WHAT may be called the grand Metropolitan Gypsyry is on the Surrey side
of the Thames. Near the borders of Wandsworth and Battersea, about a
quarter of a mile from the river, is an open piece of ground which may
measure about two acres. To the south is a hill, at the foot of which is
a railway, and it is skirted on the north by the Wandsworth and Battersea
Road. This place is what the Gypsies call a _kekkeno mushes puv_, a no
man’s ground; a place which has either no proprietor, or which the
proprietor, for some reason, makes no use of for the present. The houses
in the neighbourhood are mean and squalid, and are principally inhabited
by artisans of the lowest description. This spot, during a considerable
portion of the year, is the principal place of residence of the
Metropolitan Gypsies, and of other people whose manner of life more or
less resembles theirs. During the summer and autumn the little plain,
for such it is, is quite deserted, except that now and then a wretched
tent or two may be seen upon it, belonging to some tinker family, who
have put up there for a few hours on their way through the metropolis;
for the Gypsies are absent during summer, some at fairs and races, the
men with their cocoa-nuts and the women busy at fortune-telling, or at
suburban places of pleasure—the former with their donkeys for the young
cockneys to ride upon, and the latter as usual _dukkering_ and
_hokkering_, and the other travellers, as they are called, roaming about
the country following their particular avocations, whilst in the autumn
the greater part of them all are away in Kent, getting money by picking
hops. As soon, however, as the rains, the precursors of winter, descend,
the place begins to be occupied, and about a week or two before Christmas
it is almost crammed with the tents and caravans of the wanderers; and
then it is a place well worthy to be explored, notwithstanding the
inconvenience of being up to one’s ankles in mud, and the rather
appalling risk of being bitten by the Gypsy and travelling dogs tied to
the tents and caravans, in whose teeth there is always venom and
sometimes that which can bring on the water-horror, for which no European
knows a remedy. The following is an attempt to describe the odd people
and things to be met with here; the true Gypsies, and what to them
pertaineth, being of course noticed first.
On this plain there may be some fifteen or twenty Gypsy tents and
caravans. Some of the tents are large, as indeed it is highly necessary
that they should be, being inhabited by large families—a man and his
wife, a grandmother a sister or two and half a dozen children, being,
occasionally found in one; some of them are very small, belonging to poor
old females who have lost their husbands, and whose families have
separated themselves from them, and allow them to shift for themselves.
During the day the men are generally busy at their several avocations,
_chinning the cost_, that is, cutting the stick for skewers, making pegs
for linen-lines, _kipsimengring_ or basket-making, tinkering or
braziering; the children are playing about, or begging halfpence by the
road of passengers; whilst the women are strolling about, either in
London or the neighbourhood, engaged in fortune-telling or swindling. Of
the trades of the men, the one by far the most practised is _chinning the
cost_, and as they sit at the door of the tents, cutting and whittling
away, they occasionally sweeten their toil by raising their voices and
singing the Gypsy stanza in which the art is mentioned, and which for
terseness and expressiveness is quite equal to anything in the whole
circle of Gentile poetry:
Can you rokra Romany?
Can you play the bosh?
Can you jal adrey the staripen?
Can you chin the cost?
Can you speak the Roman tongue?
Can you play the fiddle?
Can you eat the prison-loaf?
Can you cut and whittle?
These Gypsies are of various tribes, but chiefly Purruns, Chumomescroes
and Vardomescroes, or Lees, Boswells and Coopers, and Lees being by far
the most numerous. The men are well made, active fellows, somewhat below
the middle height. Their complexions are dark, and their eyes are full
of intelligence; their habiliments are rather ragged. The women are
mostly wild-looking creatures, some poorly clad, others exhibiting not a
little strange finery. There are some truly singular beings amongst
those women, which is more than can be said with respect to the men, who
are much on a level, and amongst whom there is none whom it is possible
to bring prominently out, and about whom much can be said. The women, as
has been already observed, are generally out during the day, being
engaged in their avocations abroad. There is a very small tent about the
middle of the place; it belongs to a lone female, whom one frequently
meets wandering about Wandsworth or Battersea, seeking an opportunity to
_dukker_ some credulous servant-girl. It is hard that she should have to
do so, as she is more than seventy-five years of age, but if she did not
she would probably starve. She is very short of stature, being little
more than five feet and an inch high, but she is wonderfully strongly
built. Her head is very large, and seems to have been placed at once
upon her shoulders without any interposition of neck. Her face is broad,
with a good-humoured expression upon it, and in general with very little
vivacity; at times, however, it lights up, and then all the Gypsy beams
forth. Old as she is, her hair, which is very long, is as black as the
plumage of a crow, and she walks sturdily, though with not much
elasticity, on her short, thick legs, and, if requested, would take up
the heaviest man in Wandsworth or Battersea and walk away with him. She
is, upon the whole, the oddest Gypsy woman ever seen; see her once and
you will never forget her. Who is she? you ask. Who is she? Why, Mrs.
Cooper, the wife of Jack Cooper, the fighting Gypsy, once the terror of
all the Light Weights of the English Ring; who knocked West Country Dick
to pieces, and killed Paddy O’Leary, the fighting pot-boy, Jack Randall’s
pet. Ah, it would have been well for Jack if he had always stuck to his
true, lawful Romany wife, whom at one time he was very fond of, and whom
he used to dress in silks and satins, and best scarlet cloth, purchased
with the money gained in his fair, gallant battles in the Ring! But he
did not stick to her, deserting her for a painted Jezebel, to support
whom he sold his battles, by doing which he lost his friends and backers;
then took from his poor wife all he had given her, and even plundered her
of her own property, down to the very blankets which she lay upon; and
who finally was so infatuated with love for his paramour that he bore the
blame of a crime which she had committed, and in which he had no share,
suffering ignominy and transportation in order to save her. Better had
he never deserted his _tatchie romadie_, his own true Charlotte, who,
when all deserted him, the painted Jezebel being the first to do so,
stood by him, supporting him with money in prison, and feeing counsel on
his trial from the scanty proceeds of her _dukkering_. All that happened
many years ago; Jack’s term of transportation, a lengthy one, has long,
long been expired, but he has not come back, though every year since the
expiration of his servitude he has written her a letter, or caused one to
be written to her, to say that he is coming, that he is coming; so that
she is always expecting him, and is at all times willing, as she says, to
re-invest him with all the privileges of a husband, and to beg and
_dukker_ to support him if necessary. A true wife she has been to him, a
_tatchie romadie_, and has never taken up with any man since he left her,
though many have been the tempting offers that she has had, connubial
offers, notwithstanding the oddity of her appearance. Only one wish she
has now in this world, the wish that he may return; but her wish, it is
to be feared, is a vain one, for Jack lingers and lingers in the
_Sonnakye Tem_, golden Australia, teaching, it is said, the young
Australians to box, tempted by certain shining nuggets, the produce of
the golden region. It is pleasant, though there is something mournful in
it, to visit Mrs. Cooper after nightfall, to sit with her in her little
tent after she has taken her cup of tea, and is warming her tired limbs
at her little coke fire, and hear her talk of old times and things: how
Jack courted her ’neath the trees of Loughton Forest, and how, when tired
of courting, they would get up and box, and how he occasionally gave her
a black eye, and how she invariably flung him at a close; and how they
were lawfully married at church, and what a nice man the clergyman was,
and what funny things he said both before and after he had united them;
how stoutly West Country Dick contended against Jack, though always
losing; how in Jack’s battle with Paddy O’Leary the Irishman’s head in
the last round was truly frightful, not a feature being distinguishable,
and one of his ears hanging down by a bit of skin; how Jack vanquished
Hardy Scroggins, whom Jack Randall himself never dared fight. Then,
again, her anecdotes of Alec Reed, cool, swift-hitting Alec, who was
always smiling, and whose father was a Scotchman, his mother an
Irishwoman, and who was born in Guernsey; and of Oliver, old Tom Oliver,
who seconded Jack in all his winning battles, and after whom he named his
son, his only child, Oliver, begotten of her in lawful wedlock, a good
and affectionate son enough, but unable to assist her, on account of his
numerous family. Farewell, Mrs. Cooper, true old Charlotte! here’s a
little bit of silver for you, and a little bit of a _gillie_ to sing:
Charlotta is my nav,
I am a puro Purrun;
My romado was Jack,
The couring Vardomescro.
He muk’d me for a lubbeny,
Who chor’d a rawnie’s kissi;
He penn’d ’twas he who lell’d it,
And so was bitched pawdel.
Old Charlotte I am called,
Of Lee I am a daughter;
I married Fighting Jack,
The famous Gypsy Cooper.
He left me for a harlot,
Who pick’d a lady’s pocket;
He bore the blame to save her,
And so was sent to Bot’ny.
Just within the bounds of the plain, and close by the road, may
occasionally be seen a small caravan of rather a neat appearance. It
comes and goes suddenly, and is seldom seen there for more than three
days at a time. It belongs to a Gypsy female who, like Mrs. Cooper, is a
remarkable person, but is widely different from Mrs. Cooper in many
respects. Mrs. Cooper certainly does not represent the _beau ideal_ of a
Gypsy female, this does—a dark, mysterious, beautiful, terrible creature!
She is considerably above the middle height, powerfully but gracefully
made, and about thirty-seven years of age. Her face is oval, and of a
dark olive. The nose is Grecian, the cheek-bones rather high; the eyes
somewhat sunk, but of a lustrous black; the mouth small, and the teeth
exactly like ivory. Upon the whole the face is exceedingly beautiful,
but the expression is evil—evil to a degree. Who she is no one exactly
knows, nor what is her name, nor whether she is single woman, wife, or
widow. Some say she is a foreign Gypsy, others from Scotland, but she is
neither—her accent is genuine English. What strikes one as most singular
is the power she possesses of appearing in various characters—all Romany
ones it is true, but so different as seemingly to require three distinct
females of the race to represent them: sometimes she is the staid, quiet,
respectable Gypsy; sometimes the forward and impudent; at others the
awful and sublime. Occasionally you may see her walking the streets
dressed in a black silk gown, with a black silk bonnet on her head; over
her left arm is flung a small carpet, a sample of the merchandise which
is in her caravan, which is close at hand, driven by a brown boy; her
address to her customers is highly polite; the tones of her voice are
musical, though somewhat deep. At Fairlop, on the first Friday of July,
in the evening, she may be found near the Bald-faced Hind, dressed in a
red cloak and a large beaver; her appearance is bold and reckless—she is
_dukkering_ low tradesmen and servant girls behind the trees at sixpence
a head, or is bandying with the voice of a raven slang and obscenity with
country boors, or with the blackguard butcher-boys who throng in from
Whitechapel and Shoreditch to the Gypsy Fair. At Goodwood, a few weeks
after, you may see her in a beautiful half-riding dress, her hair
fantastically plaited and adorned with pearls, standing beside the
carriage of a Countess, telling the fortune of her ladyship with the
voice and look of a pythoness. She is a thing of incongruities; an
incomprehensible being! nobody can make her out; the writer himself has
tried to make her out but could not, though he has spoken to her in his
deepest Romany. It is true there is a certain old Gypsy, a friend of
his, who thinks he has made her out. “Brother,” said he one day, “why
you should be always going after that woman I can’t conceive, unless
indeed you have lost your wits. If you go after her for her Romany you
will find yourself in the wrong box: she may have a crumb or two of
Romany, but for every crumb that she has I am quite sure you have a
quartern loaf. Then as for her beauty, of which it is true she has
plenty, and for which half a dozen Gorgios that I knows of are running
mad, it’s of no use going after her for that, for her beauty she keeps
for her own use and that of her master the Devil; not but that she will
sell it—she’s sold it a dozen times to my certain knowledge—but what’s
the use of buying a thing, when the fool who buys it never gets it, never
has the ‘joyment of it, brother? She is _kek tatcho_, and that’s what I
like least in her; there’s no trusting her, neither Gorgio nor Romano can
trust her: she sells her _truppos_ to a Rye-gorgio for five _bars_, and
when she has got them, and the Gorgio, as he has a right to do, begins to
_kelna lasa_, she laughs and asks him if he knows whom he has to deal
with; then if he _lels bonnek of lati_, as he is quite justified in
doing, she whips out a _churi_, and swears if he doesn’t leave off she
will stick it in his _gorlo_. Oh! she’s an evil mare, a _wafodu grasni_,
though a handsome one, and I never looks at her, brother, without saying
to myself the old words:
“Rinkeno mui and wafodu zee
Kitzi’s the cheeros we dicks cattanē.”
A beautiful face and a black wicked mind
Often, full often together we find.
Some more particular account than what has been already given of the
habitations of these Wandsworth Gypsies, and likewise of their way of
life, will perhaps not be unacceptable here.
To begin with the tents. They are oblong in shape and of very simple
construction, whether small or great. Sticks or rods, called in the
Gypsy language _ranior_, between four and five feet in length, and
_croming_ or bending towards the top, are stuck in the ground at about
twenty inches from each other, a rod or two being omitted in that part
where the entrance is intended to be. The _cromes_ or bends serve as
supporters of a roof, and those of the side rods which stand over against
one another are generally tied together by strings. These rods are
covered over with coarse brown cloths, pinned or skewered together; those
at the bottom being fastened to the ground by pegs. Around the tent is
generally a slight embankment, about two or three inches high, or a
little trench about the same depth, to prevent water from running into
the tent in time of rain. Such is the tent, which would be exactly like
the Indian wigwam but for the cloth which forms the covering: the Indians
in lieu of cloth using bark, which they carry about with them in all
their migrations, though they leave the sticks standing in the ground.
The furniture is scanty. Like the Arabs, the Gypsies have neither chairs
nor tables, but sit cross-legged, a posture which is perfectly easy to
them, though insufferable to a Gorgio, unless he happens to be a tailor.
When they eat, the ground serves them for a board, though they
occasionally spread a cloth upon it. Singularly enough, though they have
neither chairs nor tables, they have words for both. Of pots, pans,
plates, and trenchers, they have a tolerable quantity. Each grown-up
person has a _churi_, or knife, with which to cut food. Eating-forks
they have none, and for an eating-fork they have no word, the term
_pasengri_ signifying a straw- or pitch-fork. Spoons are used by them
generally of horn, and are called _royis_. They have but two culinary
articles, the _kekkauvi_ and _pirry_, kettle and boiler, which are
generally of copper, to which, however, may perhaps be added the
_kekkauviskey saster_, or kettle-iron, by which the kettle and boiler are
hung over the fire. As a fireplace they have a large iron pan on three
legs, with holes or eyes in the sides, in order that the heat of the fire
may be cast around. Instead of coals they use coke, which emits no flame
and little smoke, and casts a considerable heat. Every tent has a pail
or two, and perhaps a small cask or barrel, the proper name for which is
_bedra_, though it is generally called _pāni-mengri_, or thing for water.
At the farther end of the tent is a mattress, with a green cloth, or
perhaps a sheet spread upon it, forming a kind of couch, on which
visitors are generally asked to sit down:—_Av adrey_, _Romany Rye_, _av
adrey ta besh aley pawdle odoy_! Come in, Gypsy gentleman (said a polite
Gypsy one day to the writer); come in and sit down over yonder! They
have a box or two in which they stow away their breakable articles and
whatever things they set any particular value upon. Some of them have
small feather-beds, and they are generally tolerably well provided with
blankets.
The caravans are not numerous, and have only been used of late years by
any of the English Gypsy race. The caravan called by the Gypsies _keir
vardo_, or waggon-house, is on four wheels, and is drawn by a horse or
perhaps a couple of donkeys. It is about twelve feet long by six broad
and six high. At the farther end are a couple of transverse berths, one
above the other, like those in the cabin of a ship; and a little way from
these is a curtain hanging by rings from an iron rod running across,
which, when drawn, forms a partition. On either side is a small glazed
window. The most remarkable object is a stove just inside the door, on
the left hand, with a metal chimney which goes through the roof. This
stove, the Gypsy term for which is _bo_, casts, when lighted, a great
heat, and in some cases is made in a very handsome fashion. Some
caravans have mirrors against the sides, and exhibit other indications of
an aiming at luxury, though in general they are dirty, squalid places,
quite as much as or perhaps more than the tents, which seem to be the
proper and congenial homes of the Gypsies.
The mode of life of these people may be briefly described. They have two
regular meals—breakfast and supper. The breakfast consists of tea,
generally of the best quality, bread, butter, and cheese; the supper, of
tea and a stew. In spring time they occasionally make a kind of tea or
soup of the tender leaves of a certain description of nettle. This
preparation, which they call _dandrimengreskie zimmen_, or the broth of
the stinging-thing, is highly relished by them. They get up early, and
go to bed betimes. After breakfast the men sit down to _chin the cost_,
to mend chairs or make baskets; the women go forth to _hok_ and _dukker_,
and the children to beg, or to go with the donkeys to lanes and commons
to watch them, whilst they try to fill their poor bellies with grass and
thistles. These children sometimes bring home _hotchiwitches_, or
hedgehogs, the flesh of which is very sweet and tender, and which their
mothers are adepts at cooking.
The Gypsies, as has been already observed, are not the sole occupiers of
Wandsworth grounds. Strange, wild guests are to be found there, who,
without being Gypsies, have much of Gypsyism in their habits, and who far
exceed the Gypsies in number. To pass them by without notice would be
unpardonable. They may be divided into three classes: Chorodies,
Kora-mengre, and Hindity-mengre. Something about each:—
The Chorodies are the legitimate descendants of the rogues and outcasts
who roamed about England long before its soil was trodden by a Gypsy
foot. They are a truly detestable set of beings; both men and women
being ferocious in their appearance, and in their conversation horrible
and disgusting. They have coarse, vulgar features, and hair which puts
one wonderfully in mind of refuse flax, or the material of which mops are
composed. Their complexions, when not obscured with grime, are rather
fair than dark, evidencing that their origin is low, swinish Saxon, and
not gentle Romany. Their language is the frowsiest English, interlarded
with cant expressions and a few words of bastard Romany. They live in
the vilest tents, with the exception of two or three families, who have
their abode in broken and filthy caravans. They have none of the
comforts and elegancies of the Gypsies. They are utterly destitute of
civility and good manners, and are generally squalid in their dress,
though the women sometimes exhibit not a little dirty tawdriness. The
trades of the men are tinkering and basket-making, and some few “peel the
stick.” The women go about with the articles made by their husbands, or
rather partners, and sometimes do a little in the fortune-telling
line—pretty prophetesses! The fellows will occasionally knock a man down
in the dark, and rob him; the women will steal anything they can
conveniently lay their hands on. Singular as it may seem to those not
deeply acquainted with human nature, these wretches are not without a
kind of pride. “We are no Gypsies—not we! no, nor Irish either. We are
English, and decent folks—none of your rubbish!” The Gypsies hold them,
and with reason, in supreme contempt, and it is from them that they got
their name of Chorodies, not a little applicable to them. _Choredo_, in
Gypsy, signifies a poor, miserable person, and differs very little in
sound from two words, one Sanscrit and the other Hebrew, both signifying,
like the Gypsy term, something low, mean, and contemptible.
Kora-mengre are the lowest of those hawkers who go about the country
villages and the streets of London, with caravans hung about with various
common articles, such as mats, brooms, mops, tin pans and kettles. These
low hawkers seem to be of much the same origin as the Chorodies, and are
almost equally brutal and repulsive in their manners. The name
Kora-mengre is Gypsy, and signifies fellows who cry out and shout, from
their practice of shouting out the names of their goods. The word
_kora_, or _karra_, is by no means bad Hebrew: _kora_, in the Holy
Language, signifies he cried out, called, or proclaimed: and a partridge
is called in Hebrew _kora_, from its continually crying out to its young,
when leading them about to feed. _Koran_, the name of the sacred book of
the Mahomedans, is of the same root.
Lastly come the Hindity-mengre, or Filthy People. This term has been
bestowed upon the vagrant Irish by the Gypsies, from the dirty ways
attributed to them, though it is a question whether the lowest Irish are
a bit more dirty in their ways than the English Chorodies, or indeed so
much, and are certainly immeasurably superior to them in many respects.
There are not many of them here, seldom more than two families, and
sometimes, even during the winter, not a single Irish tent or cart is to
be seen. The trade they ostensibly drive is tinkering, repairing old
kettles, and making little pots and pans of tin. The one, however, on
which they principally depend, is not tinkering, but one far more
lucrative, and requiring more cleverness and dexterity; they make false
rings, like the Gypsy smiths, the _fashiono vangustengre_ of old, and
whilst speaking Celtic to one whom they deem their countryman, have no
hesitation in acknowledging themselves to be “Cairdean droich oir,”
workers of false gold. The rings are principally made out of old brass
buttons; those worn by old Chelsea pensioners being considered the very
best for the purpose. Many an ancient Corporal Trim, alter having spent
all his money at the public-house, and only become three-parts boozy, has
been induced by the Hindity-mengro to sell all his buttons at the rate of
three-halfpence a-piece, in order to have wherewithal to make himself
thoroughly royal. Each of these Hindity-mengre has his blow-pipe, and
some of them can execute their work in a style little inferior to that of
a first-rate working goldsmith. The rings, after being made, are rubbed
with a certain stuff out of a phial, which gives them all the appearance
of gold. This appearance, however, does not long endure, for after
having been worn two or three months, the ring loses its false appearance
entirely, and any one can see that it is worthless metal. A good many of
these rings are disposed of at good prices by the Hindity women, the
wives of these false-gold workers, to servant girls and the wives of
small shopkeepers, and not a few, at a lower rate, to certain gentry who
get their livelihood by the honourable profession of _ring-dropping_.
What is ring-dropping?
Ring-dropping is this. A gentleman overtakes you as you are walking in
some quiet street, passes by you, and at the distance of some fifteen
yards stops, and stooping down, seemingly picks up something, which he
inspects, and then uttering a “Dear me!” he turns to you, and says, “Sir,
we have been fortunate to-day. See! I have picked up this valuable!”
He then shows you a small case, in which is a large ring, seemingly of
the finest gold, with a little label attached to it, on which is marked
£2 15s. “Now, sir,” he continues, “I said _we_ were fortunate, because
as we were close to each other, I consider you as much entitled to gain
by this windfall as myself. I’ll tell you how it shall be: the price of
the ring, which was probably dropped by some goldsmith’s man, is, as you
see, two pound fifteen; however, as I am in a hurry, you shall only give
me a quid, a pound, and then the valuable shall be all your own; it shall
indeed, sir!” And then he stares you in the face. Such is
ring-dropping, to which many silly but greedy individuals, fall victims;
giving a pound for a fine-looking ring, which, however, with its scarlet
case—for the case is always of a scarlet colour—is not worth sixpence.
The best thing you can do in such a case is to put your thumb to your
nose, flattening your hand and sticking out your fingers far apart,
moving on at the same time, or to utter the cabalistic word “hookey”; in
either case the ring-dropper will at once drop astern, with a
half-stifled curse, for he knows that he has to do with “no flat,” and
that you are “awake to his little game.” Doing so is much better than
moving rapidly on, and affecting to take no notice of him, for then he
will infallibly follow you to the end of the street, offering you the
ring on more reasonable terms at every step, perhaps concluding at last,
as a ring-dropper once did to the writer, “I’ll tell you what, sir; as I
am in a hurry, and rather hard up, you shall have the valuable for a
bull, for a crown; you shall indeed, sir, so help me—”
Three of the most famous of the Hindity smiths have been immortalised by
the Gypsies in the following bit of verse:
Mickie, Huwie and Larry,
Trin Hindity-mengre fashiono vangust-engre.
Mickie, Huwie and Larry bold,
Three Irish brothers, as I am told,
Who make false rings, that pass for gold.
Of these _fashiono-vangust_ brothers, the most remarkable is Mike—Old
Mike, as he is generally called. He was born in the county Kerry, and
educated at a hedge-school, where he learned to read and write English,
after a fashion, and acquired the seventeen letters of the Irish
alphabet, each of which is named after a particular tree. Leaving school
he was apprenticed to a blacksmith, from whom he ran away, and enlisted
into the service of that illustrious monarch, George the Third, some of
whose battles he had the honour of fighting in the Peninsula and France.
Discharged from the army at the Peace, with the noble donation of thirty
shillings, or one month’s pay, he returned to Ireland, took to himself a
wife, and commenced tinker. Becoming dissatisfied with his native soil
he passed over to England, and settling for some time at “Brummagem,”
took lessons from certain cunning smiths in the art of making _fashiono
vangusties_. The next forty years of his life he spent in wandering
about Britain, attended by his faithful partner, who not only disposed of
his tin articles and false rings, but also bore him seventeen children,
all of whom are alive, somewhere or other, and thriving too, one of them
indeed having attained to the dignity of American senator. Some of his
adventures, during his wanderings, were in the highest degree
extraordinary. Of late years he has chiefly resided in the vicinity of
London, spending his winters at Wandsworth, and his summers on the Flats,
near Epping Forest; in one or the other of which places you may see Old
Mike on a Sunday evening, provided the weather is tolerably fine, seated
near his little caravan, with his wife by his side—not the wife who bore
him the seventeen children, who has been dead for some years, but his
second wife, a nice, elderly Irish _ban_ from the county of Cork, who can
tell fortunes, say her prayers in Irish, and is nearly as good a hand at
selling her lord and master’s tin articles and false rings as her
predecessor. Lucky for Mike that he got such a second partner! and
luckier still that at his age of seventy-nine he retains all his
faculties, and is able to work for his daily bread, with at least the
skill and cunning of his two brothers, both of whom are much younger men
than himself, whose adventures have been somewhat similar to his own, and
who, singularly enough, have come to live near him in his latter days.
Both these brothers are highly remarkable men. Huwie is the most
civil-spoken person in or about London, and Larry a man of the most
terrible tongue, and perhaps the most desperate fighter ever seen; always
willing to attack half a dozen men, if necessary, and afraid of no one in
the world, save one—Mike, old Mike, who can tame him in his fiercest
moods by merely holding up his finger. Oh, a truly remarkable man is old
Mike! and a pleasure and an advantage it is to any one of a philosophical
mind to be acquainted with him, and to listen to him. He is much more
than _a fashiono-vangust-engro_. Amongst other things he is a
theologian—Irish theologian—and quite competent to fill the chair of
theology at the University of Maynooth. He can tell you a great many
things connected with a certain person, which, with all your research,
you would never find in Scripture. He can tell you how the Saviour, when
hanging on the cross, became athirst, and told St. Peter, who stood at
the foot of it, to fetch Him a cup of water from a dirty puddle in the
neighbourhood, and how St. Peter—however, better not relate the legend,
though a highly curious one. Then he can repeat to you blessed verses,
as he calls them, by dozens; not of David, but of one quite as good, as
he will tell you, namely, Timothy O’Sullivan; and who, you will say, was
Timothy O’Sullivan? Why, Ty Gaelach, to be sure. And who was Ty
Gaelach? An Irish peasant-poet of the last century, who wrote spiritual
songs, some of them by no means bad ones, and who was called Gaelach, or
Gael, from his abhorrence of the English race and of the English
language, of which he scarcely understood a word. Then is Ty Irish for
Timothy? Why, no! though very stupidly supposed to be so. Ty is Teague,
which is neither Greek nor Irish, but a glorious old Northern name,
carried into Ireland by the brave old heathen Danes. Ty or Teague is the
same as Tycho. Ty or Teague Gaelach is as much as to say Tycho Gaelach;
and Tycho Brahe is as much as to say Teague Brahe.