“I stole a plump and bonny fowl,
But ere I well had dined,
The master came with scowl and growl,
And me would captive bind.“My hat and mantle off I threw,
And scour’d across the lea,
Then cried the beng [93b] with loud halloo,
Where does the Gypsy flee?”
He continued playing and singing for a considerable time, the two younger females dancing in the meanwhile with unwearied diligence, whilst the aged mother occasionally snapped her fingers or beat time on the ground with her stick. At last Antonio suddenly laid down the instrument:—
“I see the London Caloro is weary; enough, enough, to-morrow more thereof—we will now to the charipé (bed).”
“With all my heart,” said I; “where are we to sleep?”
“In the stable,” said he, “in the manger; however cold the stable may be we shall be warm enough in the bufa.”
CHAPTER X
The Gypsy’s Granddaughter—Proposed Marriage—The Algnazil—The Assault—Speedy Trot—Arrival at Trujillo—Night and Rain—The Forest—The Bivouac—Mount and Away!—Jaraicejo—The National—The Cavalier Balmerson—Among the Thickets—Serious Discourse—What is Truth?—Unexpected Intelligence.
We remained three days at the Gypsies’ house, Antonio departing early every morning, on his mule, and returning late at night. The house was large and ruinous, the only habitable part of it, with the exception of the stable, being the hall, where we had supped, and there the Gypsy females slept at night, on some mats and mattresses in a corner.
“A strange house is this,” said I to Antonio, one morning as he was on the point of saddling his mule and departing, as I supposed, on the affairs of Egypt; “a strange house and strange people; that Gypsy grandmother has all the appearance of a sowanee (sorceress).”
“All the appearance of one!” said Antonio; “and is she not really one? She knows more crabbed things and crabbed words than all the Errate betwixt here and Catalonia. She has been amongst the wild Moors, and can make more drows, poisons, and philtres than any one alive. She once made a kind of paste, and persuaded me to taste, and shortly after I had done so my soul departed from my body, and wandered through horrid forests and mountains, amidst monsters and duendes, during one entire night. She learned many things amidst the Corahai which I should be glad to know.”