As we stood there and talked, I noticed that the woman looked worried about something, and presently I heard her say to Anselo, “I haven’t found it yet.” It was a brooch that she had lost. Then I told how once I lost and found a ring. One Sunday morning just before service, I stood on the gravel swinging my arms in physical exercises as a freshener before going to church, and suddenly I heard the tinkle of my ring on the yellow gravel. As only a few minutes remained before church time, I thought of a child’s method of finding a thing quickly, and, turning myself round three times, I tossed upon the ground a smooth black pebble, and, going, forward, lo, there was the ring close to the pebble.
Eyeing me curiously, Wythen remarked—
“Do you know what we says about people as does that sort of thing? Well, we reckons they has dealings with the Beng (Devil).
“When I was a little ’un, my old granny would do things like that, and she used to say that when you sees a star falling you must wish a wish, and if you do it afore the stari pogers (the star breaks) your wish will come true.”
It seems that among Gypsies “wishing a wish” sometimes means a curse. It was at Peterborough Fair in 1872 that Groome saw a blind Gypsy child—made blind, he was told, through the father wishing a wish. Akin to this is the belief in the evil eye. A Battersea Gypsy mother would not let her baby be seen by its half-witted uncle, for fear his looking at it should turn its black hair red.
After leaving Wythen, I sauntered along, making mental notes of Gypsies all around, among whom were local Brinkleys, the far-travelled Greens, some Loveridges, and other Midland Gypsies. I was about to move away towards the pleasure fair, when a dealer standing near some ponies caught my eye. I had never seen the man before, but as he looked a thorough Gypsy, I drew alongside and accosted him in Romany. For a moment he stared at my clerical frock-coat and broad-brimmed hat, and then calmly remarked—
“I say, pal, you look born to them things you’ve got on, you do really. You reckons to attend fairs at these here cathedral places, don’t you? Didn’t I once see you at Ely, or was it Chester?”
To this man I was nothing more than a Gypsy “dragsman” disguised in clerical garb. Accordingly, he lowered his voice as he said—
“See this here pony? Will you sell it for me? You’ll do it easy enough with your experience. On my honour it ain’t a bongo yek (wrong ’un), nor yet a tshordo grai” (stolen horse).