As we approached the cock-shy, where sticks were cast at cocoa-nuts, a young gypsy chai, whom I learned to know in after-days as Athalia Cooper, asked me to buy some sticks. A penny a throw, all the cocoa-nuts I could hit to be my own. I declined; she became urgent, jolly, riotous, insistive. I endured it well, for I held the winning cards. Qui minus propĕrè, minus prospĕrè. And then, as her voice rose crescendo into a bawl, so that all the Romanys around laughed aloud to see the green Gorgio so chaffed and bothered, I bent me low, and whispered softly in her ear a single monosyllable.
Why are all those sticks dropped so suddenly? Why does Athalia in a second become sober, and stand up staring at me, all her chaff and urgency forgotten. Quite polite and earnest now. But there is joy behind in her heart. This is a game, a jolly game, and no mistake. And uplifting her voice again, as the voice of one who findeth an exceeding great treasure even in the wilderness, she cried aloud,—“It’s a Romany rye!”
The spiciest and saltest and rosiest of Sir Patrick’s own stories, told after dinner over his own old port to a special conventicle of clergymen about town, was never received with such a roar of delight as that cry of Athalia’s was by the Romany clan. Up went three sheers at the find; further afield went the shout proclaiming
the discovery of an aristocratic stranger of their race, a rye, who was to them as wheat,—a gypsy gentleman. Neglecting business, they threw down their sticks, and left their cocoanuts to grin in solitude; the dyes turned aside from fortune-telling to see what strange fortune had sent such a visitor. In ten minutes Sir Patrick and I were surrounded by such a circle of sudden admirers and vehement applauders, as it seldom happens to any mortal to acquire—out of Ireland—at such exceedingly short notice and on such easy terms.
They were not particular as to what sort of a gypsy I was, or where I came from, or any nonsense of that sort, you know. It was about cerevisia vincit omnia, or the beery time of day with them, and they cared not for anything. I was extremely welcome; in short, there was poetry in me. I had come down on them by a way that was dark and a trick that was vain, in the path of mystery, and dropped on Athalia and picked her up. It was gypsily done and very creditable to me, and even Sir Patrick was regarded as one to be honored as an accomplice. It is a charming novelty in every life to have the better class of one’s own kind come into it, and nobody feels so keenly as a jolly Romany that jucundum nihil est nisi quod rĕf ǐcit varietas—naught pleases us without variety.
Then and there I drew to me the first threads of what became in after-days a strange and varied skein of humanity. There was the Thames upon a holiday. Now I look back to it, I ask, Ubi sunt? (Where are they all?) Joshua Cooper, as good and earnest a Rom as ever lived, in his grave, with more than one of those who made my acquaintance by hurrahing for
me. Some in America, some wandering wide. Yet there by Weybridge still the Thames runs on.
By that sweet river I made many a song. One of these, to the tune of “Waves in Sunlight Dancing,” rises and falls in memory like a fitful fairy coming and going in green shadows, and that it may not perish utterly I here give it a place:—
AVELLA PARL O PĀNI.
Av’ kushto parl o pāni,
Av’ kushto mir’ akai!
Mi kameli chovihani,
Avel ke tiro rye!Shan raklia rinkenidiri,
Mukkellan rinkeni se;
Kek rakli ’dré i temia
Se rinkenidiri mi.Shan dudnidiri yākka,
Mukkelan dudeni;
Kek yākk peshel’ sā kushti
Pā miro kameli zi.Shan balia longi diri,
Mukk ’lende bori ’pré,
Kek waveri raklia balia,
Te lian man opré.Yoi lela angūstrini,
I miri tācheni,
Kek wavei mūsh jinella,
Sā dovo covva se.Adré, adré o doeyav
Patrinia pellelan,
Kennā yek chumer kérdo
O wavero well’ án.Te wenna būtidiri,
Ke jana sig akoi
Sa sig sa yeck si gillo
Shan waveri adoi.Avella parl o pāni,
Avella sig akai!
Mi kamli tāni-rāni
Avell’ ke tiro rye!* * * * *
COME OVER THE RIVER
O love, come o’er the water,
O love, where’er you be!
My own sweetheart, my darling,
Come over the river to me!If any girls are fairer,
Then fairer let them be;
No maid in all the country
Is half so fair to me.If other eyes are brighter,
Then brighter let them shine;
I know that none are lighter
Upon this heart of mine.If other’s locks are longer,
Then longer let them grow;
Hers are the only fish-lines
Which ever caught me so.She wears upon her finger
A ring we know so well,
And we and that ring only
Know what the ring can tell.From trees into the water
Leaves fall and float away,
So kisses come and leave us,
A thousand in a day.Yet though they come by thousands,
Yet still they show their face;
As soon as one has left us
Another fills its place.O love, come o’er the water,
O lore, where’er you be!
My own sweetheart, my darling,
Come over the river to me!