THE GYPSY OF THE HILLS—IN THE HEART OF WALES—A WESTMORLAND HORSE-FAIR
I
_May_ 12.—Just as I stepped out of the train at Corwen, thick vapours,
blotting out the mountains, made up their minds to let down rain. Five
years before, on landing at the same station, it was only to find a
tornado howling over the land and heavy rain falling. That wild night
I’m not likely to forget in a hurry. . . .
At last, after an hour’s wait in a snug hostelry, I set off along the
Holyhead Road, having a certain encampment in my mind’s eye. At the
“Goat” Inn, where the by-road turns off for Bettws-Gwerfil-Goch, I made
inquiry for the said camp, but the landlord only shook his head. One of
his daughters, however, hearing my question, said she knew where it was,
and coming with me to the door indicated the whereabouts of the caravans
of my quest. By now the rain had ceased, and, in a few moments, round a
bend in the highway, the outline of a Gypsy tent, with a caravan and a
tilt-cart standing near it, caught my eye against a row of twisted oaks
in a wayside field. On entering the camp there were hearty greetings
from Gilderoy Gray and Oli Purum, his travelling pal. The ruddy glow in
the fire-bucket made the tent’s interior an inviting spot for tea, and
there was plenty of fun that evening. Outside: the dark night with a
roaring wind in the oak trees. Within: a wood-fire lit up the red
blankets stretched over the curved tent-rods, and upon a well-made couch
of straw (covered with rugs) we reclined. Oli was in fine form for
tale-telling, and his pipe often went out. Gilderoy, too, had heaps of
things to tell. Was ever a lover of the road better stocked with
anecdotes than he?
In the tilt-cart I made my bed, and slept as soundly as a dormouse.
_May_ 13.—At 5 a.m. the sun was shining gloriously upon the mountains.
Wash and breakfast in the open air. In the forenoon we three took the
hilly road leading to Bettws-Gwerfil-Goch. A light breeze from off the
mountains carried the smell of spring everywhere. The birds were all
a-twitter in the leafing woods. Blue speedwells, white stars of
stitchwort, bee-haunted gorse bloom—all turned to salute the sovereign
sun glowing down upon the land. Gilderoy, ever a good walker, was soon
pegging on ahead; then at a stile in a hedge he would wait until Oli and
I came up. Just below the village of Bettws-Gwerfil-Goch, we stood on
the _puri porj_ (old bridge) and watched the trout leap in the
vandyke-brown pools of the river Alwen. On to the “Hand” tavern, my
ideal village inn. George Borrow saw the interiors of many such houses
during his tramps through “Wild Wales.” Nor are we likely to forget the
kindness we received at the home of a certain great Scholar-Gypsy and
Gypsy-Scholar, perched upon a high point commanding a magnificent
landscape.
[Picture: Oli Purum. Photo. Fred Shaw]
About tea-time a jolly face appeared at our tent door, announcing the
arrival of Gil’roy’s brother Jim, and, just as dusk was enfolding the
scene, a merry boy came bounding into the camp. This was Deborah Purum’s
Willy, who told us that Bala Fair was to take place on the morrow.
Lively indeed was our camp this evening, for had not our company
increased by two? Resolving to set off in good time toward Bala in the
morning, we slipped into our beds about midnight, and soon forgot to
listen to the owls hooting mournfully in the woods.
[Picture: A Gypsy Harpist. Photo. W. Ferguson]
_May_ 14.—A white mist on the mountains foretold a fine day, and by 6.30
we were breakfasting on trout and bacon done over a wood fire. Then
harnessing the mare to the tilt-cart, we all climbed aboard, and away we
rattled towards Bala. The wayside woods were empurpled with hyacinths,
and on the hedge-banks little bushes of bilberry hung out their crimson
flowers. Oli Purum, who is half a Welsh Gypsy, could tell us the very
names of the families who had camped round the black patches on the
roadsides. Springing off the cart, he would examine the heaps of
willow-peelings with a critical eye. “_Âwa_, (yes) I thought so. It’s
some of the Klisons (Locks) that’s been _hatsh_in _akai_ (stopping
here).” A splendid trotter, our mare made light work of pulling the
tilt-cart over those seventeen miles down the vale to Bala. Of course we
were all wondering as to the Gypsies we might see at the fair. What a
crowd of farm-folk we found filling the streets on our arrival. Just in
front of the “White Lion” hostelry, I saw a potter-woman standing before
a spread of crockery of all shapes and sizes on the side of the road,
and, curiously enough, I had once met her son, Orlando Fox, at Bristol.
Little did we dream, however, of the surprise awaiting us here in Bala.
Elbowing our way through the dense crowd, it was Gilderoy who was the
first to exclaim, “_Dik odoi_” (Look there), and turning our gaze that
way, there, sure enough, was a very dark old Gypsy with grizzled locks
and glittering black eyes. His garments were weathered by long wear amid
the mountains, and in him I recognized the patriarchal Matthew (a
descendant of Abraham Wood) whom I had met some years before.
The Woods preserve many stories of Abraham, their earliest known
progenitor, who flourished about the beginning of the eighteenth century.
Entering Wales from Somerset, he brought with him a violin, and is
supposed to have been the first to play upon one in the Principality.
According to tradition, “He always rode on a blood-horse, would not sleep
in the open but in barns, wore a three-cocked hat with gold lace, a red
silk coat, a waistcoat embroidered with green leaves, had half-crowns for
buttons on his coat, sported white breeches gaily decked with ribbons,
pumps with silver buckles and spurs, a gold watch and chain, and two gold
rings.” Many of Abraham’s descendants are excellent players on the harp,
and all, without exception, speak pure, deep, inflected Romany, akin to
the beautiful musical dialect spoken by the Gypsies of Eastern Europe.
Angling all summer, fiddling or harping all winter, such is the life of
the Gypsy Woods of Wales.
It was with joy that we rambled with Matty along the shore of Bala Llyn,
a glittering mirror in the sunshine broken only by rings made by rising
fish. The windless day of summerlike quality induced our little party to
loiter by the lake, and when at length we turned to come away, there on
the road stood a Romany lass with her little brother, as merry a pair as
ever wore Gypsy togs. To me it was very delightful to hear their fluent
Welsh Romany.
There was no difficulty in persuading Matty to accompany us to our camp
at Maerdy. He seemed only too glad to escape into the sweet open country
after the close atmosphere of the town streets. And how the mare did
travel after her feed and rest! On and on up the mountain road we went,
startling the horned sheep on the unfenced roadsides. Now and then Matty
would point out the spots where his old folks used to camp. Well away
from the town, we took a bite of bread and cheese at a tiny white inn
backed by a strip of pine forest, from whose shadows darted a grey
sheep-dog almost wolf-like in its leanness of figure and sharpness of
nose. What a penetrating bark it had too!
A few more miles of rough road, with here a lone farm and there a cottage
with lumps of white spar on its window-ledges, brought us once again to
the “Cymro,” Maerdy, where we encountered a funny horse-breaker,
reminding one of Borrow’s gossipy ostlers. Oli Purum’s tricks here “took
the cake,” and to the delight of his audience he kept up a constant
stream of them.
To-night we felt that fate had been extraordinarily kind to us, as by the
fire we sat listening to Matty’s weird tales and to Oli’s rendering of
“The Shepherd of Snowdon” and other Welsh airs on his violin. A rare
stock of tales has Matty—stories replete with enchanted castles, green
dragons, witches, ghosts, and the hero is nearly always a clever Gypsy
named Jack. Matty is Oli’s cousin, and it is charming to see how happy
they are together.
To me this is a holiday indeed. The utter absence of conventionality,
and the diversions of the Gypsy life, are as balm to one’s nerves.
_May_ 15.—To-day is another blue and golden foretaste of summer. Along
the banks of the Alwen, dodging in and out among huge boulders, climbing
fences, scrambling through the masses of flowering gorse and broom,
Gilderoy, Matty, and I made our way to Bettws-Gwerfil-Goch. In the old
inn, a cool retreat after the broiling sunshine in the wooded valley, we
sat awhile. Years ago I saw Matty and his sons dance on the blue-stone
floor of this room, just after the New Year had come in—a time when all
Welsh folk are merry with fiddle and song.
[Picture: A Happy Pair. Photo. W. Ferguson]
On getting back to our camp in the early evening, all hands set to work,
some gathering sticks, others fetching water, and soon the supper was
spread inside the roomy tent. Tales and talk till the late-rising moon
glinted through the holes nibbled by field-mice in the tent blankets.
Then to dreamland.
[Picture: A Chat by the Gate. Photo. W. Ferguson]
_May_ 16.—This morning I find thin ice on a pail of water standing in the
open. How bracing to complete your toilet in the cool air from the
mountains. See with what tenderness the sunlight colours the rocks up
there by the hillside farmstead. For the first time since coming into
Wales I hear the cuckoo calling in the woods. High up on the slope I see
a black horse dragging a hurdle with thorn boughs weighted by stones—a
primitive harrow. I’ll have a scamper down the road through the keen air
of morn, before the sun has drunk up all the dew.
After breakfast I go a-fishing. Home in the afternoon to find some of
the Gypsy Locks coming down the Holyhead Road with their carts and
ponies; a delightful party, and much _rokerben_ (conversation) followed.
A little later Gilderoy and I drive in the tilt-cart to Corwen to fetch
Fred o’ the Bawro Gav. This means more fun for us round the evening
fire. When depressed in days to come, I want to remember that flow of
Gypsy mirth away there under the shadow of Cader Dinmael, while the
oak-groves outside our tent whispered in the rising wind of night.
_May_ 17.—Farewell, tent and caravan and tilt-cart. Farewell, old pals
beside your smoking fires. Farewell, sweet Wales and your beautiful
mountains. To-day I return to civilization.
Oli Purum drove me to Corwen station, and by night I am at home again on
the Wolds of Lincolnshire.
II
_September_ 27.—We are at Sedbergh, a little grey town at the foot of the
Yorkshire Fells. Stone walls, narrow streets, old inns—all have their
outlines softened by the mellow shadows, half-golden, half-brown,
stealing over the place this afternoon. Looking out from a tavern window
I experience a thrill. There in the street stand two vehicles, a _vâdo_
and a tilt-cart, with sleek horses between their shafts. That tilt-cart
I should know anywhere, for under its weathered hood I have dreamt happy
dreams.
* * * * *
“I say, pals, we must be stirring. Come along,” exclaims Gilderoy Gray,
rising from his corner on the smooth-worn settle. We follow our leader
into the street, and, boarding those vehicles, we are not long in getting
clear of Sedbergh town. Bound for Brough Hill Horse-Fair, our party of
six never had a gayer prospect. Here we are on the road again—Gil’roy,
Merry Jim, Fred o’ the Bawro Gav, Oli Purum, his son Willy, and the
Gypsy’s Parson. . . .
But even the brightest of September days must wane, and soon to right and
left of us dark ridges lift themselves against the fading light. Our
first stage is a short one. Nightfall sees us pull up at Cautley Crag,
where we seek a stopping-place in the small croft adjoining the lonely
white inn on the roadside. However, the gate proves too narrow to admit
our carts, so we draw upon the wayside turf, under the shelter of a stone
wall. Nimble as ever, Oli erects the red blanket tent in the croft, and
Willy busies himself in building a good fire. When an abundance of brown
bracken has been laid down in the tent (no fresh straw is to be had), the
customary rugs are spread and we sit down to supper. Pipes and chatter
make the evening hours fly. There is so much Gypsy news to talk over.
At last, having placed a warning lantern, like a pendant star, on one of
the carts, we tumble into our beds and quickly fall asleep.
_September_ 28.—A keen, clear autumn morn making you feel how good it is
to be alive. After pottering about the camp, Gilderoy and I wander along
the bank of the roaring Rawthey, while Jim and Fred, lured by the shine
and glamour of the sunlit mountains, set off across the dewy moor for a
closer look at the “Spout,” as the waterfall up the dingle is described
on the map. Down by the plank-bridge I stand and look at the fells all
a-shimmer in the sun. Far up beyond the region of stone walls, built
(says our Oli) in the days when labourers received a wage of a penny a
day, one’s eye follows the forms of mountain ponies, horned sheep, and a
couple of shepherds roaming with their dogs. Nearer, on the river-bank,
are small companies of geese preening their feathers in the sunshine. I
hear from our landlord that prowling hill-foxes sometimes snap up a goose
on the moor. . . .
Breakfast over, we were busy packing when some of the Whartons (Oli’s
relations) passed by in their light accommodation carts _en route_ for
Brough Fair, so Oli and Willy must needs rush out to gather the latest
news of the road. This meant a trifling delay in our getting off, for
Gypsies are loquacious. However, by 9.30 we were once more “on travel,”
feeling blithe as larks. Rumble-rumble went the wheels on the road, and
all was going as merry as a marriage bell until a single magpie flitted
across our track. Observing the bird of ill-omen, I quoted the old-time
ditty—
“One for sorrow, two for mirth,
Three for a wedding, four for a birth.”
“That’s only an old woman’s tale,” quoth the Gypsy, flicking the horse’s
glossy back with the ends of the reins. Yet, a mile or so farther on,
Oli was the first to discover that the horse had cast a shoe. Handing
over the reins, the lithe Gypsy went off at a trot, and not long after he
came up flaunting the lost shoe, just as the smith at Court Common was
ready, tools in hand, to put it on.
[Picture: ’Neath Cautley Crag. Photo. Fred Shaw]
Under the lee of a wood of bronzed beeches we made a stick fire to warm
the stew-pot, while the smith replaced the shoe amid an interested group
of yokels who had popped up from goodness knows where.
The wonderfully transparent atmosphere of this region appears to possess
magnifying powers, for even the poultry on the distant knolls assume the
forms of huge birds, and as for the gaunt lady who sat “taking the air”
on a lonesome bench half a mile away, she would have passed right enough
for the wife of Goliath, if that celebrity ever possessed a missis.
In a locality like this, romance and poetry meet one at every turn. A
commonplace duck-pond in a grassy hollow does not, perhaps, suggest the
glamorous things of life; yet the small tarn lying before us in the
sunshine is the subject of a curious local legend. Here, says tradition,
you are treading upon fairy ground, for in this dimple in front of the
beech wood you have a _bottomless pool_!
[Picture: A Bottomless Pool. Photo. Fred Shaw]
As for yon grey house amid the trees on the common’s upper edge, well,
the man for whom it was built lived in it but a day and died, and over
the doorway somebody has inscribed the text, “Occupy till I come.”
Soon after quitting the common, Wild Boar Fell begins to mark the skyline
on our right, and now all around us lies a realm of strewn rocks—
“Crags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurled,
The fragments of an earlier world.”
A stiff push up the inclines brought us at last to the high point from
whence the road dipped into the long straggling town of Kirkby-Stephen.
Verily the place seemed to have dropped asleep in the September sun.
With as little delay as possible we held on our way until, by 5 p.m., we
had made Warcop and had pitched behind the farmhouse where we had stayed
on previous happy occasions.
With all hands to work, the tent was put up in record time, and as the
ruddy sundown tinged the tree boles near our camp, we gathered round the
fire for the evening meal. Thus closed a superb summerlike day.
_September_ 29.—Somewhere about 7 a.m. a whiff of tobacco smoke comes
curling pleasantly round the edge of our bunk in the tilt-cart, and I
become aware that my bedmate, Fred o’ the Bawro Gav, is dressing.
“There’s a heavy dew this morning,” says he, turning back the coverings
at the entrance of the cart; and in a little while I am up and washing
outside, and perceive for myself that the cobwebs on the hedge are
delicately jewelled with drops of dew. “Look at the calves,” says Fred,
“pretty fellows, aren’t they?” My companion has quite a farmer’s eye for
things, and as a weather-prophet he rarely makes a mistake. Overhead low
clouds are rolling, or rather masses of dove-coloured mist, with patches
of blue sky showing between, and already the mountains rising to the
north are richly bathed in sunshine.
During the forenoon Gilderoy, Fred, and I stretch our legs in a stroll
upon the sunlit “Hill,” where the Gypsies are encamped in considerable
numbers for the morrow’s great horse-fair. Many familiar faces greet us
on every hand. Now it is Pat Lee who springs out from a group and nearly
twists off Fred’s hand, so vigorous is the shaking it receives, and now I
am honoured by an invitation to test the weight of Femi Coleman’s new
baby. From the doorway of a gorgeous _vâdo_ Sophia Lovell thrusts out
her black poll and inquires after our Oli. In this manner, with many
variations, we make our way between the camps, and our ramble proves
enjoyable in every way.
[Picture: A Wandering Minstrel. Photo. Fred Shaw]
Going back to the wagons at Warcop, we drop into an inn, and by a bit of
luck it happens that a “character” is present in the person of “Fiddling”
Billy Williams, the wandering minstrel, who at our request takes his
brown violin from a bag on his back and plays some lively airs, and Oli
and Willy Purum, who have turned up, dance cleverly to a tune or two on
the smooth-worn, blue-stone floor. But Old Billy—I cannot take my eyes
off him. Look at his weathered coat (a gift from Lord Lonsdale) which in
the course of years has lost its nap and shows here and there patches of
a ruddy lower layer; surely the nondescript garment suits the grizzled
old wanderer to perfection. Watching him closely, I observe that he has
a very passable acquaintance with the Gypsy tongue, so, edging towards
him, I drop a deep sentence into his ear. How he starts! “You know
something,” says he. Then he goes on to tell me that as a boy he
travelled with no less renowned a personage than John Roberts, the Welsh
Gypsy harpist. Here’s a find. Who ever expected to meet a pupil of Old
Janik’s in a remote Westmorland inn? Billy says that Roberts taught him
how to “scrape music off these things,” twanging the fiddle-strings with
a forefinger, and smiling sweetly as he does it. For myself, I count
this meeting with Fiddling Billy one of the “events” of our trip.
In the evening we again rambled on the “Hill” to see a memorable
sight—hundreds of Gypsy fires with rings of dark figures squatting around
the blazing logs. A feast for the eyes of a lover of the nomads was this
array of firelit faces set against a background of caravans, stone walls,
and mountains.
_September_ 30.—A fine morning with a cool wind blowing from the east.
As we sat at breakfast, a clatter of hoofs on the road announced belated
arrivals for the fair. Early in the forenoon we found ourselves in the
thick of the crowd, which, to me, seemed as big as ever on Brough Hill.
Once upon a time this fair used to last a whole week, much more indeed
for the Gypsy element, but nowadays the last day of September and the
first day of October are the only recognized dates. Droves of fell
ponies took up a large space on the fair-ground. A few heavy horses and
a sprinkling of “bloods” met the eye at times. For one thing we could
see our Gypsy friends busy upon their “native heath,” for where is a
Gypsy at home if it is not at a horse-fair?
As evening approached, an ugly bank of inky-black cloud came over the
mountains, and the wind in rude gusts began to wail, Valkyrie-like, in
the tree-tops, and to shake our wagons in a way that reminded one of a
night at sea. Thus the day which had opened so gaily ended in real
“Brough weather.”
An authority on that local phenomenon known as the “Helm” wind writes:
“The field of its operation extends from near Brough for a distance of
perhaps thirty miles down the Eden Valley towards Carlisle, and is
sharply restricted to the belt lying between the Pennines and the river;
never, on the one hand, being encountered on the actual summit of the
range, and never, on the other, crossing the water. Bitterly cold, it
rushes like a tornado down the slope, and works havoc in the valley
below. If the “Helm” happens to blow during the fair, the proprietors of
scores of refreshment tents may usually bid farewell to all the canvas
they possess.”
[Picture: Brough Hill Horse Fair. Photo. Valentine]
The Gypsies, to whom I have ever mentioned the “Helm” wind at Brough,
invariably shrug their shoulders, as if it were an old friend, and not a
very welcome one at that.
_October_ 1.—We were all afoot in good time this morning, six o’clock or
thereabouts, and right glad we were to see the sun breaking through the
mists over Brough Fox Tower. Taking a halter apiece, Fred and I went to
fetch the horses. Breakfast; then we packed, and away we went.
“Good-bye, old camping-place,” we said, as the wagons reached the
Musgrave ramper, for very pleasant had been our sojourn by the spreading
trees beyond the old farmhouse. On the way to Kirkby-Stephen, many light
carts rattled past, going south, and, after the stiff pull out of the
town, it was good to be once more on the open road with the keen mountain
air blowing on our faces from over wide leagues of rocks and heather.
By early evening we had reached Cautley, where, as before, we drew on to
the strip of wayside turf, and in quick time a couple of plump fowls were
roasting in the black pot over a wood fire. To watch Oli prepare and
cook those fowls was an object-lesson to be remembered. Bravo, Oli, our
Romany chef!
Realizing that this was our last evening in the wilds, we were in no
hurry to get between the blankets. So we stretched out the tales, and
meandered leisurely through the fields of reminiscence, while the cloud
of tobacco smoke grew denser around us, and the stars o’ night shone more
and more brightly over Cautley’s black crag.
_October_ 2.—Up at seven to find the sky almost free from clouds and
holding out the promise of a brilliant wind-up. After breakfast we set
off for Lancaster, near whose castle we parted; and now, over fireside
pipes, my notebook and its jottings possess the power to make every sight
and sound of the journey live again.