Heavy clouds had been gathering for some little time and rain had seemed imminent, now it pattered down in a fashion that promised a downpour.
“Come into the tent,” said my hostess, “there ain’t no creepers,—tramps gets ’em, we don’t.”
She had scarcely finished speaking when she scratched her head vigorously.
“Yus!” she ejaculated as she noticed my attempt to suppress a smile.
“Them’s gnats!”
“Dordi!” she exclaimed as we got under cover. “Did you hear that? It sounded like thunder; hope we ain’t goin’ to get any, it foretells a death, you know; we had a dreadful storm the night before Mrs. Beshaley’s little ’un died.”
Hearing a footfall, Mrs. Vardomescro applied one eye to a small hole in the tent blanket, then said—
“Make room there, Bill, she’s coming here.”
By shifting around a little we made room for one more and I must confess I was very glad to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Beshaley, for she was one of the nicest, in addition to being one of the most beautiful of Romany women I had met. She appeared to be between twenty-five and thirty years of age; she wore no hat but had her hair—which was intensely black—plaited somewhat elaborately, the plaits hanging over her ears passed around the back of her head in a style facetiously termed “the door-knocker pattern.” Nevertheless, it suited her. In her ears were gold ear-rings of a curious crescentic design, and around the neck she had four rows of large red beads. She was dressed in black, being in mourning for her little boy.
After I had been introduced to her by Mrs. Vardomescro as “a friend who jinned what was pen’d in Romany,” all took part in the conversation. Most of what passed would have little general interest, but there is pathos in the following reference made by the new-comer to her recent loss which must not be passed by, and which is an unconscious, albeit welcome, refutation of charges of impassiveness, and the indifference of gypsies to the welfare of their children. An illuminating glimpse may also be obtained of an aspect of Romany life that is rarely, if ever, paraded—before the gorgio.