“Although with broken jaw-bone,
I’ll follow thee, my Riley,
Since Lura doesn’t fal.”
Thereupon Ryley and Yocky Shuri left Yorkshire and wended their way to London, where they took up their abode in the Gipsyry near Shepherd’s Bush. Shuri went about dukkering and hokking, but not with the spirit of former times, for she was not quite so young as she had been, and her jaw, which was never properly cured, pained her very
much. Ryley went about tinkering, but he was unacquainted with London and its neighbourhood, and did not get much to do. An old Gipsy man, who was driving about a little cart filled with skewers, saw him standing in a state of perplexity at a place where four roads met:—
Old Gipsy.
“Methinks I see a brother.
Who’s your father? Who’s your mother?
And what be your name?”Ryley.
“A Bosvil was my father,
A Bosvil was my mother,
And Ryley is my name.”Old Gipsy.
“I’m glad to see you, brother;
I am a kaulo camlo. [218a]
What service can I do?”Ryley.
“I’m jawing petulengring, [218b]
But do not know the country;
Perhaps you’ll show me round.”Old Gipsy.
“I’ll sikker tulle prala!
Ino bikkening escouyor, [218c]
And av along with me.”
The old Gipsy 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 no 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 Gipsy. 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 and shouted and wept over his grave. They then returned to the “arches,” not to divide his property among 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. Then they broke the caravan 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. [219] Such was the life, such the death, and such were the funeral obsequies of Ryley Bosvil, a Gipsy who will be long remembered amongst the English Romany for his buttons, his two wives, grand airs, and last not least, for having been the composer of various stanzas in the Gipsy tongue, which have plenty of force if nothing else to recommend them. One of these, addressed to Yocky Shuri, runs as follows:—
“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.”
How much better and happier it would have been for this poor, hardened, ignorant, old Gipsy, if, instead of indulging in such rubbish as he did in the last hours of an idle and wasted life, he could, after a life spent in doing good to the Gipsies and others over whom he had influence, as the shades of the evening of life gathered round him, sung, from the bottom of his heart—fetching tears to his eyes as it did mine a Sunday or two ago—the following verses to the tune of “Belmont:”—
“When in the vale of lengthened years
My feeble feet shall tread,
And I survey the various scenes
Through which I have been led,“How many mercies will my life
Before my view unfold!
What countless dangers will be past!
What tales of sorrow told!“This scene will all my labours end,
This road conduct on high;
With comfort I’ll review the past,
And triumph though I die.”
On the first Sunday in February this year I found myself surrounded by a black, thick London fog—almost as dense as the blackest midnight, and an overpowering sense of suffocation creeping over me—in the midst of an encampment of Gipsies at Canning Town, and, acting upon their kind invitation, I crept into one of their tents, and there found about a dozen Gipsy men of all sizes, ages, and complexions, squatting upon peg shavings. Some of their faces looked full of intelligence and worthy of a better vocation, and others seemed as if they had had the “cropper” at work round their ears; so short was their hair