“It’s no use pretending to offer you a chair,” said Lottie, giving my hand a hearty shake, “for we haven’t got one. If there’s anything I does detest, it’s chairs. The nasty things make sich draughts about ’ur legs.” So, squatting on the ground, I awaited the unfolding of the family budget.
There was a touch of the Orient on every side. Stuck in the wind-rippled sand under a bold wall of rock were curved tent-rods with brown blankets pinned round them. Between the golden furze clumps a lean horse and a shaggy ass ripped the grasses. A greyhound lay asleep under a tilt-cart upon the shafts of which sundry gay garments were hanging to dry. Upon this picture my eye rested with pleasure.
Now Gypsy Sam ignites his tobacco by scooping up a red ember with the bowl of his pipe. His wife does the same, and I follow suit.
“A prettier place is this,” quoth Lottie, “than when you see’d us under that ugly railway bank at Hull.”
Verily the Gypsies are possessed of an æsthetic sense, and their roving eyes grow wistful as they take in the beauty of the distant hills and the sun-gleams lighting up grassy knolls and spindly fir-trees rising from patches of sand.
“You remember that pawno grai (white horse) of ours?” says Sam. “Well, we lost him a little while back. A bit of wafro bok (bad luck) that was for us. We was stopping at a place with nasty bogs around us, and one stormy night the grai got into one of ’em unbeknown to we, and i’ the morning we found him with no more than his nose sticking out. Of course he were dead as a stone. Then there was that kawlo jukel (black dog) what you saw at Hull—brother to this one under the cart—he got poisoned up yonder by Rotherham. I reckon a keeper done it as had a spite agen us. I wouldn’t ha’ parted with that dog for a good deal; he’s got us many a rabbit.”
The steaming splutter of the kettle suggests a meal, which is soon spread in winsome style. Meanwhile, from another fire hard by, a black pot is brought, and a savoury stew is followed by tea and slices of buttered bread with green cresses fresh from the brook. As Lottie lifts the silver teapot to pour out tea, I cannot help admiring the lovely old thing, and the Gypsy sees my appreciation.
“Yes,” (holding it up in the sunlight), “it’s a beauty, ain’t it? Did you ever hear of my Aunt Jōni’s quart silver teapot? Squire Shandres used to fix greedy eyes on it whenever he come down to the camp, but my aunt wouldn’t part with it, not likely. You won’t remember Jōni, of course. A funny old woman she were, to be sure. There was one thing I minds her a-telling of us. She’d been out with her kipsi (basket) but it weren’t one of her good days, and by night her basket was nearly as heavy as when she’d set out. Twopence was all she’d made, as she passed through three or four willages, tumble-down sort of places, where the house walls were bent and the thatches of the cottages were sinking into the rooms underneath ’em. At one of these cottages as stood in an odd corner, Jōni stopped to knock. Two steps led up to a green door with a bird-cage hanging outside. She waited a minute, but as nobody came she gave two more raps and tried the door. It was bolted. After that she heard sounds inside, a muttering voice came nearer, and slip-slap went the shoes, as an old woman opened the door. Talk about ugly, she was that, if you like; and there was hair growing on her lip and chin. Fixing her black eyes on Jōni, she scowled and scolded, and, pointing a finger at her, she cursed poor Jōni, and for ten days afterwards my aunt couldn’t speak proper. Whenever she tried to talk, she could only groan and bark and moo like the beastses, and it wasn’t till after the tenth day that she were herself at all.”
From witches it was not a long leap to wise men.
Said Lottie, “Did I ever tell you about the wise man of Northampton? Well, it was one time as I’d had wery bad luck indeed with my basket. I couldn’t sell nothing at all in the willages agen that town, but I know’d a gozvero mush (wise man) as lived there, so I went to see him, and he give me a rabbit’s head and a cake of bread. ‘Now,’ says he, ‘go you and call at the places where you’ve took nothing, and you’ll take money at all of ’em.’