Chapter 24

Yet it is not a good country, on the whole, for _hokkani boro_, since the people here, especially in the rural districts, have a rough-and-ready way of inflicting justice which interferes sadly with the profits of aldermen and other politicians. Some years ago, in Tennessee, a gypsy woman robbed a farmer by the great trick of all he was worth. Now it is no slander to say that the rural folk of Tennessee greatly resemble Indians in certain respects, and when I saw thousands of them, during the war, mustered out in Nashville, I often thought, as I studied their dark brown faces, high cheek bones, and long straight black hair, that the American is indeed reverting to the aboriginal type. The Tennessee farmer and his neighbors, at any rate, reverted very strongly indeed to the original type when robbed by the gypsies, for they turned out all together, hunted them down, and, having secured the sorceress, burned her alive at the stake. And thus in a single crime and its punishment we have curiously combined a world-old Oriental offense, an European Middle-Age penalty for witchcraft, and the fierce torture of the red Indians.

SHELTA, THE TINKERS' TALK.

"So good a proficient in one quarter of an hour that I can drink with any tinker in his own language during my life."--_King Henry the Fourth_.

One summer day, in the year 1876, I was returning from a long walk in the beautiful country which lies around Bath, when, on the road near the town, I met with a man who had evidently grown up from childhood into middle age as a beggar and a tramp. I have learned by long experience that there is not a so-called "traveler" of England or of the world, be he beggar, tinker, gypsy, or hawker, from whom something cannot be learned, if one only knows how to use the test-glasses and proper reagents. Most inquirers are chiefly interested in the morals--or immorals--of these nomads. My own researches as regards them are chiefly philological. Therefore, after I had invested twopence in his prospective beer, I addressed him in Romany. Of course he knew a little of it; was there ever an old "traveler" who did not?

"But we are givin' Romanes up very fast,--all of us is," he remarked. "It is a gettin' to be too blown. Everybody knows some Romanes now. But there _is_ a jib that ain't blown," he remarked reflectively. "Back slang an' cantin' an' rhymin' is grown vulgar, and Italian always _was_ the lowest of the lot; thieves _kennick_ is genteel alongside of organ-grinder's lingo, you know. Do _you_ know anythin' of Italian, sir?"

"I can _rakker_ it pretty _flick_" (talk it tolerably), was my reply.

"Well I should never a _penned_ [thought] sitch a swell gent as you had been down so low in the slums. Now _Romanes_ is genteel. I heard there's actilly a book about Romanes to learn it out of. But as for this other jib, its wery hard to talk. It is most all Old Irish, and they calls it Shelter."

This was all that I could learn at that time. It did not impress me much, as I supposed that the man merely meant Old Irish. A year went by, and I found myself at Aberystwith, the beautiful sea-town in Wales, with my friend Professor Palmer--a palmer who has truly been a pilgrim _outre-mer_, even by Galilee's wave, and dwelt as an Arab in the desert. One afternoon we were walking together on that end of the beach which is the antithesis of the old Norman castle; that is, at the other extremity of the town, and by the rocks. And here there was a little crowd, chiefly of young ladies, knitting and novel-reading in the sun, or watching children playing on the sand. All at once there was an alarm, and the whole party fled like partridges, skurrying along and hiding under the lee of the rocks. For a great rock right over our heads was about to be blasted. So the professor and I went on and away, but as we went we observed an eccentric and most miserable figure crouching in a hollow like a little cave to avoid the anticipated falling stones.

"_Dikk o dovo mush adoi a gavverin lester kokero_!" (Look at that man there, hiding himself!) said the professor in Romanes. He wished to call attention to the grotesque figure without hurting the poor fellow's feelings.

"_Yuv's atrash o' ye baryia_" (He is afraid of the stones), I replied.

The man looked up. "I know what you're saying, gentlemen. That's Romany."

"Jump up, then, and come along with us."

He followed. We walked from rock to rock, and over the sand by the sea, to a secluded nook under a cliff. Then, seated around a stone table, we began our conversation, while the ocean, like an importunate beggar, surfed and foamed away, filling up the intervals with its mighty roaring language, which poets only understand or translate:--

"Thus far, and then no more:" Such language speaks the sounding sea To the waves upon the shore.

Our new acquaintance was ragged and disreputable. Yet he held in his hand a shilling copy of "Helen's Babies," in which were pressed some fern leaves.

"What do you do for a living?" I asked.

"_Shelkin gallopas_ just now," he replied.

"And what is that?"

"Selling ferns. Don't you understand? That's what we call it in _Minklers Thari_. That's tinkers' language. I thought as you knew Romanes you might understand it. The right name for it is _Shelter_ or _Shelta_."

Out came our note-books and pencils. So this was the _Shelter_ of which I had heard. He was promptly asked to explain what sort of a language it was.

"Well, gentlemen, you must know that I have no great gift for languages. I never could learn even French properly. I can conjugate the verb _etre_,--that is all. I'm an ignorant fellow, and very low. I've been kicked out of the lowest slums in Whitechapel because I was too much of a blackguard for 'em. But I know rhyming slang. Do you know Lord John Russell?"

"Well, I know a little of rhyming, but not that."

"Why, it rhymes to _bustle_."

"I see. _Bustle_ is to pick pockets."

"Yes, or anything like it, such as ringing the changes."

Here the professor was "in his plate." He knows perfectly how to ring the changes. It is effected by going into a shop, asking for change for a sovereign, purchasing some trifling article, then, by ostensibly changing your mind as to having the change, so bewilder the shopman as to cheat him out of ten shillings. It is easily done by one who understands it. The professor does not practice this art for the lucre of gain, but he understands it in detail. And of this he gave such proofs to the tramp that the latter was astonished.

"A tinker would like to have a wife who knows as much of that as you do," he remarked. "No woman is fit to be a tinker's wife who can't make ten shillings a day by _glantherin_. _Glantherin_ or _glad'herin_ is the correct word in Shelter for ringing the changes. As for the language, I believe it's mostly Gaelic, but it's mixed up with Romanes and canting or thieves' slang. Once it was the common language of all the old tinkers. But of late years the old tinkers' families are mostly broken up, and the language is perishing."

Then he proceeded to give us the words in Shelta, or Minklers Thari. They were as follows:--

Shelkin gallopas Selling ferns. Soobli, Soobri Brother, friend--a man. Bewr Woman. Gothlin or goch'thlin Child. Young bewr Girl. Durra, or derra Bread. Pani Water (Romany). Stiff A warrant (common cant). Yack A watch (cant, _i.e._ bull's eye, _Yack_, an eye in Romany). Mush-faker Umbrella mender. Mithani (mithni) Policeman. Ghesterman (ghesti) Magistrate. Needi-mizzler A tramp. Dinnessy Cat. Stall Go, travel. Biyeghin Stealing. Biyeg To steal. Biyeg th'eenik To steal the thing. Crack A stick. Monkery Country. Prat Stop, stay, lodge. Ned askan Lodging. Glantherin (glad'herin) Money, swindling.

This word has a very peculiar pronunciation.

Sauni or sonni See. Strepuck (reepuck) A harlot. Strepuck lusk, Luthrum's gothlin Son of a harlot. Kurrb yer pee Punch your head or face. Pee Face. Borers and jumpers Tinkers' tools. Borers Gimlets. Jumpers Cranks. Ogles Eyes (common slang). Nyock Head. Nyock A penny. Odd Two. Midgic A shilling. Nyo(d)ghee A pound. Sai, sy Sixpence. Charrshom, Cherrshom, Tusheroon A crown. Tre-nyock Threepence. Tripo-rauniel A pot of beer. Thari, Bug Talk.

Can you thari Shelter? Can you bug Shelta? Can you talk tinkers' language?

Shelter, shelta Tinker's slang. Larkin Girl.

Curious as perhaps indicating an affinity between the Hindustani _larki_, a girl, and the gypsy _rakli_.

Snips Scissors (slang). Dingle fakir A bell-hanger. Dunnovans Potatoes. Fay (_vulgarly_ fee) Meat.

Our informant declared that there are vulgar forms of certain words.

Gladdher Ring the changes (cheat in change).

"No minkler would have a bewr who couldn't gladdher."

Reesbin Prison. Tre-moon Three months, a 'drag.' Rauniel, Runniel Beer. Max Spirits (slang). Chiv Knife. (Romany, a pointed knife, _i.e. tongue_.) Thari To speak or tell.

"I tharied the soobri I sonnied him." (I told the man I saw him.)

Mushgraw.

Our informant did not know whether this word, of Romany origin, meant, in Shelta, policeman or magistrate.

Scri, scree To write.

Our informant suggested _scribe_ as the origin of this word.

Reader A writ.

"You're readered soobri." (You are put in the "Police Gazette," friend.)

Our informant could give only a single specimen of the Shelta literature. It was as follows:--

"My name is Barney Mucafee, With my borers and jumpers down to my thee (thigh). An' it's forty miles I've come to kerrb yer pee."

This vocabulary is, as he declared, an extremely imperfect specimen of the language. He did not claim to speak it well. In its purity it is not mingled with Romany or thieves' slang. Perhaps some student of English dialects may yet succeed in recovering it all. The pronunciation of many of the words is singular, and very different from English or Romany.

Just as the last word was written down, there came up a woman, a female tramp of the most hardened kind. It seldom happens that gentlemen sit down in familiar friendly converse with vagabonds. When they do they are almost always religious people, anxious to talk with the poor for the good of their souls. The talk generally ends with a charitable gift. Such was the view (as the vagabond afterwards told us) which she took of our party. I also infer that she thought we must be very verdant and an easy prey. Almost without preliminary greeting she told us that she was in great straits,--suffering terribly,--and appealed to the man for confirmation, adding that if we would kindly lend her a sovereign it should be faithfully repaid in the morning.

The professor burst out laughing. But the fern-collector gazed at her in wrath and amazement.

"I say, old woman," he cried; "do you know who you're _rakkerin_ [speaking] to? This here gentleman is one of the deepest Romany ryes [gypsy gentlemen] a-going. And that there one could _gladdher_ you out of your eye-teeth."

She gave one look of dismay,--I shall never forget that look,--and ran away. The witch had chanced upon Arbaces. I think that the tramp had been in his time a man in better position. He was possibly a lawyer's clerk who had fallen into evil ways. He spoke English correctly when not addressing the beggar woman. There was in Aberystwith at the same time another fern-seller, an elderly man, as wretched and as ragged a creature as I ever met. Yet he also spoke English purely, and could give in Latin the names of all the plants which he sold. I have always supposed that the tinkers' language spoken of by Shakespeare was Romany; but I now incline to think it may have been Shelta.

Time passed, and "the levis grene" had fallen thrice from the trees, and I had crossed the sea and was in my native city of Philadelphia. It was a great change after eleven years of Europe, during ten of which I had "homed," as gypsies say, in England. The houses and the roads were old-new to me; there was something familiar-foreign in the voices and ways of those who had been my earliest friends; the very air as it blew hummed tunes which had lost tones in them that made me marvel. Yet even here I soon found traces of something which is the same all the world over, which goes ever on "as of ever," and that was the wanderer of the road. Near the city are three distinct gypsyries, where in summer-time the wagon and the tent may be found; and ever and anon, in my walks about town, I found interesting varieties of vagabonds from every part of Europe. Italians of the most Bohemian type, who once had been like angels,--and truly only in this, that their visits of old were few and far between,--now swarmed as fruit dealers and boot-blacks in every lane; Germans were of course at home; Czechs, or Slavs, supposed to be Germans, gave unlimited facilities for Slavonian practice; while tinkers, almost unknown in 1860, had in 1880 become marvelously common, and strange to say were nearly all Austrians of different kinds. And yet not quite all, and it was lucky for me they were not. For one morning, as I went into the large garden which lies around the house wherein I wone, I heard by the honeysuckle and grape-vine a familiar sound,--suggestive of the road and Romanys and London, and all that is most traveler-esque. It was the tap, tap, tap of a hammer and the clang of tin, and I knew by the smoke that so gracefully curled at the end of the garden a tinker was near. And I advanced to him, and as he glanced up and greeted, I read in his Irish face long rambles on the roads.

"Good-morning!"

"Good-mornin', sorr!"

"You're an old traveler?"

"I am, sorr."

"Can you rakker Romanes?"

"I can, sorr!"

"_Pen yer nav_." (Tell your name.)

"Owen ---, sorr."

A brief conversation ensued, during which we ascertained that we had many friends in common in the _puro tem_ or Ould Country. All at once a thought struck me, and I exclaimed,--

"Do you know any other languages?"

"Yes, sorr: Ould Irish an' Welsh, an' a little Gaelic."

"That's all?"

"Yes, sorr, all av thim."

"All but one?"

"An' what's that wan, sorr?"

"Can you _thari shelta_, _subli_?"

No tinker was ever yet astonished at anything. If he could be he would not be a tinker. If the coals in his stove were to turn to lumps of gold in a twinkle, he would proceed with leisurely action to rake them out and prepare them for sale, and never indicate by a word or a wink that anything remarkable had occurred. But Owen the tinker looked steadily at me for an instant, as if to see what manner of man I might be, and then said,--

"_Shelta_, is it? An' I can talk it. An' there's not six min livin' as can talk it as I do."

"Do you know, I think it's very remarkable that you can talk Shelta."

"An' begorra, I think it's very remarkable, sorr, that ye should know there is such a language."

"Will you give me a lesson?"

"Troth I will."

I went into the house and brought out a note-book. One of the servants brought me a chair. Owen went on soldering a tin dish, and I proceeded to take down from him the following list of words in _Shelta_: