The Gypsies Part 10

There's others as is never satisfied and wants everything, but you've had the best, and more you needn't want, though there'll be many a man who'll be in love with you. Ay, indeed, there's fair and dark as will feel the favor of your beautiful eyes, but little good will it do them, and barons and lords as would kiss the ground you tread on; and no wonder, either, for you have the charm which n.o.body can tell what it is. But it will do 'em no good, nevermore."

"Then I'm never to have another husband," said the widow.

"No, my lady. He that you married was the best of all, and, after him, you'll never need another; and that was written in your hand when you were born, and it will be your fate, forever and ever: and that is the gypsy's production over the future, and what she has producted will come true. All the stars in the fermentation of heaven can't change it. But if you ar'n't satisfied, I can set a planet for you, and try the cards, which comes more expensive, for I never do that under ten shillings."

There was a comparing of notes among the ladies and much laughter, when it appeared that the priestess of the hidden spell, in her working, had mixed up the oracles. Jacob had manifestly got Esau's blessing. It was agreed that the _bonnes fortunes_ should be exchanged, that the shillings might not be regarded as lost, and all this was explained to the unmarried lady. She said nothing, but in due time was also _dukkered_ or fortune-told. With the same mystery she was conducted to the secluded corner of the hedge, and a very long, low-murmuring colloquy ensued.

What it was we never knew, but the lady had evidently been greatly impressed and awed. All that she would tell was that she had heard things that were "very remarkable, which she was sure no person living could have known," and in fact that she believed in the gypsy, and even the blunder as to the married lady and the widow, and all my a.s.surances that chiromancy as popularly practiced was all humbug, made no impression. There was once "a disciple in Yabneh" who gave a hundred and fifty reasons to prove that a reptile was no more unclean than any other animal. But in those days people had not been converted to the law of turtle soup and the gospel of Saint Terrapin, so the people said it was a vain thing. And had I given a hundred and fifty reasons to this lady, they would have all been vain to her, for she wished to believe; and when our own wishes are served up unto us on nice brown pieces of the well-b.u.t.tered toast of flattery, it is not hard to induce us to devour them.

It is written that when Ashmedai, or Asmodeus, the chief of all the devils of mischief, was being led a captive to Solomon, he did several mysterious things while on the way, among others bursting into extravagant laughter, when he saw a magician conjuring and predicting.

On being questioned by Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, why he had seemed so much amused, Ashmedai answered that it was because the seer was at the very time sitting on a princely treasure, and he did not, with all his magic and promising fortune to others, know this. Yet, if this had been told to all the world, the conjurer's business would not have suffered.

Not a bit of it. _Entre Jean_, _pa.s.se Jeannot_: one comes and goes, another takes his place, and the poor will disappear from this world before the too credulous shall have departed.

It was on the afternoon of the following day that I, by chance, met the gypsy with a female friend, each with a basket, by the roadside, in a lonely, furzy place, beyond Walton.

"You are a nice fortune-teller, aren't you now?" I said to her. "After getting a tip, which made it all as clear as day, you walk straight into the dark. And here you promise a lady two husbands, and she married already; but you never promised me two wives, that I might make merry withal. And then to tell a widow that she would never be married again!

You're a _bori chovihani_ [a great witch],--indeed, you aren't."

"_Rye_," said the gypsy, with a droll smile and a shrug,--I think I can see it now,--"the _dukkerin_ [prediction] was all right, but I pet the right _dukkerins_ on the wrong ladies."

And the Master said, "I write letters, but I am not the messenger." His orders, like the gypsy's, had been all right, but they had gone to the wrong shop. Thus, in all ages, those who affect superior wisdom and foreknowledge absolute have found that a great practical part of the real business consisted in the plausible explanation of failures. The great Canadian weather prophet is said to keep two clerks busy, one in recording his predictions, the other in explaining their failures; which is much the case with the rain-doctors in Africa, who are as ingenious and fortunate in explaining a miss as a hit, as, indeed, they need be, since they must, in case of error, submit to be devoured alive by ants,--insects which in Africa correspond in several respects to editors and critics, particularly the stinging kind. "_Und ist man bei der Prophezeiung angestellt_," as Heine says; "when a man has a situation in a prophecy-office," a great part of his business is to explain to the customers why it is that so many of them draw blanks, or why the trains of fate are never on time.

V. HAMPTON RACES.

On a summer day, when waking dreams softly wave before the fancy, it is pleasant to walk in the noon-stillness along the Thames, for then we pa.s.s a series of pictures forming a gallery which I would not exchange for that of the Louvre, could I impress them as indelibly upon the eye-memory as its works are fixed on canvas. There exists in all of us a spiritual photographic apparatus, by means of which we might retain accurately all we have ever seen, and bring out, at will, the pictures from the pigeon-holes of the memory, or make new ones as vivid as aught we see in dreams, but the faculty must be developed in childhood. So surely as I am now writing this will become, at some future day, a branch of education, to be developed into results of which the wildest imagination can form no conception, and I put the prediction on record. As it is, I am sorry that I was never trained to this half-thinking, half-painting art, since, if I had been, I should have left for distant days to come some charming views of Surrey as it appears in this decade.

The reedy eyots and the rising hills; the level meadows and the little villes, with their antique perpendicular Gothic churches, which form the points around which they have cl.u.s.tered for centuries, even as groups of boats in the river are tied around their mooring-posts; the bridges and trim cottages or elegant mansions with their flower-bordered grounds sweeping down to the water's edge, looking like rich carpets with new baize over the centre, make the pictures of which I speak, varying with every turn of the Thames; while the river itself is, at this season, like a continual regatta, with many kinds of boats, propelled by stalwart young Englishmen or healthy, handsome damsels, of every rank, the better cla.s.s by far predominating. There is a disposition among the English to don quaint holiday attire, to put on the picturesque, and go to the very limits which custom permits, which would astonish an American. Of late years this is becoming the case, too, in Trans-Atlantis, but it has always been usual in England, to mark the fete day with a festive dress, to wear gay ribbons, and to indulge the very harmless instinct of youth to be gallant and gay.

I had started one morning on a walk by the Thames, when I met a friend, who asked,--

"Aren't you going to-day to the Hampton races?"

"How far is it?"

"Just six miles. On Molesy Hurst."

Six miles, and I had only six shillings in my pocket. I had some curiosity to see this race, which is run on the Molesy Hurst, famous as the great place for prize-fighting in the olden time, and which has never been able to raise itself to respectability, inasmuch as the local chronicler says that "the course attracts considerable and not very reputable gatherings." In fact, it is generally spoken of as the Costermonger's race, at which a mere welsher is a comparatively respectable character, and every man in a good coat a swell. I was nicely attired, by chance, for the occasion, for I had come out, thinking of a ride, in a white hat, new corduroy pantaloons and waistcoat, and a velveteen coat, which dress is so greatly admired by the gypsies that it may almost be regarded as their "national costume."

There was certainly, to say the least, a rather _bourgeois_ tone at the race, and gentility was conspicuous by its absence; but I did not find it so outrageously low as I had been led to expect. I confess that I was not encouraged to attempt to increase my little h.o.a.rd of silver by betting, and the certainty that if I lost I could not lunch made me timid. But the good are never alone in this world, and I found friends whom I dreamed not of. Leaving the crowd, I sought the gypsy vans, and by one of these was old Liz Buckland.

"_Sarishan rye_! And glad I am to see you. Why didn't you come down into Kent to see the hoppin'? Many a time the Romanys says they expected to see their _rye_ there. Just the other night, your Coopers was a-lyin'

round their fire, every one of 'em in a new red blanket, lookin' so beautiful as the light shone on 'em, and I says, 'If our _rye_ was to see you, he'd just have that book of his out, and take all your pictures.'"

After much gossip over absent friends, I said,--

"Well, _dye_, I stand a shilling for beer, and that's all I can do to-day, for I've come out with only _shove trin-grushi_."

Liz took the shilling, looked at it and at me with an earnest air, and shook her head.

"It'll never do, _rye_,--never. A gentleman wants more than six shillin's to see a race through, and a reg'lar Romany rye like you ought to slap down his _lovvo_ with the best of 'em for the credit of his people. And if you want a _bar_ [a pound] or two, I'll lend you the money, and never fear about your payment."

It was kind of the old _dye_, but I thought that I would pull through on my five shillings, before I would draw on the Romany bank. To be considered with sincere sympathy, as an object of deserving charity, on the lowest race-ground in England, and to be offered eleemosynary relief by a gypsy, was, indeed, touching the hard pan of humiliation. I went my way, idly strolling about, mingling affably with all orders, for my watch was at home. _Vacuus viator cantabit_. As I stood by a fence, I heard a gentlemanly-looking young man, who was evidently a superior pickpocket, or "a regular fly gonoff," say to a friend,--

"She's on the ground,--a great woman among the gypsies. What do they call her?"

"Mrs. Lee."

"Yes. A swell Romany she is."

Whenever one hears an Englishman, not a scholar, speak of gypsies as "Romany," he may be sure that man is rather more on the loose than becomes a steady citizen, and that he walks in ways which, if not of darkness, are at least in a shady _demi-jour_, with a gentle down grade.

I do not think there was anybody on the race-ground who was not familiar with the older word.

It began to rain, and before long my new velveteen coat was very wet. I looked among the booths for one where I might dry myself and get something to eat, and, entering the largest, was struck by the appearance of the landlady. She was a young and decidedly pretty woman, nicely dressed, and was unmistakably gypsy. I had never seen her before, but I knew who she was by a description I had heard. So I went up to the bar and spoke:--

"How are you, Agnes?"

"Bloomin'. What will you have, sir?"

"_Dui curro levinor_, _yeck for tute_, _yeck for mandy_." (Two gla.s.ses for ale,--one for you, one for me.)

She looked up with a quick glance and a wondering smile, and then said,--

"You must be the Romany rye of the Coopers. I'm glad to see you. Bless me, how wet you are. Go to the fire and dry yourself. Here, Bill, I say! Attend to this gentleman."

There was a tremendous roaring fire at the farther end of the booth, at which were pieces of meat, so enormous as to suggest a giant's roast or a political barbecue rather than a kitchen. I glanced with some interest at Bill, who came to aid me. In all my life I never saw a man who looked so thoroughly the regular English bull-dog bruiser of the lowest type, but battered and worn out. His nose, by oft-repeated pummeling, had gradually subsided almost to a level with his other features, just as an ancient British grave subsides, under the pelting storms of centuries, into equality with the plain. His eyes looked out from under their bristly eaves like sleepy wild-cats from a pig-pen, and his physique was tremendous. He noticed my look of curiosity.

"Old Bruisin' Bill, your honor. I was well knowed in the prize-ring once. Been in the newspapers. Now, you mus'n't dry your coat that way!

New welweteen ought always to be wiped afore you dry it. I was a gamekeeper myself for six years, an' wore it all that time nice and proper, I did, and know how may be you've got a thrip'ny bit for old Bill. Thanky."

I will do Mrs. Agnes Wynn the credit to say that in her booth the best and most abundant meal that I ever saw for the price in England was given for eighteen pence. Fed and dried, I was talking with her, when there came up a pretty boy of ten, so neat and well dressed and altogether so nice that he might have pa.s.sed current for a gentleman's son anywhere.

"Well, Agnes. You're Wynn by name and winsome by nature, and all the best you have has gone into that boy. They say you gypsies used to steal children. I think it's time to turn the tables, and when I take the game up I'll begin by stealing your _chavo_."

Mrs. Wynn looked pleased. "He is a good boy, as good as he looks, and he goes to school, and don't keep low company."

Here two or three octoroon, duodecaroon, or vigintiroon Romany female friends of the landlady came up to be introduced to me, and of course to take something at my expense for the good of the house. This they did in the manner specially favored by gypsies; that is to say, a quart of ale, being ordered, was offered first to me, in honor of my social position, and then pa.s.sed about from hand to hand. This rite accomplished, I went forth to view the race. The sun had begun to shine again, the damp flags and streamers had dried themselves in its cheering rays, even as I had renewed myself at Dame Wynn's fire, and I crossed the race-course. The scene was lively, picturesque, and thoroughly English. There are certain pleasures and pursuits which, however they may be perfected in other countries, always seem to belong especially to England, and chief among these is the turf. As a fresh start was made, as the spectators rushed to the ropes, roaring with excitement, and the horses swept by amid hurrahs, I could realize the sympathetic feeling which had been developed in all present by ancient familiarity and many a.s.sociations with such scenes. Whatever the moral value of these may be, it is certain that anything so racy with local color and so distinctly fixed in popular affection as the _race_ will always appeal to the artist and the student of national scenes.

I found Old Liz lounging with Old d.i.c.k, her husband, on the other side.

There was a canvas screen, eight feet high, stretched as a background to stop the sticks hurled by the players at "c.o.ker-nuts," while the nuts themselves, each resting on a stick five feet high, looked like disconsolate and starved spectres, waiting to be cruelly treated. In company with the old couple was a commanding-looking, eagle-eyed Romany woman, in whom I at once recognized the remarkable gypsy spoken of by the pickpocket.

"My name is Lee," she said, in answer to my greeting. "What is yours?"

"Leland."

"Yes, you have added land to the lee. You are luckier than I am. I'm a Lee without land."

As she spoke she looked like an ideal Meg Merrilies, and I wished I had her picture. It was very strange that I made the wish at that instant, for just then she was within an ace of having it taken, and therefore arose and went away to avoid it. An itinerant photographer, seeing me talking with the gypsies, was attempting, though I knew it not, to take the group. But the keen eye of the Romany saw it all, and she went her way, because she was of the real old kind, who believe it is unlucky to have their portraits taken. I used to think that this aversion was of the same kind as that which many good men evince in a marked manner when requested by the police to sit for their photographs for the rogues'