"If you please, sir, there's a gentleman--a _gypsy_ gentleman--wishes to
see you."
It is an English theory that the master can have no "visitors" who are
not gentlemen. I must admit that Anselo's dress was not what could be
called gentlemanly. From his hat to his stout shoes he looked the
impenitent gypsy and sinful poacher, unaffected and natural. There was a
cutaway, sporting look about his coat which indicated that he had grown
to it from boyhood "in woodis grene." He held a heavy-handled whip, a
regular Romany _tchupni_ or _chuckni_, which Mr. Borrow thinks gave rise
to the word "jockey." I thought the same once, but have changed my mind,
for there were "jockeys" in England before gypsies. Altogether, Anselo
(which comes from Wenceslas) was a determined and vigorous specimen of an
old-fashioned English gypsy, a type which, with all its faults, is not
wanting in sundry manly virtues.
I knew that Anselo rarely entered any houses save ale-houses, and that he
had probably never before been in a study full of books, arms, and
bric-a-brac. And he knew that I was aware of it. Now, if he had been
more of a fool, like a red Indian or an old-fashioned fop, he would have
affected a stoical indifference, for fear of showing his ignorance. As
it was, he sat down in an arm-chair, glanced about him, and said just the
right thing.
"It must be a pleasant thing, at the end of the day, after one has been
running about, to come home to such a room as this, so full of fine
things, and sit down in such a comfortable chair." "Will I have a glass
of old ale? Yes, I thank you." "That is _kushto levinor_ [good ale]. I
never tasted better." "Would I rather have wine or spirits? No, I thank
you; such ale as this is fit for a king."
Here Anselo's keen eye suddenly rested on something which he understood.
"What a beautiful little rifle! That's what I call a _rinkno yag-engree_
[pretty gun]."
"Has it been a _wafedo wen_ [hard winter], Anselo?"
"It has been a dreadful winter, sir. We have been hard put to it
sometimes for food. It's dreadful to think of. I've acti'lly seen the
time when I was almost desperated, and if I'd had such a gun as that I'm
afraid, if I'd been tempted, I could a-found it in my heart to knock over
a pheasant."
I looked sympathetically at Anselo. The idea of his having been brought
to the very brink of such a terrible temptation and awful crime was
touching. He met the glance with the expression of a good man, who had
done no more than his duty, closed his eyes, and softly shook his head.
Then he took another glass of ale, as if the memory of the pheasants or
something connected with the subject had been too much for him, and
spoke:--
"I came here on my horse. But he's an ugly old white punch. So as not
to discredit you, I left him standing before a gentleman's house, two
doors off."
Here Anselo paused. I acknowledged this touching act of thoughtful
delicacy by raising my glass. He drank again, then resumed:--
"But I feel uneasy about leaving a horse by himself in the streets of
London. He'll stand like a driven nail wherever you put him--but there's
always plenty of claw-hammers to draw such nails."
"Don't be afraid, Anselo. The park-keeper will not let anybody take him
through the gates. I'll pay for him if he goes."
But visions of a stolen horse seemed to haunt Anselo. One would have
thought that something of the kind had been familiar to him. So I sent
for the velveteen coat, and, folding it on his arm, he mounted the old
white horse, while waving an adieu with the heavy-handled whip, rode away
in the mist, and was seen no more.
Farewell, farewell, thou old brown velveteen! I had thee first in
by-gone years, afar, hunting ferocious fox and horrid hare, near
Brighton, on the Downs, and wore thee well on many a sketching tour to
churches old and castles dark or gray, when winter went with all his
raines wete. Farewell, my coat, and benedicite! I bore thee over France
unto Marseilles, and on the steamer where we took aboard two hundred
Paynim pilgrims of Mahound. Farewell, my coat, and benedicite! Thou
wert in Naples by great Virgil's tomb, and borest dust from Posilippo's
grot, and hast been wetted by the dainty spray from bays and shoals of
old Etrurian name. Farewell, my coat, and benedicite! And thou wert in
the old Egyptian realm: I had thee on that morning 'neath the palms when
long I lingered where of yore had stood the rose-red city, half as old as
time. Farewell, my coat, and benedicite! It was a lady called thee into
life. She said, Methinks ye need a velvet coat. It is a seemly guise to
ride to hounds. Another gave me whip and silvered spurs. Now all have
vanished in the darkening past. Ladies and all are gone into the gloom.
Farewell, my coat, and benedicite. Thou'st had a venturous and traveled
life, for thou wert once in Moscow in the snow. A true Bohemian thou
hast ever been, and as a right Bohemian thou wilt die, the garment of a
roving Romany. Fain would I see and hear what thou'rt to know of
reckless riding and the gypsy _tan_, of camps in dark green lanes, afar
from towns. Farewell, mine coat, and benedicite!