I MAKE A NEW ACQUAINTANCE
FOR several years I was curate-in-charge of a parish abutting upon the
Great North Road, and during that time I used to meet many Gypsies on the
famous highway. There passed along it members of the Boswell clan,
making their way from Edinburgh to London; the dark Herons, after
spending the summer months in the Northern Counties, came by this route
to their winter quarters at Nottingham; a lawless horde of Lovells also
knew this road well. Sometimes these Gypsies would turn aside from the
dusty highway for a brief rest in the green lanes across an adjacent
river, but they rarely tarried longer than a day. With one of these
Gypsies I became intimately acquainted, and this is how our friendship
began.
One May morning I had been strolling along the aforesaid road, and,
turning towards the river where it is spanned by an old mill-bridge, I
loitered there in expectation of the arrival of a pack of otter-hounds,
visitors from another county; for complaints had long been accumulating
to the effect that _Lutra_ had been making depredations among the fish,
game, and poultry all along the reaches of the river. Adjoining the
bridge was a watermill where often might be heard the humming of the
great wheel and the roar of foam-flecked water. Mellowed by time’s
gentle touch, the irregular outlines of the building seemed verily as if
arranged to be imaged on canvas; timbers and weathered stones were
everywhere mottled with rosettes of orange and grey lichen, and when the
sunbeams warmed the tints and tones of the old mill into rich masses of
colour you experienced a thrill which made you wish to repeat it.
A little way off, our river was crossed by a shallow ford rarely used by
vehicular traffic, which mostly passed by the bridge. Once a year,
however, the miller closed the bridge in order to preserve a right-of-way
through his yard, and on this occasion toll was taken of every cart,
while a free way was allowed by the ford. But the astute fellow usually
arranged that the closing of the bridge should coincide with a market day
at the nearest town, and he would choose a time when the river was
swollen by flood-water beyond its ordinary dimensions, thus rendering the
ford a dangerous crossing.
After waiting awhile, a murmur of deep voices broke upon my ear, as with
a rush and a splash about a score of bonny, rough-coated dogs burst into
view round a bend in the stream. It was not in my plans to follow the
dogs, so when the pack and its excited companions had gone by, I
proceeded leisurely along a lane leading towards the green uplands
looking down upon the valley.
A little way up the lane I came upon two dark-featured lads, and, going
up to one of them who was tacking strips of straw-plait upon the top of a
three-legged table, I said—
“You seem very busy this morning.”
“We must do something for a living.”
“You’re certainly a good hand at your business. How long are you
stopping here?”
“That’s more nor I know.” (This with a shrewd look at me from top to
toe.) “Ax grandfather, up yonder wi’ the hosses.”
Higher up the lane, and almost hidden by outlying tangles of bramble and
wild-rose, sat a man of sixty or more, puffing tobacco smoke from his
black clay, and near him on the wayside three horses ripped the tender
grasses.
Looking up at me with a start, the man said—
“Well, you fairly took me by surprise, sir. For a wonder I never heard
you a-coming. I must be getting deaf.”
“_Romanitshel_?” (Gypsy) I queried.
“_Âvali_, _mi tshavo_” (Yes, my son), he replied; “you’s been among our
people, that’s plain, or you wouldn’t talk like you do. Mebbe you’s
heard tell o’ Jonathan Boswell—that’s me. But I must be off now with
these here hosses to the smithy. We’s _besh_in _akai_ (stopping here)
for a day or two. Our wagon’s in the _kitshima_ (tavern) yard just past
the mill.”
“Well, Jonathan, I want you to bring one of those Gypsy-tables the boys
are making to my place this afternoon; don’t fail to come. I shall _dik
avrî_ for _tîro mui_ about _trin ora_” (look out for your face about
three o’clock).
“Right, I’ll be there, _raia_.”
In due course the Gypsy presented himself at my door in company with his
two grandsons, and among them they carried three tables. I had only
asked for one, but Jonathan was such a “find” that I gladly purchased all
the articles and bade the little party follow me into the garden. The
two grandsons displayed a remarkable knowledge of trees, which they were
able to identify not merely by their foliage, but by the character of
their bark. Wild birds they knew by note and flight as well as by
plumage. There is so much a Gypsy boy knows about nature.
How meagre, by contrast, is the information possessed by the average
County Council schoolboy; which reminds me that I was once giving an
object-lesson to a class of fifth-standard children attending our village
school. We were seated on a river bank whose insect life and botanical
treasures I had been pointing out to an interested group of listeners.
As nothing had been said about the scaly denizens of the stream, I
concluded my talk by putting a question to the entire class.
“Hands up, those who can tell me the names of any fish to be found in
this river.”
Quickly a dozen pink palms were uplifted, and I could see that several
lips were bursting with information. Imagine my surprise when I was
informed—“red-herring, sprats, and mackerel.”
On the following evening I went across the fields to see my friends by
the watermill. The amber light of sunset was falling upon green hedge
and rippling river. From a thorn bush a nightingale jug-jugged
deliciously. There was poetry in the air. Nor was it dispelled by the
discovery that my friends had drawn their “house on wheels” into the
grassy lane leading down to the ford.
Seated on a mound of sand, Jonathan was chatting with a stranger who had
the looks of an Irishman. I joined them, but no sooner had I dropped a
word or two of Romany than the stranger arose, saying, “I don’t
understand your talk, so I’d better be going.” He then left us, and,
seeing he had gone away, old Fazenti, Jonathan’s wife, stepped down from
the living-wagon, and our discourse became considerably enlivened by her
presence.
Speaking of _duker_in (fortune-telling), she said, “It’ll go on while the
world lasts,” which was Fazzy’s way of saying that the credulous will be
in the world after the poor have left it. “It’s the hawking-basket that
gi’s us our chance, don’t you _dik_ (see)? I takes care never to be
without my licence, and the _muskro_ (policeman) would have to get up
wery early to catch old Fazzy asleep. Did I ever have any _mulo-mas_?
{61} Many’s the time I’ve had a bit. In spring, when lambs are about,
that’s the time for _mulo-mas_.
“A good country for hedgehogs is this, but we don’t eat ’em in the
spring. The back end of the year is the best time for ’em; there’s a bit
of flesh on ’em then. When you find one, if he’s rolled up in a ball,
you rub his back with a stick right down his spine, and he’ll open out
fast enough. Then you hit him hard on the nose, and he’s as dead as a
door nail. The old way of cooking him was to cover him with clay and
bake him in the fire. When he was cooked you tapped the clay ball, and
the prickles and skin came away with the clay. Nowadays we burn down the
bristles, then shave ’em off, draw and clean him and roast him on a spit
before a hot fire. He’s wery good with _puvengri_s (potatoes), sage, and
onions. _Bouri_s (snails) are good to eat in winter. You get them in a
hard frost from behind old stumps of trees. You put salt on ’em and they
make fine broth. Wery strengthening is _bouri-zimen_” (snail broth).
[Picture: A rest by the way. Photo. Fred Shaw]
While we were conversing, Jonathan’s grandsons passed by with a lurcher.
“A useful dog, that, I should think,” said I.
“_Kushto yek sî dova_ for _shushiaw_ and _kanengrê_” (A good one is that
for rabbits and hares), replied the old man. “I minds well the day I
bought him off a man with a pot-cart as was stopping along with us. We’d
got leave from a farmer to draw into a lane running between some clover
fields, and we were just sitting down to a cup o’ tea when a keeper comes
along and says—
“‘I’m afraid some of you fellows have been up to mischief, because
there’s a hare in a snare along this hedge.’
“‘Then it’s somebody else’s snare, not ours,’ I says, ‘for we’s only just
got here, and yon farmer as give us leave to stop will tell you the same
if you ask him.’
“‘Well, see here,’ says the keeper, ‘there’s a rabbit for your pot. Keep
a sharp look out, and mind you let me know if anybody comes to fetch that
hare. There’s my cottage up yonder.’
“Then he went away, and would you believe it, a bit after the moon got up
we see a man coming across the field and straight to that snare he went,
and as he was taking the hare out of it, there was a tap on his shoulder
from the keeper. Now, who do you think the man was that got catched so
nicely? _It was the willage policeman_. And that night I bought that
here _jukel_ (dog), I did, and me and the dog had a fine time among the
_shushiaw_ (rabbits) after the keeper and the policeman had gone away.
About a week after, the _muskro_ (policeman) had to appear in court, and
a wery poor figure he cut afore the _pukinger_ (magistrate). You see, he
was catched proper, and couldn’t get out of it no-how. The pot-cart man
and me had to go up as witnesses.”
“You’ll know this countryside well, I expect. Do you ever spend the
night in Dark Lane, as I believe they call it?”
“One time we used to stop there a lot, _rai_, but they won’t let us now.
How’smiver, we _hatsh odoi_ (encamp there) for a _râti_ (night) at odd
times, spite of everybody.”
This remark was accompanied by a half-smothered chuckle from Jonathan,
who, while filling his pipe from my tobacco pouch, seemed to be
ruminating upon a reminiscence which presently came out.
The said lane lies pleasantly between a neighbouring village and the
river, and about the month of May the grass down there begins to be
sweet, but woe to the Gypsies whom the constable finds encamped
thereabouts.
Jonathan went on to tell how he and his party once passed a night very
happily there when the may-buds were bursting. And this is how it was
done.
In a wayside tavern the Gypsy had heard it whispered that the County
Police had gone to the town for the annual inspection, which involved a
temporary absence of the constables from their respective localities.
But, to make quite sure of this, on arriving at the village of F—,
Jonathan sought out a certain cottage and thus addressed himself to a
constable’s wife—
“Is the sergeant at home?”
“No, my man. What do you want him for?”
“A pony of mine has gone astray, and I want him to let me know if he
hears anything about it. Perhaps he’ll be at home to-night?”
“He won’t, I’m afraid.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Thus Jonathan camped down Dark Lane with impunity.
One morning shortly after my meeting with Jonathan, a Gypsy mother called
at my Rectory. She led her black-eyed, five-year-old boy by the hand.
Brown as a berry, the handsome little fellow would have served admirably
for an artist’s model, and his mother had many pleasing touches of Gypsy
colour about her attire. From beneath a bright red _diklo_ (kerchief)
which she wore, a few black curls straggled out on to her forehead, and a
gay bodice showed under her green shawl. The woman said that she had
heard so much of me from her father—Jonathan Boswell—that she had come on
purpose to see me. I invited her into the kitchen, and over bread and
cheese and ale we chatted.
“Ain’t we all delated, _raia_, come to think of it? There’s a Man above
as made us all.”
Quickly I made friends with the little boy, and at my request his mother
afforded our household no small delight by leaving her son with us for
the day. The tiny lad was entirely unaccustomed to house ways, and his
behaviour was a study. On seeing a Christmas card with the Christ-child
lying in the manger guarded by a white-winged angel, he exclaimed, “I
know what that is” (pointing to the heavenly visitant); “we often sees
’em flying over the fields. _It’s a seagull_.”
With great readiness he joined in the games of my children, such as
shuttlecock and battledore, skipping, and the like. Sitting at a table
for a meal was evidently a novel experience for the little chap, and it
was amusing to see him slip off his chair and squat on the hearthrug,
putting his plate on his knee as though a Gypsy boy ought not to do
exactly as the _gawjê_, and he used his fingers freely in lieu of fork
and spoon. After the meal we sat round the fire, and talked of his life
on the road.
“I found a hen’s nest in the hedge-bottom, this morning, I did.”
“Any eggs in?” I asked.
“Yes; three.”
“Did you take them?”
“No, I left ’em—_till there was more_.”
Then I told him fairy tales of green woods, ghosts, and goblins, and he
became excited, springing once or twice from his chair, as if he would
like to have danced about the room.
“Oh, I knows a lot about _mulo_s” (ghosts), said the little Gypsy.
“There’s different sorts—milk-white ’uns and coal-black ’uns. When we’re
abed at nights, they come screaming round our wagon and flapping at the
windows. My daddy gets his gun and shoots, then we hears ’em no more for
a bit. But they are soon back agen, and I’m that frit when I hears ’em,
I can’t sleep. When mammy’s going out with her basket of a morning, and
daddy’s gone somewhere to see about a hoss, I daren’t go far into the big
wood agen our stopping-place, ’cos of the black pig what lives there.
Daddy has seen it, and nobody can’t kill it, for you can bang a stick
right through it without hurting it. Mammy allus says, ‘Don’t you never
go into that wood, else the black pig’ll get you.’”
We showed him picture books, and, pointing to an ass and a foal, he said,
“My daddy’s got a little donkey just like that, three months old, and
when it’s bigger I shall ride on it, like that man’s doing in the
pictur’.”
We rambled in the Rectory garden, and he quickly found a hedgehog in its
nest. All the senses of this little fellow were extremely alert.
In the early evening his mother returned for him, and their meeting was a
pretty sight. Placing her hawking-basket on the ground, she picked up
her laddie in her arms and kissed him. Slowly the pair walked away,
casting more than one backward glance at the house.
A few days later, news reached me of a Gypsy arrival in a green lane
about a mile from my Rectory. I therefore hastened across the fields,
and, long before sighting the party, whiffs of wood-smoke, which the
breeze brought my way, told that they were already encamped. On reaching
the spot, Farmer W—’s best bullock pasture, I spied Jonathan’s cart along
with other vehicles drawn up with their backs towards a high hedge.
There were fires on the grass, and from family groups merry voices rang
out on the air. In the lane a troop of children were hovering around a
little black donkey, a pretty young foal, which allowed them to fondle it
to their hearts’ content. What a picture it was which greeted
me—tree-boles, tilt-carts, and hedgerows lit up by the fading sunlight,
and the blue smoke of the fires wafted about the undulating field dipping
down to the river. Quickly I dropped into a corner by one of the fires,
and the mirth was just at its height when up rode Farmer W— on his
chestnut cob.
[Picture: A Wayside Idyl. Photo. Fred Shaw]
“Where’s that scamp of a Boswell?” he shouted angrily.
Jonathan stepped forward, hanging his head somewhat.
“What does all this mean?” asked the farmer. “I thought it was only for
yourself that you begged leave to stop here. Who the divil’s all this
gang?”
“I really couldn’t help it,” said Jonathan. “They stuck to me, and would
come in. They’re all delations of mine, don’t you see, sir?”
A look from the Gypsy made me step forward and plead for the party, which
I did with success.
[Picture: Children of the Open Air. Photo. Fred Shaw]
About the middle of June I was again in Old Boswell’s company. Under a
hedge pink with wild-roses, we sat smoking and waiting for the fair to
begin on Stow Green, a South Lincolnshire common. Already horses were
assembling and dealers were beginning to arrive in all sorts of
conveyances. Hot sunshine blazed down upon the common, whose only
building was a wretched-looking lockup, around which lounged several
representatives of the county constabulary. Wandering in and about the
motley throng, I caught a whisper going the round that a fight was to
take place before the end of the day. It had been explained to me that
this fight was not the result of any quarrel arising at the fair. It had
been arranged long beforehand. Whenever a difference arose between two
families, champions were told off to fight the matter out at Stow Green
Fair.
Somewhere about the middle of the afternoon, as the business began to
slacken, a number of people were seen to move to one corner of the
common. Evidently something was afoot. I wandered across and found a
crowd consisting mainly of Gypsies, and in order to get a better view, I
climbed upon a trestle table outside a booth. In the middle of a ring of
people stood two of the dark Grays, stripped to the waist, and, at a
signal given by an elderly man, the combatants put up their “maulers” and
the fight began. It was by no means a one-sided contest, the men being
well matched with regard to weight and strength. Blow followed blow in
quick succession, and at the first drawing of blood the Gypsy onlookers
became excited, and the entire crowd began to surge to and fro. Of
course, the police hurried up, but soon perceived that it was useless to
interfere.
“Let ’em have it out,” cried many voices. After a breathing space, the
fighters again closed in, and, parting a little, one of them stepped back
a pace or two and, springing towards his opponent, dealt him a heavy blow
which determined the battle, and all was over. At this juncture, the
table on which I and others stood suddenly gave way, and we were
precipitated to the grass, but no harm was done, beyond a few bruises and
the shattering of sundry jugs and glasses.
An echo of a fighting song haunts me as I recall this Gypsy contest on
Stow Green—
“Whack it on the grinders, thump it on the jaw,
Smack it on the tater-trap a dozen times or more.
Slap it on the snuff-box, make the claret fly,
Thump it on the jaw again, never say die.”
After the fair was over I sat under a hedge and took tea with Jonathan
and Fazenti.
A hare’s back adorned my plate.
“Why, mother, I didn’t know that this was in season.”
“My _dinelo_ (simpleton), don’t you _jin_ (know) _it’s always in season
with the likes of us_?”