We had taken with us a sparing lunch of thin
sandwiches and a frugal flask of modest, blushing brandy, which we diluted at a stingy little fountain spring which dropped economically through a rift in the rock, as if its nymph were conscious that such a delicious drink should not be wasted. As it was, it refreshed us, and we were resting in a blessed repose under the green leaves, when we heard footsteps, and an old woman came walking by.
She was the ideal of decent and extreme poverty. I never saw anybody who was at once so poor and so clean. In her face and in her thin garments was marked the mute, resolute struggle between need and self-respect, which, to him who understands it, is as brave as any battle between life and death. She walked on as if she would have gone past without a word, but when we greeted her she paused, and spoke respectfully. Without forwardness she told her sad and simple story: how she belonged to the Wesleyan confession, how her daughter was dying in the hospital at Caernarvon; how she had walked sixty miles to see her, and hoped to get there in time to close her eyes. In reply to a question as to her means, she admitted that they were exhausted, but that she could get through without money; she did not beg. And then came naturally enough the rest of the little artless narrative, as it generally happens among the simple annals of the poor: how she had been for forty years a washerwoman, and had a letter from her clergyman.
There was a tear in the eye of the elder professor, and his hand was in his pocket. The younger smoked in silence. I was greatly moved myself,—perhaps bewildered would be the better word,—when, all at once, as the old woman turned in the sunlight, I caught the expression of the corner of an eye!
My friend Salaman, who boasts that he is of the last of the Sadducees,—that strange, ancient, and secret sect, who disguise themselves as the Neu Reformirte,—declares that the Sephardim may be distinguished from the Ashkenazim as readily as from the confounded Goyim, by the corners of their eyes. This he illustrated by pointing out to me, as they walked by in the cool of the evening, the difference between the eyes of Fraulein Eleonora Kohn and Senorita Linda Abarbanel and divers and sundry other young ladies,—the result being that I received in return thirty-six distinct œillades, several of which expressed indignation, and in all of which there was evidently an entire misconception of my object in looking at them. Now the eyes of the Sephardesses are unquestionably fascinating; and here it may be recalled that, in the Middle Ages, witches were also recognized by having exactly the same corners, or peaks, to the eye. This is an ancient mystery of darksome lore, that the enchantress always has the bird-peaked eye, which betokens danger to somebody, be she of the Sephardim, or an ordinary witch or enchantress, or a gypsy.
Now, as the old Wesleyan washerwoman turned around in the sunshine, I saw the witch-pointed eye and the glint of the Romany. And then I glanced at her hands, and saw that they had not been long familiar with wash-tubs; for, though clean, they were brown, and had never been blanched with an age of soap-suds. And I spoke suddenly, and said,—
“Can tute rakker Romanes, miri dye?” (Can you speak Romany, my mother?) And she answered, as if bewildered,—
“The Lord forbid, sir, that I should talk any of them wicked languages.”
The younger professor’s eyes expressed dawning delight. I followed my shot with,—
“Tute needn’t be attrash to rakker. Mandy’s been apré the drom mi-kokero.” (You needn’t be afraid to speak. I have been upon the road myself.)