Overnight a welcome rain had fallen upon a thirsty land, and morning broke cool and grey, with a lively breeze stirring the tree-tops, and shaking the raindrops from the grasses, as I strode along the banks of the river Trent, with my face set towards West Stockwith Horse Fair. The long, dry summer was drawing to a close, and there was an agreeable sense of novelty in the rain-drenched aspect of the countryside. After a harvest prematurely ripened by an exuberance of sunshine, brown-cheeked September was now hastening to splash here a leaf and there a spray with rich colour, and on this particular morning it seemed to me that reeds, flags, and willows were taking on autumnal tints earlier than usual. Occasionally, from the river bank, I spied a water-rat or a coot swimming amongst the sedges, and once on the path stretching before me a pert wagtail—the Gypsy bird—foretold, as the Gypsies say, a coming encounter with roving friends.
Pleasantly enough my early morning walk terminated at the old-world Trentside village of my destination. By this time, between the vapours rolling overhead, the sun had appeared, and was gilding the barges moored to a primitive quay below the long line of straggling houses. On the Lincolnshire side of the Trent quite a colony of Gypsy vans had drawn up on a turfy plateau, and their owners were now to be seen crossing the river by ferry-boat, their laughter floating to me over the water. This was by no means my first visit to the riverside horse fair, and after refreshing at one of the inns, I went down the lane to the fair-ground occupying two fields, in the larger of which were already assembled horses and dealers in a state of lively commotion beyond a fringe of ale-booths and luncheon tents; while in the smaller field were gathered numerous Gypsy families with their carts and smoking fires.
Never in my life do I remember to have witnessed such a horde of ancient vagabonds of both sexes as on this occasion, and with no little delight I stood and gazed upon the picture. What struck me in particular was the motley character of the party. Decrepit great-grandfolks mumbling together; grandfathers in ragged garb and battered hats; wizened grandmothers sucking their pipes; aged uncles and aunts in time-stained tatters; wives in their teens dandling babies; bright-eyed children drumming happily on the bottoms of inverted pots and pans; merry lads and lasses, interspersed amongst an assembly of the quaintest rag dolls it has ever been my fortune to behold. It seemed to me as if all the old Romany folk of several counties had met together for the last time in their lives.
Moving into the larger field, I had not gone far before I felt a tug at my sleeve, and, looking round, I saw the two lads whom I had met with Jonathan by the watermill. They led me straight to a little covered cart drawn under the hedge where Boswell was conversing with ’Plisti Smith.
As I have said elsewhere, the play-spirit is strong in the Gypsy, even in his latter years, and while talking with my two friends up came a comical-looking Gypsy, Charley Welch, who must have been nearer ninety than seventy, and, picking up a potato lying on the ground—the large field had grown a crop of potatoes that summer—he laughingly dropped it into Jonathan’s coat pocket.
“There, don’t say that Old Charley never gave you nothink.”
After that I walked with Jonathan among the horses, and we came upon Flash Arno and Black Înan, who found time to accompany us to one of the refreshment booths where the talk ranged through a variety of topics. Înan knew Mister Groome, the book-writer, up Edinburgh way. He had met him there not long before in company with my friend Frampton Boswell. I soon found that these Gypsies did not hold with folks writing books about their race and telling the mumpli gawjê (nasty gentiles) about their ways.
No one loves a little fun more than the Gypsy, and generally he means no harm by his playful romancing. After all, he is but a grown-up child, and loves to make-believe. The Gypsy’s world is a haphazard one, in which luck plays a large part. He knows nothing of the orderly cosmos of providence or science. I make these remarks by way of prelude to examples of this spirit.
Who can help laughing inwardly as the Gypsy weaves a romantic tale about you, all for the benefit of a stranger? And in the course of my morning’s ramble through West Stockwith Fair I had several experiences of the kind.
“See that little dealer over there?” said Peter Smith, indicating a small Gypsy man holding a tall black horse by a halter. The animal looked gigantic by the side of its owner.