We had not gone far across the country when the twilight overtook us. We did not view it with the least apprehension, however. The night promised to be so mild, and we were so warmly found against it with our cloaks and thick clothes, that another evening couch in a barn or a cowhouse would not greatly daunt us. Indeed we had already made up our minds to this, unless Providence should throw a more luxurious one in our path. In the event this proved to be the case, for after awhile our wanderings brought us to a kind of common, across which smoke was seen to be rising. It came from a fire of sticks as we presently found, and on coming to it, we discovered ourselves in the midst of a gypsy encampment.
Four or five persons of a dirty, ragged and uncouth sort, were busying themselves about the fire in various ways. One was tending it with fuel, another was adjusting a great cooking-pot that sat in the midst of the embers, a third was cleaning a clasp-knife with a piece of rag and a tuft of grass, a fourth had two parts of a flute in his hand and was striving to fix them together; an old woman sat staring into the blaze with her hands on her knees, smoking a pipe; and a young woman, by no means destitute of a swarthy beauty, sat beside her with a child at her breast.
The reception we met with at the hands of these simple strange people was at first reserved and suspicious to a degree. One of the men addressed us in a barbarous tongue, the like of which I have neither heard before nor since. I could not make a word out of it. Showing plainly that we were at a loss in this language, the man translated it into good if a trifle rustic English:
"What do you want?" says he roughly.
"Leave to sit down by your cheerful fire a little," I replied. They were in no hurry to extend this permission to us, but by the time that Cynthia with excellent tact had greatly admired the babe in its mother's arms, and I, who amongst my accomplishments pride myself as being somewhat of an amateur of the flute, had pieced that instrument together, for its owner did not appear to understand much about it, and had been at pains to make ourselves agreeable to our company in several ways, their gruff reserve grew sensibly less. And shortly, so much did our addresses have their effect, that we found ourselves seated around the fire, with a pleasant odour of cookery tickling our noses. For after all bread and cheese and ale, although excellent in themselves to be sure, do not form a very enduring diet.
By the time the meal was ready the moon had risen. Sitting in the midst of these strange gypsy people, beside a bright fire that threw up its flames to the open fields, and clothed trees and hedges and the sky itself with a vagueness and mystery that we had never noticed in them before, we became possessed with a sense of the weirdness of the shapes about us. They made the folk we had come amongst seem more singular than they might otherwise have appeared. However, the meal we presently partook of in their company did much to alleviate this feeling of strangeness. When the lid was taken off the hissing cauldron, and platters, spoons and knives were produced, the circle about the fire was increased by the arrival of other gypsies of various ages and both sexes.
As their guests, they had the courtesy to serve us first. From the pot was produced a hot and grateful mess, that to persons with appetites sharpened to the degree that ours were, was deliriously palatable. It appeared to consist of fowls, mutton, hares, onions, and potatoes, and probably other meats and vegetables not so easy to detect. We were also given some excellent ale in a great horn tumbler, and a hunch of barley bread apiece. We feasted indeed on the liberal fare, and were fain to pay a second visit to the cauldron.
It was to be remarked that our entertainers were much better disposed toward us after supper than before. Their suspicion and reserve melted more and more, and instead of using the Romany language, ordered their conversation in ours, that we might take some profit of their intercourse. They all showed this amenable disposition with the exception of the old crone, who had supped only on tobacco, preferring her pipe to the lustier fare of the cauldron. She would have none of us. We could clearly see the expression of her lowering, tawny face, since she sat opposite to us, full in the glare of the fire. This indifference to us was more than passive. We discerned with some uneasiness that it amounted to positive dislike. She would stare at us whole minutes together, while a concentrated malignity came into her already sufficiently ugly face. She would then mutter incoherently under her breath. Once she spat venomously into the fire. At last, after staring at us longer and more resentfully than usual, she clutched a fellow who sat beside her fiercely by the arm. She talked to him with great energy, and ended with something that sounded of the nature of an imprecation. As she did so she shook her finger at our faces. Whatever her communication was, the man was much discomposed by it. He nodded, infused a certain malignity too in the look with which he regarded us, and then addressed several of his companions very much in the manner that the old woman had addressed him.
Cynthia, who had observed these signs as keenly as I had, grew alarmed. Nor was this unreasonable in her, for such were the weight of the old crone's objections to us, whatever their nature, that before long they had spread to the whole community. Thus we soon found ourselves in the unpleasant position of being the cynosure of all their eyes, the objects at which their fingers were wagged, and against whom their passionate talk was directed. But we suffered from the additional misfortune of being unable to understand a single word, and were thus quite at a loss to know wherein we had offended. It was the man with the flute who presently enlightened us. Probably his devotion to music, one of the liberal arts, gave him a more humane cast than his brethren. Indeed at this moment he alone seemed friendly towards us.
"Old Goody does not like the set o' ye," says he. "You will bring ill-luck upon us wandering folk, she thinks."