I. MAT WOODS THE FIDDLER.
The gypsies of Wales are to those of England what the Welsh
themselves are to the English; more antique and quaint, therefore to a
collector of human bric-a-brac more curious. The Welsh Rom is specially
grateful for kindness or courtesy; he is deeper as to language, and
preserves many of the picturesque traits of his race which are now so
rapidly vanishing. But then he has such excellent opportunity for
gypsying. In Wales there are yet thousands of acres of wild land, deep
ravines, rocky corners, and roadside nooks, where he can boil the
kettle and hatch the tan, or pitch his tent, undisturbed by the
rural policeman. For it is a charming country, where no one need weary
in summer, when the days are long, or in early autumn,—
“When the barley is ripe,
And the frog doth pipe,
In golden stripe
And green all dressed;
When the red apples
Roll in the chest.”
Then it is pleasant walking in Wales, and there too at times,
between hedge-rows, you may meet with the Romany.
I was at Aberystwith by the sea, and one afternoon we went, a party
of three gentlemen and three ladies, in a char-a-banc, or wagonette, to
drive. It was a pleasant afternoon, and we had many a fine view of
distant mountains, on whose sides were mines of lead with silver, and
of which there were legends from the time of Queen Elizabeth. The hills
looked leaden and blue in the distance, while the glancing sea far
beyond recalled silver,—for the alchemy of imagery, at least, is never
wanting to supply ideal metals, though the real may show a sad
deficit in the returns.
As we drove we suddenly overtook a singular party, the first of whom
was the leader, who had lagged behind. He was a handsome, slender, very
dark young man, carrying a violin. Before him went a little open cart,
in which lay an old woman, and by her a harp. With it walked a
good-looking gypsy girl, and another young man, not a gypsy. He was by
far the handsomest young fellow, in form and features, whom I ever met
among the agricultural class in England; we called him a peasant
Apollo. It became evident that the passional affinity which had drawn
this rustic to the gypsy girl, and to the roads, was according to the
law of natural selection, for they were wonderfully well matched. The
young man had the grace inseparable from a fine figure and a handsome
face, while the girl was tall, lithe, and pantherine, with the
diavolesque charm which, though often attributed by fast-fashionable
novelists to their heroines, is really never found except among the
lowborn beauties of nature. It is the beauty of the Imp and of the
Serpent; it fades with letters; it dies in the drawing-room or on the
stage. You are mistaken when you think you see it coming out of the
synagogue, unless it be a very vulgar one. Your Lahova has it not,
despite her black eyes, for she is too clever and too conscious; the
devil-beauty never knows how to read, she is unstudied and no actress.
Rachel and the Bernhardt have it not, any more than Saint Agnes or Miss
Blanche Lapin. It is not of good or of evil, or of culture, which is
both; it is all and only of nature, and it does not know itself.
As the wagonette stopped I greeted the young man at first in
English, then in Romany. When he heard the gypsy tongue he started, his
countenance expressing the utmost surprise and delight. As if he could
hardly believe in such a phenomenon he inquired, “Romany?” and
as I nodded assent, he clasped my hand, the tears coming into his eyes.
Such manifestations are not common among gypsies, but I can remember
how one, the wife of black Ben Lee, was thus surprised and affected.
How well I recall the time and scene,—by the Thames, in the late
twilight, when every tree and twig was violet black against the amber
sky, where the birds were chirp-chattering themselves to roost and
rest, and the river rippled and murmured a duet with the evening
breeze. I was walking homeward to Oatlands when I met the tawny
Sinaminta, bearing her little stock of baskets to the tent and van
which I had just quitted, and where Ben and his beautiful little boy
were lighting the al fresco fire. “I have prayed to see this
day!” exclaimed the gypsy woman. “I have so wanted to see the Romany
rye of the Coopers. And I laid by a little delaben, a small
present, for you when we should meet. It's a photograph of Ben and me
and our child.” I might have forgotten the evening and the amber sky,
rippling river and dark-green hedge-rows, but for this strange meeting
and greeting of an unknown friend, but a few kind words fixed them all
for life. That must be indeed a wonderful landscape which humanity does
not make more impressive.
I spoke but a few words to the gypsy with the violin, and we drove
on to a little wayside inn, where we alighted and rested. After a while
the gypsies came along.
“And now, if you will, let us have a real frolic,” I said to my
friends. A word was enough. A quart of ale, and the fiddle was set
going, and I sang in Romany, and the rustic landlord and his household
wondered what sort of guests we could be. That they had never before
entertained such a mixed party I can well believe. Here, on one hand,
were indubitable swells, above their usual range; there, on the other,
were the dusky vagabonds of the road; and it could be no common
condescending patronage, for I was speaking neither Welsh nor English,
and our friendly fraternity was evident. Yes, many a time, in England,
have I seen the civil landlady or the neat-handed Phillis awed with
bewilderment, as I have introduced Plato Buckland, or the most
disreputable-looking but oily—yea, glycerine-politeful—old Windsor
Frog, into the parlor, and conversed with him in mystic words. Such an
event is a rare joy to the gypsy. For he loves to be lifted up among
men; he will tell you with pride of the times when he was pointed at,
and people said, “He's the man!” and how a real gentleman once
invited him into his house and gave him a glass of wine. But to enter
the best room of the familiar tavern, to order, in politest but
imperative tones, “beer”—sixpenny beer—for himself and “the other
gentleman,” is indeed bliss. Then, in addition to the honor of moving
in distinguished society, before the very eyes and in the high places
of those who have hitherto always considered him as a lowly cuss, the
Romany realizes far more than the common peasant the
contrast-contradiction, or the humor of the drama, its bit of
mystification, and especially the mystification of the house-folk. This
is unto him the high hour of the soul, and it is not forgotten. It
passes unto the golden legends of the heart, and you are tenderly
enshrined in it.
Once, when I was wandering afoot with old Cooper, we stopped at an
inn, and in a room by ourselves ordered luncheon. The gypsy might have
had poultry of the best; he preferred cold pork. While the attendant
was in the room, he sat with exemplary dignity at the table; but as the
girl left, he followed her step sounds with his ears, like a dog, moved
his head, glanced at me with a nod, turned sideways from the table,
and, putting his plate on his knees, proceeded to eat without a fork.
“For it isn't proper for me to eat at the table with you, or as
you do.”
The Welsh gypsy played well, and his sister touched the harp and
sang, the ale circulated, and the villagers, assembling, gazed in a
crowd into the hall. Then the girl danced solo, just as I have seen her
sisters do in Egypt and in Russia, to her brother's fiddling. Even so
of old, Syrian and Egyptian girls haunted gardens and taverns, and
danced pas seul all over the Roman empire, even unto Spain,
behaving so gypsily that wise men have conjectured that they were
gypsies in very truth. And who shall say they were not? For it is
possible that prehistorically, and beyond all records of Persian Luri
and Syrian Ballerine and Egyptian Almeh, there was all over the East an
outflowing of these children of art from one common primeval Indian
stock. From one fraternity, in Italy, at the present day, those
itinerant pests, the hand-organ players, proceed to the ends of the
earth and to the gold-diggings thereof, and time will yet show that
before all time, or in its early dawn, there were root-born Romany
itinerants singing, piping, and dancing unto all the known world; yea,
and into the unknown darkness beyond, in partibus infidelium.
A gentleman who was in our party had been long in the East. I had
known him in Alexandria during the carnival, and he had lived long time
outre mer, in India. Hearing me use the gypsy numerals—yeck, dui, trin, shtor, panj,—he proceeded to
count in Hindustani or Persian, in which the same words from one to ten
are almost identical with Romany. All of this was carefully noted by
the old gypsy mother,—as, also, that my friend is of dark complexion,
with sparkling black eyes. Reduced in dress, or diluted down to worn
corduroy and a red tie, he might easily pass muster, among the Sons of
the Road, as one of them.
And now the ladies must, of course, have their fortunes told, and
this, I could observe, greatly astonished the gypsies in their secret
souls, though they put a cool face on it. That we, ourselves, were some
kind of a mysterious high-caste Romany they had already concluded, and
what faith could we put in dukkerin? But as it would indubitably
bring forth shillings to their benefit, they wisely raised no
questions, but calmly took this windfall, which had fallen as it were,
from the skies, even as they had accepted the beer, which had come,
like a providential rain, unto them, in the thirst of a dry journey.
It is customary for all gypsy sorceresses to take those who are to
be fortune-told aside, and, if possible, into a room by themselves.
This is done partly to enhance the mystery of the proceeding, and
partly to avoid the presence of witnesses to what is really an illegal
act. And as the old sorceress led a lady into the little parlor, the
gypsy man, whose name was Mat, glanced up at me, with a droll, puzzled
expression, and said, “Patchessa tu adovo?” (Do you
believe in that?) With a wink, I answered, “Why not? I, too, tell
fortunes myself.” Anch io sono pittore. It seemed to satisfy
him, for he replied, with a nod-wink, and proceeded to pour forth the
balance of his thoughts, if he had any, into the music of his violin.
When the ladies had all been instructed as to their future, my
friend, who had been in the East, must needs have his destiny made
known unto him. He did not believe in this sort of thing, you know,—of
course not. But he had lived a long time among Orientals, and he just
happened to wish to know how certain speculations would fall out, and
he loves, above all things, a lark, or anything out of the common. So
he went in. And when alone with the sybil, she began to talk to him in
Romany.
“Oh, I say, now, old lady, stow that!” he exclaimed. “I don't
understand you.”
“You don't understand me!” exclaimed the fortune-teller. “Perhaps
you didn't understand your own mother when she talked Romany to you.
What's the use of your tryin' to make yourself out a Gorgio to me
? Don't I know our people? Didn't your friend there talk Romanes? Isn't
he all Romaneskas? And didn't I hear you with my own ears count up to
ten in Romany? And now, after that, you would deny your own blood and
people! Yes, you've dwelt in Gorgines so long that you think your eyes
are blue and your hair is yellow, my son, and you have been far over
the sea; but wherever you went you knew Romanes, if you don't know your
own color. But you shall hear your fortune. There is lead in the mines
and silver in the lead, and wealth for him who is to win it, and that
will be a dark man who has been nine times over the sea, and eaten his
bread under the black tents, and been three times near death, once from
a horse, and once from a man, and once through a woman. And you will
know something you don't know now before a month is over, and something
will be found that is now hidden, and has been hidden since the world
was made. And there's a good fortune coming to the man it was made for,
before the oldest tree that's a-growing was a seed, and that's a man as
knows how to count Romanes up to ten, and many a more thing beside
that, that he's learned beyond the great water.”
And so we went our ways, the harp and violin sounds growing fainter
as we receded, till they were like the buzzing of bees in drying
clover, and the twilight grew rosier brown. I never met Mat Woods
again, though I often heard of his fame as a fiddler. Whether my
Anglo-Indian friend found the fortune so vaguely predicted is to me as
yet unknown. But I believe that the prediction encouraged him. That
there are evils in palmistry, and sin in card-drawing, and iniquity in
coffee-grounding, and vice in all the planets, is established by
statute, and yet withal I incline to believe that the art of prediction
cheers up many a despondent soul, and does some little good, even as
good ale, despite the wickedness of drinking, makes some hearts merry
and others stronger. If there are foolish maids who have had their
heads turned by being told of coming noblemen and prospective swells,
who loved the ground they trod on, and were waiting to woo and win and
wed, and if the same maidens herein described have thereby, in the
manner set forth, been led by the aforesaid devices unto their great
injury, as written in the above indictment, it may also per contra
and on the other hand be pleaded that divers girls, to wit, those who
believe in prediction, have, by encouragement and hope to them held out
of legally marrying sundry young men of good estate, been induced to
behave better than they would otherwise have done, and led by this hope
have acted more morally than was their wont, and thereby lifted
themselves above the lowly state of vulgarity, and even of vice, in
which they would otherwise have groveled, hoveled, or cottaged. And
there have been men who, cherishing in their hearts a prediction, or,
what amounts to the same thing, a conviction, or a set fancy, have
persevered in hope until the hope was realized. You, O Christian, who
believe in a millennium, you, O Jew, who expect a Messiah, and await
the fulfillment of your dukkerin, are both in the right, for
both will come true when you make them do so.