right away, and old man Lovell walked up and
down all night, saying, ‘Oh, my Zuba, my blessed gal, we shall never
see you no more,’ and they never did. The _Beng_ had fetched her.
That’s the end of Zuba Lovell.”
While listening to these tales in the tent, the flight of the hours
passed unobserved, till a distant clock boomed out the hour of ten.
“You’ll _wel apopli_ (come again), my dears?” said Eliza, as we retired
amid the smiles and bows of the Gypsy family.
Next morning found us again in the camp. Already the Gypsies had
breakfasted, and were making preparations for “_tov_in-_divus_”
(washing-day). Sun and wind promised an ideal day for such a purpose.
It was a thing to be noticed that the articles about to be dealt with lay
in two heaps on the grass.
Among the Gypsies there is a ceremonial rule which holds it to be
_mokadi_ (unclean) to wash together in the same vessel “what you eat off
with what you wear.” This was the meaning of the separated articles, and
then I observed two zinc vessels lying ready on the ground. Said Old
Eliza to Lena, “I’ll take this lot, and you take that lot.” To begin
with, they both cleansed their hands and arms in hot water, and as they
did this I remarked how brown were Lena’s arms, whereupon she replied
with a laugh—
“_Âwa_, _raia_ (Yes, sir), monkey soap won’t fetch that off”—a modern
rendering, I take it, of Ferdousi’s saying, “No washing will turn a Gypsy
white.”
Now as our friends were about to become much occupied, we proposed to
stroll round the camp and pay calls on the other Gypsies in the same
field. “Stop a bit,” said Eliza, and, slipping into the tent, she came
out with a black bottle. “You’ll take a drop of my elderberry wine and a
bite o’ cake,” pouring out the claret-coloured liquid into two glasses
fished out from an inner recess. While enjoying this snack on the grass,
I took out from a breast pocket a white unused handkerchief which I
spread on my knee. Presently Old Eliza slyly took it by the corner and
twitched it away, giving me in place thereof a neatly folded napkin
brought from the tent, and I saw that I had broken a Gypsy custom in
converting a handkerchief into a crumbcloth. Said the old mother, “That
_mol_ (wine) is old, and should be _kushto_ (good). It’s some we buried
in a place till we came round again.”
In another corner of the field were encamped Fennix Boswell and his
stepson Shanny, and, going forward, we found the pair seated at their
tent door handling fishing-rods. On seeing us they rose and invited us
into the tent, where we sat down. Shanny showed us some of his pencil
drawings.
“I’ve got one of a parrot somewhere; I must find it,” said he.
“_Âwali_, _muk man dik o roker_in-_tshiriklo_” (Yes, let me see the
talking-bird), I replied, and in a minute or two he handed me a really
clever sketch.
These two Gypsies had just come down from Scotland, where they had been
travelling during the summer months, and we got talking about Kirk
Yetholm. The Blythes, related to old King Charley Faa, were
acquaintances of theirs. It appears that one of the King’s sons named
Robert, a rollicking fellow, was fond, as Gypsies are, of practical
jokes, and some of his escapades are still remembered in the Border
Country. One of Fennix’s tales about this fun-loving Faa may well find a
place here.
* * * * *
One spring morning Bobbie started off on a foray with some of his pals.
The air was clear, and a soft wind was blowing over the Lammer-moors on
whose slopes the lambs were gambolling. The Gypsies had walked a few
miles, and the mountain air had sharpened the edge of their appetites.
Looking round for a farmhouse or a cottage where they might ask for a
kettle of boiling water to brew their tea in the can—such as few of the
Faas would ever travel without—Bobbie was the first to espy some
outbuildings, at the back of which stood a shepherd’s cottage, and,
taking upon himself to be spokesman, he bravely started off for the
cottage, the men resting meanwhile at the foot of the hill. As he
approached the door, a fine savoury smell greeted Bobbie, making him feel
ten times more hungry than before. He knocked gently at the door, which
stood ajar, but no one came, and all was quiet within. He repeated his
knock, and, taking a step forward, found the kitchen empty. Before the
fire stood a tempting shepherds-pie of a most extraordinary size, and its
appetizing steam quite overcame any scruples which otherwise might have
lurked in the heart of Bobbie Faa. Not for one moment did he hesitate,
but, nipping up the dish, he speedily ran down the hill with the pie
under his arm. Not knowing how he had come by it, his mates could
scarcely believe their eyes when he laid the pie on the grass, and they
praised the gude-wife who had so kindly given them such a feast. When
the dish was empty, he gave it to a pal, telling him to take it back to
the gude woman and say how much they had enjoyed the pie. It happened to
be a sheep-shearing day, and the shepherd’s wife had gone to call her
husband and his fellows to their dinner. She had just returned to the
kitchen when the Gypsy lad arrived with the empty dish, and on handing it
back to her with smiles and thanks, a torrent of abuse was poured forth
on the poor boy’s head, as the woman now grasped the situation and became
aware of the fate of her pie. Just then her husband and the other
shearers appeared round the corner, and, hearing what had befallen their
dinner, the infuriated men seized the lad and gave him a sound drubbing.
CHAPTER X
PETERBOROUGH FAIR
THE twentieth century has witnessed a remarkable revival of certain
old-time pleasures in the form of pageants and pastoral plays,
folk-songs, and dances, but it should not be overlooked that in our midst
still linger those popular revels, tattered survivals of medieval mirth,
called pleasure-fairs, held periodically in most of our old country
towns. It is true, these ancient fairs are not what they were, Father
Time having laid his hand heavily upon them, with the result that not a
few of their features which were reckoned among our childhood’s joys have
vanished.
[Picture: On the Eve of the Fair. Photo. Rev. H. H. Malleson]
Gone are the marionettes, the wax-works, the ghost-shows. Departed, too,
are many of the mysterious little booths, behind whose canvas walls queer
freaks and abnormalities were wont to hide. Perhaps, however, when the
travelling cinema has outworn its vogue, the older “mystery” shows will
reappear by the side of the Alpine slide, the scenic railway, and the joy
wheel.
Still renowned for their wondrous gaiety are a few of our larger fairs,
whither huge crowds flock by road and rail for a few hours of rollicking
carnival. I have in mind such events as Barnet September Fair,
Birmingham Onion Fair, the October merry-makings at Hull, Nottingham
Goose Fair, and the like, but even these, owing to a variety of reasons,
are now of shrunken dimensions.
Fairs of whatever sort are generally occasions of friendly reunion, not
only for show-people and _gawjê_ visitors, but also for Gypsies who love
to forgather on the margins of the fair-ground, or upon an adjacent
common, where they compare notes and discuss the happenings since their
last meeting.
Borne on the crisp October air, the chimes of Peterborough floated over
the city roofs, reaching even to the fair-grounds, where I was one of the
large holiday crowd which hustled and laughed and tossed confetti in
mimic snow-showers. When in quest of Gypsies, the first half-hour you
spend in wandering about a fair is a time of pleasurable excitement. Who
can tell how many old friends you may meet, or what fresh dark faces you
are about to encounter?
As I was saying, the crowd was hilarious, and, having so far recognized
no Romany countenance up and down the footways between the coco-nut shies
and shooting-galleries, swing-boats and merry-go-rounds, it occurred to
me that a little more breathing-space might be found upon the open
pasture where horses were being bought and sold, and, pushing along in
that direction, I was brought to a standstill at the foot of the steps
leading down from a gilded show-front. Walking with the airs of a fine
lady, there came down those steps a young Gypsy attired in a yellow gown
and tartan blouse, with a blazing red scarf thrown over her shoulders
upon which her hair fell in black curls. It was this coloured vision as
much as the block in the footway that held me up for the nonce. Another
moment, and Lena Gray, Old Eliza’s daughter, brushed against my shoulder,
yet, as often happens in a crowd, she failed to see me. Therefore, into
her ear I dropped a whispered Romany phrase at which she started, and,
recognizing me, exclaimed—
“_Dawdi_, _raia_, this _is_ a surprise!”
It was but a few steps to the sheltered spot in a field opposite the
horse-fair where her brother Yoben sat fiddling by the side of the
living-van. Even before we came up to him, something arrested my
attention—the unusual shape of his violin, which, as Lena informed me,
her brother had made out of a cigar-box picked up in a public-house.
Our field corner had a most agreeable outlook. Beyond a stretch of
greenest turf, dotted with caravans and bounded by the reddening autumn
hedgerows, lay the pleasure-fair, a sunlit fantasia of colour, from
which, like feathery plumes, ascended puffs of white steam topping
numerous whirling roundabouts. Pleasant it was to sit out here in the
calm weather chatting with the Grays, whom I had so recently met on the
Lincolnshire sea-border, and even while we conversed there passed by a
little party of gaily-dressed Gypsies—two rather portly women of middle
age and two slender girls.
“Who are those people?” I asked.
“Some of the _gozverê_ (cunning) Lovells,” replied Lena. Then I
remembered that for some time past I had carried in my notebook several
cuttings grown dingy with age, relating to traditional practices
characteristic of this family. Two paragraphs will suffice as specimens.
“A domestic servant told a remarkable story yesterday before a West
London magistrate. She said that a gipsy called at the house and
asked her to buy some laces. She refused, and prisoner then offered
to tell her fortune for a shilling. Witness agreed, and the woman
told her fortune, and she (witness) gave her two shillings, and asked
her for the change. Prisoner said she would tell her young man’s
name by the planet. Witness had a half-sovereign and two half-crowns
in her purse, and prisoner asked her to let her have the coins to
cross the palm of her hand with. She handed her the coins, and the
woman crossed her palm. She then asked her to fetch a glass of
water, and, on her returning with it, told her to drink it.
Afterwards she told her to pray, and then, apparently putting the
10s. and the two half-crowns in her pocket-handkerchief, placed the
handkerchief in her bodice, and told her not to take it out for
twenty minutes. After that the woman left.
“The magistrate: ‘Did you take the handkerchief out?’
“‘Well, I waited for twenty minutes or so, and then I took it out,
and instead of the 10s. and the two half-crowns I found two pennies
and a farthing.’ (Laughter.)”
Obviously, the above is a variant of the ancient Gypsy trick known as the
_hokano bawro_ (big swindle). Something equally Gypsy, as we shall see,
clings to our second example.
“The local police have had their attention engaged during the week in
connection with an alleged extraordinary occurrence whereby a
shopgirl became, under supposed hypnotic influence, the dupe of two
gipsy women. From inquiry it appears that on Saturday afternoon two
gipsy women, having the appearance of mother and daughter, entered a
baby-linen shop, and seem to have exerted such a remarkable influence
over the girl that she was induced to hand over to them articles of
wear amounting in value to between £8 and £9. Before they left the
shop she recovered her self-possession sufficiently to express doubt
as to whether they would return with the goods or money, and her
fears were allayed somewhat by receiving from her visitors in the
shape of security a lady’s beautiful gold ring and chain.
Subsequently the young lady, suspecting the genuineness of the
pledges, took them to a jeweller, who declared the value of the ring
and chain to be not more than a couple of shillings. The shopgirl is
unable to account for her want of self-possession in the presence of
the gipsies, and states that she felt she might have given them
anything they asked for. There were a good many gipsies located in
the district, but on a visit to the encampment in company with the
police the girl did not recognize her two visitors. The remarkable
occurrence has given rise to much comment in the locality.”
Here is something strangely akin to the Romany mesmerism to which
allusion is made by “The Scholar-Gipsy,” whose
“. . . mates had arts to rule as they desir’d
The workings of men’s brains;
And they can bind them to what thoughts they will.”
As is well known, Matthew Arnold’s poem is based upon the following
passage in Joseph Glanvill’s _Vanity of Dogmatizing_:—
“That one man should be able to bind the thoughts of another, and
determine them to their particular objects, will be reckoned in the
first rank of Impossibles; Yet by the power of advanc’d Imagination
it may very probably be effected; and story abounds with Instances.
I’le trouble the Reader but with one; and the hands from which I had
it, make me secure of the truth on’t. There was very lately a lad in
the University of Oxford, who, being of very pregnant and ready
parts, and yet wanting the encouragement of preferment, was by his
poverty forced to leave his studies there, and to cast himself upon
the wide world for livelyhood. Now, his necessities growing daily on
him, and wanting the help of friends to relieve him; he was at last
forced to joyn himself to a company of Vagabond Gypsies, whom
occasionally he met with, and to follow their trade for a
maintenance. Among these extravagant people, by the insinuating
subtility of his carriage, he quickly got so much of their love and
esteem; that they discover’d to him their Mystery; in the practice of
which, by the pregnancy of his wit and partz he soon grew so good a
proficient, as to out-do his Instructours. After he had been a
pretty while well exercis’d in the Trade; there chanc’d to ride by a
couple of Scholars who had formerly bin of his acquaintance. The
Scholars had quickly spyed out their old friend, among the Gypsies;
and their amazement to see him among such society, had well-nigh
discover’d him; but by a sign he prevented their owning him before
that crew; and taking one of them aside privately, desir’d him with
his friend to go to an Inn, not far distant thence, promising there
to come to them. They accordingly went thither, and he follows;
after their first salutations, his friends enquire how he came to
live so odd a life as that was, and to joyn himself with such a
cheating beggerly company. The Scholar-Gypsy having given them an
account of the necessity, which drove him to that kind of life; told
them, that the people he went with were not such Impostours as they
were taken for, but that they had a traditional kind of learning
among them, and could do wonders by the power of Imagination, and
that himself had learned much of their Art, and improved it further
than themselves could. And to evince the truth of what he told them,
he said he’d remove into another room, leaving them to discourse
together; and upon his return tell them the sum of what they had
talked of; which accordingly he perform’d, giving them a full account
of what had pass’d between them in his absence. The Scholars being
amaz’d at so unexpected a discovery, earnestly desir’d him to
unriddle the mystery. In which he gave them satisfaction, by telling
them, that what he did was by the power of Imagination, his Phancy
binding theirs; and that himself had dictated to them the discourse
they held together, while he was from them: That there were
warrantable wayes of heightening the Imagination to that pitch, as to
bind another’s; and that when he had compass’d the whole secret, some
parts of which he said he was yet ignorant of, he intended to leave
their company, and give the world an account of what he had learned.”
One sometimes wonders whether the world would have cared one jot about
the revelations which the Oxford Scholar here promises, for to the
majority the “Gypsies” are almost tabu.
In a letter which I received from that perfect Scholar-Gypsy and
Gypsy-Scholar, the late Francis Hindes Groome, he tells how he once
stumbled upon a typical critic.
“Three or four years ago I gave a lecture on Gypsies at Greenock, and
a well-dressed man came up after it.
“‘There were some things,’ he remarked, ‘that I quite liked in your
lecture, but on a good many points _you were absolutely wrong_.’
“‘Of course you’ve studied the question?’ I asked him.
“‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I looked up the article “Gypsies” in Dr.
Brewer’s _Dictionary of Fable_ just before coming along.’”
Talking of critics reminds me how I once received something of a shock to
the nerves during the opening sentences of a lecture on “Gypsy Customs.”
Not far from the platform where I stood, there sat a well-to-do
horse-dealer who, having married a pure-bred Gypsy, was presumably in
possession of “inside information.” The vision of his face, all
alertness and curiosity, caused me a momentary disturbance. What would
this critic make of my disclosures? How would he take my revelations?
Warming to my subject, however, I was made happy by my auditor
interjecting such remarks as “That’s right.” “He’s got it.” “Where does
the man get it all from?” Sometimes he would punctuate his exclamations
by vigorously slapping his knee and laughing aloud. Certainly his
ejaculations added a piquancy to my tales gathered from Gypsy tents.
* * * * *
But to return to Peterborough Fair.
About the middle of the afternoon, as I stood on a grassy mound
overlooking the horses, I spied near a group of animals my old friend,
Anselo Draper, flourishing a long-handled whip. This swart East Anglian
roamer wore a dark brown coat of Newmarket cut, slouch hat of soft green
felt, and crimson neckerchief neatly tied at the throat. Along an open
space between the rows of horses sauntered his two pretty daughters,
Jemima and Phœbe, bareheaded and bare-armed, their laughing voices
ringing out merrily, while at their heels followed two little brothers
cracking whips as became budding horse-dealers.
Quite a head above the Gaskins and Brinkleys with whom she was talking
loudly, stood Wythen, Anselo’s wife, who, happening to look my way,
smiled and came towards me, holding out the empty bowl of her pipe.
“Got a bit of _tuvalo_ (tobacco) about you, _rashai_ (parson)? I’m dying
for a smoke.”
“_So bok ke-divus_?” (What luck to-day?) I inquired, handing over my
pouch.
“_Bikin_’d _tshîtshî_” (Sold nothing), she replied, jerking her whip
towards the ponies, “but I’ll _duker_ (tell fortunes) a bit this
evening,” adjusting her black hat with its large ostrich feathers and
gaudy orange bow set jauntily at the side.
[Picture: Midland Gypsies. Photo. Fred Shaw]
On my pretending to ridicule _duker_in, she said—
“Look here, now, what’s the difference between a Gypsy telling fortunes
at a fair and a parson _roker_in (preaching) in church of a Sunday?”
“If that’s a riddle,” said I, “it’s beyond me to answer it.”
“Well, when folks do bad things, you foretell a bad future for them,
don’t you? And when they do right, you promises ’em a good time? What’s
the difference then between you and me? I’m a low-class fortune-teller
and you’s a high-class fortune-teller. You’s had a deal of eddication.
My only school has been the fairs, race-courses, and sich-like. But I
bet I can tell a fortune as well as you any day. Let me tell yours.”
And she did.
[Picture: South-Country Gypsies. Photo. Fred Shaw]
As we stood there and talked, I noticed that the woman looked worried
about something, and presently I heard her say to Anselo, “I haven’t
found it yet.” It was a brooch that she had lost. Then I told how once
I lost and found a ring. One Sunday morning just before service, I stood
on the gravel swinging my arms in physical exercises as a freshener
before going to church, and suddenly I heard the tinkle of my ring on the
yellow gravel. As only a few minutes remained before church time, I
thought of a child’s method of finding a thing quickly, and, turning
myself round three times, I tossed upon the ground a smooth black pebble,
and, going, forward, lo, there was the ring close to the pebble.
Eyeing me curiously, Wythen remarked—
“Do you know what we says about people as does that sort of thing? Well,
we reckons they has dealings with the _Beng_ (Devil).
“When I was a little ’un, my old granny would do things like that, and
she used to say that when you sees a star falling you must wish a wish,
and if you do it afore the _stari pogers_ (the star breaks) your wish
will come true.”
It seems that among Gypsies “wishing a wish” sometimes means a curse. It
was at Peterborough Fair in 1872 that Groome saw a blind Gypsy child—made
blind, he was told, through the father wishing a wish. Akin to this is
the belief in the evil eye. A Battersea Gypsy mother would not let her
baby be seen by its half-witted uncle, for fear his looking at it should
turn its black hair red.
After leaving Wythen, I sauntered along, making mental notes of Gypsies
all around, among whom were local Brinkleys, the far-travelled Greens,
some Loveridges, and other Midland Gypsies. I was about to move away
towards the pleasure fair, when a dealer standing near some ponies caught
my eye. I had never seen the man before, but as he looked a thorough
Gypsy, I drew alongside and accosted him in Romany. For a moment he
stared at my clerical frock-coat and broad-brimmed hat, and then calmly
remarked—
“I say, pal, you look born to them things you’ve got on, you do really.
You reckons to attend fairs at these here cathedral places, don’t you?
Didn’t I once see you at Ely, or was it Chester?”
To this man I was nothing more than a Gypsy “dragsman” disguised in
clerical garb. Accordingly, he lowered his voice as he said—
“See this here pony? Will you sell it for me? You’ll do it easy enough
with your experience. On my honour it ain’t a _bongo yek_ (wrong ’un),
nor yet a _tshordo grai_” (stolen horse).
“What about the price?” I asked.
“If you get a tenner for it,” he replied, “there’ll be a _bâ_ (sovereign)
for yourself. What say?”
“_Saw tatsho_ (All right). _Jaw_ ’_vrî konaw_” (Go away now). And in
less than ten minutes after taking my stand by the little animal, I had a
bid from a young farmer of the small-holder type. His offer was
accompanied by some adverse criticism. Who ever heard a man praise the
horse he intended to buy?
“Examine the pony for yourself,” said I.
He looked at its teeth. He lifted its feet one by one. He pinched and
punched it all over. The pony was next trotted to and fro, and so
pleased was the farmer with the animal’s behaviour that he promptly
handed over ten pounds and led the pony away. On seeing that I had
completed the business, my Gypsy friend, who was just round the corner,
came up, and on my giving up the money, he put one of the sovereigns into
my hand. When I got away I had a good laugh to myself, and it took me
some time to get my face straight.
Walking back into the heart of the town, I saw a dusty, ill-clad party of
Gypsies going slowly along with a light dray drawn by a young horse with
flowing mane and long tail, and when they reached the corner where I was
standing, I spoke to the woman who was at the horse’s head. She said she
was a Smith, and when I pointed to the name Hardy on the dray, she
remarked, “Oh, that’s nobbut a travelling name.” It may be noted that
Gypsies are extremely careless about their names.
At a later hour in a field behind the pleasure fair, I found the
comfortable _vâdo_ of my friend, Anselo Draper, and tapped at the van
door with the knob of my stick. Quickly the door opened, and thrusting
out his dark, handsome head, Anselo shouted, “_Av adrê_, _baw_” (Come in,
friend).
What a contrast! Outside: a very babel of blaring sounds, a dark sky
reflecting the glow of a myriad naphtha flares. Within: cosiness and
warmth, red curtains, glittering mirrors, polished brasses, and a good
fire. Over the best teacups (taken tenderly from a corner cupboard)
Anselo and his wife talked of their travels. They had been as far north
as Glasgow that summer, and had sold a good _vâdo_ (van) to one of the
Boswells at Newcastle Fair. They had decided to winter at
Southend-on-Sea. “We shall make a tent, a big one, and very jolly it
will be with a _yog_ (fire) in the baulk. To be sure, there will be
plenty of mumpers (low-class van-dwellers) around us, but we shall not be
the only _tatshenê Romanitshel_s (real Gypsies) stopping there.”
Next, Anselo plunged into an account of a low dealer’s trick at the horse
fair. It seemed that this dealer had sold two horses to a farmer for
forty pounds. A stranger coming up to the farmer offered to buy them at
a higher price, so into a tavern they retired to talk things over.
During drinks the stranger continually offered more money for the horses,
and the farmer remained there a longer time than was good for him. At
last when the man was hopelessly muddled the stranger disappeared. Nor
had the horses so far been seen again.
“But there’s not so much of that done as there was. My father knew a
Gypsy who died up in Yorkshire, a desprit hand at _grai-tshor_in
(horse-stealing), and to this day they say, ‘If you shake a bridle over
his grave, he’ll jump up and steal a horse.’” Both Wythen and Anselo
laughed merrily as I told a tale I once heard of a Gypsy who had been
“away” for a space. Coming out of the prison gate, he was met by a
fellow who asked him what he had been in there for.
“For finding a horse,” was the reply.
“But surely they would never jug you for finding a horse?”
“Well, but you see I found this one before his owner had lost him.”
Anselo admitted that this sort of thing was not at all uncommon in the
old days, and two of his uncles had to take a trip across the water for
similar practices.
When I left my friends and hastened to catch my train, the pleasure fair
was in full blast, noisy organs, cymbals and drums, shrieking whistles,
and the dull muffled roar of innumerable human voices, sounds which long
haunted my ears, and, looking back from the moving train, there still
floated from the distance the din and rattle of the receding fair.
CHAPTER XI
A FORGOTTEN HIGHWAY—“ON THE ROAD” WITH JONATHAN—THE PATRIN—THE GHOST OF
THE HAYSTACK
“WE was all brought up on this Old Dyke. We’s _hatsh_’d (camped) on it
in all weathers. I knows every yard of it. Ay, the fine _kanengrê_
(hares) we’s taken from these here fields.”
The speaker was my old friend, Jonathan Boswell, who with his tilt-cart
had overtaken me whilst strolling along the grass-grown Roman Ermine
Street which traverses the broad Heath stretching southward of Lincoln.
At the Gypsy’s cheery invitation, I joined him on his seat under the
overarching tilt. Behind us were the diminishing towers of the old city,
and right on ahead the chariot-way of the Imperial legions ran, straight
as an arrow along the Heath. Not a wild expanse, mind you, like your
Yorkshire moorland with its wimpling burns and leagues of heather, though
I daresay our Heath, now so admirably tilled, was savage enough in the
days when “the long, lone, level line of the well-kept warpath, marked at
intervals with high stones or posts as a guiding-line in fog or snow,
stretched through a solitude but rarely broken, except by the footfall of
the legionaries and the plaint of the golden plover sounding sweet from
off the moorland.” Turf-covered from hedge to hedge for many a mile, the
High Dyke, as the old road is now called, may well be described as a
forgotten highway. Indeed, I have tramped along it mile on mile without
meeting a soul, unless mayhap it was a sun-tanned drover slouching at the
heels of half a dozen bullocks, or a village lad asleep in a
hedge-bottom, with a soft-eyed motherly cow or two grazing not far away.
On this particular morning near the end of April, an unclouded sun lit up
the verdant cornlands and larch spinneys. It shone upon the loins of the
sturdy nag between the shafts. It touched into a brighter gold the
gorse-bloom on the wayside bushes, and provoked the green-finches to
fling their songs into the air from lichened palings and bramble sprays.
Onward we journeyed, bumping and jolting over the uneven turfy road, and
occasionally dodging the mounds of earth thrown up by the burrowing
rabbits. What a picturesque figure my companion presented in his faded
bottle-green coat adorned with large pearl buttons. His close-fitting
dogskin cap imparted to his swarthy, sharply-cut features a not
inappropriate poacher-like air, and I fancied the old man’s wrinkles had
deepened on his brow since our last meeting, just after his wife’s death
up in Yorkshire.
Sitting back under the hood, Jonathan here burst out with a pretty little
reminiscence.
“D’ye know, my pal, what this here bit o’ the Old Dyke brings to my mind?
Ay, deary me, it takes me back to times as’ll never, never come no
more—the days when I were a lad along with my people, and our delations
a-_besh_in (resting) on this here wery grass we’s passing over. See,
there, under that warm bank topped with thick thorns: well, I’s slept
there times on end with my dear mammy and daddy in our tent, and my
uncles and aunts would be _hatsh_in (camping) right along this sheltered
bit. I can see it all while I’s talking to you—the carts with their
shafts propped up and the smook a-going up from the fires afore the
tents, and the ponies and donkeys grazing under the trees yonder. Ay, my
son, them were the times for the likes of us.
“There’s one thing I minds” (this with a merry twinkle in his eye).
“I’ll tell you about it. It were a fine summer morning, somewheres about
six o’clock. My mammy and daddy was up making a fire to boil the kettle.
I heard ’em bustling about, and I ought to ha’ been up to help, but I
were lazy-like that morning. Then comes my daddy a-talking quick to
hisself, and I know’d summut were the matter. He lifts up the _tan-kopa_
(tent-blanket) and hollers at me as I lay stretched out upo’ the straw—
“_Hatsh oprê_, _tshavo_, _kèr sig_. _De graiaw_ and _mailas saw
praster_’d _avrî_. _Jaw_’_vrî_ an’ _dik_ for _len._’ (Get up, boy, make
haste. The horses and donkeys have all run away. Go forth and look for
them.)
“I were out and off in a jiffey. I never stopped to get dressed. What’s
more, me not thinking what I was a-doing, I throws away the only thing I
had on my back—my shirt—just as you toss off your coat when you’s in a
hurry, and away I goes down the long road to find the animals. Whilst I
were away, all the family, my big brothers and sisters, and them
delations as I spoke of, had gathered round the fires for _sawla-hawben_
(breakfast), an’ they hadn’t finished when I got back with the hosses and
donkeys. I’d clean forgot how I were fixed, an’, my gom, didn’t they
laff when they set eyes on me; an’ my blessed mammy, she shouts—
“‘_Kai sî tîro gad_, _m’o rinkeno tshavo_?’ (Where’s your shirt, my
pretty boy?) Into the tent I dived, an’ I weren’t long dressing, for I
wanted to be gitting my share o’ the _balovas_ an’ _yora_s (ham and
eggs).”
Occasionally the spinneys skirting the deserted road obscured the view of
the far-off Wolds, but one could forgive these temporary interventions,
for the sprays of larch and beech hanging out from the little woods were
delicate in their new spring garb, and as the breezes caught them they
rose and sank with a beautiful feathery droop. Now across the fields on
our left hand there came into view a familiar landmark, Dunston Pillar,
concerning which I once heard a story from the lips of Bishop Edward
Trollope, a whilom neighbour of mine.
At one time Lincoln Heath was a vast unenclosed rabbit warren dotted over
with fir woods and quarries, and at times travellers lost their way upon
it. So Dunston Pillar was erected, and a lantern was placed on top to
guide benighted wayfarers over the Heath. Doubtless the old lighthouse
served its purpose well, yet it did not always enable people to reach
their own homes in safety, for the locality was infested with robbers on
the look out for travelling gentry. Not far from the Pillar stood an old
coaching inn, the “Green Man,” and one night, after assisting their
driver to his box, two gentlemen who had been carousing there thought it
prudent to remind their man thus: “John, be sure you keep the Pillar
light upon your right, and then we shall reach Lincoln safely.” However,
when the two awoke at daybreak and found themselves still near the
Pillar, one of them called out, “Why, John, where are we?” Upon which,
John replied drowsily from the box, “Oh, it’s a’ roight, sir, the
Pillar’s on our roight.” And so it was, for he had been driving round it
all night.
As we jogged along, Jonathan would occasionally jerk his whip towards a
rich pasture, and with a sly wink would say, “We’s _puv_’d _our graiaw_
in that field more than once.” Let me explain. In order to give their
horses a good feed, the Gypsies when camping on the High Dyke would turn
their animals overnight into a nice fat pasture, taking care, of course,
to remove them early in the morning.
At this point we drew rein, and took a meal under the lee of a plantation
in whose boughs thrushes fluted and willow-wrens made fairy music. Not
far away, couch-grass fires sent their smoke across the level surface of
a loamy field, making the air of the lane pungent with the scent of
burning stalks. Seated there under the spreading trees, my Gypsy
companion related a poaching incident with some gusto, for it is next to
impossible to dispossess the Gypsy of the notion that the wild rabbits
frisking about the moors and commons are as free to him as to the owner
of the lands on which they happen to be playing.
[Picture: Netting Rabbits. Photo. F. R. Hinkins]
“One time when our folks was camping on the Dyke a keeper comes up to
the fire. It was evening, and we was having some stew, and the
keeper joined us. He were a pleasant, good-company fellow, wery
different from keepers nowadays, and after the meal was over, my old
mammy says to him, ‘There’s two things that’s wery good—a drop of
brandy to warm the cockles o’ your heart, and a bit o’ black ’bacca
to warm your snitch-end.’ And the keeper agreed. Then my daddy
brings out a black bottle and mixes him a drink in a teacup, and us
boys come peeping into the tent to listen to the tales what daddy and
the keeper got a-telling. I can see ’em all a-sitting there now, my
old mam a-puffing her _swêgler_ (pipe) and the keeper and daddy
blowing a big cloud till you couldn’t hardlins see across the tent
for smook. But mam never gave us boys nothink from the bottle, and
when the keeper began to get jolly, my dad tipped us a wink, and off
goes three of us wi’ the dogs, and we had a good time in the big
woods. Nobody came near us, and we didn’t carry the game home that
night lest we might meet a _gawjo_. We know’d a thing better than
that. We hid the game in a leafy hollow, and sent some of the big
gells in the morning with sacks, and they brought all home safe.”
[Picture: ’Neath the Hedgerow. Photo. Fred Shaw]
Two miles onward we stopped a few minutes at Byard’s Leap to look at the
large iron horseshoes embedded in the turf. It is these shoes that help
to perpetuate the local legend which gives the hamlet its name. Here is
the Gypsy version of the tradition.
“Hundreds and hundreds of years ago, there was a wicked witch what
lived in a stone-pit wi’ big dark trees hanging over it. This woman
did a lot of mischief on the farms all round, witching the stock in
the fields, and she cast sickness on people young and old. They say
the witch was once a beautiful girl who sold her blood to the _Beng_
(Devil), and that’s how she got her powers. At last she grew wery
ugly, and still went on working great harm. One day the folks of
that neighbourhood met together and tossed up to see who was to kill
the witch. It was a shepherd who had to do it, though it went
against his mind, as he had often played with the witch when she was
a beautiful girl. However, he promised to put an end to her, and set
off to choose a horse to ride on. All the horses on the farm were
driven down to a pond. One of them was a blind one, an old favourite
of the farmer’s, which he wouldn’t allow to be killed. Now, while
the horses were drinking, the shepherd was to _wus
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