Part 15 (2/2)
”Avo, h, but I never saw a Gipsy gentleman before”
[Since I wrote that last line I went out for a walk, and on the other side of Walton Bridge, which legend says marks the spot where Julius Caesar crossed, I saw a tent and a waggon by the hedge, and knew by the curling blue se, and sure enough there on the ground lay a full-grown Petularo, while his brown _juva_ tended the pot And when I spoke to her in Rohter as each new sentence struck her ear, and exclaim, ”Well! well! that ever I should live to hear this! Why, the gentleman talks just like one of _us_! '_Bien apropos_,' sayde ye ladye”]
”Dye,” quoth I to the old Gipsy dame, ”don't be afraid I'ios about, for I don't want them to hear our _rakkerben_ Let us take a drop of brandy--life is short, and here's lish--I'ht, and you can leave your spoons out
Tacho”
”The boshno an' kani The rye an' the rani; Welled acai 'pre the boro lun pani
Rinkeni juva hav acai!
Del a choomer to the rye!”
”_Duveleste_!” said the old fortune-teller, ”that ever I should live to see a rye like you! A boro rye rakkerin' Roood tea”
”I don't pi ri dye ('drink tea,' but an equivoque) It's ri with you and with us of the Gero away like a Gorgio without tasting anything?”
”I'll eat bread with you, but tea I haven't tasted this five-and-twenty years”
”Bread you shall have, rya” And saying this, the daughter spread out a clean white napkin, and placed on it excellent bread and butter, with plate and knife I never tasted better, even in Philadelphia Everything in the cottage was scrupulously neat--there was even an approach to style The furniture and ornaments were superior to those found in coe and beautifully-bound photograph albuhter received and read a note, and one of the sons kneho and what Mr Robert Browning was
But behind it all, when the inner life came out, was the wild Rommany and the witch-_aura_--the fierce spirit of social exile from the world in which they lived (the true secret of all the witch-life of old), and the joyous consciousness of a secret tongue and hidden ways To those alk in the darkness of the drealy as they will, and into the gri flashes of light, though they be gleahts, elfin sparkles, and the unearthly blue lu slow In the forgotten grave of the sorcerer burns steadily through long centuries the Rosicrucian lamp, and even to him whose eyes are closed, sparkle, on pressure, phosphorescent rings So there was Gipsy laughter; and the ancient _wicca_ and Vala flashed out into that sky-rocketty joyousness and Catherine-wheel gaiety, which at eighty or ninety, in a woman, vividly reminds one of the Sabbat on the Brocken, of the oints terrible and unearthly and forbidden
I do not suppose that there arethe fearfully dirty dwellers in tents and caravans, cock-shysters and dealers in dogs of doubtful character, there can be anything strange, and quaint, and deeply tinged with the spirit of which I have spoken As well ht one attempt to persuade the twenty-stone half-illiterate and wholly old-fashi+oned rural istrate of the last century that the poor devil of a hen-stealing Gipsy dragged before hih the reat band of scholars to sing for joy Life, towithout its hu hisby phrases fro me ords to be found in the Mahabahrata and Hafiz to buy a terrier, is a charination has neither been led nor driven, when it has so invariably, inwith Gipsy women, recalled Faust, and all I have ever read in Wierus, Bodinus, Bekker, Mather, or Glanvil, of the sorceress and _sortilega_ And certainly on this earth I never met with such a perfect _replica_ of Old Mother Baubo, the mother of all the witches, as I once encountered at a certain race Swarthy, black-eyed, stout, half-centuried, fiercely cunning, and immoderately sensual, her first salutation was expressed in a phrase such as a Corinthian soulthat portion of the after-world devoted to the fastest of the fair With her caiant fat sow for her majesty, and the broo
To return to the cottage Our hted with my anecdotes of the Rommany in other lands--Gerili_ And ere just in the gayest centre of it all, ”whin,--och, what a pity!--this fine tay-party was suddenly broken up,” as Patrick O'Flanegan re with the chairs to the devil's fiddling, and his wife entered For in rushed a Gipsy boy announcing that Gorgios (or, as I may say, ”wite trash”) were near at hand, and evidently bent on entering
That this irruption of the ene will be believed I tossed the brandy in the cup into the fire; it flashed up, and with it a quickwitch-brew in ”Faust” I put the tourist-flask in ed my seat and assumed the air of a chance intruder In they caentleher class, as they indicated by their e They were almost immediately followed by a Gipsy, the son of ht see me
He was a man of thirty, firmly set, and had a stern hard countenance, in which shone two glittering black eyes, which were serpent-like even a his people a face so expressive of self-control allied to wary suspicion He was neatly dressed, but in a subdued Gipsy style, the principal indication being that of a pair of ”cords,” which, however, any gentlelish was excellent--in fact, that of an educated man; his sum total that of a very decided ”character,” and one who, if you wronged hierous one
We entered into conversation, and the Ro of the dim past; it was the scene in a witch-revel suddenly shi+fted to a drawing-rooentle, and so readily acquainted and coslish standard; and not the least char part of the whole performance was the skill hich the minor parts were filled up by the Gipsies, ith exquisite tact followed our lead, seeuests I have been atbetter acted
But under it all burnt a lurid though hidden flahtful _diablerie_ of conceal the Rommany, which was the more exquisite because I shared in it Reader, do you ree Borrow's ”Gipsies in Spain,” in which the woman blesses the child in Spanish, and mutters curses on it meanwhile in Zincali? So it was that alled” compliments on her; but there was one instant when her eye met mine, and a soft, quick-whispered, wicked Rommany phrase, unheard by the ladies, calance and word there was a concentrated anathe his guests with ease
After he had spoken of the excellent behaviour and h character in these respects--I put him a question
”Can you tell e? one hears such differing accounts, you know”
With the amiable smile of one who pitied my credulity, but as hiar mystery, he replied--
”That is another of the absurd tales which people have invented about Gipsies As if we could have kept such a thing a secret!”