“Seamer Fair, when is that?”
“Why, next week. There’ll be dosta Romanitshels odoi (many Gypsies there) and music and dancing. Ay, and fighting too.”
Then she fell to rambling about her former life on the road.
Another day I sat with Vashti Boswell in her cottage down one of the numerous yards branching out of William Street. Handing me a rude stool, the work of some Gypsy carpenter, she sat herself on the fender. On her forehead was a deep indentation which she said was made by a blow from a poker at the hand of a mad relative. In vivid words she described the occasion of that blow, and one pictured the desperate struggle between the two women, till Vashti, fainting from loss of blood, fell in a heap on to the floor, but not before Izaria, a stalwart fellow, attracted by his mother’s screams, had rushed into the house and snatched the weapon from the mad woman’s hand.
A little higher up the street lived this same son and Vashti’s nephew, Joel Boswell, who were sent for, a neighbour’s child acting as messenger. I have often noticed that Gypsies will call in their kinsfolk who live near to share in the pleasure and excitement, likewise in the “grist,” implied by a rai’s visit. Much to my surprise Vashti knew all about Gypsy Court at Lincoln, and little wonder when she presently told me that her husband was a half-brother of my old friend, Jumping Jack.
Talking of the past, Vashti declared that very few Gypsies in her day went to church for marriage.
“My man and me jumped the besom, we did. That’s how we was married. Like many more, we didn’t get parson’d, but we thought our old way just as binding as if we’d been to church. My man were a good ’un as long as he lived, and weren’t that enough for the likes o’ me?”
“Then you remember Jumping Jack?” I asked.
“Âwa (yes), and he could jump too. He once cleared the backs of three horses standing side by side, and I’s seen him jump the common gate times and agen. When my husband was living, we used to travel Lincolnshire, and now lots of us are living in houses scattered all over the tem” (country).
At this juncture, Joel disappeared for a few moments, and on his return bore a large jug of foaming brown ale, which was his way of welcoming the rai, and pipes were soon in full blast.