Here we securely live and eat
The cream of meat;
And keep eternal fires
By which we sit and do divine.
HERRICK: Ode to Sir Clipseby Crew.
Around a fire which blazed and crackled beneath the large seething-pot,
that seemed an emblem of the mystery and a promise of the good cheer
which are the supposed characteristics of the gypsy race, were grouped
seven or eight persons, upon whose swarthy and strong countenances the
irregular and fitful flame cast a picturesque and not unbecoming glow.
All of these, with the exception of an old crone who was tending the
pot, and a little boy who was feeding the fire with sundry fragments of
stolen wood, started to their feet upon the entrance of the stranger.
“What ho! my bob cuffins,” cried the gypsy guide, “I have brought you a
gentry cove, to whom you will show all proper respect: and hark ye, my
maunders, if ye dare beg, borrow, or steal a single croker,--ay, but a
bawbee of him, I’ll--but ye know me.” The gypsy stopped abruptly, and
turned an eye, in which menace vainly struggled with good-humour, upon
each of his brethren, as they submissively bowed to him and his protege,
and poured forth a profusion of promises, to which their admonitor did
not even condescend to listen. He threw off his great-coat, doubled
it down by the best place near the fire, and made the youth forthwith
possess himself of the seat it afforded. He then lifted the cover of the
mysterious caldron. “Well, Mort,” cried he to the old woman, as he bent
wistfully down, “what have we here?”
“Two ducks, three chickens, and a rabbit, with some potatoes,” growled
the old hag, who claimed the usual privilege of her culinary office, to
be as ill-tempered as she pleased.
“Good!” said the gypsy; “and now, Mim, my cull, go to the other tent,
and ask its inhabitants, in my name, to come here and sup; bid them
bring their caldron to eke out ours: I’ll find the lush.”
With these words (which Mim, a short, swarthy member of the gang, with a
countenance too astute to be pleasing, instantly started forth to obey)
the gypsy stretched himself at full length by the youth’s side, and
began reminding him, with some jocularity and at some length, of his
promise to drink to their better acquaintance.
Something there was in the scene, the fire, the caldron, the intent
figure and withered countenance of the old woman, the grouping of the
other forms, the rude but not unpicturesque tent, the dark still woods
on either side, with the deep and cloudless skies above, as the stars
broke forth one by one upon the silent air, which (to use the orthodox
phrase of the novelist) would not have been wholly unworthy the bold
pencil of Salvator himself.
The youth eyed, with that involuntary respect which personal advantages
always command, the large yet symmetrical proportions of his wild
companion; nor was the face which belonged to that frame much less
deserving of attention. Though not handsome, it was both shrewd and
prepossessing in its expression; the forehead was prominent, the brows
overhung the eyes, which were large, dark, and, unlike those of the
tribe in general, rather calm than brilliant; the complexion, though
sun-burnt, was not swarthy, and the face was carefully and cleanly
shaved, so as to give all due advantage of contrast to the brown
luxuriant locks which fell rather in flakes than curls, on either side
of the healthful and manly cheeks. In age, he was about thirty-five,
and, though his air and mien were assuredly not lofty nor aristocratic,
yet they were strikingly above the bearing of his vagabond companions:
those companions were in all respects of the ordinary race of gypsies;
the cunning and flashing eye, the raven locks, the dazzling teeth, the
bronzed colour, and the low, slight, active form, were as strongly their
distinguishing characteristics as the tokens of all their tribe.
But to these, the appearance of the youth presented a striking and
beautiful contrast.
He had only just passed the stage of boyhood, perhaps he might have
seen eighteen summers, probably not so many. He had, in imitation of his
companion, and perhaps from mistaken courtesy to his new society, doffed
his hat; and the attitude which he had chosen fully developed the noble
and intellectual turn of his head and throat. His hair, as yet preserved
from the disfiguring fashions of the day, was of a deep auburn, which
was rapidly becoming of a more chestnut hue, and curled in short close
curls from the nape of the neck to the commencement of a forehead
singularly white and high. His brows finely and lightly pencilled, and
his long lashes of the darkest dye, gave a deeper and perhaps softer
shade than they otherwise would have worn to eyes quick and observant
in their expression and of a light hazel in their colour. His cheek
was very fair, and the red light of the fire cast an artificial tint of
increased glow upon a complexion that had naturally rather bloom than
colour; while a dark riding frock set off in their full beauty the fine
outline of his chest and the slender symmetry of his frame.
But it was neither his features nor his form, eminently handsome as they
were, which gave the principal charm to the young stranger’s appearance:
it was the strikingly bold, buoyant, frank, and almost joyous expression
which presided over all. There seemed to dwell the first glow and life
of youth, undimmed by a single fear and unbaffled in a single hope.
There were the elastic spring, the inexhaustible wealth of energies
which defied in their exulting pride the heaviness of sorrow and the
harassments of time. It was a face that, while it filled you with some
melancholy foreboding of the changes and chances which must, in the
inevitable course of fate, cloud the openness of the unwrinkled brow,
and soberize the fire of the daring and restless eye, instilled also
within you some assurance of triumph, and some omen of success,--a vague
but powerful sympathy with the adventurous and cheerful spirit which
appeared literally to speak in its expression. It was a face you might
imagine in one born under a prosperous star; and you felt, as you gazed,
a confidence in that bright countenance, which, like the shield of
the British Prince, [Prince Arthur.--See “The Faerie Queene.”] seemed
possessed with a spell to charm into impotence the evil spirits who
menaced its possessor.
“Well, sir,” said his friend, the gypsy, who had in his turn been
surveying with admiration the sinewy and agile frame of his young guest,
“well, sir, how fares your appetite? Old Dame Bingo will be mortally
offended if you do not do ample justice to her good cheer.”
“If so,” answered our traveller, who, young as he was, had learnt
already the grand secret of making in every situation a female friend,
“if so, I shall be likely to offend her still more.”
“And how, my pretty master?” said the old crone with an iron smile.
“Why, I shall be bold enough to reconcile matters with a kiss, Mrs.
Bingo,” answered the youth.
“Ha! Ha!” shouted the tall gypsy; “it is many a long day since my old
Mort slapped a gallant’s face for such an affront. But here come our
messmates. Good evening, my mumpers; make your bows to this gentleman
who has come to bowse with us to-night. ‘Gad, we’ll show him that old
ale’s none the worse for keeping company with the moon’s darlings. Come,
sit down, sit down. Where’s the cloth, ye ill-mannered loons, and the
knives and platters? Have we no holiday customs for strangers, think
ye? Mim, my cove, off to my caravan; bring out the knives, and all other
rattletraps; and harkye, my cuffin, this small key opens the inner hole,
where you will find two barrels; bring one of them. I’ll warrant it of
the best, for the brewer himself drank some of the same sort but two
hours before I nimm’d them. Come, stump, my cull, make yourself wings.
Ho, Dame Bingo, is not that pot of thine seething yet? Ah, my young
gentleman, you commence betimes; so much the better; if love’s a
summer’s day, we all know how early a summer morning begins,” added
the jovial Egyptian in a lower voice (feeling perhaps that he was only
understood by himself), as he gazed complacently on the youth, who, with
that happy facility of making himself everywhere at home so uncommon
to his countrymen, was already paying compliments suited to their
understanding to two fair daughters of the tribe who had entered with
the new-comers. Yet had he too much craft or delicacy, call it which you
will, to continue his addresses to that limit where ridicule or jealousy
from the male part of the assemblage might commence; on the contrary, he
soon turned to the men, and addressed them with a familiarity so frank
and so suited to their taste that he grew no less rapidly in their
favour than he had already done in that of the women, and when the
contents of the two caldrons were at length set upon the coarse but
clean cloth which in honour of his arrival covered the sod, it was in
the midst of a loud and universal peal of laughter which some broad
witticism of the young stranger had produced that the party sat down to
their repast.
Bright were the eyes and sleek the tresses of the damsel who placed
herself by the side of the stranger, and many were the alluring glances
and insinuated compliments which replied to his open admiration
and profuse flattery; but still there was nothing exclusive in his
attentions; perhaps an ignorance of the customs of his entertainers, and
a consequent discreet fear of offending them, restrained him; or perhaps
he found ample food for occupation in the plentiful dainties which his
host heaped before him.
“Now tell me,” said the gypsy chief (for chief he appeared to be), “if
we lead not a merrier life than you dreamt of? or would you have us
change our coarse fare and our simple tents, our vigorous limbs and
free hearts, for the meagre board, the monotonous chamber, the diseased
frame, and the toiling, careful, and withered spirit of some miserable
mechanic?”
“Change!” cried the youth, with an earnestness which, if affected, was
an exquisite counterfeit, “by Heaven, I would change with you myself.”
“Bravo, my fine cove!” cried the host, and all the gang echoed their
sympathy with his applause.
The youth continued: “Meat, and that plentiful; ale, and that strong;
women, and those pretty ones: what can man desire more?”
“Ay,” cried the host, “and all for nothing,--no, not even a tax; who
else in this kingdom can say that? Come, Mim, push round the ale.”
And the ale was pushed round, and if coarse the merriment, loud at least
was the laugh that rang ever and anon from the old tent; and though, at
moments, something in the guest’s eye and lip might have seemed, to
a very shrewd observer, a little wandering and absent, yet, upon the
whole, he was almost as much at ease as the rest, and if he was not
quite as talkative he was to the full as noisy.
By degrees, as the hour grew later and the barrel less heavy, the
conversation changed into one universal clatter. Some told their feats
in beggary; others, their achievements in theft; not a viand they had
fed on but had its appropriate legend; even the old rabbit, which had
been as tough as old rabbit can well be, had not been honestly taken
from his burrow; no less a person than Mim himself had purloined it from
a widow’s footman who was carrying it to an old maid from her nephew the
Squire.
“Silence,” cried the host, who loved talking as well as the rest, and
who for the last ten minutes had been vainly endeavouring to obtain
attention. “Silence! my maunders, it’s late, and we shall have the queer
cuffins [magistrates] upon us if we keep it up much longer. What, ho,
Mim, are you still gabbling at the foot of the table when your betters
are talking? As sure as my name’s King Cole, I’ll choke you with your
own rabbit skin, if you don’t hush your prating cheat,--nay, never look
so abashed: if you will make a noise, come forward, and sing us a gypsy
song. You see, my young sir,” turning to his guest, “that we are not
without our pretensions to the fine arts.”
At this order, Mim started forth, and taking his station at the right
hand of the soi-disant King Cole, began the following song, the chorus
of which was chanted in full diapason by the whole group, with the
additional force of emphasis that knives, feet, and fists could
bestow:--
THE GYPSY’S SONG.
The king to his hall, and the steed to his stall,
And the cit to his bilking board;
But we are not bound to an acre of ground,
For our home is the houseless sward.
We sow not, nor toil; yet we glean from the soil
As much as its reapers do;
And wherever we rove, we feed on the cove
Who gibes at the mumping crew.
CHORUS.--So the king to his hall, etc.
We care not a straw for the limbs of the law,
Nor a fig for the cuffin queer;
While Hodge and his neighbour shall lavish and labour,
Our tent is as sure of its cheer.
CHORUS.--So the king to his hall, etc.
The worst have an awe of the harman’s [constable] claw,
And the best will avoid the trap; [bailiff]
But our wealth is as free of the bailiff’s see
As our necks of the twisting crap. [gallows]
CHORUS.--So the king to his hall, etc.
They say it is sweet to win the meat
For the which one has sorely wrought;
But I never could find that we lacked the mind
For the food that has cost us nought!
CHRUS.--So the king to his hall, etc.
And when we have ceased from our fearless feast
Why, our jigger [door] will need no bars;
Our sentry shall be on the owlet’s tree,
And our lamps the glorious stars.
CHORUS.
So the king to his hall, and the steed to his stall,
And the cit to his bilking board;
But we are not bound to an acre of ground,
For our home is the houseless sward.
Rude as was this lawless stave, the spirit with which it was sung atoned
to the young stranger for its obscurity and quaintness; as for his host,
that curious personage took a lusty and prominent part in the chorus;
nor did the old woods refuse their share of the burden, but sent back a
merry echo to the chief’s deep voice and the harsher notes of his jovial
brethren.
When the glee had ceased, King Cole rose, the whole band followed
his example, the cloth was cleared in a trice, the barrel--oh! what a
falling off was there!--was rolled into a corner of the tent, and the
crew to whom the awning belonged began to settle themselves to rest;
while those who owned the other encampment marched forth, with King Cole
at their head. Leaning with no light weight upon his guest’s arm, the
lover of ancient minstrelsy poured into the youth’s ear a strain of
eulogy, rather eloquent than coherent, upon the scene they had just
witnessed.
“What,” cried his majesty in an enthusiastic tone, “what can be so truly
regal as our state? Can any man control us? Are we not above all laws?
Are we not the most despotic of kings? Nay, more than the kings of
earth, are we not the kings of Fairyland itself? Do we not realize the
golden dreams of the old rhymers, luxurious dogs that they were? Who
would not cry out,--
‘Blest silent groves! Oh, may ye be
Forever Mirth’s best nursery!
May pure Contents
Forever pitch their tents
Upon these downs, these meads, these rocks, these mountains.’”
Uttering this notable extract from the thrice-honoured Sir Henry Wotton,
King Cole turned abruptly from the common, entered the wood which
skirted it, and, only attended by his guest and his minister Mim, came
suddenly, by an unexpected and picturesque opening in the trees, upon
one of those itinerant vehicles termed caravans, he ascended the few
steps which led to the entrance, opened the door, and was instantly in
the arms of a pretty and young woman. On seeing our hero (for such we
fear the youth is likely to become), she drew back with a blush not
often found upon regal cheeks.
“Pooh,” said King Cole, half tauntingly, half fondly, “pooh, Lucy,
blushes are garden flowers, and ought never to be found wild in the
woods:” then changing his tone, he said, “come, put some fresh straw
in the corner, this stranger honours our palace to-night; Mim, unload
thyself of our royal treasures; watch without and vanish from within!”
Depositing on his majesty’s floor the appurtenances of the regal
supper-table, Mim made his respectful adieus and disappeared; meanwhile
the queen scattered some fresh straw over a mattress in the narrow
chamber, and, laying over all a sheet of singularly snowy hue, made
her guest some apology for the badness of his lodging; this King Cole
interrupted by a most elaborately noisy yawn and a declaration of
extreme sleepiness. “Now, Lucy, let us leave the gentleman to what he
will like better than soft words even from a queen. Good night, sir, we
shall be stirring at daybreak;” and with this farewell King Cole took
the lady’s arm, and retired with her into an inner compartment of the
caravan.
Left to himself, our hero looked round with surprise at the exceeding
neatness which reigned over the whole apartment. But what chiefly
engrossed the attention of one to whose early habits books had always
been treasures were several volumes, ranged in comely shelves, fenced
with wirework, on either side of the fireplace. “Courage,” thought
he, as he stretched himself on his humble couch, “my adventures have
commenced well: a gypsy tent, to be sure, is nothing very new; but a
gypsy who quotes poetry, and enjoys a modest wife, speaks better than
books do for the improvement of the world!”