CONTENTS
| CHAP. | PAGE | |
| I. | Gypsy Court—My Initiation into Gypsydom | [1] |
| II. | Characters of the Court—Reading Borrow | [16] |
| III. | North-Country Gypsies | [32] |
| IV. | My Poaching Pussy—A Romany Benison—My First Taste of Hedgehog | [41] |
| V. | A Gypsy Baptism—Romany Names | [52] |
| VI. | I make a New Acquaintance | [57] |
| VII. | The Blackpool Gypsyry | [71] |
| VIII. | A Trentside Fair | [89] |
| IX. | Taken for Tramps—An East Anglian Family | [99] |
| X. | Peterborough Fair | [118] |
| XI. | A Forgotten Highway—“On the Road” with Jonathan—The Patrin—The Ghost of the Haystack | [134] |
| XII. | The Gypsy of the Town | [152] |
| XIII. | With the Yorkshire Gypsies | [172] |
| XIV. | A Night with the Gypsies—The Sweep of Lynn—London Gypsies—On Epsom Downs | [186] |
| XV. | Tinkers and Grinders | [205] |
| XVI. | The Inn on the Ridgeway—Tales by the Fireside | [213] |
| XVII. | Horncastle Fair | [229] |
| XVIII. | A Gypsy Sepulchre—Burial Lore—The Passing of Jonathan | [238] |
| XIX. | Bitshado Pawdel (Transported) | [247] |
| XX. | A Romany Munchausen | [256] |
| XXI. | The Gypsy of the Hills—In the Heart of Wales—A Westmorland Horse Fair | [262] |
| XXII. | Furzemoor | [278] |
| Glossary of Romany Words | [291] | |
| Gypsy Fore or Christian Names | [299] | |
| Index | [303] |
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
| The Gypsy’s Parson | Frontispiece |
| FACING PAGE | |
| A Romany Lass | [6] |
| The Camp in the Lane | [20] |
| A Daughter of “Jasper Petulengro” | [28] |
| On the Moorland | [36] |
| A North-Country Gypsy Girl | [36] |
| Round the Camp-fire | [48] |
| A Child of the Caravan | [48] |
| A Rest by the Way | [62] |
| A Wayside Idyl | [68] |
| Children of the Open Air | [68] |
| On the Look-out | [72] |
| The Gypsy’s Parson with his Friends | [86] |
| Friends at the Fair | [86] |
| A Maid of the Tents | [112] |
| On the Eve of the Fair | [118] |
| Midland Gypsies | [128] |
| South-Country Gypsies | [128] |
| Netting Rabbits | [139] |
| ’Neath the Hedgerow | [139] |
| The Gypsy’s Parson on the Road | [142] |
| Gypsies at Home | [146] |
| Comrades | [146] |
| “A Mother in Egypt” | [160] |
| House-dwelling Gypsies | [172] |
| A Gypsy Lad | [184] |
| On the Racecourse | [202] |
| A Tinker of the Olden Times | [208] |
| A Welsh Gypsy Tinker | [208] |
| A Romany Fiddler | [222] |
| Horncastle Horse Fair | [230] |
| Ready for the Fair | [232] |
| Yard of the “George” Inn, Horncastle | [232] |
| A London Gypsy | [246] |
| “Black as a Boz’ll” | [258] |
| Oli Purum | [264] |
| A Gypsy Harpist | [264] |
| A Happy Pair | [268] |
| A Chat by the Gate | [268] |
| ’Neath Cautley Crag | [272] |
| A Bottomless Pool | [272] |
| A Wandering Minstrel | [274] |
| Brough Hill Horse Fair | [276] |
| Gypsy Children | [280] |
CHAPTER I
GYPSY COURT—MY INITIATION INTO GYPSYDOM
A TANGLE of sequestered streets lying around a triple-towered cathedral; red roofs and gables massed under the ramparts of an ancient castle; a grey Roman arch lit up every spring-time by the wallflower’s mimic gold; an old-world Bailgate over whose tavern yards drifted the sleepy music of the minster chimes; a crooked by-lane leading down to a wide common loved by the winds of heaven—these were the surroundings of my childhood’s home in that hilltop portion of Lincoln which has never quite thrown off its medieval drowsiness.
Not far from my father’s doorstep, as you looked towards the common, lay a narrow court lined with poor tenements, and terminating in a bare yard bounded by a squat wall. Every detail of this alley stands out in my memory with the sharpness of a photograph; the cramped perspective of the place as you entered it from our lane, the dreary-looking houses with their mud-floored living-rooms fronting upon the roadway, the paintless doors and windows, the blackened chimneys showing rakish against the sky, all combined to make a picture of dun-coloured misery. There were, it is true, a few redeeming features gilding the prevailing drabness of the scene. The entrance to the court had a southerly outlook upon green fields stretching up to the verge of the Castle Dyking, or, to revive its more gruesome name, “Hangman’s Ditch,” so called from the grim associations of a bygone day. From these fields a clean air blew through the court, rendering it a less unwholesome haunt for the strange folk who dwelt within its precincts; while not half a mile distant lay the breezy common, a glorious playground for the children of Upper Lincoln.
Seeing that this court and its denizens were destined in the order of things to make a profound impression upon my childish imagination, I may as well develop the picture rising so vividly before my mind’s eye.
It was somewhere in the fifties of the last century, a few years, that is to say, before my entrance into the world, that several families of dark-featured “travellers” had pitched upon the court for their Gypsyry, a proceeding at which our quiet lane at first shrugged its shoulders, then focussed an interested gaze upon the intruders and their ways, and finally lapsed into an indulgent toleration of them. Thus from day to day throughout my early years, there might have been seen emerging from the recesses of Gypsy Court swarthy men in twos and threes accompanied by the poacher’s useful lurcher; nut-brown girls with their black hair carelessly caught up in orange or crimson kerchiefs; wrinkled crones smoking short clays, as gaily they drove forth in their rickety donkey-carts; buxom mothers carrying babies slung, Indian fashion, across their shoulders, and bearing on their arms baskets replete with pegs, skewers, and small tin-ware of home manufacture. As for children, troops of the brown imps were generally in evidence, their eldritch shrieks rending the air between the portals of the little court and the gate opening upon the common.
No observes could possibly miss the fighting scenes and the ringing shouts which made the court echo again. A passionate folk are the Gypsies, a provoking word being at any time sufficient to call forth a blow. Even as I write these words, visions of gory fists and faces obtrude themselves through the mists of past days.