“One time when our folks was camping on the Dyke a keeper comes up to the fire. It was evening, and we was having some stew, and the keeper joined us. He were a pleasant, good-company fellow, wery different from keepers nowadays, and after the meal was over, my old mammy says to him, ‘There’s two things that’s wery good—a drop of brandy to warm the cockles o’ your heart, and a bit o’ black ’bacca to warm your snitch-end.’ And the keeper agreed. Then my daddy brings out a black bottle and mixes him a drink in a teacup, and us boys come peeping into the tent to listen to the tales what daddy and the keeper got a-telling. I can see ’em all a-sitting there now, my old mam a-puffing her swêgler (pipe) and the keeper and daddy blowing a big cloud till you couldn’t hardlins see across the tent for smook. But mam never gave us boys nothink from the bottle, and when the keeper began to get jolly, my dad tipped us a wink, and off goes three of us wi’ the dogs, and we had a good time in the big woods. Nobody came near us, and we didn’t carry the game home that night lest we might meet a gawjo. We know’d a thing better than that. We hid the game in a leafy hollow, and sent some of the big gells in the morning with sacks, and they brought all home safe.”
Two miles onward we stopped a few minutes at Byard’s Leap to look at the large iron horseshoes embedded in the turf. It is these shoes that help to perpetuate the local legend which gives the hamlet its name. Here is the Gypsy version of the tradition.
“Hundreds and hundreds of years ago, there was a wicked witch what lived in a stone-pit wi’ big dark trees hanging over it. This woman did a lot of mischief on the farms all round, witching the stock in the fields, and she cast sickness on people young and old. They say the witch was once a beautiful girl who sold her blood to the Beng (Devil), and that’s how she got her powers. At last she grew wery ugly, and still went on working great harm. One day the folks of that neighbourhood met together and tossed up to see who was to kill the witch. It was a shepherd who had to do it, though it went against his mind, as he had often played with the witch when she was a beautiful girl. However, he promised to put an end to her, and set off to choose a horse to ride on. All the horses on the farm were driven down to a pond. One of them was a blind one, an old favourite of the farmer’s, which he wouldn’t allow to be killed. Now, while the horses were drinking, the shepherd was to wuser a bâ (throw a stone) over the horses’ backs into the water, and the one that looked up first was the one he was to ride. Well, if the poor old blind horse didn’t lift up its head, so he saddled it and bridled it and rode off to the stone-pit. When he got there he shouted, ‘Come out, my lass, I want to speak to you.’
“‘I’m suckling my cubs;’—she had two bairns, and the shepherd was said to be their father—‘wait till I’ve tied my shoe-strings, and then I’ll come.’ Soon she came out, and, springing on to the horse’s back behind the shepherd, she dug her claws into the animal’s flesh, while the shepherd rode poor blind Bayard—that was the horse’s name—towards the cross-roads, and on the way there the grai (horse) gave a tremendous jump—sixty feet—and both the riders were thrown off; the witch was killed on the spot, the shepherd was lamed for life, and the blind horse fell down dead.”
Starting from the first set of four horseshoes in the turf, I measured the distance in strides to the next set of four, and, roughly speaking, found it to be sixty feet.
Here our roads diverged, Jonathan going westward towards the “Cliff,” while I took the turn for Sleaford.
Within three weeks from this meeting with Jonathan on the High Dyke, I had business calling me to the town of Newark-on-Trent, where, as luck had it, the May horse-fair was in full swing, and under the shadow of the Castle by the waterside I met my Gypsy friend once more. In a corner of the fairground, which was crowded with horses, I found Jonathan in company with one of the Smiths, and the two men were drinking ale out of big horn tumblers rimmed with silver. Petulengro had a nice vâdo, and, going up to it, I read the name “Bailey, Warrington.” He explained that he was breaking new ground, and therefore had taken a change of name. Like most Gypsies, he had some pets—two dogs, a bantam cock and hen, a jackdaw, and a canary. As Jonathan had absorbing business on hand, I did not see him again until evening, when I joined him in his tilt-cart, and we set off towards Ollerton. Underneath the vehicle were slung several tent rods, notched, or numbered, in order to facilitate the erection of the tent. Said he, “I’m expecting my nephew to join us to-morrow—that’s Charley—he’s promised to come after us, so I must lay the patrins (signs) for him.”
Let us see how this is done.
At a crossing of two highways, a few miles out of the town, Jonathan went to the hedge-bottom and plucked a bunch of long grass, then upon a clearing among the tussocks on the wayside he divided the bunch into three portions, carefully placing these with their tips pointing in the direction which we were about to take.
“There now,” said the old man, “I’ve got to do this at every cross-road, for there’s no telling exactly where we shall stop to-night. But Charley is bound to find us, for he’ll dik avrî for mandi’s patrin” (look out for my sign).