I
May 12.—Just as I stepped out of the train at Corwen, thick vapours, blotting out the mountains, made up their minds to let down rain. Five years before, on landing at the same station, it was only to find a tornado howling over the land and heavy rain falling. That wild night I’m not likely to forget in a hurry. . . .
At last, after an hour’s wait in a snug hostelry, I set off along the Holyhead Road, having a certain encampment in my mind’s eye. At the “Goat” Inn, where the by-road turns off for Bettws-Gwerfil-Goch, I made inquiry for the said camp, but the landlord only shook his head. One of his daughters, however, hearing my question, said she knew where it was, and coming with me to the door indicated the whereabouts of the caravans of my quest. By now the rain had ceased, and, in a few moments, round a bend in the highway, the outline of a Gypsy tent, with a caravan and a tilt-cart standing near it, caught my eye against a row of twisted oaks in a wayside field. On entering the camp there were hearty greetings from Gilderoy Gray and Oli Purum, his travelling pal. The ruddy glow in the fire-bucket made the tent’s interior an inviting spot for tea, and there was plenty of fun that evening. Outside: the dark night with a roaring wind in the oak trees. Within: a wood-fire lit up the red blankets stretched over the curved tent-rods, and upon a well-made couch of straw (covered with rugs) we reclined. Oli was in fine form for tale-telling, and his pipe often went out. Gilderoy, too, had heaps of things to tell. Was ever a lover of the road better stocked with anecdotes than he?
In the tilt-cart I made my bed, and slept as soundly as a dormouse.
May 13.—At 5 a.m. the sun was shining gloriously upon the mountains. Wash and breakfast in the open air. In the forenoon we three took the hilly road leading to Bettws-Gwerfil-Goch. A light breeze from off the mountains carried the smell of spring everywhere. The birds were all a-twitter in the leafing woods. Blue speedwells, white stars of stitchwort, bee-haunted gorse bloom—all turned to salute the sovereign sun glowing down upon the land. Gilderoy, ever a good walker, was soon pegging on ahead; then at a stile in a hedge he would wait until Oli and I came up. Just below the village of Bettws-Gwerfil-Goch, we stood on the puri porj (old bridge) and watched the trout leap in the vandyke-brown pools of the river Alwen. On to the “Hand” tavern, my ideal village inn. George Borrow saw the interiors of many such houses during his tramps through “Wild Wales.” Nor are we likely to forget the kindness we received at the home of a certain great Scholar-Gypsy and Gypsy-Scholar, perched upon a high point commanding a magnificent landscape.
About tea-time a jolly face appeared at our tent door, announcing the arrival of Gil’roy’s brother Jim, and, just as dusk was enfolding the scene, a merry boy came bounding into the camp. This was Deborah Purum’s Willy, who told us that Bala Fair was to take place on the morrow. Lively indeed was our camp this evening, for had not our company increased by two? Resolving to set off in good time toward Bala in the morning, we slipped into our beds about midnight, and soon forgot to listen to the owls hooting mournfully in the woods.
May 14.—A white mist on the mountains foretold a fine day, and by 6.30 we were breakfasting on trout and bacon done over a wood fire. Then harnessing the mare to the tilt-cart, we all climbed aboard, and away we rattled towards Bala. The wayside woods were empurpled with hyacinths, and on the hedge-banks little bushes of bilberry hung out their crimson flowers. Oli Purum, who is half a Welsh Gypsy, could tell us the very names of the families who had camped round the black patches on the roadsides. Springing off the cart, he would examine the heaps of willow-peelings with a critical eye. “Âwa, (yes) I thought so. It’s some of the Klisons (Locks) that’s been hatshin akai (stopping here).” A splendid trotter, our mare made light work of pulling the tilt-cart over those seventeen miles down the vale to Bala. Of course we were all wondering as to the Gypsies we might see at the fair. What a crowd of farm-folk we found filling the streets on our arrival. Just in front of the “White Lion” hostelry, I saw a potter-woman standing before a spread of crockery of all shapes and sizes on the side of the road, and, curiously enough, I had once met her son, Orlando Fox, at Bristol.
Little did we dream, however, of the surprise awaiting us here in Bala. Elbowing our way through the dense crowd, it was Gilderoy who was the first to exclaim, “Dik odoi” (Look there), and turning our gaze that way, there, sure enough, was a very dark old Gypsy with grizzled locks and glittering black eyes. His garments were weathered by long wear amid the mountains, and in him I recognized the patriarchal Matthew (a descendant of Abraham Wood) whom I had met some years before.
The Woods preserve many stories of Abraham, their earliest known progenitor, who flourished about the beginning of the eighteenth century. Entering Wales from Somerset, he brought with him a violin, and is supposed to have been the first to play upon one in the Principality. According to tradition, “He always rode on a blood-horse, would not sleep in the open but in barns, wore a three-cocked hat with gold lace, a red silk coat, a waistcoat embroidered with green leaves, had half-crowns for buttons on his coat, sported white breeches gaily decked with ribbons, pumps with silver buckles and spurs, a gold watch and chain, and two gold rings.” Many of Abraham’s descendants are excellent players on the harp, and all, without exception, speak pure, deep, inflected Romany, akin to the beautiful musical dialect spoken by the Gypsies of Eastern Europe. Angling all summer, fiddling or harping all winter, such is the life of the Gypsy Woods of Wales.
It was with joy that we rambled with Matty along the shore of Bala Llyn, a glittering mirror in the sunshine broken only by rings made by rising fish. The windless day of summerlike quality induced our little party to loiter by the lake, and when at length we turned to come away, there on the road stood a Romany lass with her little brother, as merry a pair as ever wore Gypsy togs. To me it was very delightful to hear their fluent Welsh Romany.
There was no difficulty in persuading Matty to accompany us to our camp at Maerdy. He seemed only too glad to escape into the sweet open country after the close atmosphere of the town streets. And how the mare did travel after her feed and rest! On and on up the mountain road we went, startling the horned sheep on the unfenced roadsides. Now and then Matty would point out the spots where his old folks used to camp. Well away from the town, we took a bite of bread and cheese at a tiny white inn backed by a strip of pine forest, from whose shadows darted a grey sheep-dog almost wolf-like in its leanness of figure and sharpness of nose. What a penetrating bark it had too!
A few more miles of rough road, with here a lone farm and there a cottage with lumps of white spar on its window-ledges, brought us once again to the “Cymro,” Maerdy, where we encountered a funny horse-breaker, reminding one of Borrow’s gossipy ostlers. Oli Purum’s tricks here “took the cake,” and to the delight of his audience he kept up a constant stream of them.
To-night we felt that fate had been extraordinarily kind to us, as by the fire we sat listening to Matty’s weird tales and to Oli’s rendering of “The Shepherd of Snowdon” and other Welsh airs on his violin. A rare stock of tales has Matty—stories replete with enchanted castles, green dragons, witches, ghosts, and the hero is nearly always a clever Gypsy named Jack. Matty is Oli’s cousin, and it is charming to see how happy they are together.
To me this is a holiday indeed. The utter absence of conventionality, and the diversions of the Gypsy life, are as balm to one’s nerves.
May 15.—To-day is another blue and golden foretaste of summer. Along the banks of the Alwen, dodging in and out among huge boulders, climbing fences, scrambling through the masses of flowering gorse and broom, Gilderoy, Matty, and I made our way to Bettws-Gwerfil-Goch. In the old inn, a cool retreat after the broiling sunshine in the wooded valley, we sat awhile. Years ago I saw Matty and his sons dance on the blue-stone floor of this room, just after the New Year had come in—a time when all Welsh folk are merry with fiddle and song.
On getting back to our camp in the early evening, all hands set to work, some gathering sticks, others fetching water, and soon the supper was spread inside the roomy tent. Tales and talk till the late-rising moon glinted through the holes nibbled by field-mice in the tent blankets. Then to dreamland.
May 16.—This morning I find thin ice on a pail of water standing in the open. How bracing to complete your toilet in the cool air from the mountains. See with what tenderness the sunlight colours the rocks up there by the hillside farmstead. For the first time since coming into Wales I hear the cuckoo calling in the woods. High up on the slope I see a black horse dragging a hurdle with thorn boughs weighted by stones—a primitive harrow. I’ll have a scamper down the road through the keen air of morn, before the sun has drunk up all the dew.
After breakfast I go a-fishing. Home in the afternoon to find some of the Gypsy Locks coming down the Holyhead Road with their carts and ponies; a delightful party, and much rokerben (conversation) followed.
A little later Gilderoy and I drive in the tilt-cart to Corwen to fetch Fred o’ the Bawro Gav. This means more fun for us round the evening fire. When depressed in days to come, I want to remember that flow of Gypsy mirth away there under the shadow of Cader Dinmael, while the oak-groves outside our tent whispered in the rising wind of night.
May 17.—Farewell, tent and caravan and tilt-cart. Farewell, old pals beside your smoking fires. Farewell, sweet Wales and your beautiful mountains. To-day I return to civilization.
Oli Purum drove me to Corwen station, and by night I am at home again on the Wolds of Lincolnshire.