Our road now became a gradual descent into a clean, flower-loving village, where amid the trees we caught the gleam of a large canvas booth in a field, and there were knockings of a mallet to be heard. Nor was it long before we learned what was afoot. Within a tavern’s comfortable parlour, a coloured playbill informed the world that Harrison’s travelling theatre would that evening present a sensational drama—Gypsy Jack—and in due time we found ourselves seated among the cottagers and farm-hands, enjoying a highly entertaining, though garbled, version of Mr. G. R. Sims’s Romany Rye. Opening with a Gypsy encampment in which the gaily dressed Lees sat talking round a fire in a forest glade, we were successively shown Joe Hackett’s shop, the race-course at Epsom, the deck of the Saratoga, the cellar near Rotherhithe, and the Thames by night. The play seemed a not inappropriate episode in our Gypsy jaunt.
Years afterwards, during one Derby week, I saw Mr. Sims’s Romany Rye remarkably well played at a South London theatre. In connection with this play an amusing story is told. The managers of the Princess’s Theatre in London were anxious that the new drama should be announced in the “Agony” column of The Times. Like many another one, the advertisement clerk at The Times office could make nothing whatever of the mysterious words Romany Rye.
“What the deuce is this Romany Rye?” he asked the bearer of the strange document.
“If you please, sir,” said the messenger, whom the manager of the theatre had sworn to secrecy—“if you please, sir, I think it’s the name of a new liver-pad.”
“Well,” remarked the official, “The Times is a great paper and can do without padding. Take it away.”
And the advertisement was declined.
From the door of the canvas theatre it was an easy walk to the little town of Newark-on-Trent, at one of whose pleasant hostelries we spent the night, our window overlooking the ruined castle by the waterside. It had been in our minds to continue our walk next morning along the Great North Road, but at breakfast a small paragraph in a newspaper brought about a quick change in our plans. The item of news ran thus—
“THE ROMANIES AGAIN.
“Our friends, the gipsy Greys, are still with us in Grimsby, lamented Mr. Councillor E— last evening, and he wanted to know whether something could not be done to get them to clear out. The Town Clerk had assisted them somewhat, and one or two had gone, but there were still four families encamped at the back of T— Street, New Clee. Inspector M— said he had visited the encampment and he must say that the caravans were very clean. They could not be said to create a nuisance. ‘It is not the tents that are a nuisance,’ replied the lively representative of the H— Ward, ‘but the parties themselves, who trespass in the backyards of the houses in that neighbourhood. It is no uncommon thing on waking up in the morning to find a donkey or a goat in your backyard or garden.’ The Inspector stated that Eliza Grey, the owner of the vans, had informed him they would all be going away in a few days.”
It was the sight of the Romany family name which altered our plans. The East Anglian Grays are a good type of Gypsy not to be encountered every day, hence we decided to lose no time in taking the train for Grimsby. It was a crawling “ordinary” by which we travelled, and at a little wayside station a few miles out of Newark, a lithe, dark fellow carrying a pedlar’s basket stepped into our compartment, and at once I recognized in him my old friend Snakey Petulengro. How his face lit up on seeing me, for we had not met for years. I was so much struck by his altered bearing that I could scarcely believe my eyes. He seemed now as gentle in his manner as once he had been wild. The sight of him brought back Gypsy Court and all its associations. He said he had left the old home, his father and mother having passed away. On my inquiring about his sister Sibby, he said she had married a Gypsy and, tiring of Old England, had gone to ’Merikay. As Snakey quitted the carriage at Lincoln, an observant passenger remarked—
“There goes one of Nature’s gentlemen.”