Ryley.
“I’m jawing petulengring, [247b]
But do not know the country;
Perhaps you’ll show me round.”
Old Gypsy.
“I’ll sikker tute, prala!
I’m bikkening esconyor; [247c]
Av, av along with me!”
The old Gypsy showed Ryley about the country for a week or two, and Ryley formed a kind of connection, and did a little business. He, however, displayed little or no energy, was gloomy and dissatisfied, and frequently said that his heart was broken since he had left Yorkshire.
Shuri did her best to cheer him, but without effect. Once, when she bade him get up and exert himself, he said that if he did it would be of little use, and asked her whether she did not remember the parting prophecy of his other wife that he would never thrive. At the end of about two years he ceased going his rounds, and did nothing but smoke under the arches of the railroad, and loiter about beershops. At length he became very weak, and took to his bed; doctors were called in by his faithful Shuri, but there is no remedy for a bruised spirit. A Methodist came and asked him, “What was his hope?” “My hope,” said he, “is that when I am dead I shall be put into the ground, and my wife and children will weep over me.” And such, it may be observed, is the last hope of every genuine Gypsy. His hope was gratified. Shuri and his children, of whom he had three—two stout young fellows and a girl—gave him a magnificent funeral, and screamed, shouted, and wept over his grave. They then returned to the “Arches,” not to divide his property amongst them, and to quarrel about the division, according to Christian practice, but to destroy it. They killed his swift pony—still swift, though twenty-seven years of age—and buried it deep in the ground, without depriving it of its skin. They then broke the caravan and cart to pieces, making of the fragments a fire, on which they threw his bedding, carpets, curtains, blankets, and everything which would burn. Finally, they dashed his mirrors, china, and crockery to pieces, hacked his metal pots, dishes and what-not to bits, and flung the whole on the blazing pile. Such was the life, such the death, and such were the funeral obsequies of Ryley Bosvil, a Gypsy who will be long remembered amongst the English Romany for his buttons, his two wives, his grand airs, and last, and not least, for having been the composer of various stanzas in the Gypsy tongue, which have plenty of force, if nothing else, to recommend them. One of these, addressed to Yocky Shuri, runs as follows:
Tuley the Can I kokkeney cam
Like my rinkeny Yocky Shuri:
Oprey the chongor in ratti I’d cour
For my rinkeny Yocky Shuri!
Which may be thus rendered:
Beneath the bright sun, there is none, there is none,
I love like my Yocky Shuri:
With the greatest delight, in blood I would fight
To the knees for my Yocky Shuri!