A TRENTSIDE FAIR
OVERNIGHT a welcome rain had fallen upon a thirsty land, and morning
broke cool and grey, with a lively breeze stirring the tree-tops, and
shaking the raindrops from the grasses, as I strode along the banks of
the river Trent, with my face set towards West Stockwith Horse Fair. The
long, dry summer was drawing to a close, and there was an agreeable sense
of novelty in the rain-drenched aspect of the countryside. After a
harvest prematurely ripened by an exuberance of sunshine, brown-cheeked
September was now hastening to splash here a leaf and there a spray with
rich colour, and on this particular morning it seemed to me that reeds,
flags, and willows were taking on autumnal tints earlier than usual.
Occasionally, from the river bank, I spied a water-rat or a coot swimming
amongst the sedges, and once on the path stretching before me a pert
wagtail—the Gypsy bird—foretold, as the Gypsies say, a coming encounter
with roving friends.
Pleasantly enough my early morning walk terminated at the old-world
Trentside village of my destination. By this time, between the vapours
rolling overhead, the sun had appeared, and was gilding the barges moored
to a primitive quay below the long line of straggling houses. On the
Lincolnshire side of the Trent quite a colony of Gypsy vans had drawn up
on a turfy plateau, and their owners were now to be seen crossing the
river by ferry-boat, their laughter floating to me over the water. This
was by no means my first visit to the riverside horse fair, and after
refreshing at one of the inns, I went down the lane to the fair-ground
occupying two fields, in the larger of which were already assembled
horses and dealers in a state of lively commotion beyond a fringe of
ale-booths and luncheon tents; while in the smaller field were gathered
numerous Gypsy families with their carts and smoking fires.
Never in my life do I remember to have witnessed such a horde of ancient
vagabonds of both sexes as on this occasion, and with no little delight I
stood and gazed upon the picture. What struck me in particular was the
motley character of the party. Decrepit great-grandfolks mumbling
together; grandfathers in ragged garb and battered hats; wizened
grandmothers sucking their pipes; aged uncles and aunts in time-stained
tatters; wives in their teens dandling babies; bright-eyed children
drumming happily on the bottoms of inverted pots and pans; merry lads and
lasses, interspersed amongst an assembly of the quaintest rag dolls it
has ever been my fortune to behold. It seemed to me as if all the old
Romany folk of several counties had met together for the last time in
their lives.
Moving into the larger field, I had not gone far before I felt a tug at
my sleeve, and, looking round, I saw the two lads whom I had met with
Jonathan by the watermill. They led me straight to a little covered cart
drawn under the hedge where Boswell was conversing with ’Plisti Smith.
As I have said elsewhere, the play-spirit is strong in the Gypsy, even in
his latter years, and while talking with my two friends up came a
comical-looking Gypsy, Charley Welch, who must have been nearer ninety
than seventy, and, picking up a potato lying on the ground—the large
field had grown a crop of potatoes that summer—he laughingly dropped it
into Jonathan’s coat pocket.
“There, don’t say that Old Charley never gave you nothink.”
After that I walked with Jonathan among the horses, and we came upon
Flash Arno and Black Înan, who found time to accompany us to one of the
refreshment booths where the talk ranged through a variety of topics.
Înan knew Mister Groome, the book-writer, up Edinburgh way. He had met
him there not long before in company with my friend Frampton Boswell. I
soon found that these Gypsies did not hold with folks writing books about
their race and telling the _mumpli gawjê_ (nasty gentiles) about their
ways.
No one loves a little fun more than the Gypsy, and generally he means no
harm by his playful romancing. After all, he is but a grown-up child,
and loves to make-believe. The Gypsy’s world is a haphazard one, in
which luck plays a large part. He knows nothing of the orderly cosmos of
providence or science. I make these remarks by way of prelude to
examples of this spirit.
Who can help laughing inwardly as the Gypsy weaves a romantic tale about
you, all for the benefit of a stranger? And in the course of my
morning’s ramble through West Stockwith Fair I had several experiences of
the kind.
“See that little dealer over there?” said Peter Smith, indicating a small
Gypsy man holding a tall black horse by a halter. The animal looked
gigantic by the side of its owner.
“Come along with me, and while I _roker_ (talk) to him, _maw puker_ a
_lav_” (don’t speak a word). Then we both went up to the little Gypsy,
and with the gravest of countenances Peter began to spin a long romance
all about an imaginary sister of mine who lived at Brighton and was
wanting just such a horse as the one before us. It really was a fine
animal, and I could not refrain from stroking its glossy skin.
Peter continued: “This here gentleman doesn’t ride hisself, you see, but
his sister has asked him to look out for a horse, and this one ’ull just
suit her.” I found it difficult to preserve silence, but somehow I
managed to do so. Finally, Peter took me aside and talked mysteriously
about nothing in particular, and quietly bade me walk away. A few
minutes later I beheld Peter quaffing a large mug of ale evidently at the
little man’s expense.
Moving in and out among the throng, I presently walked out along the
road, and there I came upon Hamalên Smith, who, after some talk,
suggested a bit of fun. Pointing to a Gypsy camp down a lane, he said—
“That’s Belinda Trickett sitting by the fire with her children. Go you
down the lane and have a little game. I’ll stop here and see how you get
on. You don’t know the woman, I suppose?”
“Not I. She’s a stranger to me.”
“That’s all right. Togged as you are, she’ll never take you for a
parson, not she. Mind you look severe-like and say to Belinda, ‘Is your
husband at home? What’s his name?’ It’s Harry, but she’s sure to say
it’s something else.”
Down the lane I went, and, approaching Mrs. Trickett and family, I drew
out a notebook and pencil—a sure way to frighten a Gypsy. Why these
things should suggest “police” I can scarcely say, but they do. The
woman’s clay pipe dropped from her mouth and fell upon the grass, and
beneath the brown of her cheeks a pallor crept. Mrs. Trickett was
alarmed.
“What is your husband’s name?”
“George Smith.”
“When will he be at home?”
“I can’t say. He’s gone to the fair.”
Under their mother’s shawl three tiny children huddled like little brown
partridges beneath an outspread wing, a sight which caused me some
pricking of heart. The biggest child kept saying, “What does the _gawjo_
want, mammy?” Just then I looked up the lane and saw a man coming down,
who by his jaunty air I guessed was the woman’s husband.
“_Kushti sawla_ (Good morning), Mr. Trickett; take a little _tuvalo_.” I
handed him my tobacco pouch. “I’ve come a long way to see you. Ask me
to sit down a bit, now I’ve got here.”
Mrs. Trickett’s face was a study in wonderment, as I sat down for a
friendly chat. “_Dawdi_,” said she, “you did _trasher mandi_ (frighten
me). I thought there was _tshumani oprê_” (something up).
When Hamalên Smith, from the top of the lane, saw that the episode had
arrived at a happy termination, he strolled down the lane and joined us.
A far-travelled Gypsy is Hamalên, and many a tale can he unfold.
“One morning,” said he, “a policeman came up to my wagon and told me
as how twenty-four fowls was missing from the next field to where we
was stopping. Somebody had stole ’em in the night. ‘Of course you
suspects us,’ says I to the policeman, ‘but you’re wrong. We’ve
never touched a feather of ’em.’ However, nothing would do but the
man must search my wagon from top to bottom, and for all his trouble
he found nothing. I know’d very well I hadn’t touched ’em, and I was
telling him the truth.
“‘Wait a bit,’ says he. ‘Didn’t I see _three_ vans in this field
last night as I was going along the high road?’
“‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘My boys have gone on in front with the other
wagons.’
“Says he, ‘That looks suspicious. I must make haste and find them.
Where have they gone?’
“‘I can’t say, for I don’t know myself.’
“‘Well, I shall have to come with you, and you must show me where to
find them.’ The policeman jumped up and sat on the seat along with
me and my wife, and off we went to find the boys. Of course it was
plain to see by the wheel-marks just outside the gate which way they
had turned, but when we got to the cross-roads about three miles
furder on, the road was that hard and dry that no wheel-marks could
be seen. Now I could easily have misled the policeman, but I thought
it best to try to find the boys as quick as I could, for I didn’t
believe for a minute they had done it. Looking down the road, I saw
the boys’ _patrin_ (guiding sign). The policeman didn’t know what I
was looking at, and it wasn’t likely as I should show him our signs,
so I says we’ll take this road, and we turned off to the left.
“‘How did you know which way the boys had gone?’ asked the policeman.
‘Was it some thing tied on that tree bough hanging over the road?’
“‘I never sees nothing on the tree bough,’ says I.
“I thought to myself the policeman must have been reading some tale
about the Gypsies. Anyway, he had heard something about _patrin_s
and such-like, but I wasn’t going to be the one to larn him our
signs, so I changed the subject.
“‘Yon’s my boys on in front,’ says I. The policeman began rubbing
his hands and smiling. At last we caught up with the boys, and the
policeman searched inside the two wagons and found nothing. Then he
says—
“‘I might as well look on the top,’ and he climbed on to the roofs of
the wagons.
“‘Hello, what have we here?’ says he, in a way that made me turn
warm. He lifted up a dead pigeon.
“‘Where did you get that from?’ I asked the boys.
“‘Picked it up a bit o’ way down the road. It had just killed itself
on the telegraph wires by the wood side.’
“After that, the disappointed policeman went away, and the thieves
were never found out.
* * * * *
“Another time we draw’d into a rutted lane lying off the high road.
We had our three wagons, and at night we always covered the big one
up, because we didn’t sleep in it. It was a nice quiet lane, and we
thought there would be nobody to trouble us as there was no willage
near. But about midnight a man knocked on the wagon and woke us up.
“‘What are you doing here?’
“‘No harm, I hope. We’ll clear out first thing in the morning.’ He
said he’d been knocking at the big wagon what was covered up, and he
couldn’t make anybody hear.
“‘Well,’ says I, ‘whatever you do, don’t you touch that big wagon
agen.’
“‘Why, what’s in it?’
“‘Wild beasts, for sure—_a lion and a tiger_.’
“You’d ha’ laughed at the way that man made hisself scarce. Next
morning, as we draw’d out of the lane, we met a policeman.
“‘I hear you have some wild beasts in that big wagon of yours.
Wasn’t it a bit dangerous stopping so near the highway?’
“‘Well, we’re clearing out in good time.’
“‘Get along with you then.’
“A few miles furder on the road we come to a little town, and as it
was market day we pulled up in the big square, and I took the cover
off the big wagon. Just as I was doing this, who should come up but
the policeman we’d met in the early morning.
“‘Where’s those wild beasts of yours?’ says he.
“‘Oh,’ says I, ‘I’ll soon show you.’ And I went inside my brush and
carpet wagon and brought out two big rugs, and I showed him a tiger
skin and a lion skin, both lined with red. ‘There’s my wild beasts,’
said I.
“Talk about laughing, I thought that policeman would never ha’
stopped.”