The gypsies of Wales are to those of England what the Welsh themselves
are to the English; more antique and quaint, therefore to a collector of
human bric-a-brac more curious. The Welsh Rom is specially grateful for
kindness or courtesy; he is deeper as to language, and preserves many of
the picturesque traits of his race which are now so rapidly vanishing.
But then he has such excellent opportunity for gypsying. In Wales there
are yet thousands of acres of wild land, deep ravines, rocky corners, and
roadside nooks, where he can boil the kettle and _hatch the tan_, or
pitch his tent, undisturbed by the rural policeman. For it is a charming
country, where no one need weary in summer, when the days are long, or in
early autumn,--
"When the barley is ripe,
And the frog doth pipe,
In golden stripe
And green all dressed;
When the red apples
Roll in the chest."
Then it is pleasant walking in Wales, and there too at times, between
hedge-rows, you may meet with the Romany.
I was at Aberystwith by the sea, and one afternoon we went, a party of
three gentlemen and three ladies, in a char-a-banc, or wagonette, to
drive. It was a pleasant afternoon, and we had many a fine view of
distant mountains, on whose sides were mines of lead with silver, and of
which there were legends from the time of Queen Elizabeth. The hills
looked leaden and blue in the distance, while the glancing sea far beyond
recalled silver,--for the alchemy of imagery, at least, is never wanting
to supply ideal metals, though the real may show a sad _deficit_ in the
returns.
As we drove we suddenly overtook a singular party, the first of whom was
the leader, who had lagged behind. He was a handsome, slender, very dark
young man, carrying a violin. Before him went a little open cart, in
which lay an old woman, and by her a harp. With it walked a good-looking
gypsy girl, and another young man, not a gypsy. He was by far the
handsomest young fellow, in form and features, whom I ever met among the
agricultural class in England; we called him a peasant Apollo. It became
evident that the passional affinity which had drawn this rustic to the
gypsy girl, and to the roads, was according to the law of natural
selection, for they were wonderfully well matched. The young man had the
grace inseparable from a fine figure and a handsome face, while the girl
was tall, lithe, and pantherine, with the diavolesque charm which, though
often attributed by fast-fashionable novelists to their heroines, is
really never found except among the lowborn beauties of nature. It is
the beauty of the Imp and of the Serpent; it fades with letters; it dies
in the drawing-room or on the stage. You are mistaken when you think you
see it coming out of the synagogue, unless it be a very vulgar one. Your
Lahova has it not, despite her black eyes, for she is too clever and too
conscious; the devil-beauty never knows how to read, she is unstudied and
no actress. Rachel and the Bernhardt have it not, any more than Saint
Agnes or Miss Blanche Lapin. It is not of good or of evil, or of
culture, which is both; it is all and only of nature, and it does not
know itself.
As the wagonette stopped I greeted the young man at first in English,
then in Romany. When he heard the gypsy tongue he started, his
countenance expressing the utmost surprise and delight. As if he could
hardly believe in such a phenomenon he inquired, "_Romany_?" and as I
nodded assent, he clasped my hand, the tears coming into his eyes. Such
manifestations are not common among gypsies, but I can remember how one,
the wife of black Ben Lee, was thus surprised and affected. How well I
recall the time and scene,--by the Thames, in the late twilight, when
every tree and twig was violet black against the amber sky, where the
birds were chirp-chattering themselves to roost and rest, and the river
rippled and murmured a duet with the evening breeze. I was walking
homeward to Oatlands when I met the tawny Sinaminta, bearing her little
stock of baskets to the tent and van which I had just quitted, and where
Ben and his beautiful little boy were lighting the _al fresco_ fire. "I
have prayed to see this day!" exclaimed the gypsy woman. "I have so
wanted to see the Romany rye of the Coopers. And I laid by a little
_delaben_, a small present, for you when we should meet. It's a
photograph of Ben and me and our child." I might have forgotten the
evening and the amber sky, rippling river and dark-green hedge-rows, but
for this strange meeting and greeting of an unknown friend, but a few
kind words fixed them all for life. That must be indeed a wonderful
landscape which humanity does not make more impressive.
I spoke but a few words to the gypsy with the violin, and we drove on to
a little wayside inn, where we alighted and rested. After a while the
gypsies came along.
"And now, if you will, let us have a real frolic," I said to my friends.
A word was enough. A quart of ale, and the fiddle was set going, and I
sang in Romany, and the rustic landlord and his household wondered what
sort of guests we could be. That they had never before entertained such
a mixed party I can well believe. Here, on one hand, were indubitable
swells, above their usual range; there, on the other, were the dusky
vagabonds of the road; and it could be no common condescending patronage,
for I was speaking neither Welsh nor English, and our friendly fraternity
was evident. Yes, many a time, in England, have I seen the civil
landlady or the neat-handed Phillis awed with bewilderment, as I have
introduced Plato Buckland, or the most disreputable-looking but
oily--yea, glycerine-politeful--old Windsor Frog, into the parlor, and
conversed with him in mystic words. Such an event is a rare joy to the
gypsy. For he loves to be lifted up among men; he will tell you with
pride of the times when he was pointed at, and people said, "_He's_ the
man!" and how a real gentleman once invited him into his house and gave
him a glass of wine. But to enter the best room of the familiar tavern,
to order, in politest but imperative tones, "beer"--sixpenny beer--for
himself and "the other gentleman," is indeed bliss. Then, in addition to
the honor of moving in distinguished society, before the very eyes and in
the high places of those who have hitherto always considered him as a
lowly cuss, the Romany realizes far more than the common peasant the
contrast-contradiction, or the humor of the drama, its bit of
mystification, and especially the mystification of the house-folk. This
is unto him the high hour of the soul, and it is not forgotten. It
passes unto the golden legends of the heart, and you are tenderly
enshrined in it.
Once, when I was wandering afoot with old Cooper, we stopped at an inn,
and in a room by ourselves ordered luncheon. The gypsy might have had
poultry of the best; he preferred cold pork. While the attendant was in
the room, he sat with exemplary dignity at the table; but as the girl
left, he followed her step sounds with his ears, like a dog, moved his
head, glanced at me with a nod, turned sideways from the table, and,
putting his plate on his knees, proceeded to eat without a fork.
"For it isn't proper for me to eat at the table with you, or _as_ you
do."
The Welsh gypsy played well, and his sister touched the harp and sang,
the ale circulated, and the villagers, assembling, gazed in a crowd into
the hall. Then the girl danced solo, just as I have seen her sisters do
in Egypt and in Russia, to her brother's fiddling. Even so of old,
Syrian and Egyptian girls haunted gardens and taverns, and danced _pas
seul_ all over the Roman empire, even unto Spain, behaving so gypsily
that wise men have conjectured that they were gypsies in very truth. And
who shall say they were not? For it is possible that prehistorically,
and beyond all records of Persian Luri and Syrian Ballerine and Egyptian
Almeh, there was all over the East an outflowing of these children of art
from one common primeval Indian stock. From one fraternity, in Italy, at
the present day, those itinerant pests, the hand-organ players, proceed
to the ends of the earth and to the gold-diggings thereof, and time will
yet show that before all time, or in its early dawn, there were root-born
Romany itinerants singing, piping, and dancing unto all the known world;
yea, and into the unknown darkness beyond, _in partibus infidelium_.
A gentleman who was in our party had been long in the East. I had known
him in Alexandria during the carnival, and he had lived long time _outre
mer_, in India. Hearing me use the gypsy numerals--_yeck_, _dui_,
_trin_, _shtor_, _panj_,--he proceeded to count in Hindustani or Persian,
in which the same words from one to ten are almost identical with Romany.
All of this was carefully noted by the old gypsy mother,--as, also, that
my friend is of dark complexion, with sparkling black eyes. Reduced in
dress, or diluted down to worn corduroy and a red tie, he might easily
pass muster, among the Sons of the Road, as one of them.
And now the ladies must, of course, have their fortunes told, and this, I
could observe, greatly astonished the gypsies in their secret souls,
though they put a cool face on it. That we, ourselves, were some kind of
a mysterious high-caste Romany they had already concluded, and what faith
could we put in _dukkerin_? But as it would indubitably bring forth
shillings to their benefit, they wisely raised no questions, but calmly
took this windfall, which had fallen as it were, from the skies, even as
they had accepted the beer, which had come, like a providential rain,
unto them, in the thirst of a dry journey.
It is customary for all gypsy sorceresses to take those who are to be
fortune-told aside, and, if possible, into a room by themselves. This is
done partly to enhance the mystery of the proceeding, and partly to avoid
the presence of witnesses to what is really an illegal act. And as the
old sorceress led a lady into the little parlor, the gypsy man, whose
name was Mat, glanced up at me, with a droll, puzzled expression, and
said, "Patchessa _tu_ adovo?" (Do _you_ believe in that?) With a wink,
I answered, "Why not? I, too, tell fortunes myself." _Anch io sono
pittore_. It seemed to satisfy him, for he replied, with a nod-wink, and
proceeded to pour forth the balance of his thoughts, if he had any, into
the music of his violin.
When the ladies had all been instructed as to their future, my friend,
who had been in the East, must needs have his destiny made known unto
him. He did not believe in this sort of thing, you know,--of course not.
But he had lived a long time among Orientals, and he just happened to
wish to know how certain speculations would fall out, and he loves, above
all things, a lark, or anything out of the common. So he went in. And
when alone with the sybil, she began to talk to him in Romany.
"Oh, I say, now, old lady, stow that!" he exclaimed. "I don't understand
you."
"You don't understand me!" exclaimed the fortune-teller. "Perhaps you
didn't understand your own mother when she talked Romany to you. What's
the use of your tryin' to make yourself out a Gorgio to _me_? Don't I
know our people? Didn't your friend there talk Romanes? Isn't he all
Romaneskas? And didn't I hear you with my own ears count up to ten in
Romany? And now, after that, you would deny your own blood and people!
Yes, you've dwelt in Gorgines so long that you think your eyes are blue
and your hair is yellow, my son, and you have been far over the sea; but
wherever you went you knew Romanes, if you don't know your own color.
But you shall hear your fortune. There is lead in the mines and silver
in the lead, and wealth for him who is to win it, and that will be a dark
man who has been nine times over the sea, and eaten his bread under the
black tents, and been three times near death, once from a horse, and once
from a man, and once through a woman. And you will know something you
don't know now before a month is over, and something will be found that
is now hidden, and has been hidden since the world was made. And there's
a good fortune coming to the man it was made for, before the oldest tree
that's a-growing was a seed, and that's a man as knows how to count
Romanes up to ten, and many a more thing beside that, that he's learned
beyond the great water."
And so we went our ways, the harp and violin sounds growing fainter as we
receded, till they were like the buzzing of bees in drying clover, and
the twilight grew rosier brown. I never met Mat Woods again, though I
often heard of his fame as a fiddler. Whether my Anglo-Indian friend
found the fortune so vaguely predicted is to me as yet unknown. But I
believe that the prediction encouraged him. That there are evils in
palmistry, and sin in card-drawing, and iniquity in coffee-grounding, and
vice in all the planets, is established by statute, and yet withal I
incline to believe that the art of prediction cheers up many a despondent
soul, and does some little good, even as good ale, despite the wickedness
of drinking, makes some hearts merry and others stronger. If there are
foolish maids who have had their heads turned by being told of coming
noblemen and prospective swells, who loved the ground they trod on, and
were waiting to woo and win and wed, and if the same maidens herein
described have thereby, in the manner set forth, been led by the
aforesaid devices unto their great injury, as written in the above
indictment, it may also _per contra_ and on the other hand be pleaded
that divers girls, to wit, those who believe in prediction, have, by
encouragement and hope to them held out of legally marrying sundry young
men of good estate, been induced to behave better than they would
otherwise have done, and led by this hope have acted more morally than
was their wont, and thereby lifted themselves above the lowly state of
vulgarity, and even of vice, in which they would otherwise have groveled,
hoveled, or cottaged. And there have been men who, cherishing in their
hearts a prediction, or, what amounts to the same thing, a conviction, or
a set fancy, have persevered in hope until the hope was realized. You, O
Christian, who believe in a millennium, you, O Jew, who expect a Messiah,
and await the fulfillment of your _dukkerin_, are both in the right, for
both will come true when you _make_ them do so.