The dough in the trough and the baken bread,
Every bit of provant or pelf;
All that they left was the house itself.”
One may imagine what the scene is like when the rest return and find the house plundered, the paterfamilias sitting in the ruins with his head tied up, answering all frantic queries with brum—brum—brum! It may recall the well-known poem—I think it is by Peter Pindar Wolcott—of the man who was persuaded by a bet to make the motion of a pendulum, saying, “Here she goes—there she goes!” while the instigator “cleared out the house and then cleared out himself.” I have little doubt that this poem was drawn from a Romany original.
Or yet, again, the gypsy having obtained the plunder and substituted the dummy packet, persuades the true believer to bury it in the barn, garden, field, or a forest, performs magic ceremonies and repeats incantations over it, and cautions him to dig it up again, perhaps six months later on a certain day, it may be his saint’s or birth day, and to keep silence till then. The gypsy makes it an absolute condition—nay, he insists very earnestly on it—that the treasure shall not be dug up unless he himself is on the spot to share the spoil. But as he may possibly be prevented from coming, he tells the peasant how to proceed: he leaves with him several pieces of paper inscribed with cabalistic characters which are to be burnt when the money is removed, and teaches him what he is to repeat while doing it. With sequence as before.
It might be urged by the gypsy that the taking a man’s money from him under the conditions that he shall get it all back with immense interest six months after, does not differ materially from persuading him to give his property to Brahmins, or even priests, with the understanding that he is to be amply rewarded for it in a future state. In both cases the temptation to take the money down is indeed great—as befel a certain very excellently honest but extremely cautious Scotch clergyman, to whom there once came a very wicked and wealthy old reprobate who asked him, “If I gie a thousand puns till the kirk d’ye think it wad save my soul?” “I’m na preparit to preceesely answer that question,” said the shrewd dominie, “but I would vara urgently advise ye to try it.”
Oh thou who persuadest man that for money down great good shall result to him from any kind of spiritual incantation—twist and turn it as ye will—mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur:
“With but a single change of name,
The story fits thee quite the same.”
And few and far between are the Romanys—or even the Romans—who would not “vara earnestly advise ye to try it.”