'Good-bye, sister; why do you sing that wicked song?'
'Wicked song, hey, brother! you don't understand the song!'
'Ha, ha! gypsy daughter,' said I, starting up and clapping my hands, 'I
don't understand Rommany, don't I? You shall see; here's the answer to
your gillie--
'The Rommany chi
And the Rommany chal,
Love Luripen
And dukkeripen,
And hokkeripen,
And every pen
But Lachipen
And tatchipen.'
The girl, who had given a slight start when I began, remained for some
time after I had concluded the song standing motionless as a statue, with
the kettle in her hand. At length she came towards me, and stared me
full in the face. 'Grey, tall, and talks Rommany,' said she to herself.
In her countenance there was an expression which I had not seen
before--an expression which struck me as being composed of fear,
curiosity, and the deepest hate. It was momentary, however, and was
succeeded by one smiling, frank, and open. 'Ha, ha, brother,' said she,
'well, I like you all the better for talking Rommany; it is a sweet
language, isn't it? especially as you sing it. How did you pick it up?
But you picked it up upon the roads, no doubt? Ha, it was funny in you
to pretend not to know it, and you so flush with it all the time; it was
not kind in you, however, to frighten the poor person's child so by
screaming out, but it was kind in you to give the rikkeni kekaubi to the
child of the poor person. She will be grateful to you; she will bring
you her little dog to show you, her pretty juggal; the poor person's
child will come and see you again; you are not going away to-day, I hope,
or to-morrow, pretty brother, grey-haired brother--you are not going away
to-morrow, I hope?'
'Nor the next day,' said I, 'only to take a stroll to see if I can sell a
kettle; good-bye, little sister, Rommany sister, dingy sister.'
'Good-bye, tall brother,' said the girl, as she departed, singing
'The Rommany chi,' etc.
'There's something about that girl that I don't understand,' said I to
myself; 'something mysterious. However, it is nothing to me, she knows
not who I am, and if she did, what then?'
Late that evening as I sat on the shaft of my cart in deep meditation,
with my arms folded, I thought I heard a rustling in the bushes over
against me. I turned my eyes in that direction, but saw nothing. 'Some
bird,' said I; 'an owl, perhaps'; and once more I fell into meditation;
my mind wandered from one thing to another--musing now on the structure
of the Roman tongue--now on the rise and fall of the Persian power--and
now on the powers vested in recorders at quarter-sessions. I was
thinking what a fine thing it must be to be a recorder of the peace,
when, lifting up my eyes, I saw right opposite, not a culprit at the bar,
but, staring at me through a gap in the bush, a face wild and strange,
half covered with grey hair; I only saw it a moment, the next it had
disappeared.