“That’s right. I don’t want it known. Ever see a gipsy?”
“Oh, yes—often.”
“Next time you see one you’ll know why he wears so many buttons. You’ve a lot to learn.”
The van zigzagged down one hill and up another, and halted at a turnpike. An old woman in a pink sun-bonnet bustled out and handed Joby a pink ticket. A little way beyond they passed the angle of a mining district, with four or five engine-houses high up like castles on the hillside, and rows of stamps clattering and working up and down like ogres’ teeth. Next they came to a church town, with a green and a heap of linen spread to dry (for it was Tuesday), and a flock of geese that ran and hissed after the van, until Joby took the whip and, leaning out, looped the gander by the neck and pulled him along in the dust. The sailor-boys shouted with laughter and struck up a song about a fox and a goose, which lasted all the way up a long hill and brought them to a second turnpike, on the edge of the moors. Here lived an old woman in a blue sun-bonnet; and she handed Joby a yellow-ticket.
“But why does she wear a blue bonnet and give yellow tickets?” Taffy asked, as they drove on.
Joby considered for a minute. “Ah, you’re one to take notice, I see. That’s right, keep your eyes skinned when you travel.”
Taffy had to think this out. The country was changing now. They had left stubble fields and hedges behind, and before them the granite road stretched like a white ribbon, with moors on either hand, dotted with peat-ricks and reedy pools and cropping ponies, and rimmed in the distance with clay-works glistening in the sunny weather.
“What sort of place is Nannizabuloe?”
“I don’t go on there. I drop you at Indian Queens.”
“But what sort of place is it?”