“Well,” said I, “sad or not, there’s the song that speaks of the thing, which you give me to understand is not.”
“Well, if the thing ever was,” said Ursula, “it was a long time ago, and perhaps, after all, not true.”
“Then why do you sing the song?”
“I’ll tell you, brother, we sings the song now and then to be a warning to ourselves to have as little to do as possible in the way of acquaintance with the gorgios; and a warning it is; you see how the young woman in the song was driven out of her tent by her mother, with all kind of disgrace and bad language; but you don’t know that she was afterwards buried alive by her cokos and pals, in an uninhabited place; the song doesn’t say it, but the story says it, for there is a story about it, though, as I said before, it was a long time ago, and perhaps, after all, wasn’t true.”
“But if such a thing were to happen at present, would the cokos and pals bury the girl alive?”
“I can’t say what they would do,” said Ursula; “I suppose they are not so strict as they were long ago; at any rate, she would be driven from the tan, and avoided by all her family and relations as a gorgio’s acquaintance; so that, perhaps, at last, she would be glad if they would bury her alive.”
“Well, I can conceive that there would be an objection on the part of the cokos and batus that a Romany chi should form an improper acquaintance with a gorgio, but I should think that the batus and cokos could hardly object to the chi’s entering into the honourable estate of wedlock with a gorgio.”
Ursula was silent.
“Marriage is an honourable estate, Ursula.”
“Well, brother, suppose it be?”