And then I was tempted to tell how a clairvoyant’s crystal once did me a good turn. Let me explain that many years ago, when I was a curate on the Wolds, our Rector’s aged wife used to bring me rare wild-flowers to be named, and thus I won a place in the lady’s good books.
Time passed, and the Rector’s wife died. Not long after, I moved away to another sphere of work. Then came the news of the decease of the old Rector himself. One morning, twenty years after quitting that Wold parish, a letter reached me, asking if I had been a curate with Canon A— in such and such years, and further inquiring whether my wife Elizabeth was still alive. Of course I had no difficulty in satisfying the writer of the letter, and his speedy reply brought an agreeable enclosure in the form of a cheque, a little legacy bequeathed to us by a codicil to the will of the old Rector’s wife who loved wild-flowers. But the strangest part of the story is yet to come. During a visit to London, the wife of the present parson of our old parish visited a clairvoyant who by the aid of a crystal declared that in the drawing-room of her home stood a small brass handled writing-table containing several drawers, in one of which would be found on examination a bundle of papers long neglected. On returning home, the writing-table was duly searched, with the result that the forgotten codicil was disclosed, and in it were mentioned some legacies bequeathed to friends, several of whom had since passed away, but my wife and I happened to be among the survivors. Thus there came to us, as I have said, an agreeable arrival by the morning post, so that if “seeing is believing,” my wife and I ought nevermore to scoff at clairvoyants and their crystals.
“Dawdi!” (expression of surprise) exclaimed Liddy, with something of a gasp in her voice, while Old Frank looked wonder struck.
“Well, that licks all I’ve ever heard,” said the publican, slapping his knee in punctuation of his surprise. “Now let’s have another tune, Frank.”
Whereupon the fiddler broke into a Scottish air with variations, his body swaying to and fro the while. During several staves, the player laid his cheek on the violin in a fashion so comical that at the end of the tune I could not refrain from remarking—
“You reminded me just now, my pal, of Wry-necked Charley the boshomengro” (fiddler). With a good-natured grin he replied—
“So you know that tale about the fiddler?”
And here it is, in my own words.
Charley Lovell, a fiddler of renown, was returning one evening after a tiring day’s fiddling at a village feast. On the way to his tent, which was pitched in a disused quarry, the Gypsy took from his pocket a few coins he had received by way of payment. “Poor luck, I call it, to be paid like this for such hard work.” Thus commiserating himself, he trudged along the sunken lane leading to his tent. Imagine his surprise to find at the tent door a tall gentleman dressed in black broad-cloth. Dark of complexion, black-eyed, and polished in demeanour, the stranger turned to meet the Gypsy.
“Good evening, sir,” said Charley, bowing low, for he had the sense to perceive that a gentleman stood before him. “Pray what can I do for you?”