During the forenoon Gilderoy, Fred, and I stretch our legs in a stroll upon the sunlit “Hill,” where the Gypsies are encamped in considerable numbers for the morrow’s great horse-fair. Many familiar faces greet us on every hand. Now it is Pat Lee who springs out from a group and nearly twists off Fred’s hand, so vigorous is the shaking it receives, and now I am honoured by an invitation to test the weight of Femi Coleman’s new baby. From the doorway of a gorgeous vâdo Sophia Lovell thrusts out her black poll and inquires after our Oli. In this manner, with many variations, we make our way between the camps, and our ramble proves enjoyable in every way.
Going back to the wagons at Warcop, we drop into an inn, and by a bit of luck it happens that a “character” is present in the person of “Fiddling” Billy Williams, the wandering minstrel, who at our request takes his brown violin from a bag on his back and plays some lively airs, and Oli and Willy Purum, who have turned up, dance cleverly to a tune or two on the smooth-worn, blue-stone floor. But Old Billy—I cannot take my eyes off him. Look at his weathered coat (a gift from Lord Lonsdale) which in the course of years has lost its nap and shows here and there patches of a ruddy lower layer; surely the nondescript garment suits the grizzled old wanderer to perfection. Watching him closely, I observe that he has a very passable acquaintance with the Gypsy tongue, so, edging towards him, I drop a deep sentence into his ear. How he starts! “You know something,” says he. Then he goes on to tell me that as a boy he travelled with no less renowned a personage than John Roberts, the Welsh Gypsy harpist. Here’s a find. Who ever expected to meet a pupil of Old Janik’s in a remote Westmorland inn? Billy says that Roberts taught him how to “scrape music off these things,” twanging the fiddle-strings with a forefinger, and smiling sweetly as he does it. For myself, I count this meeting with Fiddling Billy one of the “events” of our trip.
In the evening we again rambled on the “Hill” to see a memorable sight—hundreds of Gypsy fires with rings of dark figures squatting around the blazing logs. A feast for the eyes of a lover of the nomads was this array of firelit faces set against a background of caravans, stone walls, and mountains.
September 30.—A fine morning with a cool wind blowing from the east. As we sat at breakfast, a clatter of hoofs on the road announced belated arrivals for the fair. Early in the forenoon we found ourselves in the thick of the crowd, which, to me, seemed as big as ever on Brough Hill. Once upon a time this fair used to last a whole week, much more indeed for the Gypsy element, but nowadays the last day of September and the first day of October are the only recognized dates. Droves of fell ponies took up a large space on the fair-ground. A few heavy horses and a sprinkling of “bloods” met the eye at times. For one thing we could see our Gypsy friends busy upon their “native heath,” for where is a Gypsy at home if it is not at a horse-fair?
As evening approached, an ugly bank of inky-black cloud came over the mountains, and the wind in rude gusts began to wail, Valkyrie-like, in the tree-tops, and to shake our wagons in a way that reminded one of a night at sea. Thus the day which had opened so gaily ended in real “Brough weather.”
An authority on that local phenomenon known as the “Helm” wind writes: “The field of its operation extends from near Brough for a distance of perhaps thirty miles down the Eden Valley towards Carlisle, and is sharply restricted to the belt lying between the Pennines and the river; never, on the one hand, being encountered on the actual summit of the range, and never, on the other, crossing the water. Bitterly cold, it rushes like a tornado down the slope, and works havoc in the valley below. If the “Helm” happens to blow during the fair, the proprietors of scores of refreshment tents may usually bid farewell to all the canvas they possess.”
The Gypsies, to whom I have ever mentioned the “Helm” wind at Brough, invariably shrug their shoulders, as if it were an old friend, and not a very welcome one at that.
October 1.—We were all afoot in good time this morning, six o’clock or thereabouts, and right glad we were to see the sun breaking through the mists over Brough Fox Tower. Taking a halter apiece, Fred and I went to fetch the horses. Breakfast; then we packed, and away we went. “Good-bye, old camping-place,” we said, as the wagons reached the Musgrave ramper, for very pleasant had been our sojourn by the spreading trees beyond the old farmhouse. On the way to Kirkby-Stephen, many light carts rattled past, going south, and, after the stiff pull out of the town, it was good to be once more on the open road with the keen mountain air blowing on our faces from over wide leagues of rocks and heather.