CHAPTER XVI

THE INN ON THE RIDGEWAY—TALES BY THE FIRESIDE

AT one time I had a great liking for long jaunts in search of fossils—cross-country rambles extending over two or three days. Thus I came to know many a deserted quarry and unfrequented byway of our county, as well as the bedchambers of sundry remote wayside inns—“hedge-taverns,” perhaps some would have described these lonely little houses of call. Occasionally, however, I lighted upon an inn which had seen better days, a sleepy old house with mullioned casements, a worn mounting-block of stone, and a rude iron ring still fixed in the wall near the deep porch before which an unfenced stretch of sward dipped towards the roadway.

Let me recall one of my geologizing expeditions on an early March day. I had been successful in my quest, and my knapsack, laden with stony spoils, was not very light. But what matter? It was fine to be striding along a ridgeway with a roaring gale behind, and every wayside tree whistling like a ships rigging in a storm. Going along that road, I stretched out my limbs, and in so doing the very thews and sinews of the mind became more elastic. Straight from the reddening west blew the wild whirling wind, which, like some old giant, frolicsome yet kind, spread out its open palms upon my back, fairly shoving me along. This was living—this fine exaltation, this surging up of joyous emotions; and from a gnarled ash tree a storm-thrush with throbbing speckled throat told the same tale of a heart set free from every care. Such was my mood when at a turn of the road a red-shawled figure, surely a Gypsy, appeared for a moment and as suddenly was lost to sight down a gloomy yew-fringed drive leading to the rear of a low grey mansion. She’ll be out again presently, thought I; so I resolved to await the woman’s reappearance.

Meanwhile, like a spreading forest fire, the sunset flung its flaming crimson far over the land. Tree boughs and boles caught the glow, and underfoot the very grasses burnt by winter frosts seemed dyed with blood. Across a riot of sundown colours, black rooks were heading for their resting-place in the upland woods rugged against a castle-phantasy of lurid cloud piled up in the east.

Loitering there, methought of the wandering Gypsies who in other days had passed along this desolate road. I seemed again to behold a gang of slouching Herons, swarthy, black-eyed, secretive, accompanied by their pack-ponies and donkeys carrying tent-rods, pots, and pans. Who shall say what processions of old Romany souls, long departed, here visit the glimpses of the moon?

The moments flew by, but no Gypsy came. A little longer I waited, pacing sharply up and down the roadway, then as the red shawl had not put in an appearance, visions of a cosy meal by the fire of a certain inn began to beckon alluringly, so I started on my way again. Soon I forgot all about the Gypsy, who by this time had probably done a good stroke in the _duker_in line among the servants of the mansion. However, a rutted, grassy lane turning off to the left drew one’s eye towards a gorsy corner where the chimney of a Gypsy van flung a drooping trail of smoke over the tangles, and, going forward, I shouted in the doorway, “Anybody at home?”

A man’s scared face looked out. Perhaps he had expected a command to quit his corner and draw out into the windy night. A moment later in a tone of relief, he said—

“Now I know who you are. You’ll be the _rashai_ I met wi’ Jonathan Boswell by the watermill. Don’t you remember I moved away when you began to _roker_ (talk)? My pal Boswell wanted to have you to himself. That’s why I took my hook. But come inside a bit. This wind’s enough to blow your wery _bal avrî_” (hair off).

How strange it is that if a Gypsy has seen you anywhere for a few moments, he is able to identify your very shadow for ever after.

Gladly I joined Old Frank in his cheery _vâdo_, which certainly suggested comfort and gaiety to this traveller on the wild March evening.

“You gave me a bit of a shock,” said Frank. “At first I took you for a _muskro_ (constable), but as soon as the light of my lamp fell on your face I reckernized you in a minute.”

We talked awhile of Old Jonathan, whose faithful consort Fazzy had passed away up in Yorkshire. This brought to mind the red-shawled woman whom I had seen down the road.

“That’ll be my _monushni_ (wife). I expect her home di-rectly. When she comes, you pretend to be a _muskro_”—this with a broad grin. “Say roughish-like, ‘Wasn’t your name Liddy West afore you was married?’ Then draw out a bit of paper, a letter folded long or anythink like that’ll do, and say, ‘I’ve come to take you for fortune-telling.’”

No one understands the whole art and mystery of practical joking better than the Gypsy, and he dearly loves to play pranks even upon his fellows. It is part and parcel of the Gypsy’s innate spirit of mischief, examples of which I have seen not a few in my time.

* * * * *

Having acquiesced in the joke, our talk presently ran on _muskro_s.

“_Muskro_s _sî jukel_s” (policemen are dogs), said the Gypsy.

“There was a pal of mine who was up to card games [sharping?], and at Doncaster Races he happened to drop a word or two in _Romanes_ (Gypsy tongue) to a mate. A _muskro_ was standing near, and bless me if he didn’t _jin_ the _tshib_ (know the language), and of course my pal and his mate was _lel_’d _oprê_ (taken up). ’Pend upon it, _muskro_s is _jukel_s.”

A good step farther along the road stood the tavern, the “Black Boy,” whose swinging sign of an Ethiopian countenance I was eager to see, since I was to spend the night there in order to resume my fossil-hunting on the morrow.

“Come and see me a little later at the _kitshima_ (inn) down the road, and mind you bring the missis and your fiddle.” As I rose to go, I noticed Frank gave a sidelong glance at my bulging knapsack, and in order to satisfy his curiosity, I took out a fossil, a fine _gryphea incurva_, on seeing which he drew back, holding up his hands in real or mock horror, I could scarcely say which.

“_Dâbla_, that be one of the Devil’s toe-nails, wery onlucky stuff to carry about you! Wherever did you get it from?”

“Off the _Beng_’s _pîro_ (Devil’s foot), to be sure,” I said, with a laugh, and renewed my invitation pressingly. He promised to come.

What a relief to stretch your limbs before a glowing fire inside an old-fashioned inn, when boisterous winds are shaking the window-panes and driving the loose straw from the cobbled yard into the hedge bottoms. No stranger at this house on the ridgeway, I know every nook of the room. There is the old gun still reared up in yonder corner. From nails in the cross-beams hang flitches of bacon and bulky hams. Plates and dishes arranged on racks glitter in the firelight. The pewter mugs on the dresser and the bright copper warming-pan hanging on the wall reflect the glow of the ruddy flames darting up the wide chimney. Here and there hang modern oleographs whose crude tints have been softened by smoke.

Tea is set on a table over which a lamp hanging from a hook in the ceiling casts a pleasant radiance. During my meal the landlord, ruddy of countenance, looks in and greets me in a friendly way. From his talk with his wife, a slight, frail-looking woman of seventy who sits darning by the fire, I gather that a horse is very ill in the stable, and any moment the veterinary surgeon is expected. Presently, the barking of a dog in the front of the inn announces his arrival in a gig, and the landlord hurries out with a storm-lantern in his hand. In a few minutes, the two men enter, and before the fire the burly vet rubs his hands, talks in clear, sharp tones, then, tossing off a “scotch” smoking hot, he wishes us good-night. Whereupon the innkeeper goes off to the stable.

Tea over, a small maid with chestnut hair and spotless pinafore clears the table, and I move to the high-backed settle opposite the landlady. In the fire-grate a huge chunk of wood burns brightly, and every now and then a puff of wood-smoke comes out into the room.

Addressing the old lady, I inform her that I am expecting some visitors to see me to-night, and they are stopping in a little lane down the road.

“Why, we had those Gypsies up here this morning. Their faces are well known round here, though we don’t have them so much as we used to do. You take an interest in Gypsies, don’t you, sir? At least I’ve heard it said that you do. They don’t often set foot inside your church, I should think?”

“Sometimes they do, and their reverent behaviour would certainly put to shame some of the more regular attenders. If their unfamiliarity with print leads them to hold a borrowed book upside down, they do at anyrate kneel upon their knees instead of squatting upon the benches, and I have never once known them to go to sleep during sermon-time.”

Speaking about Gypsies and churches, I am reminded of a funny experience I once had all through a Gypsy cabman’s mistake.

* * * * *

I had promised to take an afternoon service at a village church miles away in the country, and the road to it was unfamiliar to me. On my naming the place, the driver said that he knew every inch of the road, and, trusting myself in his hands, we bowled along for several miles, and at last struck off into a tangle of green lanes. A few minutes before the hour of service—three o’clock—my driver put me down at an old grey stone church, saying, “Here we are, sir.” Entering the church, I found a congregation assembled, and, going into the belfry, I asked for the vestry wherein to robe.

“We ain’t got one here. Our pass’n dresses hisself in his house and comes in at that little door.” The sexton then conducted me to a chantry-chapel full of dusty figures of knights and their ladies lying side by side with their feet resting upon their hounds. There I robed and awaited the ceasing of the bells. When they stopped, I stepped towards the prayer desk, when, to my astonishment, there appeared through the small door in the chancel a fully-robed parson, white-headed and bowed with age. We met and exchanged astonished glances.

Said I, “I’m afraid there is some mistake.”

He shook his head. “I’m deaf, and can’t hear a word you say.” He then went to his desk, and knelt before commencing evensong.

It was an uncomfortable five minutes for me. I could hear the congregation tittering and the mixed choir giggling. In despair I went to the lady organist, and asked for the name of the church. Her reply made it clear that I had come to the wrong village, and, rushing out by the chancel door, I sought my cabby, whom I rated soundly for his blunder. Fortunately my destination was no more than a mile and a half farther on.

* * * * *

In a little while, the tavern door opened noisily, admitting a rush of wind. There was a sound of naily boots on the threshold, and Gypsy Frank and his wife entered. In a few moments they were happy enough on the black settle with mugs of good Newark brew in front of them.

Just before the Gypsies had arrived, I had been studying a pocket-map of the locality, and once again I had an old impression confirmed that many out-of-the-way country districts are dotted over with place-names bearing witness to the prevalence of Gypsy encampments in the past. I mean such names as “Gypsy Lane,” “Gypsy Nook,” “Gypsy Dale,” and the like. On the map I had noted a “Gypsy Corner,” “Gypsy Bridge,” and “Gypsy Ford.”

It was about “Gypsy Ford” that I put a question to Old Frank sitting by my side, and he described the shallow crossing at a bend in the river over which before now I had passed by a narrow plank-bridge. According to my Gypsy, one night many years ago a quarrel arose in the Romany tents encamped near the ford, and in the course of a fight between two kinsmen, one of them was slain. Speedily a grave was dug, and, the corpse having been covered up, the Gypsies fled the spot. This affair became widely known, and little wonder that a legend arose about a “something” having been seen in the neighbourhood of the ford.

“You’s mebbe heard,” said Frank, “about Gypsy Jack’s wife, ‘Flash’ Rosabel, who was drownded at the ford on just such a wild night as this.”

“‘Let’s camp in the lane on this side of the water,’ says Jack’s wife.

“‘_Keka_’ (No), says he, ‘not in this _drom_ (road) where the _mulo_ (ghost) walks. With a bright moon like this, our _grai_ (horse) will see to pull us through the river all right, never fear.’

“Anyway, he whipped up the horse and steered straight into the ford. And then a sad thing happened. There had been a deal o’ rain and the stream was bigger and stronger than Jack had any idea of. Somewheres about the middle of the river, the hoss was swept off its feet, the wagon tumbled over on to its side, and poor old ‘Flash’ Rosabel was carried away and drownded. Jack allus said that the _grai_ must have _dik_’d the _mulo_” (the horse must have seen the ghost). “That’s a tale what’s been told by many a traveller’s fire.”

[Picture: A Romany Fiddler. Photo. Fred Shaw]

Just then the publican came in, panting after a tussle with the wind, and, being on good terms with my Gypsy friends, he said, “I’m glad to see you’ve brought your music. Gi’ us a tune, Frank.” Then the Gypsy, taking his fiddle from its baize bag, screwed up the strings, and, having tuned them to his liking, gave us a merry air from memory’s repertoire. At the back of the clear cantabile of the air, you heard the deep roar of the storm. Once I went to the window and looked out into the night. Athwart the white moonlit road lay the sharp black shadows of the ash trees rising from the far hedgerow, and, as I watched the swaying, writhing boughs, a lonely horseman sped past, a phantom he seemed more than a living being, and, returning to my nook in the ingle, I heard in fancy all through the Gypsy’s music the haunting clatter of the night-rider’s horse, and wondered what mysterious mission had called him forth on this riotous March evening. Now the fiddler ceased, and his pewter was forthwith replenished. “Good ale, this,” says Frank, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Why, yes,” put in the landlady, looking over her spectacles, and glad, if the truth be known, to give her darning a rest; “it’s Newark ale, and no better drink could any man wish for; we’ve sold nothing else for years.”

Said the landlord, who by this time had recovered his breath—

“That was a strange case as I see’d in the paper t’other day about the wise woman getting ‘trapped’ by the constable’s wife as went to have her fortune told. The paper said as how a crystal ball were used, but I’m blest if I knows how anybody can expect to see their future in a thing o’ that sort.”

“Dunno so much about that,” remarked Old Liddy, who had been dreaming over the fire. “A woman as had a crystal once told my dad he would go to prison in a fortnight, and sure enough he did, along wi’ a conjurer who’d been up to his tricks, and dad says to him when they was in jail, ‘A mighty poor conjurer you be, my fine fellow, if you can’t conjure us out of this place.’ I believes there _is_ summut in crystals.”

* * * * *

And then I was tempted to tell how a clairvoyant’s crystal once did me a good turn. Let me explain that many years ago, when I was a curate on the Wolds, our Rector’s aged wife used to bring me rare wild-flowers to be named, and thus I won a place in the lady’s good books.

Time passed, and the Rector’s wife died. Not long after, I moved away to another sphere of work. Then came the news of the decease of the old Rector himself. One morning, twenty years after quitting that Wold parish, a letter reached me, asking if I had been a curate with Canon A— in such and such years, and further inquiring whether my wife Elizabeth was still alive. Of course I had no difficulty in satisfying the writer of the letter, and his speedy reply brought an agreeable enclosure in the form of a cheque, a little legacy bequeathed to us by a codicil to the will of the old Rector’s wife who loved wild-flowers. But the strangest part of the story is yet to come. During a visit to London, the wife of the present parson of our old parish visited a clairvoyant who by the aid of a crystal declared that in the drawing-room of her home stood a small brass handled writing-table containing several drawers, in one of which would be found on examination a bundle of papers long neglected. On returning home, the writing-table was duly searched, with the result that the forgotten codicil was disclosed, and in it were mentioned some legacies bequeathed to friends, several of whom had since passed away, but my wife and I happened to be among the survivors. Thus there came to us, as I have said, an agreeable arrival by the morning post, so that if “seeing is believing,” my wife and I ought nevermore to scoff at clairvoyants and their crystals.

* * * * *

“_Dawdi_!” (expression of surprise) exclaimed Liddy, with something of a gasp in her voice, while Old Frank looked wonder struck.

“Well, that licks all I’ve ever heard,” said the publican, slapping his knee in punctuation of his surprise. “Now let’s have another tune, Frank.”

Whereupon the fiddler broke into a Scottish air with variations, his body swaying to and fro the while. During several staves, the player laid his cheek on the violin in a fashion so comical that at the end of the tune I could not refrain from remarking—

“You reminded me just now, my pal, of Wry-necked Charley the _boshomengro_” (fiddler). With a good-natured grin he replied—

“So you know that tale about the fiddler?”

And here it is, in my own words.

Charley Lovell, a fiddler of renown, was returning one evening after a tiring day’s fiddling at a village feast. On the way to his tent, which was pitched in a disused quarry, the Gypsy took from his pocket a few coins he had received by way of payment. “Poor luck, I call it, to be paid like this for such hard work.” Thus commiserating himself, he trudged along the sunken lane leading to his tent. Imagine his surprise to find at the tent door a tall gentleman dressed in black broad-cloth. Dark of complexion, black-eyed, and polished in demeanour, the stranger turned to meet the Gypsy.

“Good evening, sir,” said Charley, bowing low, for he had the sense to perceive that a gentleman stood before him. “Pray what can I do for you?”

“A great kindness,” responded the stranger, “for I have heard of your skilful playing upon this wonderful instrument” (tapping Charley’s fiddle with his finger), “and I wish to know if you will come to play at a dance of mine to-morrow night.” The place and hour were named, and the Gypsy promised to be there.

“Open your hands, my man;” and into them the stranger emptied a pocketful of silver coins, and departed, smiling over his shoulder at the perplexed Gypsy. All that night Charley tossed restlessly on his bed of straw. “A fore-handed payment, and generous too. Who can that dark gentleman be?” In the morning the Gypsy betook himself to a neighbouring priest, who, on hearing his story, looked grave.

“You have made a bargain with the Devil.”

“Then tell me how I can get out of it.”

“You must keep your engagement, for, if you don’t, the Devil will fetch you.”

“But what am I to do when I get there?”

“If you do as I say, all will be well. When you are asked to strike up, you must be sure to play nothing but slow, solemn psalm tunes. Mind you do as I say.”

At the appointed hour the trembling fiddler stood on the moonlit sward within the walls of a ruined castle. Awaiting his arrival was the tall dark gentleman surrounded by his guests, an array of lords and ladies in silks and satins. When the signal was given for the fiddler to commence his music, Charley drew his bow over the strings, evoking none but psalm tunes, solemn and slow, as the priest had advised. After a few moments of this sort of music, the Devil marched up to the Gypsy, and, fixing his large black eyes upon him, said—

“Give us something more lively at once.”

“I cannot,” said the Gypsy.

“Then, take _that_!”—and the Devil struck Charley a smart blow on the cheek, twisting the poor fellow’s head on one side, and so it ever remained. After that, he was always known as “Wry-necked” Charley.

As the clock was striking the hour of ten, the rural tavern’s closing-time, my Gypsy friends stepped out into the night.

All through the long hours the wind howled in the chimney and rattled the casements, and one traveller at least slept but fitfully in his four-poster draped with curtains of red damask.

In the morning the landlord informed me at breakfast that a tree had been blown down across the road, and, while “rembling” under his overturned straw-stack, a fine fox was found smothered, and, “See here,” he said, “I shall always think of last night whenever I look at this,” holding up a beautiful tawny brush.

The storm-rack was still scudding overhead as I bade adieu to the quaint pair on the footworn doorstep of the “Black Boy” on the ridge way.