CHAPTER IX

TAKEN FOR TRAMPS—AN EAST ANGLIAN FAMILY

DAY after day, in the woods around our village, the autumnal gales roared and ravened with unabated fury, snapping brittle boughs, cracking decrepit boles, and piling up drifts of brown leaves around grey roots protruding like half-buried bones through the mossy woodland floor. Then right in the midst of it all came a spell of calm weather, as if summer had stolen back to her former haunts in sylvan glade and ferny lane. Call it by what name you please, this brief season of sunny repose following upon the heels of the tempestuous equinoctials is a time when some of us are impelled, as by a primal instinct, to shake off the collar of routine and take the road leading over the hill into what realm of adventure beyond.

Fully a week the summer-like interlude had held sway in the land. Upon the newly-turned furrows shimmered a golden light. A dreamy haze trailed its filmy skirts over hill and dale. In narrow lanes invisible threads of spiders’ silk stretched from hedge to hedge, and wayside tangles again were silvered over with a fine dust suggestive of July. Amid the lingering clover-flowers bees buzzed and blundered. Through the still air, leaves of maple and chestnut, like red-winged insects, twirled down to the grass, and the tall elms in the village churchyard littered their yellow foliage upon the graves. Everywhere, serenitude, repose, peace, save in restless hearts chafing at the humdrum of tasks grown monotonous by reason of long-continued performance. For who with a soul fully awake can resist the lure of the road at gossamer-time?

Thus it came to pass one afternoon that my wife and I, slipping out of our drowsy village, took the upland way which after numerous windings brought us into the Great North Road. Our plans were of the flimsiest. It mattered little whether we went north or south, so long as we were absent for a few days. On reaching the far-famed highway we stood under the branching arms of a finger-post, and tossed pennies to determine the course of our itinerary. “North” having won the toss, we footed it gaily in that direction. To be sure, our semi-Gypsy garb, donned for this jaunt, was not long in taking on a coating of road dust, and we were about to shake off this clinging powder, when the rattle of wheels was heard behind us, and almost immediately a dogcart slowed down by our side, and the driver, a rubicund farmer, amicably invited us to take a lift, an offer which was gladly accepted, and we climbed aboard the conveyance.

“I’ve allus had a feeling for folks like you, and I offens give ’em a lift as I’m passing back’ards and forrards on the ramper. Afore I pulled up just now I says to myself, ‘They’ve seen better days, I’ll be bound.’ Maybe you’ve been in the army? Leastways, I thought you seemed to hold yourself up pretty straight in your walk. I’ve done a bit of soldiering myself. Once at a big do-ment in London, I was in the Queen’s Escort. Yes, I’ve been about a bit in my time. I dessay you two’s got a goodish way to go yet afore you come to your night’s lodgings.

“Ay, dear me,” he went on, “we offens has your sort calling at our place—my farm’s a few miles farther along this way—and one day not long since a poor chap knocked at our door and asked for work. He was a parson’s son, so we gave him a lightish job and fed him well and bedded him in the barn for three or four nights, till his sore feet got right agen. Poor fellow, he worn’t much good at labouring work, but we liked to listen to his tales; he could tell you summut now.”

Thus he rambled on after the manner of a garrulous Guardian of the Poor who had acquired an interest in tramps.

“Yon’s my place among the trees, so I must leave you here.”

We thanked him for his kindly lift, and, rounding a bend in the highway, were glad to relieve our pent-up feelings in laughter over the good man’s misconception.

Now, as everyone knows, who has journeyed along it, the fine old turnpike abounds in travellers of every shade and grade. Not once or twice on its turfy wayside have I fraternized with “Weary Willies” boiling their tea in discarded treacle-tins. Even now as we went along, two or three tramps passed by, one of them coming up to beg a few matches, the others scarcely giving us a glance.

Hearing the rumble of an approaching vehicle, we looked towards the bend of the road, and round it came what looked like a carrier’s cart drawn by a horse apparently old, for it proceeded slowly, and the cart creaked and jolted as if it, too, were ancient. As it jogged nearer, I saw it contained but a single occupant—a brown-faced little man who wore a faded yellow kerchief—and, stepping into the roadway, I greeted him with _sâ shan_ (how do?). Whereupon he pulled up. “I heard what you said just now, but you’ve made a mistake. I’m no Romany—I’m a showman, an Aunt Sally man, bound for Retford.”

Now a Gypsy will frequently deny his blood. Knowing that his kind live under a ban, he has no desire to draw attention to himself. But, looking at this Aunt Sally man, I saw that he had told the truth. His face was freckled. No real Gypsy freckles. After all, as Groome says, “It is not the caravan that makes the Gypsy, any more than my cat becomes a dog if she takes to living in a kennel.”

Our road now became a gradual descent into a clean, flower-loving village, where amid the trees we caught the gleam of a large canvas booth in a field, and there were knockings of a mallet to be heard. Nor was it long before we learned what was afoot. Within a tavern’s comfortable parlour, a coloured playbill informed the world that Harrison’s travelling theatre would that evening present a sensational drama—_Gypsy Jack_—and in due time we found ourselves seated among the cottagers and farm-hands, enjoying a highly entertaining, though garbled, version of Mr. G. R. Sims’s _Romany Rye_. Opening with a Gypsy encampment in which the gaily dressed Lees sat talking round a fire in a forest glade, we were successively shown Joe Hackett’s shop, the race-course at Epsom, the deck of the _Saratoga_, the cellar near Rotherhithe, and the Thames by night. The play seemed a not inappropriate episode in our Gypsy jaunt.

Years afterwards, during one Derby week, I saw Mr. Sims’s _Romany Rye_ remarkably well played at a South London theatre. In connection with this play an amusing story is told. The managers of the Princess’s Theatre in London were anxious that the new drama should be announced in the “Agony” column of _The Times_. Like many another one, the advertisement clerk at _The Times_ office could make nothing whatever of the mysterious words _Romany Rye_.

“What the deuce is this _Romany Rye_?” he asked the bearer of the strange document.

“If you please, sir,” said the messenger, whom the manager of the theatre had sworn to secrecy—“if you please, sir, I think it’s the name of a new liver-pad.”

“Well,” remarked the official, “_The Times_ is a great paper and can do without padding. Take it away.”

And the advertisement was declined.

* * * * *

From the door of the canvas theatre it was an easy walk to the little town of Newark-on-Trent, at one of whose pleasant hostelries we spent the night, our window overlooking the ruined castle by the waterside. It had been in our minds to continue our walk next morning along the Great North Road, but at breakfast a small paragraph in a newspaper brought about a quick change in our plans. The item of news ran thus—

“_THE ROMANIES AGAIN_.

“Our friends, the gipsy Greys, are still with us in Grimsby, lamented Mr. Councillor E— last evening, and he wanted to know whether something could not be done to get them to clear out. The Town Clerk had assisted them somewhat, and one or two had gone, but there were still four families encamped at the back of T— Street, New Clee. Inspector M— said he had visited the encampment and he must say that the caravans were very clean. They could not be said to create a nuisance. ‘It is not the tents that are a nuisance,’ replied the lively representative of the H— Ward, ‘but the parties themselves, who trespass in the backyards of the houses in that neighbourhood. It is no uncommon thing on waking up in the morning to find a donkey or a goat in your backyard or garden.’ The Inspector stated that Eliza Grey, the owner of the vans, had informed him they would all be going away in a few days.”

It was the sight of the Romany family name which altered our plans. The East Anglian Grays are a good type of Gypsy not to be encountered every day, hence we decided to lose no time in taking the train for Grimsby. It was a crawling “ordinary” by which we travelled, and at a little wayside station a few miles out of Newark, a lithe, dark fellow carrying a pedlar’s basket stepped into our compartment, and at once I recognized in him my old friend Snakey Petulengro. How his face lit up on seeing me, for we had not met for years. I was so much struck by his altered bearing that I could scarcely believe my eyes. He seemed now as gentle in his manner as once he had been wild. The sight of him brought back Gypsy Court and all its associations. He said he had left the old home, his father and mother having passed away. On my inquiring about his sister Sibby, he said she had married a Gypsy and, tiring of Old England, had gone to ’Merikay. As Snakey quitted the carriage at Lincoln, an observant passenger remarked—

“There goes one of Nature’s gentlemen.”

By mid-afternoon the slender hydraulic tower glowed rosily in the sunlight above Grimsby Docks; and since the fishing-port had no particular charm for us, we proceeded to Cleethorpes, preferring the more airy shore and being eager to see the Gypsies. As might be expected, the summer-like day had brought a goodly number of late holiday-makers to the sands, and as we moved in and out among the groups near the pier foot, I heard a donkey-boy address someone not far away—

“Would the lady like a ride?” The lad’s features, bearing, and tone of voice were distinctly Gypsy, and, seeing he was within hail, I looked towards him and said—

“_Dova sî kushto maila odoi_” (That’s a good donkey there).

His face beamed with delight, and from his lips sprang the question—

“_Romano Rai_?” (Gypsy gentleman?)

“_Âwa_; _kai shan tîro foki hatsh_in?” (Yes; where are your people camping?)

In gratitude for the explicit directions he gave, I placed a sixpence in his hand, and his remark was “_Dova_’s too _kisi_, _raia_” (That’s too much, sir). “A _hora_ (penny) would have been _dosta_ (enough) for _mandi_” (me). This boy was one of the Grays, and, following his instructions, we had no difficulty in locating the Romany camp.

It was early evening when we strolled forth upon an expanse of grass parcelled into building plots, where in a corner between the hedgerows were drawn up, with the doorways facing south, several substantial _vâdê_ (caravans) near which some large tents had been erected. The Grays, who were silently moving to and fro, revealed by their interested side-glances that they had already heard of somebody’s inquiries concerning themselves, and when we advanced to offer our civil and friendly greetings to two women who were washing pots before an outside fire, every politeness was shown to us. They rose and spread a horse-rug for us upon the ground. “_Dai ta tshai_” (mother and daughter), thought I; nor was I wrong. The older woman, diminutive, lean, and somewhat bent with age, informed me that she was Eliza Gray, and the younger was her daughter Lena. As we talked by the fire, a goat appeared and rubbed its nose affectionately against Eliza’s knee. Said she: “This is an old pet of ours. We’s had it for years. I picked it up in Scotland.”

In late September the sun goes down early, and a chilly wind now set in from the North Sea. In the baulk of the old lady’s tent a coke brazier was glowing invitingly, so we all moved under cover, and, seated on a dais of clean straw covered with rugs, listened to tales and talk, the brazier’s crimson gleam being our only light. After some discussion of mutual acquaintances, the conversation drifted towards _duker_in (fortune-telling), a subject never very far from the thoughts of a Gypsy woman.

“How I’ve _sal_’d” (laughed), said Eliza, “at those _dinelê gawjê_ (foolish gentiles) what come to our tent to be _duker_’d. One time I put a crystal on a little table covered with oilcloth, and I ax’d the young lady if she couldn’t see her sweetheart in it. ‘Yes, I can,’ she says, ‘and it’s just like his face, but oh, lor, in this glass ball he’s got a tail.’ I nearly laughed straight out, for I’d sort of accidentally put the crystal on top of a monkey picture. The oilcloth was covered with all sorts of beastses, don’t you see?”

A superstitious family, the Grays have a characteristic way of recounting their own traditions. Here is one of Eliza’s tales—

“Once we were stopping by a woodside. The back of our tent was nigh agen a dry ditch full of dead leaves, and one night we lay abed listening to sounds, a thing I can’t abide. Well, there was rummy folk about in them days, so when we hears a footstep in the wood just t’other side of that there ditch, I ups wi’ the kettle-prop and peeps outen the tent, and listens, but no, never a sound could I catch; all was still as the grave. Till long and by last there comes a rustling in the leaves, and the bushes parts like something trying to make a way through. Then I lifts up the kettle-prop, and I says to myself, if blows are to be struck, Liza had better be the first to strike, when there, straight afore me, stands a woman waving her poor thin arms about, but saying nothing. At that I drops the kettle-prop and screams, and my man Perun jumps straight up. ‘They’re killing my Liza, they are.’ But by that the _muli_ (ghost) had gone like a flash of lightning. Next morning we ax’d at the keeper’s house down the lane, and the missis tell’d us as how a _rawni_ (lady) was once _maw_’d (murdered) in that wood, so it would be her _muli_ as I saw that night. Oh, yes, I believe in _mulê_, I do.”

During the telling of this tale two of Eliza’s sons, Yoben and Poley, sauntered up and stood listening behind their sister Lena. It was Yoben who now added his contribution of ghost-lore.

“Why, yes, of course, mother, there’s _mulê_ (ghosts). Don’t you remember after Dolferus died, his voice used to speak in the tent to Delaia? She says it really was his voice as nat’ral as life, and it made her shiver to hear it. One day she went to a parson for advice. He told her the next time it spoke, to say: ‘I promise you nothing. Begone!’ Well, sure enough, the voice came again, and she remembered to say what the parson had told her, and she never heard the voice no more. My Uncle Ike asked Delaia one day—

“‘I say, my gal, did you really hear Dolferus’s voice?’

“‘Yes; it was his and no one else’s.’

“‘Is that the _tatshipen_ (truth), my gal?’ Ike seemed anxious to know the truth of the matter.”

* * * * *

“Dreams is funny things,” put in Poley, “and I’ve had some wery queer ’uns in my time. Once I dreamt I was walking along a narrow shelf of rock, and on one side of me was a stony wall like a cliff, and on the other side the edge of the path hung over a terrible steep place. Right away below was a river of fiery red stuff pouring along. You could smell it. I thought this rocky road was the path to heaven, and I was trying to get there, but, ’pon my word, it was no easy matter. Now I see’d a tiger chained to the rocky wall on my left hand, and a bit furder on a big lion was tied up. These here critturs was hard to get past. I had to go wery near the dangerous edge what looked down on to the burning river. What a fright I was in; it made the sweat run off me. Sometimes I had to crawl on my hands and knees to get round a big rock in the middle of the path. I felt as if I never should get where I wanted to. Well, after a lot of scrambling and slithering, for my feet gave way sometimes—I had naily boots on—I got to the top of the path, and in the dazzling light, like the sun itself on a summer day, there sat a grey-haired, doubled-up man, a wery aged man, with his chin resting on his hand. It was the _Duvel_ (God), and when he see’d me coming, he sat up and held up his hand, forbidding me to go any furder. He didn’t speak a word, but I knew that his uplifted hand meant ‘Go back.’ And just then I woke. That’s my dream of trying to get to heaven.”

* * * * *

“There’s a lot about heaven and hell in God’s Book, isn’t there, _rashai_?” said Old Eliza. “A _rawni_ (lady) used to read all about them places to us on a Sunday, but that were years ago, and I used to like to hear her talk about the blessed Saviour riding on a _maila_ (donkey) into the big town. She said they nailed him to a cross on Good Friday, and when we was young I remember we all used to fast on that day. We ate no flesh—nothing with blood in it—it would be a sin to do that. If we took anything to stay our hunger it was nothing but dry bread, and our drink was water. We didn’t _tuv_ (smoke), and we didn’t _tov_ our _kokerê_ (wash ourselves) on that day. I don’t know whether there be such places as heaven and hell. I reckons we makes our own destiny. Heaven and hell’s inside us; that’s what I think.”

Lena, however, had her own ideas. “This life is everything there is, I reckons, and when we’re dead, that’s the end of us. Life is sweet, mind you, and we’s a right to be as happy as we can. Mother’s getting old, you see, and has had her fling. I mean to have a good time. Why, last Sunday me and Poley was going off to get some nuts in the woods, but mother stopped us—

“It’s _Beng_’s work getting nuts on the dear Lord’s day.”

“Yes,” says Yoben; “I’ve heard our old daddy say that the _Beng_ likes nuts, and I’d sartinly scorn to go getting them onlucky things on a Sunday; I wouldn’t like to put myself in the _Beng_’s power, like poor Zuba Lovell.”

“What about Zuba?” asked my wife.

Then Yoben told a weird tale.

[Picture: A Maid of the Tents]

“A handsome lass was Zuba, but bad luck dogged her like her own shadow. One night she came back to the camp, for she lived with her old people, and, throwing down a few coppers she had in her hand, she said—

“‘There, mother, what do you think of that for a hard day’s work?’ She had done wery badly, you see. Luck never seemed to come her way at all. And after supper she wandered out a little way from the camp. The moon and stars was shining as she walked round and round an old tree, a blasted old stump, black as a gallows-post. As she kept on walking round it, she said aloud, ‘This game won’t do for me. It’s money I want and money I’ll have. I’d sell my blood to the _Beng_ to have plenty of money in my pocket always.’ The words was hardly out of her mouth when a black thing, like the shadow of the tree, rose up from the ground, and, lor, there was the wery _Beng_ hisself, and after he’d promised her what she had wished for, he wanished. And after that no more grumbling from Zuba; no more complaints about her bad luck. She always had plenty of money now, and she bought herself trinkets and fine clothes till everybody was ’mazed at her, and of course she had kept it to herself what took place that night by the old tree. Days and weeks went by, till one night Zuba was missing from the camp. Her old folks sat up by the fire waiting for her, but no Zuba came. At last her daddy set out to look for her, and there by the foot of the tree lay Zuba’s frock and shawl, and when he took ’em back to his wife’s tent, the poor woman screamed and fainted right away, and old man Lovell walked up and down all night, saying, ‘Oh, my Zuba, my blessed gal, we shall never see you no more,’ and they never did. The _Beng_ had fetched her. That’s the end of Zuba Lovell.”

While listening to these tales in the tent, the flight of the hours passed unobserved, till a distant clock boomed out the hour of ten.

“You’ll _wel apopli_ (come again), my dears?” said Eliza, as we retired amid the smiles and bows of the Gypsy family.

Next morning found us again in the camp. Already the Gypsies had breakfasted, and were making preparations for “_tov_in-_divus_” (washing-day). Sun and wind promised an ideal day for such a purpose. It was a thing to be noticed that the articles about to be dealt with lay in two heaps on the grass.

Among the Gypsies there is a ceremonial rule which holds it to be _mokadi_ (unclean) to wash together in the same vessel “what you eat off with what you wear.” This was the meaning of the separated articles, and then I observed two zinc vessels lying ready on the ground. Said Old Eliza to Lena, “I’ll take this lot, and you take that lot.” To begin with, they both cleansed their hands and arms in hot water, and as they did this I remarked how brown were Lena’s arms, whereupon she replied with a laugh—

“_Âwa_, _raia_ (Yes, sir), monkey soap won’t fetch that off”—a modern rendering, I take it, of Ferdousi’s saying, “No washing will turn a Gypsy white.”

Now as our friends were about to become much occupied, we proposed to stroll round the camp and pay calls on the other Gypsies in the same field. “Stop a bit,” said Eliza, and, slipping into the tent, she came out with a black bottle. “You’ll take a drop of my elderberry wine and a bite o’ cake,” pouring out the claret-coloured liquid into two glasses fished out from an inner recess. While enjoying this snack on the grass, I took out from a breast pocket a white unused handkerchief which I spread on my knee. Presently Old Eliza slyly took it by the corner and twitched it away, giving me in place thereof a neatly folded napkin brought from the tent, and I saw that I had broken a Gypsy custom in converting a handkerchief into a crumbcloth. Said the old mother, “That _mol_ (wine) is old, and should be _kushto_ (good). It’s some we buried in a place till we came round again.”

In another corner of the field were encamped Fennix Boswell and his stepson Shanny, and, going forward, we found the pair seated at their tent door handling fishing-rods. On seeing us they rose and invited us into the tent, where we sat down. Shanny showed us some of his pencil drawings.

“I’ve got one of a parrot somewhere; I must find it,” said he.

“_Âwali_, _muk man dik o roker_in-_tshiriklo_” (Yes, let me see the talking-bird), I replied, and in a minute or two he handed me a really clever sketch.

These two Gypsies had just come down from Scotland, where they had been travelling during the summer months, and we got talking about Kirk Yetholm. The Blythes, related to old King Charley Faa, were acquaintances of theirs. It appears that one of the King’s sons named Robert, a rollicking fellow, was fond, as Gypsies are, of practical jokes, and some of his escapades are still remembered in the Border Country. One of Fennix’s tales about this fun-loving Faa may well find a place here.

* * * * *

One spring morning Bobbie started off on a foray with some of his pals. The air was clear, and a soft wind was blowing over the Lammer-moors on whose slopes the lambs were gambolling. The Gypsies had walked a few miles, and the mountain air had sharpened the edge of their appetites. Looking round for a farmhouse or a cottage where they might ask for a kettle of boiling water to brew their tea in the can—such as few of the Faas would ever travel without—Bobbie was the first to espy some outbuildings, at the back of which stood a shepherd’s cottage, and, taking upon himself to be spokesman, he bravely started off for the cottage, the men resting meanwhile at the foot of the hill. As he approached the door, a fine savoury smell greeted Bobbie, making him feel ten times more hungry than before. He knocked gently at the door, which stood ajar, but no one came, and all was quiet within. He repeated his knock, and, taking a step forward, found the kitchen empty. Before the fire stood a tempting shepherds-pie of a most extraordinary size, and its appetizing steam quite overcame any scruples which otherwise might have lurked in the heart of Bobbie Faa. Not for one moment did he hesitate, but, nipping up the dish, he speedily ran down the hill with the pie under his arm. Not knowing how he had come by it, his mates could scarcely believe their eyes when he laid the pie on the grass, and they praised the gude-wife who had so kindly given them such a feast. When the dish was empty, he gave it to a pal, telling him to take it back to the gude woman and say how much they had enjoyed the pie. It happened to be a sheep-shearing day, and the shepherd’s wife had gone to call her husband and his fellows to their dinner. She had just returned to the kitchen when the Gypsy lad arrived with the empty dish, and on handing it back to her with smiles and thanks, a torrent of abuse was poured forth on the poor boy’s head, as the woman now grasped the situation and became aware of the fate of her pie. Just then her husband and the other shearers appeared round the corner, and, hearing what had befallen their dinner, the infuriated men seized the lad and gave him a sound drubbing.