“There is a cabin half-way down the cliff,
You see it from this arch-stone; there we live,
And there you’ll find my mother. Poverty
Weeps on the woven rushes, and long grass
Rent from the hollows is our only bed.
I have no father here; he ran away;
Perhaps he’s dead, perhaps he’s living yet,
And may come back again and kiss his child;
For every day, and morn, and even star,
I pray for him with face upturned to heaven,
‘O blessed Saviour, send my father home!’”
The word “Gipsy” seems to have a magic thread running through it, beginning at the tip end of “G” and ending with the tail end of “y.” Geese have tried to gobble it, ducks swallow it, hens scratched after it, peacocks pecked it, dandy cocks crowed over it, foxes have hid it, dogs have fought for it, cats have sworn and spit over it, pigs have tried to gulp it as the daintiest morsel, parrots have chatted about it, hawks, eagles, jackdaws, magpies, ravens, and crows have tried to carry it away as a precious jewel, and in the end all have put it down as a thing they could neither carry nor swallow; and after all, when it has been stripped of its dowdy colours, what has it been? Only a “scamp,” in many cases, reared and fostered among thieves, pickpockets, and blackguards, in our back slums and sink gutters. Strip the 20,000 men, women, and children of the word “Gipsy,” moving about our country under the artificial and unreal association connected with Gipsy life, so-called, of the “red cloaks,” “silver buttons,” “pretty little feet,” “small hands,” “bewitching eyes,” “long black hair,” in nine cases out of ten in name only, and you, at a glance, see the class of people you have been neglecting, consequently sending to ruin and misery through fear on the one hand and lavishing smiles on the other.
In all ages there have been people silly enough to be led away by sights, sounds, colours, and unrealities, to follow a course of life for which they are not suited, either by education, position, or tastes. No one acts the part of a butterfly among school-boys better than the black-eyed Gipsy girl has
done among “fast-goers,” swells, and fops. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred she has trotted them out to perfection and then left them in the lurch, and those, when they have come to their senses, and had their eyes opened to the stern facts of a Gipsy’s life, have said to themselves, “What fools we have been, to be sure,” and they would have given any amount to have undone the past. The praise, flattery, and looks bestowed upon the “bewitching deceivers,” when they have been labouring under the sense of infatuation and fascination instead of reason, has made them in the presence of friends hang down their heads like a willow, and to escape, if possible, the company of their “old chums” by all sorts of manœuvres. Hubert Petalengro—a gentleman, and a rich member of a long family—conceived the idea, after falling madly in love with a dark-eyed beauty, so-called, of turning Gipsy and tasting for himself—not in fiction and romance—the charms of tent life, as he thought, in reality passing through the “first,” “second,” and “third degrees.” At first, it was ideal and fascinating enough in all conscience; it was a pity Brother Petalengro did not have a foretaste of it by spending a month in a Gipsy’s tent in the depth of winter, with no balance at his banker’s, and compelled to wear Gipsy clothing, and make pegs and skewers for his Sunday broth; gather sticks for the fire, and sleep on damp straw in the midst of slush and snow, and peeping through the ragged tent roof at the moon as he lay on his back, surrounded by Gipsies of both sexes, of all ages and sizes, cursing each other under the maddening influence of brandy and disappointment. To make himself and his damsel comfortable on a Gipsy tour he fills his pocket with gold, flask with brandy, buys a quantity of rugs upon which are a number of foxes’ heads—and I suppose tails too—waterproof covering for the tent, and waterproof sheets and a number of blankets to lay on the damp grass to prevent their tender bodies being overtaken with rheumatics, and he also lays in a stock of potted meats and other dainties; makes
all “square” with Esmeralda and her two brothers and the donkeys; takes first and second-class tickets for the whole of them to Hull—the Balaams excepted (it is not on record that they spoke to him on his journey); provides Esmeralda with dresses and petticoats—not too long to hide her pretty ankles, red stockings, and her lovely little foot—gold and diamond rings, violin, tambourine, the guitar, Wellington boots, and starts upon his trip to Norway in the midst of summer beauty. Many times he must have said to himself, “Oh! how delightful.” “As we journeyed onward, how fragrant the wild flowers—those wild flowers can never be forgotten. Gipsies like flowers, it is part of their nature. Esmeralda would pluck them, and forming a charming bouquet, interspersed with beautiful wild roses, her first thoughts are to pin them in the button-hole of the Romany Rye (Gipsy gentleman). As we journeyed quietly through the forest, how delightful its scenes. Free from all care, we enjoy the anticipation of a long and pleasant ramble in Norway’s happy land. We felt contented with all things, and thankful that we should be so permitted to roam with our tents and wild children of nature in keeping the solitudes we sought. The rain had soon ceased, tinkle, tinkle went the hawk-bells on the collar of our Bura Rawnee as she led the way along the romantic Norwegian road.
“‘Give the snakes and toads a twist,
And banish them for ever,’
sang Zachariah, ever and anon giving similar wild snatches. Then Esmeralda would rocker about being the wife of the Romany Rye (Gipsy gentleman) and as she proudly paced along in her heavy boots, she pictured in imagery the pleasant life she should lead as her Romany Rye’s joovel, monshi, or somi. She was full of fun, yet there was nothing in her fanciful delineations which could offend us. They were but the foam of a crested wave, soon dissipated in the air. They were the evanescent creations of a lively, open-hearted girl—
wild notes trilled by the bird of the forest. We came again into the open valley. Down a meadow gushed a small streamlet which splashed from a wooden spout on to the roadside.” “The spot where we pitched our tents was near a sort of small natural terrace, at the summit of a steep slope above the road, backed by a mossy bank, shaded by brushwood and skirting the dense foliage of the dark forest of pine and fir, above our camp.” “We gave two of the peasants some brandy and tobacco.” “Then all our visitors left, except four interesting young peasant girls, who still lingered.” “They had all pleasant voices.” “We listened to them with much pleasure; there was so much sweetness and feeling in their melody. Zachariah made up for his brother’s timidity. Full of fun, what dreadful faces the young Gipsy would pull, they were absolutely frightful; then he would twist and turn his body into all sorts of serpentine contortions. If spoken to he would suddenly, with a hop, skip, and a jump alight in his tent as if he had tumbled from the sky, and, sitting bolt upright, make a hideous face till his mouth nearly stretched from ear to ear, while his dark eyes sparkled with wild excitement, he would sing—
“‘Dawdy! Dawdy! dit a kei
Rockerony, fake your bosh!’