CHAPTER VI
I MAKE A NEW ACQUAINTANCE
For several years I was curate-in-charge of a parish abutting upon the Great North Road, and during that time I used to meet many Gypsies on the famous highway. There passed along it members of the Boswell clan, making their way from Edinburgh to London; the dark Herons, after spending the summer months in the Northern Counties, came by this route to their winter quarters at Nottingham; a lawless horde of Lovells also knew this road well. Sometimes these Gypsies would turn aside from the dusty highway for a brief rest in the green lanes across an adjacent river, but they rarely tarried longer than a day. With one of these Gypsies I became intimately acquainted, and this is how our friendship began.
One May morning I had been strolling along the aforesaid road, and, turning towards the river where it is spanned by an old mill-bridge, I loitered there in expectation of the arrival of a pack of otter-hounds, visitors from another county; for complaints had long been accumulating to the effect that Lutra had been making depredations among the fish, game, and poultry all along the reaches of the river. Adjoining the bridge was a watermill where often might be heard the humming of the great wheel and the roar of foam-flecked water. Mellowed by time’s gentle touch, the irregular outlines of the building seemed verily as if arranged to be imaged on canvas; timbers and weathered stones were everywhere mottled with rosettes of orange and grey lichen, and when the sunbeams warmed the tints and tones of the old mill into rich masses of colour you experienced a thrill which made you wish to repeat it.
A little way off, our river was crossed by a shallow ford rarely used by vehicular traffic, which mostly passed by the bridge. Once a year, however, the miller closed the bridge in order to preserve a right-of-way through his yard, and on this occasion toll was taken of every cart, while a free way was allowed by the ford. But the astute fellow usually arranged that the closing of the bridge should coincide with a market day at the nearest town, and he would choose a time when the river was swollen by flood-water beyond its ordinary dimensions, thus rendering the ford a dangerous crossing.
After waiting awhile, a murmur of deep voices broke upon my ear, as with a rush and a splash about a score of bonny, rough-coated dogs burst into view round a bend in the stream. It was not in my plans to follow the dogs, so when the pack and its excited companions had gone by, I proceeded leisurely along a lane leading towards the green uplands looking down upon the valley.
A little way up the lane I came upon two dark-featured lads, and, going up to one of them who was tacking strips of straw-plait upon the top of a three-legged table, I said—
“You seem very busy this morning.”
“We must do something for a living.”
“You’re certainly a good hand at your business. How long are you stopping here?”
“That’s more nor I know.” (This with a shrewd look at me from top to toe.) “Ax grandfather, up yonder wi’ the hosses.”