A grey morning with a lowering sky and splashes of rain had given place in the early forenoon to a brilliant day, and sunbeams lit up the Humber’s wharves and shipping as I stepped from the steam ferry upon the Corporation Pier at Hull. Often before had I visited this busy seaport on Gypsy errands, and the cause of my present visit was to seek out the whereabouts of the descendants of Ryley Boswell, renowned in Gypsy history. From Borrow’s Romany Word-Book I had gathered that Ryley hailed from Yorkshire, and Eldi Boswell of Derby, and the London relatives of Yoki Shuri had informed me that Hull was a likely place to locate some of Ryley’s offspring. A few inquiries brought me the information that a Gypsy and his wife kept a little grocery store in a back street, which I had no difficulty in finding, though, reconnoitring outside the shop, I saw in its exterior nothing suggestive of the Romany. Going inside, I rapped with my foot on the floor, and a middle-aged woman, only distantly resembling a Gypsy, responded to my summons. Pointing to a barrel of ruddy Canadians, I made request in Romany for two apples, and immediately a change came over her face. The sound of the Gypsy language produced a beaming smile where solemnity had sat. After making a further purchase, I was invited into the living-room, where I had no sooner sat down than the woman’s husband, looking still less like a Gypsy, entered, but on my giving him a sâ shan (how do?) he laughed outright, and we had some fun. It tickled me not a little to hear the pair discussing my physiognomy.
“Why, he’s got Newty’s nok (nose), that he has now.” And the wife asked me if I had brought news of a fortune left to them by their Uncle Newty in Australia.
“Newty—well, I have heard of him. Wasn’t he bitshado pawdel (transported) to Hobart Town for horse-stealing? But for whom do you take me?”
“One of Newty’s sons, for sure. And here’s your father’s photograph” (handing me a daguerreotype in velvet-lined case). “Now look at yourself in the glass. Why, you’re the wery spit of Uncle Newton.”
So I found myself taken for a grandson of Old Ryley and Yoki Shuri, and my shopkeeping friends were themselves actual grandchildren of those Gypsies of renown. Here was a lucky find, and since I was out upon a genealogical errand, I availed myself of the present opportunity to scoop in a goodly store of facts for my increasing collection of Romany pedigrees.
A few years after this visit to Hull, a correspondent in Australia imparted to me a number of facts relating to transported Gypsies. Here are a few of his personal recollections of Newton Boswell (or Boss), whom he had known as a travelling knife-grinder at Launceston in Tasmania.
“Newton, familiarly known as ‘Newty,’ seemed a nice quiet fellow, tall and spare, with the remains of good looks. Polite and well-spoken, he was not particularly Gypsy-looking, except for his walk and build—not particularly dark. At the same time he did look like a Gypsy. His eyes were of a mild brown. He wore a big felt hat and a coloured handkerchief. He told me that he had been popular with ladies, that one lady who had a large house (in New South Wales, I think), and with whom he worked as a servant or driver, took a particular fancy to him, but he left that situation because he wanted to be on the move. He said he did not like remaining long in one place. Newton confirmed Borrow’s description of Ryley, in regard to his wearing gold coins as buttons on his clothes, and other details. When I read him parts of Borrow’s books, he was astonished to find in print many facts familiar to himself. He once brought round his fiddle for me to hear him play, which he did in the energetic, spirited style peculiar to the race. He told me that he had travelled all over Australia.
“Once, many years ago, there came up to Newton’s grinding-barrow in Sydney a handsome, dark, beautifully dressed, young lady who, looking him fixedly in the eyes, said—
“‘There’s a Romany look about you.’
“‘I beg your pardon, madam?’
“‘There’s a Romany look about you.’
“‘Why, madam, do I look any different from anybody else?’
“‘Well, you are wearing a yellow handkerchief round your neck.’
“‘Can’t anybody wear a coloured handkerchief, madam?’
“‘Yes, they can, but they don’t.’
“‘Well, madam, I am a Gypsy—a pure-bred one too—my name is Boswell.’
“‘And so am I a Gypsy—my name is Lovell.’
“She gave Newton a sovereign and invited him to call at her house. He subsequently learned that she had married some well-to-do man (a non-Gypsy) in England, who had brought her out to Australia, and that on his returning suddenly from a trip to the Old Country, he shot her in a passion of jealousy, and then shot himself.”
Some weeks later I was again exploring Hull for Gypsies. To me few things are more agreeable than to hear Romany spoken unexpectedly. Walking along a city street, if suddenly amid the din of the traffic I hear a Gypsy greeting, I experience a very pleasant emotion.
In passing along the Anlaby Road, I heard from behind me, “Sâ shan, rashaia?” (How do, parson?) and, looking round, I saw Mireli Heron’s son, a jovial, harum-scarum fellow who has found a permanent home in Hull. I remember him as a travelling Gypsy, and his garb was then characteristic and becoming, but he had now adopted a coat, collar, and tie of the prevailing fashion. The Gypsy of the town, I find, has no desire to attract attention to himself; hence he becomes subdued in appearance, more’s the pity. Having settled, he becomes “respectable,” drab-coloured, unpicturesque.
At my request young Heron walked across with me to the Spring Bank, and on the way thither he pulled up at a photographers shop window, and, pointing to a picture, asked—