I never shall forget the sparkling splendor of that frosty morning
in December when I went with a younger friend from Oatlands Park for a
day's walk. I may have seen at other times, but I do not remember, such
winter lace-work as then adorned the hedges. The gossamer spider has
within her an inward monitor which tells if the weather will be fine;
but it says nothing about sudden changes to keen cold, and the artistic
result was that the hedges were hung with thousands of Honiton
lamp-mats, instead of the thread fly-catchers which their little
artists had intended. And on twigs and dead leaves, grass and rock and
wall, were such expenditures of Brussels and Spanish point, such a
luxury of real old Venetian run mad, and such deliria of Russian lace
as made it evident that Mrs. Jack Frost is a very extravagant fairy,
but one gifted with exquisite taste. When I reflect how I have in my
time spoken of the taste for lace and diamonds in women as entirely
without foundation in nature, I feel that I sinned deeply. For Nature,
in this lace-work, displays at times a sympathy with
humanity,—especially womanity,—and coquets and flirts with it, as
becomes the subject, in a manner which is merrily awful. There was once
in Philadelphia a shop the windows of which were always filled with
different kinds of the richest and rarest lace, and one cold morning I
found that the fairies had covered the panes with literal frost
fac-similes of the exquisite wares which hung behind. This was no
fancy; the copies were as accurate as photographs. Can it be that in
the invisible world there are Female Fairy Schools of Design, whose
scholars combine in this graceful style Etching on Glass and Art
Needlework?
We were going to the village of Hersham to make a call. It was not
at any stylish villa or lordly manor-house,—though I knew of more than
one in the vicinity where we would have been welcome,—but at a rather
disreputable-looking edifice, which bore on its front the sign of
“Lodgings for Travellers.” Now “traveller” means, below a certain
circle of English life, not the occasional, but the habitual wanderer,
or one who dwells upon the roads, and gains his living thereon. I have
in my possession several cards of such a house. I found them wrapped in
a piece of paper, by a deserted gypsy camp, where they had been lost:—
A NEW HOUSE.
Good Lodging for Travellers. With a Large Private
Kitchen.
THE CROSS KEYS,
WEST STREET . . . MAIDENHEAD.
BY J. HARRIS.
The “private kitchen” indicates that the guests will have facilities
for doing their own cooking, as all of them bring their own victuals in
perpetual picnic. In the inclosure of the house in Hersham, the tops of
two or three gypsy vans could always be seen above the high fence, and
there was that general air of mystery about the entire establishment
which is characteristic of all places haunted by people whose ways are
not as our ways, and whose little games are not as our little games. I
had become acquainted with it and its proprietor, Mr. Hamilton, in that
irregular and only way which is usual with such acquaintances. I was
walking by the house one summer day, and stopped to ask my way. A
handsome dark-brown girl was busy at the wash-tub, two or three older
women were clustered at the gate, and in all their faces was the manner
of the diddikai or chureni, or half-blood gypsy. As I
spoke I dropped my voice, and said, inquiringly,—
“Romanes?”
“Yes,” was the confidential answer.
They were all astonished, and kept quiet till I had gone a few rods
on my way, when the whole party, recovering from their amazement,
raised a gentle cheer, expressive of approbation and sympathy. A few
days after, walking with a lady in Weybridge, she said to me,—
“Who is that man who looked at you so closely?”
“I do not know.”
“That's very strange. I am quite sure I heard him utter two words in
a strange language, as you passed, as if he only meant them for you.
They sounded like sarshaun baw.” Which means, “How are you,
sir?” or friend. As we came up the street, I saw the man talking with a
well-dressed, sporting-looking man, not quite a gentleman, who sat
cheekily in his own jaunty little wagon. As I passed, the one of the
wagon said to the other, speaking of me, and in pure Romany, evidently
thinking I did not understand,—
“Dikk'adovo Giorgio, adoi!” (Look at that Gorgio,
there!)
Being a Romany rye, and not accustomed to be spoken of as a Gorgio,
I looked up at him, angrily, when he, seeing that I understood him,
smiled, and bowed politely in apology. I laughed and passed on. But I
thought it a little strange, for neither of the men had the slightest
indication of gypsiness. I met the one who had said sarishan ba
again, soon after. I found that he and the one of the wagon were not of
gypsy blood, but of a class not uncommon in England, who, be they rich
or poor, are affected towards gypsies. The wealthy one lived with a
gypsy mistress; the poorer one had a gypsy wife, and was very fond of
the language. There is a very large class of these mysterious men
everywhere about the country. They haunt fairs; they pop up
unexpectedly as Jack-in-boxes in unsuspected guise; they look out from
under fatherly umbrellas; their name is Legion; their mother is
Mystery, and their uncle is Old Tom,—not of Virginia, but of Gin.
Once, in the old town of Canterbury, I stood in the street, under the
Old Woman with the Clock, one of the quaintest pieces of drollery ever
imagined during the Middle Ages. And by me was a tinker, and as his
wheel went siz-'z-'z-'z, uz-uz-uz-z-z! I talked with him,
and there joined us a fat, little, elderly, spectacled, shabby-genteel,
but well-to-do-looking sort of a punchy, small tradesman. And, as we
spoke, there went by a great, stout, roaring Romany woman,—a
scarlet-runner of Babylon run to seed,—with a boy and a hand-cart to
carry the seed in. And to her I cried, “Hav akai te mandy'll del
tute a shaori!” (Come here, and I'll stand a sixpence!) But she did
not believe in my offer, but went her way, like a Burning Shame,
through the crowd, and was lost evermore. I looked at the little old
gentleman to see what effect my outcry in a strange language had upon
him. But he only remarked, soberly, “Well, now, I should 'a'
thought a sixpence would 'a' brought her to!” And the wheel said,
“Suz-zuz-zuz-z-z I should 'a' suz-suz 'a' thought a suz-z-zixpence
would 'a' suz-zuz 'a' brought her, too-z-z-z!” And I looked at the Old
Woman with the Clock, and she ticked,
“A—six—pence—would—have—brought—me—two—three—four”—and
I began to dream that all Canterbury was Romany.
We came to the house, the landlord was up-stairs, ill in bed, but
would be glad to see us; and he welcomed us warmly, and went deeply
into Romany family matters with my friend, the Oxford scholar.
Meanwhile, his daughter, a nice brunette, received and read a letter;
and he tried to explain to me the mystery of the many men who are not
gypsies, yet speak Romany, but could not do it, though he was one of
them. It appeared from his account that they were “a kind of mixed, you
see, and dusted in, you know, and on it, out of the family, it peppers
up; but not exactly, you understand, and that's the way it is. And I
remember a case in point, and that was one day, and I had sold a horse,
and was with my boy in a moramengro's buddika [barber's shop],
and my boy says to me, in Romanes, 'Father, I'd like to have my hair
cut.' 'It's too dear here, my son,' said I, Romaneskes; 'for the bill
says threepence.' And then the barber, he ups and says, in Romany,
'Since you're Romanys, I'll cut it for two_pence, though it's clear
out of all my rules.' And he did it; but why that man rakkered
Romanes I don't know, nor how it comes about; for he hadn't no more
call to it than a pig has to be a preacher. But I've known men in
Sussex to take to diggin' truffles on the same principles, and one
Gorgio in Hastings that adopted sellin' fried fish for his livin',
about the town, because he thought it was kind of romantic. That's it.”
Over the chimney-piece hung a large engraving of Milton and his
daughters. It was out of place, and our host knew it, and was proud. He
said he had bought it at an auction, and that it was a picture of
Middleton,—a poet, he believed; “anyhow, he was a writing man.” But,
on second thought, he remembered that the name was not Middleton, but
Millerton. And on further reflection, he was still more convinced that
Millerton was a poet.
I once asked old Matthew Cooper the Romany word for a poet. And he
promptly replied that he had generally heard such a man called a
givellengero or gilliengro, which means a song-master, but
that he himself regarded shereskero-mush, or head-man, as more
elegant and deeper; for poets make songs out of their heads, and are
also ahead of all other men in head-work. There is a touching and
unconscious tribute to the art of arts in this definition which is
worth recording. It has been said that, as people grow polite, they
cease to be poetical; it is certain that in the first circles they do
not speak of their poets with such respect as this.
Out again into the fresh air and the frost on the crisp, crackling
road and in the sunshine. At such a time, when cold inspires life, one
can understand why the old poets and mystics believed that there was
fire in ice. Therefore, Saint Sebaldus, coming into the hut of a poor
and pious man who was dying of cold, went out, and, bringing in an
armful of icicles, laid them on the andirons and made a good fire. Now
this fire was the inner glowing glory of God, and worked both ways,—of
course you see the connection,—as was shown in Adelheid von
Sigolsheim, the Holy Nun of Unterlinden, who was so full of it that she
passed the night in a freezing stream, and then stood all the morning,
ice-clad, in the choir, and never caught cold. And the pious Peroneta,
to avoid a sinful suitor, lived all winter, up to her neck, in
ice-water, on the highest Alp in Savoy. {125} These were saints. But
there was a gypsy, named Dighton, encamped near Brighton, who told me
nearly the same story of another gypsy, who was no saint, and which I
repeat merely to show how extremes meet. It was that this gypsy, who
was inspired with anything but the inner glowing glory of God, but who
was, on the contrary, cram full of pure cussedness, being warmed by the
same,—and the devil,—when chased by the constable, took refuge in a
river full of freezing slush and broken ice, where he stood up to his
neck and defied capture; for he verily cared no more for it than did
Saint Peter of Alcantara, who was both ice and fire proof. “Come out of
that, my good man,” said the gentleman, whose hen he had stolen, “and
I'll let you go.” “No, I won't come out,” said the gypsy. “My blood be
on your head!” So the gentleman offered him five pounds, and then a
suit of clothes, to come ashore. The gypsy reflected, and at last said,
“Well, if you'll add a drink of spirits, I'll come; but it's only to
oblige you that I budge.”
Then we walked in the sober evening, with its gray gathering
shadows, as the last western rose light rippled in the river, yet
fading in the sky,—like a good man who, in dying, speaks cheerfully of
earthly things, while his soul is vanishing serenely into heaven. The
swans, looking like snowballs, unconscious of cold were taking their
last swim towards the reedy, brake-tangled islets where they nested,
gossiping as they went. The deepening darkness, at such a time, becomes
more impressive from the twinkling stars, just as the subduing silence
is noted only by the far-borne sounds from the hamlet or farm-house, or
the occasional whispers of the night-breeze. So we went on in the
twilight, along the Thames, till we saw the night-fire of the Romanys
and its gleam on the tan. A tan is, strictly speaking, a
tent, but a tent is a dwelling, or stopping-place; and so from earliest
Aryan time, the word tan is like Alabama, or “here we rest,” and
may be found in tun, the ancestor of town, and in stan,
as in Hindostan,—and if I blunder, so much the better for the
philological gentlemen, who, of all others, most delight in setting
erring brothers right, and never miss a chance to show, through others'
shame, how much they know.
There was a bark of a dog, and a voice said, “The Romany rye!” They
had not seen us, but the dog knew, and they knew his language.
“Sarishan ryor!”
“O boro duvel atch' pa leste!” (The great Lord be on you!)
This is not a common Romany greeting. It is of ancient days and
archaic. Sixty or seventy years ago it was current. Old Gentilla
Cooper, the famous fortune-teller of the Devil's Dike, near Brighton,
knew it, and when she heard it from me she was moved,—just as a very
old negro in London was, when I said to him, “Sady, uncle.” I
said it because I had recognized by the dog's bark that it was Sam
Smith's tan. Sam likes to be considered as deep Romany. He tries
to learn old gypsy words, and he affects old gypsy ways. He is pleased
to be called Petulengro, which means Smith. Therefore, my greeting was
a compliment.
In a few minutes we were in camp and at home. We talked of many
things, and among others of witches. It is remarkable that while the
current English idea of a witch is that of an old woman who has sold
herself to Satan, and is a distinctly marked character, just like Satan
himself, that of the witch among gypsies is general and Oriental. There
is no Satan in India. Mrs. Smith—since dead—held that witches were to
be found everywhere. “You may know a natural witch,” she said, “by
certain signs. One of these is straight hair which curls at the ends.
Such women have it in them.”
It was only recently, as I write, that I was at a very elegant art
reception, which was fully reported in the newspapers. And I was very
much astonished when a lady called my attention to another young and
very pretty lady, and expressed intense disgust at the way the latter
wore her hair. It was simply parted in the middle, and fell down on
either side, smooth as a water-fall, and then broke into curls at the
ends, just as water, after falling, breaks into waves and rapids. But
as she spoke, I felt it all, and saw that Mrs. Petulengro was in the
right. The girl with the end-curled hair was uncanny. Her hair curled
at the ends,—so did her eyes; she was a witch.
“But there's a many witches as knows clever things,” said Mrs.
Petulengro. “And I learned from one of them how to cure the rheumatiz.
Suppose you've got the rheumatiz. Well, just you carry a potato in your
pocket. As the potato dries up, your rheumatiz will go away.”
Sam Smith was always known on the roads as Fighting Sam. Years have
passed, and when I have asked after him I have always heard that he was
either in prison or had just been let out. Once it happened that,
during a fight with a Gorgio, the Gorgio's watch disappeared, and Sam
was arrested under suspicion of having got up the fight in order that
the watch might disappear. All of his friends declared his innocence.
The next trouble was for chorin a gry, or stealing a horse, and
so was the next, and so on. As horse-stealing is not a crime, but only
“rough gambling,” on the roads, nobody defended him on these counts. He
was, so far as this went, only a sporting character. When his wife died
he married Athalia, the widow of Joshua Cooper, a gypsy, of whom I
shall speak anon. I always liked Sam. Among the travelers, he was
always spoken of as genteel, owing to the fact, that whatever the state
of his wardrobe might be, he always wore about his neck an immaculate
white woolen scarf, and on jours de fete, such as horse-races,
sported a boro stardi, or chimney-pot hat. O my friend, Colonel
Dash, of the club! Change but the name, this fable is of thee!
“There's to be a walgoro, kaliko i sala—a fair
to-morrow morning, at Cobham,” said Sam, as he departed.
“All right. We'll be there.”
As I went forth by the river into the night, and the stars looked
down like loving eyes, there shot a meteor across the sky, one long
trail of light, out of darkness into darkness, one instant bright, then
dead forever. And I remembered how I once was told that stars, like
mortals, often fall in love. O love, forever in thy glory go! And that
they send their starry angels forth, and that the meteors are their
messengers. O love, forever in thy glory go! For love and light in
heaven, as on earth, were ever one, and planets speak with light. Light
is their language; as they love they speak. O love, forever in thy
glory go!