The Romany Rye / A Sequel to 'Lavengro'

by George Borrow

larceny, was in trouble. Young Fulcher, however, unlike my father, got off, though he did not give the son of a lord a hundred guineas to speak for him, and ten more to pledge his sacred honour for his honesty, but gave Counsellor P--- one-and-twenty shillings to defend him, who so frightened the principal evidence, a plain honest farming man, that he flatly contradicted what he had first said, and at last acknowledged himself to be all the rogues in the world, and, amongst other things, a perjured villain. Old Fulcher, before he left the town with his son—and here it will be well to say that he and his son left it in a kind of triumph, the base drummer of a militia regiment, to whom they had given half-a-crown, beating his drum before them—old Fulcher, I say, asked me to go and visit him, telling me where, at such a time, I might find him and his caravan and family; offering, if I thought fit, to teach me basket-making: so, after my father had been sent off, I went and found up old Fulcher, and became his apprentice in the basket-making line. I stayed with him till the time of his death, which happened in about three months, travelling about with him and his family, and living in green lanes, where we saw gypsies and trampers, and all kinds of strange characters. Old Fulcher, besides being an industrious basket-maker, was an out and out thief, as was also his son, and, indeed, every member of his family. They used to make baskets during the day, and thieve during a great part of the night. I had not been with them twelve hours, before old Fulcher told me that I must thieve as well as the rest. I demurred at first, for I remembered the fate of my father, and what he had told me about leaving off bad courses, but soon allowed myself to be over-persuaded; more especially as the first robbery I was asked to do was a fruit robbery. I was to go with young Fulcher, and steal some fine Morell cherries, which grew against a wall in a gentleman’s garden; so young Fulcher and I went and stole the cherries, one half of which we ate, and gave the rest to the old man, who sold them to a fruiterer ten miles off from the place where we had stolen them. The next night old Fulcher took me out with himself. He was a great thief, though in a small way. He used to say, that they were fools, who did not always manage to keep the rope below their shoulders, by which he meant, that it was not advisable to commit a robbery or do anything

which could bring you to the gallows. He was all for petty larceny, and knew where to put his hand upon any little thing in England, which it was possible to steal. I submit it to the better judgment of the Romany Rye, who I see is a great hand for words and names, whether he ought not to have been called old Filcher, instead of Fulcher. I shan’t give a regular account of the larcenies which he committed during the short time I knew him, either alone by himself, or with me and his son. I shall merely relate the last.

‘A melancholy gentleman, who lived a very solitary life, had a large carp in a shady pond in a meadow close to his house: he was exceedingly fond of it, and used to feed it with his own hand, the creature being so tame that it would put its snout out of the water to be fed when it was whistled to; feeding and looking at his carp were the only pleasures the poor melancholy gentleman possessed. Old Fulcher—being in the neighbourhood, and having an order from a fishmonger for a large fish, which was wanted at a great city dinner, at which His Majesty was to be present—swore he would steal the carp, and asked me to go with him. I had heard of the gentleman’s fondness for his creature, and begged him to let it be, advising him to go and steal some other fish; but old Fulcher swore, and said he would have the carp, although its master should hang himself; I told him he might go by himself, but he took his son and stole the carp, which weighed seventeen pounds. Old Fulcher got thirty shillings for the carp, which I afterwards heard was much admired and relished by His Majesty. The master, however, of the carp, on losing his favourite, became more melancholy than ever, and in a little time hanged himself. “What’s sport for one, is death to another,” I once heard at the village-school read out of a copy-book.

‘This was the last larceny old Fulcher ever committed. He could keep his neck always out of the noose, but he could not always keep his leg out of the trap. A few nights after, having removed to a distance, he went to an osier car in order to steal some osiers for his basket-making, for he never bought any. I followed a little way behind. Old Fulcher had frequently stolen osiers out of the car, whilst in the neighbourhood, but during his absence the property, of which the car was part, had been let to a young gentleman, a great hand for preserving

game. Old Fulcher had not got far into the car before he put his foot into a man-trap. Hearing old Fulcher shriek, I ran up, and found him in a dreadful condition. Putting a large stick which I carried into the jaws of the trap, I contrived to prize them open, and get old Fulcher’s leg out, but the leg was broken. So I ran to the caravan, and told young Fulcher of what had happened, and he and I went and helped his father home. A doctor was sent for, who said that it was necessary to take the leg off, but old Fulcher, being very much afraid of pain, said it should not be taken off, and the doctor went away, but after some days, old Fulcher becoming worse, ordered the doctor to be sent for, who came and took off his leg, but it was then too late, mortification had come on, and in a little time old Fulcher died.

‘Thus perished old Fulcher; he was succeeded in his business by his son, young Fulcher, who, immediately after the death of his father, was called old Fulcher, it being our English custom to call everybody old, as soon as their fathers are buried; young Fulcher—I mean he who had been called young, but was now old Fulcher—wanted me to go out and commit larcenies with him; but I told him that I would have nothing more to do with thieving, having seen the ill effects of it, and that I should leave them in the morning. Old Fulcher begged me to think better of it, and his mother joined with him. They offered, if I would stay, to give me Mary Fulcher as a mort, [264] till she and I were old enough to be regularly married, she being the daughter of the one, and the sister of the other. I liked the girl very well, for she had been always civil to me, and had a fair complexion and nice red hair, both of which I like, being a bit of a black myself; but I refused, being determined to see something more of the world than I could hope to do with the Fulchers, and, moreover, to live honestly, which I could never do along with them. So the next morning I left them: I was, as I said before, quite determined upon an honest livelihood, and I soon found one. He is a great fool who is ever dishonest in England. Any person who has any natural gift, and everybody has some natural gift, is sure of finding encouragement in this noble country of ours, provided he will but exhibit it. I had

not walked more than three miles before I came to a wonderfully high church steeple, which stood close by the road; I looked at the steeple, and going to a heap of smooth pebbles which lay by the roadside, I took up some, and then went into the churchyard, and placing myself just below the tower, my right foot resting on a ledge, about two foot from the ground, I, with my left hand—being a left-handed person do you see—flung or chucked up a stone, which lighting on the top of the steeple, which was at least a hundred and fifty feet high, did there remain. After repeating this feat two or three times, I “hulled” up a stone, which went clean over the tower, and then one, my right foot still on the ledge, which rising at least five yards above the steeple, did fall down just at my feet. Without knowing it, I was showing off my gift to others besides myself, doing what, perhaps, not five men in England could do. Two men, who were passing by, stopped and looked at my proceedings, and when I had done flinging came into the churchyard, and, after paying me a compliment on what they had seen me do, proposed that I should join company with them; I asked them who they were, and they told me. The one was Hopping Ned, and the other Biting Giles. Both had their gifts, by which they got their livelihood; Ned could hop a hundred yards with any man in England, and Giles could lift up with his teeth any dresser or kitchen-table in the country, and, standing erect, hold it dangling in his jaws. There’s many a big oak table and dresser, in certain districts of England, which bear the marks of Giles’s teeth; and I make no doubt that, a hundred or two years hence, there’ll be strange stories about those marks, and that people will point them out as a proof that there were giants in bygone time, and that many a dentist will moralize on the decays which human teeth have undergone.

‘They wanted me to go about with them, and exhibit my gift occasionally, as they did theirs, promising that the money that was got by the exhibitions should be honestly divided. I consented, and we set off together, and that evening coming to a village, and putting up at the ale-house, all the grand folks of the village being there smoking their pipes, we contrived to introduce the subject of hopping—the upshot being that Ned hopped against the schoolmaster for a pound, and beat him

hollow; shortly after, Giles, for a wager, took up the kitchen table in his jaws, though he had to pay a shilling to the landlady for the marks he left, whose grandchildren will perhaps get money by exhibiting them. As for myself, I did nothing that day, but the next, on which my companions did nothing, I showed off at hulling stones against a cripple, the crack man for stone throwing, of a small town, a few miles farther on. Bets were made to the tune of some pounds; I contrived to beat the cripple, and just contrived; for to do him justice I must acknowledge he was a first-rate hand at stones, though he had a game hip, and went sideways; his head, when he walked—if his movements could be called walking—not being above three feet above the ground. So we travelled, I and my companions, showing off our gifts, Giles and I occasionally for a gathering, but Ned never hopping unless against somebody for a wager. We lived honestly and comfortably, making no little money by our natural endowments, and were known over a great part of England as “Hopping Ned,” “Biting Giles,” and “Hull over the head Jack,” which was my name, it being the blackguard fashion of the English, do you see, to—’

Here I interrupted the jockey, ‘You may call it a blackguard fashion,’ said I, ‘and I dare say it is, or it would scarcely be English; but it is an immensely ancient one, and is handed down to us from our northern ancestry, especially the Danes, who were in the habit of giving people surnames, or rather nicknames, from some quality of body or mind, but generally from some disadvantageous peculiarity of feature; for there is no denying that the English, Norse, or whatever we may please to call them, are an envious depreciatory set of people, who not only give their poor comrades contemptuous surnames, but their great people also. They didn’t call you the matchless Hurler, because, by doing so, they would have paid you a compliment, but Hull over the head Jack, as much as to say that after all you were a scrub: so, in ancient time, instead of calling Regner the great conqueror, the Nation Tamer, they surnamed him Lodbrog, which signifies Rough or Hairy Breeks—lod or loddin signifying rough or hairy; and instead of complimenting Halgerdr, the wife of Gunnar of Hlitharend, the great champion of Iceland, upon her