Looking slyly at me, the tinker remarked—

“When that parson got home, being a man of eddication, he would know where to get the right sort of paper, and then he would make £5 notes cheap, you bet.”

For several Christmas Eves past, this tinker’s boy and a little pal have walked some miles from a neighbouring town to sing carols at my Rectory door. They possess good voices and sing very tunefully some of the old carols, “God rest you, merry gentlemen,” and the like.

One summer afternoon, in the market-place at Hull, I met two grinders coming out of a tavern, near which stood a tinker’s barrow belonging to one of them, Golias Gray, a Gypsy, whom I had seen before at fair-times in the seaport town. “Black as the ace of spades” is Golias, and he was, as usual, sporting a yellow shirt. His pale-faced companion, a stranger to me, after a little talk, waxed communicative, and, whilst his Gypsy pal resumed his grinding of knives, he gave me a short list of words in Shelta (Tinker’s Talk).

Shelta. English.
Binni Little.
Bog To get.
Buer Woman, wife.
Cam Son.
Gap To kiss.
Gosh To sit.
Granni To know.
Hin One.
Ken House.
Minkler Tinker.
Mizzle To go.
Monkeri Country.
Mush Umbrella.
Nyok Head.
Od Two.
Sonni To see.
Stammer To spit.
Stimmer Pipe.
Sweebli Boy.
Thari To speak.
Tober Road.

CHAPTER XVI
THE INN ON THE RIDGEWAY—TALES BY THE FIRESIDE

At one time I had a great liking for long jaunts in search of fossils—cross-country rambles extending over two or three days. Thus I came to know many a deserted quarry and unfrequented byway of our county, as well as the bedchambers of sundry remote wayside inns—“hedge-taverns,” perhaps some would have described these lonely little houses of call. Occasionally, however, I lighted upon an inn which had seen better days, a sleepy old house with mullioned casements, a worn mounting-block of stone, and a rude iron ring still fixed in the wall near the deep porch before which an unfenced stretch of sward dipped towards the roadway.

Let me recall one of my geologizing expeditions on an early March day. I had been successful in my quest, and my knapsack, laden with stony spoils, was not very light. But what matter? It was fine to be striding along a ridgeway with a roaring gale behind, and every wayside tree whistling like a ships rigging in a storm. Going along that road, I stretched out my limbs, and in so doing the very thews and sinews of the mind became more elastic. Straight from the reddening west blew the wild whirling wind, which, like some old giant, frolicsome yet kind, spread out its open palms upon my back, fairly shoving me along. This was living—this fine exaltation, this surging up of joyous emotions; and from a gnarled ash tree a storm-thrush with throbbing speckled throat told the same tale of a heart set free from every care. Such was my mood when at a turn of the road a red-shawled figure, surely a Gypsy, appeared for a moment and as suddenly was lost to sight down a gloomy yew-fringed drive leading to the rear of a low grey mansion. She’ll be out again presently, thought I; so I resolved to await the woman’s reappearance.

Meanwhile, like a spreading forest fire, the sunset flung its flaming crimson far over the land. Tree boughs and boles caught the glow, and underfoot the very grasses burnt by winter frosts seemed dyed with blood. Across a riot of sundown colours, black rooks were heading for their resting-place in the upland woods rugged against a castle-phantasy of lurid cloud piled up in the east.

Loitering there, methought of the wandering Gypsies who in other days had passed along this desolate road. I seemed again to behold a gang of slouching Herons, swarthy, black-eyed, secretive, accompanied by their pack-ponies and donkeys carrying tent-rods, pots, and pans. Who shall say what processions of old Romany souls, long departed, here visit the glimpses of the moon?