“Did you ever see my Aunt Sarah at Blackpool?” said Juli.
“Yes, I once had tea in her tent on the South Shore. Did she and herrom(husband), Edward, ever travel on this side of England?”
“Sartinly, they did. Ned’s daddy, Tyso, lies buried in your country. Poor old man, many’s the time I’ve heard the tale about him and the shepherd boy.”
“What was that?”
“Well, Tyso was oncehatshin (camping) on a Norfolk common and got a-talking with a boy tending sheep. Says the boy to Tyso—
“‘I can tell you where there’s a buried box full o’ money.’
“‘Show me the place,’ says Tyso.
“The boy took him to a little low, green hill, and then they fetches a spade and digs into it. Sure enough they bared the lid of an old iron chest with a ring on top, and both of ’em tugged hard at the ring, but the box wouldn’t budge an inch. Just then Tyso swore, and the ring slipped outen their hands, and down went the box and they never see’d it no more.”
“One time the Herrens (Herons) used to come about here a good deal. There was handsome William, a wery notified man he were. Then there was Old Niabai and Crowy. Their son Isaac had a boy born at Lynn close by here—that was Îza. You’ll know him sure-ly. I’ve often met Ike’s half-brother Manful in Lynn. I can see him now, a little doubled-up old man. I ’spects you’s heard tell of Manful’s diamond? One day in a public, he catch’d sight of something shining among the sand—they sanded the slab floors in them days—and, whatever the thing was, it shone like a bit of cut-glass, and at first he thought it wasn’t worth stooping for, but when the taproom was empty he picked it up, anddawdi! if it wasn’t a diamond as big as a cobnut. So away he takes it to a pawnbroker’s shop, and the head man told him it were worth hundreds of pounds. My dear old dad once saw it with his own eyes.”
While the black trees shuddered outside in the tempest, Ladin next told a story I shall never forget.
“When my uncle, Alfred Herren, and his wife Becky was a-travelling in Shropshire, they draw’d their wagon one night into a by-lane—so they thought—just outside the village, but daylight show’d ’em it were a gentleman’s drive leading up to a red mansion among the trees. Did my uncle pull out when he found he’d made a mistake? No, for a wery good reason he stopped where he was. His missis had been took ill in the night, and a little gell were born. The doctor gave no hopes at all for the wife, and just when things looked blackest, a groom on horseback came up from the mansion, and, slamming on the wagon-side with his whipstock, shouted—
“‘Clear out of here, you rascally Gypsies, afore my master sees you.’
“Uncle Alfred put his head outen the door, and said—
“‘Stop it, my man. There’s a woman a-dying in here. I’d take it kind of you to go to the big house yonder and ask the good lady to come and pray by a dying Gypsy.’
“Off goes the groom with the message, and soon the squire’s lady come along carrying a basket of good things, and did all she could for Becky, but the poor thing died. After that the parson came to christen the baby.
“‘What name?’ he asks.
“‘Flower o’ May,’ says my uncle. The wagon stood under a may-tree, and the flowers were dropping on the grass like snow. Now, the squire and his lady come along. Says he—
“‘The Almighty has never given us the blessing of a child, so we would like to adopt this little girl of yours and bring her up as our own. Here’ (holding up a bag) ‘are one hundred sovereigns. Take them, my good man, and let us have the baby.’
“‘Nay,’ says my uncle, ‘you may keep your bag of gold. I can’t never part wi’ my little gell.’
“Years went by, and at last my uncle fell ill and died. Then my own parents took care of the little gell, and they changed her name to Rodi, for they couldn’t abide to hear the name Flower o’ May no more; it reminded ’em too sadly of them as had gone.”
On arising from my couch next morning, it was a pleasure to find that the air was moderately quiet, and patches of blue were showing between the rolling clouds. Breakfast over, my friends showed me round their garden gay with flowering bulbs. Gypsy-like, they had numerous pets—a pair of long-eared owls,a jackdaw, a goldfinch, some dainty bantams, and two or three pheasants in a wired poultry-run. Now the Gypsies came as far as the highway to see me off. Tender leaves and twigs strewed the road, as I mounted my bicycle, and after pedalling through several villages, the roofs of King’s Lynn began to appear ahead. A turn in the road at last brought me to a bridge spanning the broad river Ouse discoloured by flood-water. In a yard of the tavern just across the river, the chimneys of several Gypsy vans were to be seen. I therefore dismounted to make inquiries. Sunning himself on a bench outside the inn, sat a tall Gypsy man emptying a mug of Norfolk ale.
“Sâ shan,baw?” (How do, mate?) said I, sitting down beside him. He turned out to be one of the Kilthorpes, and his pals in the yard were Coopers from London.
An hour or two later, as I was loitering at a street corner in Lynn, I observed not far away a two-wheeled hooded cart drawn by a tired horse. From under a dark archway they emerged, and, coming into the light, I noticed an old woman under the hood smoking a pipe, and just then, from behind the cart stepped a sweep, who disappeared into a coal-yard, carrying a sack in his hand. Following him, I heard him say—
“Half a hundred-weight, missis.” A burly woman, having weighed out the coal, poured it into the sack—a bottomless receptacle—and the black lumps were scattered about the floor.
“Muk man peser” (Let me pay), said I, from behind the sweep. Whereupon the grimy old fellow looked round with an amazed stare.
“Pariko tuti,rai” (Thank you, sir), he stammered out, and, producing a piece of string, he tied the sack bottom securely, and the two of us picked up the littered coal.
“Where are you living?” I asked.
“Pawdelthepâni” (Across the water) “in West Lynn. We’ve been away for three months, and we’re going round to our house now. Come across to-night. Anybody will tell you where Old Stivven lives.”
When the yellow street-lamps were twinkling in the dusk, I groped my way down a long dark passage, and at the foot of a flight of slippery wet steps, found a black coble moored. For ten minutes or so I waited till a man in a jersey appeared and rowed me across the broad, rolling Ouse. At the “White Swan” inn I made inquiry for my sweep, and was given an address, and discovered a sweep, but, alas, he wasn’t my man at all, and I began to think Old Stephen had tricked me. But now I was given another address, where I found my man and his wife in their living-room, amid a spread of blankets and bedding airing in front of a bright fire. For a while we talked, and then at the sweep’s suggestion we moved across to the “White Swan.”
Stephen had formerly travelled with Barney Mace, an uncle of Jem, the world-famed pugilist, who had a boxing booth which he took to country fairs up and down the land, and in order totâderthegawjê(draw the gentiles), Stephen and Poley (Barney’s son) would engage in a few rounds just outside the booth.
The sweep had known Old Ōseri Gray, commonly called “Sore-eyed Horsery,” who died some years ago at King’s Lynn. He was a renowned Gypsy fiddler. If he heard a band play a tune, he would go home and reproduce the air on his violin, putting in such variations, grace-notes, shakes, and runs, that none of his fellows could compare with him.
Among the sweep’s reminiscences was a curious story about an eccentric Gypsy who had a fancy for carrying his coffin in his travelling van. The man had a daughter, a grown woman, who went about with him, his wife having died some years before. One afternoon while she was away with her basket in the village, her father took out the coffin and was busy repainting it when a thunderstorm descended. The Gypsy took shelter in hisvâdo, which was drawn up near an elm tree on a bit of a common. Picture the grief and dismay of his daughter on returning to find her father a corpse, for a flash of lightning had struck the tree and the van and killed the old Romany. On the day of the Gypsy’s funeral, the vicar of the parish had the flag flying half-mast highon the church tower, which everybody said was a kindly feeling to show for one who was only a wandering Gypsy.
On asking my sweep about the house-dwelling Gypsies of Lynn, he directed me to the abode of the aged widow of Louis Boss (son of the famous Ryley Boswell or Boss), and a charming reception she gave me in her spotless cottage in a retired court. The sweep had told me of this old lady’s liking for snuff, and a visit to atuvalo budika(tobacco shop) enabled me to give her a little pleasure. By the fireside she refilled her shiny metal box, and, having offered me a trial of the pungent dust, herself took deep, loving pinches, with the air of a connoisseur. Indeed, the snuff cemented our friendship forthwith. Here I am reminded of a story telling how Dr. Manning (of the Religious Tract Society) once employed snuff in a very different fashion. When visiting Granada in Spain, he was beset by a begging crew of swarthy men, women, and children, and as he stood in the middle of the clamouring horde, he took out his snuff-box. Immediately all the Gypsies wanted a pinch. He obliged them, so long as the snuff lasted, taking care to keep a tight hold of his silver box. Soon the Gypsies were all sneezing and laughing immoderately, and amid the commotion the good doctor managed to make his escape.
The road from King’s Lynn to East Dereham led me through villages astir with Whitsuntide festivities. At one point I turned down a by-lane,and, resting at the foot of a tree within view of Borrow’s birthplace at Dumpling Green, I observed a party of donkey-folk trudging along with their animals towards Dereham. Local mumpers were these people, a draggle-tailed lot, and I could not help reflecting upon the difference between the poor wanderers who now pass for Gypsies and the Petulengros and Herons of Borrow’s time.
In the church of East Dereham, one’s fancy pictured the boy Borrow in the corner of a pew fixing his eyes upon the dignified rector and parish clerk “from whose lips would roll many a portentous word descriptive of the wondrous works of the Most High.”
It was like living inLavengroto wander about the alleys and lanes of old Norwich and through the ling and fern on breezy Mousehold above the town. Up there amid the camping sites and the fighting-pits, it was not without sadness that I read on a notice-board—“No Gypsy, squatter, or vagrant shall frequent, or resort to, or remain upon the Heath.” O shades of Jasper Petulengro and Tawno Chikno, changed indeed are the times since the days when ye loved and fought and trafficked within the precincts of beautiful old Norwich!
Concerning my trip by boat from Yarmouth to London, which was entirely lacking in Gypsy interest, nothing need be said here.
London is in parts strongly tinctured with Gypsyblood. Let anyone walk along the streets which have been built upon the sites of the old metropolitan Gypsyries, and he will surely see dark faces and black eyes telling how the Gypsies still cling to these localities. All around Latimer Road Station, which stands upon the Potteries, Gypsies are to be found living in narrow courts and dingy lanes.
On my way to Epsom on the eve of the Derby, I passed a few happy moments with my aged pal, Robert Petulengro, in whose back room at Notting Hill I have often been regaled with racy stories and touching reminiscences of old-time Romany life. There is something suggestive of the cleric in Bob’s demeanour, and a stranger would never suspect that my placid-looking friend had led a wild, roving life. It is when he loses himself in a tale that his mild ministerial air gives place to a vivacity characteristically Gypsy.
To the Gypsyry on the Potteries came nomads named Heron and Leatherlund in the year 1854. (Some of their descendants still reside at the backs of the mews in Notting Hill.) They were the survivors of a sad disaster which in the previous year had befallen a party of hop-pickers at Hadlow in Kent. Through the kindness of a Gypsy woman who was “saved from the flood,” I am able to reprint a portion of an old tract giving the Rev. R. Shindler’s version of “The Medway Disaster.”
“In Kent you may still be told of a sadcatastrophe which befel a party of hop-pickers, in the year 1853, as they were returning to their temporary habitations after a day’s work. The scene of the alarming event was in the parish of Hadlow, near Tunbridge, Kent. It is well known that thousands of poor people flock down into Kent for the hopping. Some of these are Gypsies; some may be described as house-cart people, who travel from place to place for the greater part of the year, selling their wares—brushes and brooms, tin-ware, earthen-ware, and such-like; but by far the larger part emerge from the lanes and alleys and courts of London. To the last especially, but to the others also, the hopping proves, when the weather is fine and the hops good, a pleasant recreation as well as a profitable employment. A number of people of Gypsy character and habits were employed by a farmer who resided in the parish of Tudely, and who had hop gardens also in Hadlow parish. It is a good rule among the hop-farmers, that when their gardens are any considerable distance from the homes of the natives or the encampments of the strangers, the pickers should be conveyed in wagons to and from the gardens. In this case, the river Medway had to be crossed in going to and from the gardens, and the only means of crossing was a wooden bridge of considerable span, and high above the current. The bridge was considered dangerous, especially for spirited horses, who were alarmed at the noisemade by their own feet. The bridge was rendered even more dangerous by reason of the rather frail open wooden rails which flanked it right and left.“On the morning of the day on which the catastrophe occurred, several parties passed over the bridge in safety, and in the evening parties of natives, or ‘home-dwellers,’ had returned without any mishap; but as a party of Gypsies and suchlike were being conveyed back, the horses suddenly took fright, ran the wagon against the side of the bridge, which gave way, and wagon, horses, and people were precipitated into the strong current below, and no less than thirty were drowned. I was then pastor in a neighbouring parish, and had taken a deep interest in the religious condition of the hoppers, preaching in fields and stackyards and elsewhere near their encampments, and distributing tracts and New Testaments. The sad event mentioned above stirred my heart a great deal, and I felt impelled to write a short tract. The thirty hop-pickers were buried in Hadlow churchyard in a common grave, the spot being marked by a monument recording the names of those who perished in the waters of the Medway.”
“In Kent you may still be told of a sadcatastrophe which befel a party of hop-pickers, in the year 1853, as they were returning to their temporary habitations after a day’s work. The scene of the alarming event was in the parish of Hadlow, near Tunbridge, Kent. It is well known that thousands of poor people flock down into Kent for the hopping. Some of these are Gypsies; some may be described as house-cart people, who travel from place to place for the greater part of the year, selling their wares—brushes and brooms, tin-ware, earthen-ware, and such-like; but by far the larger part emerge from the lanes and alleys and courts of London. To the last especially, but to the others also, the hopping proves, when the weather is fine and the hops good, a pleasant recreation as well as a profitable employment. A number of people of Gypsy character and habits were employed by a farmer who resided in the parish of Tudely, and who had hop gardens also in Hadlow parish. It is a good rule among the hop-farmers, that when their gardens are any considerable distance from the homes of the natives or the encampments of the strangers, the pickers should be conveyed in wagons to and from the gardens. In this case, the river Medway had to be crossed in going to and from the gardens, and the only means of crossing was a wooden bridge of considerable span, and high above the current. The bridge was considered dangerous, especially for spirited horses, who were alarmed at the noisemade by their own feet. The bridge was rendered even more dangerous by reason of the rather frail open wooden rails which flanked it right and left.
“On the morning of the day on which the catastrophe occurred, several parties passed over the bridge in safety, and in the evening parties of natives, or ‘home-dwellers,’ had returned without any mishap; but as a party of Gypsies and suchlike were being conveyed back, the horses suddenly took fright, ran the wagon against the side of the bridge, which gave way, and wagon, horses, and people were precipitated into the strong current below, and no less than thirty were drowned. I was then pastor in a neighbouring parish, and had taken a deep interest in the religious condition of the hoppers, preaching in fields and stackyards and elsewhere near their encampments, and distributing tracts and New Testaments. The sad event mentioned above stirred my heart a great deal, and I felt impelled to write a short tract. The thirty hop-pickers were buried in Hadlow churchyard in a common grave, the spot being marked by a monument recording the names of those who perished in the waters of the Medway.”
There are in Battersea numerous “yards” under railway arches, where living-vans of “travellers” used to be seen all the year round. Very much diluted is the Gypsy blood to be found nowadays in these “yards.” It is these degenerates, mostlyLondoners bred and born, who at times give so much trouble to the local authorities in Surrey.
Upon Hampstead Heath, and at Wormwood Scrubbs, a sprinkling of Gypsy faces may be seen among the show-folk on a Bank Holiday, and at Edmonton, Mitcham, and near Southend-on-Sea, I have met Gypsies all the year round.
If the Yorkshireman goes to see the St. Leger because he has an instinctive love of horse-flesh, the Cockney resorts to Epsom Downs on the Derby Day to smell the scent of green turf and to take part in the most stupendous picnic in the world.
Not merely to see a crowd of nearly a million human beings, but to sample Epsom’s Gypsies, was the object of my visit to the Downs one unforgettable June day. London’s unyielding pavements mean for me, after a day or two of them, an unpleasant foot-soreness, hence it was a relief to step forth upon the springy sward outside the Downs Station. Like children let loose from school, my fellow-travellers from town laughed and joked, whistled and sang, as briskly they moved towards the course.
It was among the gorse bushes on the sunlit hilltop that I caught my first glimpse of the Gypsies, and to one acquainted with the swartRomanitshels of East Anglia and the Northern Counties, the folk of the ramshackle carts and tiny tents were distinctly disappointing. Ruddy, fair-haired, and poorly-clad, were many of them; what a falling offfrom the horde of dark Gypsies assembled at some of our North-Country fairs!
While I was chatting with a metropolitan policeman, up came a tall Gypsy girl vending what purported to be tiny squares of cedar wood, though the specimen I purchased for threepence smelled a good deal more like the innermost layer of the red bark abounding in the strips of pine forest around Tunbridge Wells. When I inquired of the damsel as to what Gypsies were present on the Downs, she replied, with a low laugh, “You’s never got to go far in these parts for to catch an Ayre. My dad’s an Ayre, but mydai(mother) was a Stevens. Over there” (pointing to a town of Gypsy caravans and a country fair combined opposite the Grand Stand) “you’ll find some of the Matthews, Penfolds, and maybe a few of the Bucklands.”
On the Racecourse. Photo. Valentine
Crossing the course, I made my way to the part of the Downs indicated by Cinderella Ayre, and though I rubbed shoulders with a good many sunburnt travellers in corduroys, and show-women in gowns of red and green, the first real Gypsy it was my good fortune to meet was Davy Lee, the ancient vagabond who “planted” thedukerin-mokto(fortune-telling box) upon George Smith of Coalville. Although nearly blind, Davy managed to dodge in and out of the crowd, and, taking me up to his wagon, found time to chat about his father, the renowned Zacky Lee.
“My daddy was stopping one night in a field, and before going to bed, he looked out and therewas his white donkey—leastways so he fancied. It was roaming about, and he set off to catch and tether it, so as he shouldn’t lose it. But do whatever he would, he could never get up to the animal. The nearer he tried to come at it, the furder off it allus was, till at last he know’d that what he’d been chasing all night was not his donkey at all, but the Devil.”
Lounging on the grass, I noticed that the great event of the afternoon had arrived. Sleek, lean horses cantered along the course and passed out of sight. Amid a confused hubbub of voices, several moments went by. Now the glasses were levelled, and a profound silence settled on the crowd. All eyes were turned upon a little knot of horses appearing round Tattenham Corner. Then the sound of many voices swelled into a roar and died down again when the numbers went up.
Prominent at these races in days gone by was Matthias Cooper, a Gypsy to whom the late King Edward, when Prince of Wales, would toss a golden sovereign. A well-known figure was Matty, attired in white hat, yellow waistcoat, black cut-away coat, and white trousers. Hovering about this old Gypsy was an air of the Courts and the Wilderness, for had he not mingled with royalty nearly all his life, this old “Windsor Froggie”? It was from him that Charles G. Leland obtained most of the materials that went to make his work entitledThe English Gipsies and their Language. Matty is now no more, but hissons, Anselo and Wacker, still attend the Epsom races year by year.
The great carnival was at last subsiding when I found myself in the tent of Anselo Cooper and his wife, with whom I took tea. I am not likely to forget my ride from the course to Epsom Town. As the Coopers were not leaving till the end of the week, they begged a lift for me from some friends of theirs who were going to the town. Our “carriage,” a two-wheeled affair, was drawn by a gaunt, long-legged horse, and along with some strange dark Gypsies I sat upon a pile of smoky tent-covers. We sped along the Down-land in a fashion which rocked us terribly. The very policemen laughed as we went by, but we reached the town in safety.
APLAGUEof an incline to joints stiffened by age, the Steep Hill at Lincoln is for me aureoled by all the fair colours of youth. Have I not more than once rent my nether garments in gliding down the adjacent hand-rail? Likewise in the time of snow have I not, defiant of police-notices, made slides where the gradient is sharpest?
Now it happened one day that under the shadow of the ancient, timbered houses just below the crown of the hill there stood at his workshop on wheels a Gypsy tinker whose wizened figure and general air of queerness would have charmed a Teniers, and I, a town boy with no small capacity for prying, hovered at his elbow, studying his operations. Suz-z-z-z-z went the tinker’s wheel, as the sparks scattered in a rosy shower from the edge of a deftly handled blade. Then of a sudden something happened, causing me to jump as one who had been shot. There was a dull thud of a falling body, followed immediately by a shrill cry issuing from the throat of a sprawling pedlar—
“Stop my leg, stop my leg!”
A glance at the poor fellow revealed the whole story. His wooden leg, having become detached from its moorings, was rolling down the paved incline. Several persons were passing at the time, and more than one made a dash to recover the defaulting limb, but, youth’s suppleness favouring me, I managed to capture the elusive treasure, and up the hill I bore it in triumph. With admirable agility the tinker reattached the limb, and the pedlar went on his way rejoicing.
“Gimme yer knife, boy,” said the tinker.
I had one resembling a saw, which he whisked from my hand and duly restored with a nice edge. He then resumed his work as though nothing worthy of remark had happened to stay the song of his wheel.
A craft of hoary antiquity is that of the nomad metal-worker. An Austrian ecclesiastic, in the year 1200, describes the “calderari,” or tinkers, of that time: “They have no home or country. Everywhere they are found alike. They travel through the world abusing mankind with their knavery.”
Four hundred years later, an Italian writer gives an account of the tinker who enchants the knives of the peasants by magnetizing them so as to pick up needles, and for this he accepts payment in the shape of a fowl or a pie. To this day in Eastern Europe, the smith, usually a Gypsy, is regarded as a semi-conjurer who has dealings with the Devil.
In Scotland you will find numberless “Creenies,crinks, and tinklers” who roam in primitive Gypsy fashion, with donkeys, ramshackle carts, tents, and a tinker’s equipment. If you have dropped into the shepherd’s cottage in the heathery glen, or the lone farmhouse on the Lowland fell, you will have noticed the horn spoons and ladles, or the rude smoothing-irons. These are the handiwork of the tinklers of a bygone generation.
Two or three generations ago most of our English Gypsies were wandering tinkers carrying their outfits on their backs.
For my own part, I have everywhere found the caste of tinkers a cheerful, happy-go-lucky fellowship, and in talks with them I have observed that they generally know a few Gypsy words, even when it is clear that they do not belong to the dark race.
Shakespeare’s Prince Hal, inHenryIV. (First Part, Act 2, Scene 4), is made to say, “I can drink with any tinker in his own language.” This language, or jargon, known asShelta,[207]has been the subject of much learned writing.
My first lesson in Shelta was taken near the Shire Bridge, where the Great North Road, approaching Newark-on-Trent from the south, quits Lincolnshirefor the county of Nottingham. A favourite halting-place is this for wayfaring folk of all sorts. Seated on Mother Earth’s green carpet, a tinker and his wife were taking tea, and at their invitation I sat beside them for a chat. Presently I showed two bright new pennies to the tinker, saying—
“If you’ll tell me what these are inShelta, they’re yours.”
A Tinker of the Olden Times. By permission of Mrs. Johnson
In a moment he replied, “Od nyok” (two heads), and I handed over the coins. With a comic gesture he queried—
“Yer wouldn’t like to larn a bit more o’ thet langwidge, would yer?”
A Welsh Gypsy Tinker. Photo. Fred Shaw
“Rat-tat-tat” went the old brass knocker one morning at the side-door of my house, and on being informed that a tinker was inquiring for me, I hastened to see what manner of man he was. Before me stood a battered specimen of the Romany of the roads, and with a view to testing his depth, I asked—
“Do you everdikanyRomanitshels on thedrom?” (see any Gypsies on the road).
“You ’ave me there, mister,” said he. “Upon my soul, I dunno what you’re talkin’ about.”
The man’s face was a study in innocence.
“You know right enough what I’m saying,” I continued in Romany.
My man could endure it no longer, and, exploding with mirth, he turned and shouted to his brother, who stood near a grinding-barrow on the road.
“Av akai, Bill, ’ere’s arashai rokerinRomanesas fast as we can” (Come here, Bill, here’s a parson talking Gypsy). “Bring thatshushi(rabbit) out o’ theguno” (sack).
With unaffected goodwill, the two Gypsies insisted on my accepting the rabbit as a token of friendship. This I did gladly, asking no questions as to how they had come by a newly-killed rabbit. After grinding my garden axe, they both set off whistling down the road.
One day a Gypsy tinker, whom I had met a few times, took me aside, saying—
“My sister lives in the next street” (he told me the number). “She has a pony, a poor, scraggy thing, which she wants to get rid of badly. Go you and say to her—
“‘I hear you have a nice little cob to sell.’ And when she brings it round for you to look at, say—
“‘Bless my soul, do you think I’d buy a hoppygrailikedova?’” (a lame horse like that).
Presently, at that sister’s threshold, I waited for the pony to be brought round, which on arriving proved to be a miserable-looking animal indeed. Thewoman looked first at me, then at the pony, which limped badly, while its bones showed through its skin.
Said I, “Well, really, I didn’t expect to see quite such awafodu kova” (wretched thing).
Readily entering into the joke, she laughed heartily. She had taken me for adinelo gawjo(gentile simpleton), and to her astonishment I had turned out to be a Gypsy of a higher sort.
At one time I used to have frequent visits from a travelling tinker, and when his grinding-barrow was standing in my yard, I would chat with him while he was doing some little job. He was an interesting fellow who had seen something of the world. He had a remarkable knowledge of the medicinal properties of wild herbs, and would spend hours by the chalk stream in our valley, grubbing up liverwort of which he would make decoctions. One morning he was in the tale-telling mood.
“It was this very barrer what you’re looking at now. You notice there’s lots of bits of brass nailed on it for to catch the sunshine. I likes my barrer to look cheerful. Well, there was a fellow came to me with summut wrapped up in brown paper, a flat thing it was, and he says, ‘I want you to buy this here off me.’ Says I, ‘Let’s have a look at it,’ and when he opened it out, it was a fine bit of copper-plate with summut engraved on it. I asked him what the engraving was about, for you know I can’t read. He says, ‘It’s an architex business plate, that’sall, and you can have it for a shilling.’ So I bought it and nailed it on to my barrer among the other bits of brass and things. Well, happens that a parson was a-talking to me one day, and I noticed his eye lighted on this here copper-plate. Says he, looking wery serious, ‘I’m afraid this will get you into trouble, if a policeman sees it.’ ‘How’s that?’ I asked. ‘What’s wrong with the copper-plate?’ ‘Well,’ says he, ‘it’s a plate for printing £5 notes. Where did you get it from?’ And I told him. You may be sure I soon had that plate off my barrer, and, turning to the parson, I says, ‘Perhaps you’ll buy it off me, for a sort of nicknack?’ And he gave me half-a-crown for it.”
Looking slyly at me, the tinker remarked—
“When that parson got home, being a man of eddication, he would know where to get the right sort of paper, and then he would make £5 notes cheap, you bet.”
For several Christmas Eves past, this tinker’s boy and a little pal have walked some miles from a neighbouring town to sing carols at my Rectory door. They possess good voices and sing very tunefully some of the old carols, “God rest you, merry gentlemen,” and the like.
One summer afternoon, in the market-place at Hull, I met two grinders coming out of a tavern, near which stood a tinker’s barrow belonging to one of them, Golias Gray, a Gypsy, whom I had seenbefore at fair-times in the seaport town. “Black as the ace of spades” is Golias, and he was, as usual, sporting a yellow shirt. His pale-faced companion, a stranger to me, after a little talk, waxed communicative, and, whilst his Gypsy pal resumed his grinding of knives, he gave me a short list of words inShelta(Tinker’s Talk).
Shelta.
English.
Binni
Little.
Bog
To get.
Buer
Woman, wife.
Cam
Son.
Gap
To kiss.
Gosh
To sit.
Granni
To know.
Hin
One.
Ken
House.
Minkler
Tinker.
Mizzle
To go.
Monkeri
Country.
Mush
Umbrella.
Nyok
Head.
Od
Two.
Sonni
To see.
Stammer
To spit.
Stimmer
Pipe.
Sweebli
Boy.
Thari
To speak.
Tober
Road.
Atone time I had a great liking for long jaunts in search of fossils—cross-country rambles extending over two or three days. Thus I came to know many a deserted quarry and unfrequented byway of our county, as well as the bedchambers of sundry remote wayside inns—“hedge-taverns,” perhaps some would have described these lonely little houses of call. Occasionally, however, I lighted upon an inn which had seen better days, a sleepy old house with mullioned casements, a worn mounting-block of stone, and a rude iron ring still fixed in the wall near the deep porch before which an unfenced stretch of sward dipped towards the roadway.
Let me recall one of my geologizing expeditions on an early March day. I had been successful in my quest, and my knapsack, laden with stony spoils, was not very light. But what matter? It was fine to be striding along a ridgeway with a roaring gale behind, and every wayside tree whistling like a ships rigging in a storm. Going along that road,I stretched out my limbs, and in so doing the very thews and sinews of the mind became more elastic. Straight from the reddening west blew the wild whirling wind, which, like some old giant, frolicsome yet kind, spread out its open palms upon my back, fairly shoving me along. This was living—this fine exaltation, this surging up of joyous emotions; and from a gnarled ash tree a storm-thrush with throbbing speckled throat told the same tale of a heart set free from every care. Such was my mood when at a turn of the road a red-shawled figure, surely a Gypsy, appeared for a moment and as suddenly was lost to sight down a gloomy yew-fringed drive leading to the rear of a low grey mansion. She’ll be out again presently, thought I; so I resolved to await the woman’s reappearance.
Meanwhile, like a spreading forest fire, the sunset flung its flaming crimson far over the land. Tree boughs and boles caught the glow, and underfoot the very grasses burnt by winter frosts seemed dyed with blood. Across a riot of sundown colours, black rooks were heading for their resting-place in the upland woods rugged against a castle-phantasy of lurid cloud piled up in the east.
Loitering there, methought of the wandering Gypsies who in other days had passed along this desolate road. I seemed again to behold a gang of slouching Herons, swarthy, black-eyed, secretive, accompanied by their pack-ponies and donkeys carrying tent-rods, pots, and pans. Who shall say whatprocessions of old Romany souls, long departed, here visit the glimpses of the moon?
The moments flew by, but no Gypsy came. A little longer I waited, pacing sharply up and down the roadway, then as the red shawl had not put in an appearance, visions of a cosy meal by the fire of a certain inn began to beckon alluringly, so I started on my way again. Soon I forgot all about the Gypsy, who by this time had probably done a good stroke in thedukerin line among the servants of the mansion. However, a rutted, grassy lane turning off to the left drew one’s eye towards a gorsy corner where the chimney of a Gypsy van flung a drooping trail of smoke over the tangles, and, going forward, I shouted in the doorway, “Anybody at home?”
A man’s scared face looked out. Perhaps he had expected a command to quit his corner and draw out into the windy night. A moment later in a tone of relief, he said—
“Now I know who you are. You’ll be therashaiI met wi’ Jonathan Boswell by the watermill. Don’t you remember I moved away when you began toroker(talk)? My pal Boswell wanted to have you to himself. That’s why I took my hook. But come inside a bit. This wind’s enough to blow your werybal avrî” (hair off).
How strange it is that if a Gypsy has seen you anywhere for a few moments, he is able to identify your very shadow for ever after.
Gladly I joined Old Frank in his cheeryvâdo, which certainly suggested comfort and gaiety to this traveller on the wild March evening.
“You gave me a bit of a shock,” said Frank. “At first I took you for amuskro(constable), but as soon as the light of my lamp fell on your face I reckernized you in a minute.”
We talked awhile of Old Jonathan, whose faithful consort Fazzy had passed away up in Yorkshire. This brought to mind the red-shawled woman whom I had seen down the road.
“That’ll be mymonushni(wife). I expect her home di-rectly. When she comes, you pretend to be amuskro”—this with a broad grin. “Say roughish-like, ‘Wasn’t your name Liddy West afore you was married?’ Then draw out a bit of paper, a letter folded long or anythink like that’ll do, and say, ‘I’ve come to take you for fortune-telling.’”
No one understands the whole art and mystery of practical joking better than the Gypsy, and he dearly loves to play pranks even upon his fellows. It is part and parcel of the Gypsy’s innate spirit of mischief, examples of which I have seen not a few in my time.
Having acquiesced in the joke, our talk presently ran onmuskros.
“Muskrossî jukels” (policemen are dogs), said the Gypsy.
“There was a pal of mine who was up to cardgames [sharping?], and at Doncaster Races he happened to drop a word or two inRomanes(Gypsy tongue) to a mate. Amuskrowas standing near, and bless me if he didn’tjinthetshib(know the language), and of course my pal and his mate waslel’doprê(taken up). ’Pend upon it,muskros isjukels.”
A good step farther along the road stood the tavern, the “Black Boy,” whose swinging sign of an Ethiopian countenance I was eager to see, since I was to spend the night there in order to resume my fossil-hunting on the morrow.
“Come and see me a little later at thekitshima(inn) down the road, and mind you bring the missis and your fiddle.” As I rose to go, I noticed Frank gave a sidelong glance at my bulging knapsack, and in order to satisfy his curiosity, I took out a fossil, a finegryphea incurva, on seeing which he drew back, holding up his hands in real or mock horror, I could scarcely say which.
“Dâbla, that be one of the Devil’s toe-nails, wery onlucky stuff to carry about you! Wherever did you get it from?”
“Off theBeng’spîro(Devil’s foot), to be sure,” I said, with a laugh, and renewed my invitation pressingly. He promised to come.
What a relief to stretch your limbs before a glowing fire inside an old-fashioned inn, when boisterous winds are shaking the window-panes and driving the loose straw from the cobbled yard into the hedge bottoms. No stranger at this house onthe ridgeway, I know every nook of the room. There is the old gun still reared up in yonder corner. From nails in the cross-beams hang flitches of bacon and bulky hams. Plates and dishes arranged on racks glitter in the firelight. The pewter mugs on the dresser and the bright copper warming-pan hanging on the wall reflect the glow of the ruddy flames darting up the wide chimney. Here and there hang modern oleographs whose crude tints have been softened by smoke.
Tea is set on a table over which a lamp hanging from a hook in the ceiling casts a pleasant radiance. During my meal the landlord, ruddy of countenance, looks in and greets me in a friendly way. From his talk with his wife, a slight, frail-looking woman of seventy who sits darning by the fire, I gather that a horse is very ill in the stable, and any moment the veterinary surgeon is expected. Presently, the barking of a dog in the front of the inn announces his arrival in a gig, and the landlord hurries out with a storm-lantern in his hand. In a few minutes, the two men enter, and before the fire the burly vet rubs his hands, talks in clear, sharp tones, then, tossing off a “scotch” smoking hot, he wishes us good-night. Whereupon the innkeeper goes off to the stable.
Tea over, a small maid with chestnut hair and spotless pinafore clears the table, and I move to the high-backed settle opposite the landlady. In the fire-grate a huge chunk of wood burns brightly,and every now and then a puff of wood-smoke comes out into the room.
Addressing the old lady, I inform her that I am expecting some visitors to see me to-night, and they are stopping in a little lane down the road.
“Why, we had those Gypsies up here this morning. Their faces are well known round here, though we don’t have them so much as we used to do. You take an interest in Gypsies, don’t you, sir? At least I’ve heard it said that you do. They don’t often set foot inside your church, I should think?”
“Sometimes they do, and their reverent behaviour would certainly put to shame some of the more regular attenders. If their unfamiliarity with print leads them to hold a borrowed book upside down, they do at anyrate kneel upon their knees instead of squatting upon the benches, and I have never once known them to go to sleep during sermon-time.”
Speaking about Gypsies and churches, I am reminded of a funny experience I once had all through a Gypsy cabman’s mistake.
I had promised to take an afternoon service at a village church miles away in the country, and the road to it was unfamiliar to me. On my naming the place, the driver said that he knew every inch of the road, and, trusting myself in his hands, we bowled along for several miles, and atlast struck off into a tangle of green lanes. A few minutes before the hour of service—three o’clock—my driver put me down at an old grey stone church, saying, “Here we are, sir.” Entering the church, I found a congregation assembled, and, going into the belfry, I asked for the vestry wherein to robe.
“We ain’t got one here. Our pass’n dresses hisself in his house and comes in at that little door.” The sexton then conducted me to a chantry-chapel full of dusty figures of knights and their ladies lying side by side with their feet resting upon their hounds. There I robed and awaited the ceasing of the bells. When they stopped, I stepped towards the prayer desk, when, to my astonishment, there appeared through the small door in the chancel a fully-robed parson, white-headed and bowed with age. We met and exchanged astonished glances.
Said I, “I’m afraid there is some mistake.”
He shook his head. “I’m deaf, and can’t hear a word you say.” He then went to his desk, and knelt before commencing evensong.
It was an uncomfortable five minutes for me. I could hear the congregation tittering and the mixed choir giggling. In despair I went to the lady organist, and asked for the name of the church. Her reply made it clear that I had come to the wrong village, and, rushing out by the chancel door, I sought my cabby, whom I rated soundly for his blunder. Fortunatelymy destination was no more than a mile and a half farther on.