A FORGOTTEN HIGHWAY—“ON THE ROAD” WITH JONATHAN—THE PATRIN—THE GHOST OF
THE HAYSTACK
“WE was all brought up on this Old Dyke. We’s _hatsh_’d (camped) on it
in all weathers. I knows every yard of it. Ay, the fine _kanengrê_
(hares) we’s taken from these here fields.”
The speaker was my old friend, Jonathan Boswell, who with his tilt-cart
had overtaken me whilst strolling along the grass-grown Roman Ermine
Street which traverses the broad Heath stretching southward of Lincoln.
At the Gypsy’s cheery invitation, I joined him on his seat under the
overarching tilt. Behind us were the diminishing towers of the old city,
and right on ahead the chariot-way of the Imperial legions ran, straight
as an arrow along the Heath. Not a wild expanse, mind you, like your
Yorkshire moorland with its wimpling burns and leagues of heather, though
I daresay our Heath, now so admirably tilled, was savage enough in the
days when “the long, lone, level line of the well-kept warpath, marked at
intervals with high stones or posts as a guiding-line in fog or snow,
stretched through a solitude but rarely broken, except by the footfall of
the legionaries and the plaint of the golden plover sounding sweet from
off the moorland.” Turf-covered from hedge to hedge for many a mile, the
High Dyke, as the old road is now called, may well be described as a
forgotten highway. Indeed, I have tramped along it mile on mile without
meeting a soul, unless mayhap it was a sun-tanned drover slouching at the
heels of half a dozen bullocks, or a village lad asleep in a
hedge-bottom, with a soft-eyed motherly cow or two grazing not far away.
On this particular morning near the end of April, an unclouded sun lit up
the verdant cornlands and larch spinneys. It shone upon the loins of the
sturdy nag between the shafts. It touched into a brighter gold the
gorse-bloom on the wayside bushes, and provoked the green-finches to
fling their songs into the air from lichened palings and bramble sprays.
Onward we journeyed, bumping and jolting over the uneven turfy road, and
occasionally dodging the mounds of earth thrown up by the burrowing
rabbits. What a picturesque figure my companion presented in his faded
bottle-green coat adorned with large pearl buttons. His close-fitting
dogskin cap imparted to his swarthy, sharply-cut features a not
inappropriate poacher-like air, and I fancied the old man’s wrinkles had
deepened on his brow since our last meeting, just after his wife’s death
up in Yorkshire.
Sitting back under the hood, Jonathan here burst out with a pretty little
reminiscence.
“D’ye know, my pal, what this here bit o’ the Old Dyke brings to my mind?
Ay, deary me, it takes me back to times as’ll never, never come no
more—the days when I were a lad along with my people, and our delations
a-_besh_in (resting) on this here wery grass we’s passing over. See,
there, under that warm bank topped with thick thorns: well, I’s slept
there times on end with my dear mammy and daddy in our tent, and my
uncles and aunts would be _hatsh_in (camping) right along this sheltered
bit. I can see it all while I’s talking to you—the carts with their
shafts propped up and the smook a-going up from the fires afore the
tents, and the ponies and donkeys grazing under the trees yonder. Ay, my
son, them were the times for the likes of us.
“There’s one thing I minds” (this with a merry twinkle in his eye).
“I’ll tell you about it. It were a fine summer morning, somewheres about
six o’clock. My mammy and daddy was up making a fire to boil the kettle.
I heard ’em bustling about, and I ought to ha’ been up to help, but I
were lazy-like that morning. Then comes my daddy a-talking quick to
hisself, and I know’d summut were the matter. He lifts up the _tan-kopa_
(tent-blanket) and hollers at me as I lay stretched out upo’ the straw—
“_Hatsh oprê_, _tshavo_, _kèr sig_. _De graiaw_ and _mailas saw
praster_’d _avrî_. _Jaw_’_vrî_ an’ _dik_ for _len._’ (Get up, boy, make
haste. The horses and donkeys have all run away. Go forth and look for
them.)
“I were out and off in a jiffey. I never stopped to get dressed. What’s
more, me not thinking what I was a-doing, I throws away the only thing I
had on my back—my shirt—just as you toss off your coat when you’s in a
hurry, and away I goes down the long road to find the animals. Whilst I
were away, all the family, my big brothers and sisters, and them
delations as I spoke of, had gathered round the fires for _sawla-hawben_
(breakfast), an’ they hadn’t finished when I got back with the hosses and
donkeys. I’d clean forgot how I were fixed, an’, my gom, didn’t they
laff when they set eyes on me; an’ my blessed mammy, she shouts—
“‘_Kai sî tîro gad_, _m’o rinkeno tshavo_?’ (Where’s your shirt, my
pretty boy?) Into the tent I dived, an’ I weren’t long dressing, for I
wanted to be gitting my share o’ the _balovas_ an’ _yora_s (ham and
eggs).”
Occasionally the spinneys skirting the deserted road obscured the view of
the far-off Wolds, but one could forgive these temporary interventions,
for the sprays of larch and beech hanging out from the little woods were
delicate in their new spring garb, and as the breezes caught them they
rose and sank with a beautiful feathery droop. Now across the fields on
our left hand there came into view a familiar landmark, Dunston Pillar,
concerning which I once heard a story from the lips of Bishop Edward
Trollope, a whilom neighbour of mine.
At one time Lincoln Heath was a vast unenclosed rabbit warren dotted over
with fir woods and quarries, and at times travellers lost their way upon
it. So Dunston Pillar was erected, and a lantern was placed on top to
guide benighted wayfarers over the Heath. Doubtless the old lighthouse
served its purpose well, yet it did not always enable people to reach
their own homes in safety, for the locality was infested with robbers on
the look out for travelling gentry. Not far from the Pillar stood an old
coaching inn, the “Green Man,” and one night, after assisting their
driver to his box, two gentlemen who had been carousing there thought it
prudent to remind their man thus: “John, be sure you keep the Pillar
light upon your right, and then we shall reach Lincoln safely.” However,
when the two awoke at daybreak and found themselves still near the
Pillar, one of them called out, “Why, John, where are we?” Upon which,
John replied drowsily from the box, “Oh, it’s a’ roight, sir, the
Pillar’s on our roight.” And so it was, for he had been driving round it
all night.
As we jogged along, Jonathan would occasionally jerk his whip towards a
rich pasture, and with a sly wink would say, “We’s _puv_’d _our graiaw_
in that field more than once.” Let me explain. In order to give their
horses a good feed, the Gypsies when camping on the High Dyke would turn
their animals overnight into a nice fat pasture, taking care, of course,
to remove them early in the morning.
At this point we drew rein, and took a meal under the lee of a plantation
in whose boughs thrushes fluted and willow-wrens made fairy music. Not
far away, couch-grass fires sent their smoke across the level surface of
a loamy field, making the air of the lane pungent with the scent of
burning stalks. Seated there under the spreading trees, my Gypsy
companion related a poaching incident with some gusto, for it is next to
impossible to dispossess the Gypsy of the notion that the wild rabbits
frisking about the moors and commons are as free to him as to the owner
of the lands on which they happen to be playing.
[Picture: Netting Rabbits. Photo. F. R. Hinkins]
“One time when our folks was camping on the Dyke a keeper comes up to
the fire. It was evening, and we was having some stew, and the
keeper joined us. He were a pleasant, good-company fellow, wery
different from keepers nowadays, and after the meal was over, my old
mammy says to him, ‘There’s two things that’s wery good—a drop of
brandy to warm the cockles o’ your heart, and a bit o’ black ’bacca
to warm your snitch-end.’ And the keeper agreed. Then my daddy
brings out a black bottle and mixes him a drink in a teacup, and us
boys come peeping into the tent to listen to the tales what daddy and
the keeper got a-telling. I can see ’em all a-sitting there now, my
old mam a-puffing her _swêgler_ (pipe) and the keeper and daddy
blowing a big cloud till you couldn’t hardlins see across the tent
for smook. But mam never gave us boys nothink from the bottle, and
when the keeper began to get jolly, my dad tipped us a wink, and off
goes three of us wi’ the dogs, and we had a good time in the big
woods. Nobody came near us, and we didn’t carry the game home that
night lest we might meet a _gawjo_. We know’d a thing better than
that. We hid the game in a leafy hollow, and sent some of the big
gells in the morning with sacks, and they brought all home safe.”
[Picture: ’Neath the Hedgerow. Photo. Fred Shaw]
Two miles onward we stopped a few minutes at Byard’s Leap to look at the
large iron horseshoes embedded in the turf. It is these shoes that help
to perpetuate the local legend which gives the hamlet its name. Here is
the Gypsy version of the tradition.
“Hundreds and hundreds of years ago, there was a wicked witch what
lived in a stone-pit wi’ big dark trees hanging over it. This woman
did a lot of mischief on the farms all round, witching the stock in
the fields, and she cast sickness on people young and old. They say
the witch was once a beautiful girl who sold her blood to the _Beng_
(Devil), and that’s how she got her powers. At last she grew wery
ugly, and still went on working great harm. One day the folks of
that neighbourhood met together and tossed up to see who was to kill
the witch. It was a shepherd who had to do it, though it went
against his mind, as he had often played with the witch when she was
a beautiful girl. However, he promised to put an end to her, and set
off to choose a horse to ride on. All the horses on the farm were
driven down to a pond. One of them was a blind one, an old favourite
of the farmer’s, which he wouldn’t allow to be killed. Now, while
the horses were drinking, the shepherd was to _wuser_ a _bâ_ (throw a
stone) over the horses’ backs into the water, and the one that looked
up first was the one he was to ride. Well, if the poor old blind
horse didn’t lift up its head, so he saddled it and bridled it and
rode off to the stone-pit. When he got there he shouted, ‘Come out,
my lass, I want to speak to you.’
“‘I’m suckling my cubs;’—she had two bairns, and the shepherd was
said to be their father—‘wait till I’ve tied my shoe-strings, and
then I’ll come.’ Soon she came out, and, springing on to the horse’s
back behind the shepherd, she dug her claws into the animal’s flesh,
while the shepherd rode poor blind Bayard—that was the horse’s
name—towards the cross-roads, and on the way there the _grai_ (horse)
gave a tremendous jump—sixty feet—and both the riders were thrown
off; the witch was killed on the spot, the shepherd was lamed for
life, and the blind horse fell down dead.”
Starting from the first set of four horseshoes in the turf, I measured
the distance in strides to the next set of four, and, roughly speaking,
found it to be sixty feet.
Here our roads diverged, Jonathan going westward towards the “Cliff,”
while I took the turn for Sleaford.
Within three weeks from this meeting with Jonathan on the High Dyke, I
had business calling me to the town of Newark-on-Trent, where, as luck
had it, the May horse-fair was in full swing, and under the shadow of the
Castle by the waterside I met my Gypsy friend once more. In a corner of
the fairground, which was crowded with horses, I found Jonathan in
company with one of the Smiths, and the two men were drinking ale out of
big horn tumblers rimmed with silver. Petulengro had a nice _vâdo_, and,
going up to it, I read the name “Bailey, Warrington.” He explained that
he was breaking new ground, and therefore had taken a change of name.
Like most Gypsies, he had some pets—two dogs, a bantam cock and hen, a
jackdaw, and a canary. As Jonathan had absorbing business on hand, I did
not see him again until evening, when I joined him in his tilt-cart, and
we set off towards Ollerton. Underneath the vehicle were slung several
tent rods, notched, or numbered, in order to facilitate the erection of
the tent. Said he, “I’m expecting my nephew to join us to-morrow—that’s
Charley—he’s promised to come after us, so I must lay the _patrin_s
(signs) for him.”
Let us see how this is done.
At a crossing of two highways, a few miles out of the town, Jonathan went
to the hedge-bottom and plucked a bunch of long grass, then upon a
clearing among the tussocks on the wayside he divided the bunch into
three portions, carefully placing these with their tips pointing in the
direction which we were about to take.
[Picture: The Gypsy’s Parson on the Road. Photo. Fred Shaw]
“There now,” said the old man, “I’ve got to do this at every cross-road,
for there’s no telling exactly where we shall stop to-night. But Charley
is bound to find us, for he’ll _dik avrî_ for _mandi_’s _patrin_” (look
out for my sign).
There are many varieties in the form of the _patrin_, for no two families
use exactly the same sign. I have heard Gypsies who were about to
separate into parties, discussing the particular form of _patrin_ to be
used by the advance guard, so that those who were following would know
exactly what to look for, and whereabouts on the roadside they might
expect to find it.
A Suffolk friend, whilst sitting unobserved on a fence in the twilight,
watched some Gypsies laying a _patrin_ formed of small elm twigs, their
tips indicating the direction taken. A peculiar form of _patrin_ I once
saw was a wisp of grass tied round a sapling in the hedgerow.
For myself, I never see a _patrin_ on the roadside without recalling
Ursula’s pathetic story in _The Romany Rye_. Readers who know their
Borrow will remember how the woman followed her husband for a great many
miles by means of his signs left on the wayside.
Between Kneesall and Wellow a halt was made, and, having lit a fire of
sticks under the shadow of a wood, we warmed some stew in a black pot.
As we sprawled on the grass, a fox dashed across the road with a rabbit
dangling from its jaws, and Jonathan shouted in the hope of making
Reynard drop the bunny, but in vain. Then I told him how once I saw a
fox capture and kill a rabbit on the slope of a warren. He was about to
trot off with his prey when I gave a lusty shout which made him halt and
look round at me for a moment. Seeing that I was quite a hundred yards
away, Reynard dropped the rabbit, scratched a hole, and buried his
capture, carefully spreading the loose earth and stones over the place
with his sharp nose. Then he made for the woods. Now, though I searched
diligently for that buried rabbit, I could not for the life of me
discover it, the entire surface of the warren-slope being so dotted over
with recent rabbit-scratchings strewn with small stones.
While Jonathan was making some small repair of the harness, I drew from
my pocket a few newspaper cuttings and letters, in one of which was a
dialogue between two Gypsies, a tiny boy and an aged man, who had met
upon the road—
“BOY. _Sâ shan_, _baw_, has _tuti dik_’d _mi dadus ke-divus_?
MAN. _Keka_, _mi tshavo_, _mandi keka jin_s _tuti_’s _dadus_. _Sî
yov_ a _bawro mush_ wiv _kawlo bal_?
BOY. _Âwali_, _dova sî mi dadus_, _tatsho_.
MAN. Has _yov_ a pair o’ check _rokamiaw_?
BOY. _Âwa_, _dova_’s _mi dadus_.
MAN. Has _yov_ a _loli baiengri_ wiv _bawrê krafnê_?
BOY. _Âwa_, dat’s _mi dadus_, feth.
MAN. _Dawdi_, _mandi dik_’d _lesti tălê o drom odoi_ a-_mong_in a
_puri_ pair o’ _tshokaw_ to _tshiv oprê lesti_’s _nongê pîrê_.
BOY. _Dova sî keka mi dadus_, at all.”
_Translation_.
“BOY. How do, mate. Have you seen my father to-day?
MAN. No, my boy, I don’t know your father. Is he a big man with
black hair?
BOY. Yes, that’s my father, sure.
MAN. Has he a pair of check trousers?
BOY. Yes, that’s my father.
MAN. Has he a red waistcoat with big buttons?
BOY. Yes, that’s my father, faith.
MAN. Lor, I saw him down the road there a-begging an old pair of
boots to put on his bare feet.
BOY. That’s not my father at all.”
“A bit o’ the old style, I call that,” was my companion’s comment.
After we had yoked in and were about to start off, my old Gypsy pulled
out his handkerchief to catch a sneeze on the wing. He was successful,
and, unnoticed by him, a little wooden animal fell to the grass. On
picking it up, I handed back to him a dog with a tail broken off and one
foot missing, and he grabbed at it excitedly, saying—
“I wouldn’t _nasher_ (lose) that for a deal.”
This little fetish I remembered to have seen on a former occasion.
Jonathan had put it on the top of a gatepost and was talking to it, as he
puffed a cloud of tobacco smoke. For some reason, he was never willing
to discuss the subject.
[Picture: Comrades]
Pursuing our journey, we came to the little town of Ollerton, and after a
halt at one of the inns we travelled onward through Edwinstowe until we
reached a tract of ferny, heathery country, where we drew up, unyoked and
unharnessed the horse, and in wonderfully quick time had our little tent
erected. You have sometimes heard people say, “Poor Gypsies,” yet if you
had travelled with them, as I have, you would hear it said, “Poor _gawjê_
(gentiles), we feels sorry for ’em, cooped up in their stuffy houses.”
[Picture: Gypsies at Home. Photo. Fred Shaw]
There is nothing so healthy as a tent under the open sky, with the wind
blowing freely around you and the birds singing their canticles in the
woods hard by. I speak from experience in regard to tent life, for under
Jonathan’s tuition I learned long ago how to construct a Gypsy’s tent of
ash or hazel rods thrust into the ground and their tapering ends bent and
fixed into a ridge-pole, the whole being covered with coarse brown
blankets pinned on with stout 3-inch pins. (The Gypsies use the long
thorns of the wild sloe, or thin elder skewers.) In such a tent I have
slept nightly for many months in succession. It is grand to sit at your
tent door, building castles in the air, which at any rate cost very
little in upkeep.
Bosky Sherwood with its oaks and birches and uncurling bracken stretched
away towards the west, and, strolling along the unfenced road, lo, an old
woman with her apron full of sticks was seen coming down a glade. She
turned out to be Rachel Shaw, whom we accompanied to where, round a
corner, the camp of the Gypsy Shaws lay within a secluded alcove. This
was a pleasant surprise. Here, by the fire, sat Tiger Shaw and his three
grown-up daughters, fine strapping girls. I had often heard of
“Fiddling” Tiger, whose children were said to be excellent dancers. It
was said of their father that he could play tunes by thumping with his
fists upon his bare chest. We sat chatting with them till the moon rose,
a full golden disk, over the woods. The night air was sweet with forest
smells exhaling from bursting oak-buds and sheets of wood hyacinths. A
rare place for owls is Sherwood, and more than once as we sat there, a
broad-winged bird came out of the black shadows and flew away hooting
down the road.
Old Tiger, who hails from the Low Country between Lynn and St. Ives,
remembers when the “Jack o’ Lantern” used to flicker by night in those
parts in the days of his childhood, and of ghost tales he has a rich
store. One of his best tales is the ghost of the haystack, which I give
in my own words.
“One night a Gypsy and his wife went to take some hay from a stack at
the back of a mansion. As they were getting it, they looked up and
saw on the top of the stack a wizened old man wearing a
three-cornered hat, a cut-away coat with silver buttons,
knee-breeches, silk stockings, buckled shoes, and by his side hung a
curious sword. At this sight they stood amazed, then, gathering
courage, the Gypsy woman looked up and said—
“‘If this is your hay, sir, may we take a handful for our pony?’
“The figure on the stack never spoke, but nodded his head, so they
took a lot, and, departing, left a trail of hay reaching from the
stack to the camp. Next morning the squire of the mansion came
along.
“‘You rascally vagabonds, you thieving rogues, how dare you steal my
hay? If you had asked me, I’d have given you some.’
“‘But we _did_ get leave.’
“‘How so?’
“Then they described the gentleman on the stack, giving the details
as already told. At this the squire turned deathly pale, and laid
hold of a fence to steady himself.
“‘Why, you’ve seen my old grandfather who has been dead years and
years, and if he gave you leave, you can get as much of that hay as
you please.’
“And you may be sure they did.”
The first grey light of dawn was creeping down the road and waking the
life of the woods, when we were called from our slumbers by a cheery
“Hello,” and Jonathan sprang up to receive his nephew, who had already
drawn his _vâdo_ upon the grass; indeed, before we had dressed, Charley
had gathered sticks for the breakfast fire, and by the time that our meal
was finished, the sun was gilding the tree-tops. Now we were ready for
the departure, and, moving along the road, we found the Shaws also taking
the _drom_ (road). By the side of the _vâdo_ walked Tiger’s girls, their
loosened hair blowing in the wind, and going along they gathered the
yellow cowslips.
Onward through the gorsy lanes we travelled together as far as Mansfield,
where our merry party became divided, the Boswells taking the highway
leading through North Derbyshire to Sheffield, the Shaws going westward
towards Matlock, and myself setting off in a southerly direction.
Just where Robin Hood’s Hills begin to rise beyond the red-stemmed pines
of the Thieves’ Wood, I came upon a resplendent caravan of the Pulman
type drawn up on the wayside turf a long way from any village. Near by
sat two persons, a man past middle age, wearing a kilt and
tam-o’-shanter, who had for companion a pretty lass in her teens, with
long brown hair. On the ground between them stood a big crystal jar, and
with long forks the two were spearing cubes of preserved ginger. Their
backs being turned towards me, they gave a little start of surprise as I
went up, and, raising my hat, inquired, “Dr. Gordon Stables?”
“That’s my name,” said he, and, inviting me to join them on the grass, he
dispatched the girl for another fork, with which very soon I, too, was
spearing for ginger.
Here before me was the “Gentleman Gypsy,” whose writings had been
familiar to me since boyhood.
“You’ll think it strange,” said he, “when I tell you that I have no
memory for faces, but I rarely fail to remember the look of any tree I
have once seen by the roadside.”
When Gypsies were mentioned, the good doctor had grateful reminiscences
of them. During many years of road-travel he had often come upon the
wandering folk, and he liked them. They were cheerful people who never
forgot a kindness. They were most obliging withal, and readily lent
their horses to pull his somewhat heavy “house on wheels” up the stiff
inclines. Altogether, he had a very good word for the Gypsies.
By mid-afternoon I was standing in the churchyard at Selston, where lay
the fragments of the headstone of a Romany chief, Dan Boswell. An
irreverent bull was declared to have been responsible for the shattered
condition of the stone upon which a quaint epitaph was now faintly
visible. It ran as follows:—
“I’ve lodged in many a town,
I’ve travelled many a year,
But death at length hath brought me down
To my last lodging here.”
My late father-in-law, formerly a curate of Selston, remembered how
Gypsies paid visits to this grave and poured libations of ale upon it.
The adjacent common, long since enclosed, was once much frequented by the
nomad tribes.
My resting-place that evening was the pleasant Midland town of
Nottingham, and right soundly I slept after my long day on the road.