The hero of the Gypsy colony was a tall athletic fellow, “Soldier” ’Plisti (or Supplistia) Boswell, who also bore the nickname of “Jumping Jack,” of whom I give a reminiscence or two here.
One day a country squire was driving a pony chaise along a lane, and, rounding a corner, he came upon a ring of Gypsies roasting hedgehogs. Imagine his astonishment to see a slender lad spring up, and, running a few yards, take a flying leap clear over the pony’s back, a feat so pleasing to the squire that he called the boy to his side and, presenting him with a bright crown-piece, offered—so the tale runs—“to keep him like a gentleman for life.” In return for which kindness, the Gypsy was expected to disown his people, a condition which was not jumped at by Jack.
’Plisti’s home in Gypsy Court was one day the scene of a singular incident. A fox closely pursued by the hounds dashed through the open door of the living-room, where before the fire lay the Gypsy asleep and snoring. Reynard in his haste managed to sweep the sleeper’s face with his brush; and mighty was the yell that burst from ’Plisti’s throat on being thus disturbed, causing the fox to seek refuge in a hovel hard by, where the dogs fell upon him. A brother of mine who was in the court at the time obtained possession of the brush, and the trophy was given a conspicuous place in our home.
In those days it was no unusual course for the Gypsy lads to enlist in the Militia, and ’Plisti looked every inch a soldier as he marched homeward from the morning’s drill on the common. In play he would level his musket at you, and laugh like a merry boy, if you caught his spirit and made believe that you were wounded. If he was proud of his scarlet jacket, his characteristic Gypsy vanity led him to glory in shirts of dyes so resplendent that in comparison the vaunted multi-coloured coat of Joseph would indeed have been thrown into the shade.
The Gypsy spell cast upon me in childhood was now reinforced by my discovery of the autobiographical writings of George Borrow. It was in my teens that I devoured Lavengro in its original three-volume form. By taper-light in an attic bedroom at home, or in some hollow on the common where the battered race-cards whitened the base of the gorse bushes—our old common is the annual scene of the Lincolnshire Handicap—I thrilled over the boy Borrow’s encounter with the Gypsies in the green lane at Norman Cross. I followed him through the crowded horse-fair at Norwich, and into the smoky tents pitched upon Mousehold Heath. But the episode which impressed me most of all was the fight with the Flaming Tinman. The dramatis personæ of that narrative would pursue me even into my dreams. The Romany Rye, with its vivid picture of Horncastle Fair, was pleasant enough reading, though not nearly so fascinating as Lavengro. Little did I think that the coming days were to bring some of Borrows originals within my ken.
How far Borrow’s Gypsies are portraits of individuals, and to what extent we are able to identify them, are questions which have often been asked. Don Jorge would probably have denied the charge of individual portraiture, yet there is no doubt that he had definite prototypes in his mind’s eye when penning his narratives. Just as in Guy Mannering, Sir Walter Scott portrayed an actual Jean Gordon under the name of Meg Merrilies, so we know that Borrow has given us his old friend Ambrose Smith under the now famous cognomen of “Jasper Petulengro,” a fact made plain by Dr. Knapp in his monumental work [28] familiar to all Gypsy students. Shortly before his death at Dunbar in October, 1878, Ambrose Smith and his wife Sanspirela (a Heron before marriage), together with their family, had been noticed and befriended by Queen Victoria. To wit: the following entry in More Leaves from the Journal of a Life in the Highlands.
“August 26th, 1878.—At half-past three started with Beatrice, Leopold, and the Duchess in the landau, and four, the Duke, Lady Ely, General Ponsonby, and Mr. Yorke, going in the second carriage, and Lord Haddington riding all the way. We drove through the west part of Dunbar, which was very full, and we were literally pelted with small nosegays, till the carriage was full of them; then for some distance past the village of Belheven, Knockendale Hill, where were stationed in their best attire the queen of the gipsies, an oldish woman [Sanspirela] with a yellow handkerchief on her head, and a youngish, very dark, and truly gipsy-like woman in velvet and a red shawl, and another woman. The queen is a thorough gipsy, with a scarlet cloak and a yellow handkerchief around her head. Men in red hunting-coats, all very dark, and all standing on a platform here, bowed and waved their handkerchiefs.”
In the seventh chapter of The Romany Rye, Borrow tells how he one day got his dinner “entirely off the body of a squirrel which had been shot the day before by a chal of the name of Piramus, who, besides being a good shot, was celebrated for his skill in playing on the fiddle.”
Nieces of Piramus Gray, whom I know, have testified to their uncle’s excellence as a marksman, and on the authority of Sinfai, a daughter of Piramus, I have been told that Ambrose Smith’s praise of her father’s fiddling was well founded.