The "private kitchen" indicates that the guests will have facilities for
doing their own cooking, as all of them bring their own victuals in
perpetual picnic. In the inclosure of the house in Hersham, the tops of
two or three gypsy vans could always be seen above the high fence, and
there was that general air of mystery about the entire establishment
which is characteristic of all places haunted by people whose ways are
not as our ways, and whose little games are not as our little games. I
had become acquainted with it and its proprietor, Mr. Hamilton, in that
irregular and only way which is usual with such acquaintances. I was
walking by the house one summer day, and stopped to ask my way. A
handsome dark-brown girl was busy at the wash-tub, two or three older
women were clustered at the gate, and in all their faces was the manner
of the _diddikai_ or _chureni_, or half-blood gypsy. As I spoke I
dropped my voice, and said, inquiringly,--
"Romanes?"
"Yes," was the confidential answer.
They were all astonished, and kept quiet till I had gone a few rods on my
way, when the whole party, recovering from their amazement, raised a
gentle cheer, expressive of approbation and sympathy. A few days after,
walking with a lady in Weybridge, she said to me,--
"Who is that man who looked at you so closely?"
"I do not know."
"That's very strange. I am quite sure I heard him utter two words in a
strange language, as you passed, as if he only meant them for you. They
sounded like _sarshaun baw_." Which means, "How are you, sir?" or
friend. As we came up the street, I saw the man talking with a
well-dressed, sporting-looking man, not quite a gentleman, who sat
cheekily in his own jaunty little wagon. As I passed, the one of the
wagon said to the other, speaking of me, and in pure Romany, evidently
thinking I did not understand,--
"_Dikk'adovo Giorgio_, _adoi_!" (Look at that Gorgio, there!)
Being a Romany rye, and not accustomed to be spoken of as a Gorgio, I
looked up at him, angrily, when he, seeing that I understood him, smiled,
and bowed politely in apology. I laughed and passed on. But I thought
it a little strange, for neither of the men had the slightest indication
of gypsiness. I met the one who had said _sarishan ba_ again, soon
after. I found that he and the one of the wagon were not of gypsy blood,
but of a class not uncommon in England, who, be they rich or poor, are
affected towards gypsies. The wealthy one lived with a gypsy mistress;
the poorer one had a gypsy wife, and was very fond of the language.
There is a very large class of these mysterious men everywhere about the
country. They haunt fairs; they pop up unexpectedly as Jack-in-boxes in
unsuspected guise; they look out from under fatherly umbrellas; their
name is Legion; their mother is Mystery, and their uncle is Old Tom,--not
of Virginia, but of Gin. Once, in the old town of Canterbury, I stood in
the street, under the Old Woman with the Clock, one of the quaintest
pieces of drollery ever imagined during the Middle Ages. And by me was a
tinker, and as his wheel went _siz-'z-'z-'z_, _uz-uz-uz-z-z_! I talked
with him, and there joined us a fat, little, elderly, spectacled,
shabby-genteel, but well-to-do-looking sort of a punchy, small tradesman.
And, as we spoke, there went by a great, stout, roaring Romany woman,--a
scarlet-runner of Babylon run to seed,--with a boy and a hand-cart to
carry the seed in. And to her I cried, "_Hav akai te mandy'll del tute a
shaori_!" (Come here, and I'll stand a sixpence!) But she did not
believe in my offer, but went her way, like a Burning Shame, through the
crowd, and was lost evermore. I looked at the little old gentleman to
see what effect my outcry in a strange language had upon him. But he
only remarked, soberly, "Well, now, I _should_ 'a' thought a sixpence
would 'a' brought her to!" And the wheel said, "Suz-zuz-zuz-z-z I should
'a' suz-suz 'a' thought a suz-z-zixpence would 'a' suz-zuz 'a' brought
her, too-z-z-z!" And I looked at the Old Woman with the Clock, and she
ticked,
"A--six--pence--would--have--brought--_me_--two--three--four"--and I
began to dream that all Canterbury was Romany.
We came to the house, the landlord was up-stairs, ill in bed, but would
be glad to see us; and he welcomed us warmly, and went deeply into Romany
family matters with my friend, the Oxford scholar. Meanwhile, his
daughter, a nice brunette, received and read a letter; and he tried to
explain to me the mystery of the many men who are not gypsies, yet speak
Romany, but could not do it, though he was one of them. It appeared from
his account that they were "a kind of mixed, you see, and dusted in, you
know, and on it, out of the family, it peppers up; but not exactly, you
understand, and that's the way it is. And I remember a case in point,
and that was one day, and I had sold a horse, and was with my boy in a
_moramengro's buddika_ [barber's shop], and my boy says to me, in
Romanes, 'Father, I'd like to have my hair cut.' 'It's too dear here, my
son,' said I, Romaneskes; 'for the bill says threepence.' And then the
barber, he ups and says, in Romany, 'Since you're Romanys, I'll cut it
for _two_pence, though it's clear out of all my rules.' And he did it;
but why that man _rakkered Romanes_ I don't know, nor how it comes about;
for he hadn't no more call to it than a pig has to be a preacher. But
I've known men in Sussex to take to diggin' truffles on the same
principles, and one Gorgio in Hastings that adopted sellin' fried fish
for his livin', about the town, because he thought it was kind of
romantic. That's it."
Over the chimney-piece hung a large engraving of Milton and his
daughters. It was out of place, and our host knew it, and was proud. He
said he had bought it at an auction, and that it was a picture of
Middleton,--a poet, he believed; "anyhow, he was a writing man." But, on
second thought, he remembered that the name was not Middleton, but
Millerton. And on further reflection, he was still more convinced that
Millerton _was_ a poet.
I once asked old Matthew Cooper the Romany word for a poet. And he
promptly replied that he had generally heard such a man called a
_givellengero_ or _gilliengro_, which means a song-master, but that he
himself regarded _shereskero-mush_, or head-man, as more elegant and
deeper; for poets make songs out of their heads, and are also ahead of
all other men in head-work. There is a touching and unconscious tribute
to the art of arts in this definition which is worth recording. It has
been said that, as people grow polite, they cease to be poetical; it is
certain that in the first circles they do not speak of their poets with
such respect as this.
Out again into the fresh air and the frost on the crisp, crackling road
and in the sunshine. At such a time, when cold inspires life, one can
understand why the old poets and mystics believed that there was fire in
ice. Therefore, Saint Sebaldus, coming into the hut of a poor and pious
man who was dying of cold, went out, and, bringing in an armful of
icicles, laid them on the andirons and made a good fire. Now this fire
was the inner glowing glory of God, and worked both ways,--of course you
see the connection,--as was shown in Adelheid von Sigolsheim, the Holy
Nun of Unterlinden, who was so full of it that she passed the night in a
freezing stream, and then stood all the morning, ice-clad, in the choir,
and never caught cold. And the pious Peroneta, to avoid a sinful suitor,
lived all winter, up to her neck, in ice-water, on the highest Alp in
Savoy. {125} These were saints. But there was a gypsy, named Dighton,
encamped near Brighton, who told me nearly the same story of another
gypsy, who was no saint, and which I repeat merely to show how extremes
meet. It was that this gypsy, who was inspired with anything but the
inner glowing glory of God, but who was, on the contrary, cram full of
pure cussedness, being warmed by the same,--and the devil,--when chased
by the constable, took refuge in a river full of freezing slush and
broken ice, where he stood up to his neck and defied capture; for he
verily cared no more for it than did Saint Peter of Alcantara, who was
both ice and fire proof. "Come out of that, my good man," said the
gentleman, whose hen he had stolen, "and I'll let you go." "No, I won't
come out," said the gypsy. "My blood be on your head!" So the gentleman
offered him five pounds, and then a suit of clothes, to come ashore. The
gypsy reflected, and at last said, "Well, if you'll add a drink of
spirits, I'll come; but it's only to oblige you that I budge."
Then we walked in the sober evening, with its gray gathering shadows, as
the last western rose light rippled in the river, yet fading in the
sky,--like a good man who, in dying, speaks cheerfully of earthly things,
while his soul is vanishing serenely into heaven. The swans, looking
like snowballs, unconscious of cold were taking their last swim towards
the reedy, brake-tangled islets where they nested, gossiping as they
went. The deepening darkness, at such a time, becomes more impressive
from the twinkling stars, just as the subduing silence is noted only by
the far-borne sounds from the hamlet or farm-house, or the occasional
whispers of the night-breeze. So we went on in the twilight, along the
Thames, till we saw the night-fire of the Romanys and its gleam on the
_tan_. A _tan_ is, strictly speaking, a tent, but a tent is a dwelling,
or stopping-place; and so from earliest Aryan time, the word _tan_ is
like Alabama, or "here we rest," and may be found in _tun_, the ancestor
of town, and in _stan_, as in Hindostan,--and if I blunder, so much the
better for the philological gentlemen, who, of all others, most delight
in setting erring brothers right, and never miss a chance to show,
through others' shame, how much they know.
There was a bark of a dog, and a voice said, "The Romany rye!" They had
not seen us, but the dog knew, and they knew his language.
"_Sarishan ryor_!"
"_O boro duvel atch' pa leste_!" (The great Lord be on you!) This is
not a common Romany greeting. It is of ancient days and archaic. Sixty
or seventy years ago it was current. Old Gentilla Cooper, the famous
fortune-teller of the Devil's Dike, near Brighton, knew it, and when she
heard it from me she was moved,--just as a very old negro in London was,
when I said to him, "_Sady_, uncle." I said it because I had recognized
by the dog's bark that it was Sam Smith's tan. Sam likes to be
considered as _deep_ Romany. He tries to learn old gypsy words, and he
affects old gypsy ways. He is pleased to be called Petulengro, which
means Smith. Therefore, my greeting was a compliment.
In a few minutes we were in camp and at home. We talked of many things,
and among others of witches. It is remarkable that while the current
English idea of a witch is that of an old woman who has sold herself to
Satan, and is a distinctly marked character, just like Satan himself,
that of the witch among gypsies is general and Oriental. There is no
Satan in India. Mrs. Smith--since dead--held that witches were to be
found everywhere. "You may know a natural witch," she said, "by certain
signs. One of these is straight hair which curls at the ends. Such
women have it in them."
It was only recently, as I write, that I was at a very elegant art
reception, which was fully reported in the newspapers. And I was very
much astonished when a lady called my attention to another young and very
pretty lady, and expressed intense disgust at the way the latter wore her
hair. It was simply parted in the middle, and fell down on either side,
smooth as a water-fall, and then broke into curls at the ends, just as
water, after falling, breaks into waves and rapids. But as she spoke, I
felt it all, and saw that Mrs. Petulengro was in the right. The girl
with the end-curled hair was uncanny. Her hair curled at the ends,--so
did her eyes; she _was_ a witch.
"But there's a many witches as knows clever things," said Mrs.
Petulengro. "And I learned from one of them how to cure the rheumatiz.
Suppose you've got the rheumatiz. Well, just you carry a potato in your
pocket. As the potato dries up, your rheumatiz will go away."
Sam Smith was always known on the roads as Fighting Sam. Years have
passed, and when I have asked after him I have always heard that he was
either in prison or had just been let out. Once it happened that, during
a fight with a Gorgio, the Gorgio's watch disappeared, and Sam was
arrested under suspicion of having got up the fight in order that the
watch might disappear. All of his friends declared his innocence. The
next trouble was for _chorin a gry_, or stealing a horse, and so was the
next, and so on. As horse-stealing is not a crime, but only "rough
gambling," on the roads, nobody defended him on these counts. He was, so
far as this went, only a sporting character. When his wife died he
married Athalia, the widow of Joshua Cooper, a gypsy, of whom I shall
speak anon. I always liked Sam. Among the travelers, he was always
spoken of as genteel, owing to the fact, that whatever the state of his
wardrobe might be, he always wore about his neck an immaculate white
woolen scarf, and on _jours de fete_, such as horse-races, sported a
_boro stardi_, or chimney-pot hat. O my friend, Colonel Dash, of the
club! Change but the name, this fable is of thee!
"There's to be a _walgoro_, _kaliko i sala_--a fair to-morrow morning, at
Cobham," said Sam, as he departed.
"All right. We'll be there."
As I went forth by the river into the night, and the stars looked down
like loving eyes, there shot a meteor across the sky, one long trail of
light, out of darkness into darkness, one instant bright, then dead
forever. And I remembered how I once was told that stars, like mortals,
often fall in love. O love, forever in thy glory go! And that they send
their starry angels forth, and that the meteors are their messengers. O
love, forever in thy glory go! For love and light in heaven, as on
earth, were ever one, and planets speak with light. Light is their
language; as they love they speak. O love, forever in thy glory go!