Fully a week the summer-like interlude had held sway in the land. Upon the newly-turned furrows shimmered a golden light. A dreamy haze trailed its filmy skirts over hill and dale. In narrow lanes invisible threads of spiders’ silk stretched from hedge to hedge, and wayside tangles again were silvered over with a fine dust suggestive of July. Amid the lingering clover-flowers bees buzzed and blundered. Through the still air, leaves of maple and chestnut, like red-winged insects, twirled down to the grass, and the tall elms in the village churchyard littered their yellow foliage upon the graves. Everywhere, serenitude, repose, peace, save in restless hearts chafing at the humdrum of tasks grown monotonous by reason of long-continued performance. For who with a soul fully awake can resist the lure of the road at gossamer-time?
Thus it came to pass one afternoon that my wife and I, slipping out of our drowsy village, took the upland way which after numerous windings brought us into the Great North Road. Our plans were of the flimsiest. It mattered little whether we went north or south, so long as we were absent for a few days. On reaching the far-famed highway we stood under the branching arms of a finger-post, and tossed pennies to determine the course of our itinerary. “North” having won the toss, we footed it gaily in that direction. To be sure, our semi-Gypsy garb, donned for this jaunt, was not long in taking on a coating of road dust, and we were about to shake off this clinging powder, when the rattle of wheels was heard behind us, and almost immediately a dogcart slowed down by our side, and the driver, a rubicund farmer, amicably invited us to take a lift, an offer which was gladly accepted, and we climbed aboard the conveyance.
“I’ve allus had a feeling for folks like you, and I offens give ’em a lift as I’m passing back’ards and forrards on the ramper. Afore I pulled up just now I says to myself, ‘They’ve seen better days, I’ll be bound.’ Maybe you’ve been in the army? Leastways, I thought you seemed to hold yourself up pretty straight in your walk. I’ve done a bit of soldiering myself. Once at a big do-ment in London, I was in the Queen’s Escort. Yes, I’ve been about a bit in my time. I dessay you two’s got a goodish way to go yet afore you come to your night’s lodgings.
“Ay, dear me,” he went on, “we offens has your sort calling at our place—my farm’s a few miles farther along this way—and one day not long since a poor chap knocked at our door and asked for work. He was a parson’s son, so we gave him a lightish job and fed him well and bedded him in the barn for three or four nights, till his sore feet got right agen. Poor fellow, he worn’t much good at labouring work, but we liked to listen to his tales; he could tell you summut now.”
Thus he rambled on after the manner of a garrulous Guardian of the Poor who had acquired an interest in tramps.
“Yon’s my place among the trees, so I must leave you here.”
We thanked him for his kindly lift, and, rounding a bend in the highway, were glad to relieve our pent-up feelings in laughter over the good man’s misconception.
Now, as everyone knows, who has journeyed along it, the fine old turnpike abounds in travellers of every shade and grade. Not once or twice on its turfy wayside have I fraternized with “Weary Willies” boiling their tea in discarded treacle-tins. Even now as we went along, two or three tramps passed by, one of them coming up to beg a few matches, the others scarcely giving us a glance.
Hearing the rumble of an approaching vehicle, we looked towards the bend of the road, and round it came what looked like a carrier’s cart drawn by a horse apparently old, for it proceeded slowly, and the cart creaked and jolted as if it, too, were ancient. As it jogged nearer, I saw it contained but a single occupant—a brown-faced little man who wore a faded yellow kerchief—and, stepping into the roadway, I greeted him with sâ shan (how do?). Whereupon he pulled up. “I heard what you said just now, but you’ve made a mistake. I’m no Romany—I’m a showman, an Aunt Sally man, bound for Retford.”
Now a Gypsy will frequently deny his blood. Knowing that his kind live under a ban, he has no desire to draw attention to himself. But, looking at this Aunt Sally man, I saw that he had told the truth. His face was freckled. No real Gypsy freckles. After all, as Groome says, “It is not the caravan that makes the Gypsy, any more than my cat becomes a dog if she takes to living in a kennel.”