Stephen had formerly travelled with Barney Mace, an uncle of Jem, the world-famed pugilist, who had a boxing booth which he took to country fairs up and down the land, and in order to tâder the gawjê (draw the gentiles), Stephen and Poley (Barney’s son) would engage in a few rounds just outside the booth.
The sweep had known Old Ōseri Gray, commonly called “Sore-eyed Horsery,” who died some years ago at King’s Lynn. He was a renowned Gypsy fiddler. If he heard a band play a tune, he would go home and reproduce the air on his violin, putting in such variations, grace-notes, shakes, and runs, that none of his fellows could compare with him.
Among the sweep’s reminiscences was a curious story about an eccentric Gypsy who had a fancy for carrying his coffin in his travelling van. The man had a daughter, a grown woman, who went about with him, his wife having died some years before. One afternoon while she was away with her basket in the village, her father took out the coffin and was busy repainting it when a thunderstorm descended. The Gypsy took shelter in his vâdo, which was drawn up near an elm tree on a bit of a common. Picture the grief and dismay of his daughter on returning to find her father a corpse, for a flash of lightning had struck the tree and the van and killed the old Romany. On the day of the Gypsy’s funeral, the vicar of the parish had the flag flying half-mast high on the church tower, which everybody said was a kindly feeling to show for one who was only a wandering Gypsy.
On asking my sweep about the house-dwelling Gypsies of Lynn, he directed me to the abode of the aged widow of Louis Boss (son of the famous Ryley Boswell or Boss), and a charming reception she gave me in her spotless cottage in a retired court. The sweep had told me of this old lady’s liking for snuff, and a visit to a tuvalo budika (tobacco shop) enabled me to give her a little pleasure. By the fireside she refilled her shiny metal box, and, having offered me a trial of the pungent dust, herself took deep, loving pinches, with the air of a connoisseur. Indeed, the snuff cemented our friendship forthwith. Here I am reminded of a story telling how Dr. Manning (of the Religious Tract Society) once employed snuff in a very different fashion. When visiting Granada in Spain, he was beset by a begging crew of swarthy men, women, and children, and as he stood in the middle of the clamouring horde, he took out his snuff-box. Immediately all the Gypsies wanted a pinch. He obliged them, so long as the snuff lasted, taking care to keep a tight hold of his silver box. Soon the Gypsies were all sneezing and laughing immoderately, and amid the commotion the good doctor managed to make his escape.
The road from King’s Lynn to East Dereham led me through villages astir with Whitsuntide festivities. At one point I turned down a by-lane, and, resting at the foot of a tree within view of Borrow’s birthplace at Dumpling Green, I observed a party of donkey-folk trudging along with their animals towards Dereham. Local mumpers were these people, a draggle-tailed lot, and I could not help reflecting upon the difference between the poor wanderers who now pass for Gypsies and the Petulengros and Herons of Borrow’s time.
In the church of East Dereham, one’s fancy pictured the boy Borrow in the corner of a pew fixing his eyes upon the dignified rector and parish clerk “from whose lips would roll many a portentous word descriptive of the wondrous works of the Most High.”
It was like living in Lavengro to wander about the alleys and lanes of old Norwich and through the ling and fern on breezy Mousehold above the town. Up there amid the camping sites and the fighting-pits, it was not without sadness that I read on a notice-board—“No Gypsy, squatter, or vagrant shall frequent, or resort to, or remain upon the Heath.” O shades of Jasper Petulengro and Tawno Chikno, changed indeed are the times since the days when ye loved and fought and trafficked within the precincts of beautiful old Norwich!
Concerning my trip by boat from Yarmouth to London, which was entirely lacking in Gypsy interest, nothing need be said here.
London is in parts strongly tinctured with Gypsy blood. Let anyone walk along the streets which have been built upon the sites of the old metropolitan Gypsyries, and he will surely see dark faces and black eyes telling how the Gypsies still cling to these localities. All around Latimer Road Station, which stands upon the Potteries, Gypsies are to be found living in narrow courts and dingy lanes.
On my way to Epsom on the eve of the Derby, I passed a few happy moments with my aged pal, Robert Petulengro, in whose back room at Notting Hill I have often been regaled with racy stories and touching reminiscences of old-time Romany life. There is something suggestive of the cleric in Bob’s demeanour, and a stranger would never suspect that my placid-looking friend had led a wild, roving life. It is when he loses himself in a tale that his mild ministerial air gives place to a vivacity characteristically Gypsy.