The Gypsy's Parson: his experiences and adventures

by Lincolnshire rector of Ruckland George Hall

And saying this, the donkey climbed down with a bunch of nice ash sticks.

At one time Happy, who was a tinker and grinder by trade, possessed a grinding-barrow made out of a whole block of silver, and whenever he was thirsty he had only to chop off a lump of silver and go to the nearest inn to get as much ale as he could carry. In course of time his barrow grew smaller, and there came a day when Happy had no barrow at all. He had swallowed it.

One day Happy’s wife, Becky, said to him—

“Go and get a bucket of drinking water.” Away he went to the spring, and, having filled the bucket, he paused to take a drink from it, and going on again he stumbled and spilt the water. When he got home he appeared before his wife with an empty bucket in his hand.

“Why haven’t you brought the water?” asked Becky.

“Well, my blessed, I filled the bucket right enough, but on the way back the water started a-laughing at me, and I couldn’t carry it no furder. Ay, the water laughed itself out of the bucket, it did—every little drop of it. There, now I’ve told you.”

Another time Happy was crossing a field, and seeing a sack filled with something he went up and examined it, and there, if it wasn’t full of eggs. He picked up the sack and carried it away on his back, and never cracked one of them.

Happy was once walking beside a hedge, cracking nuts. He had pockets and pockets full of them, and he happened to fling a nutshell over the hedge, and it hit a wery fine hare and killed it. Wasn’t that strange now?

Happy never owned a wagon. He and his wife travelled all their lives with a pack-donkey and a tent. One night their tent took fire, and in a little while they had nothing left in the world save the donkey and its blinkers. The next morning, as they crept out from under the hedge, Happy said to his wife, “We shall have to beg wery hard to-day.” By the evening they had done so well that they had provided themselves with an entirely new outfit. Under the hedge stood the finest tent you ever saw. Inside it were new blankets, new bedding, new everything.