I am glad to have
seen you, for I have long wished to see a man from the north
country. Good evening! you will find plenty of good ale at Gutter
Vawr."
I went on my way. The road led in a south-eastern direction
gradually upward to very lofty regions. After walking about half-
an-hour I saw a kind of wooden house on wheels drawn by two horses
coming down the hill towards me. A short black-looking fellow in
brown-top boots, corduroy breeches, jockey coat and jockey cap sat
on the box, holding the reins in one hand and a long whip in the
other. Beside him was a swarthy woman in a wild flaunting dress.
Behind the box out of the fore part of the caravan peered two or
three black children's heads. A pretty little foal about four
months old came frisking and gambolling now before now beside the
horses, whilst a colt of some sixteen months followed more
leisurely behind. When the caravan was about ten yards distant I
stopped, and raising my left hand with the little finger pointed
aloft, I exclaimed:
"Shoon, Kaulomengro, shoon! In Dibbel's nav, where may tu be
jawing to?"
Stopping his caravan with considerable difficulty the small black
man glared at me for a moment like a wild cat, and then said in a
voice partly snappish, partly kind:
"Savo shan tu? Are you one of the Ingrines?"
"I am the chap what certain folks calls the Romany Rye."
"Well, I'll be jiggered if I wasn't thinking so and if I wasn't
penning so to my juwa as we were welling down the chong."
"It is a long time since we last met, Captain Bosvile, for I
suppose I may call you Captain now?"
"Yes! the old man has been dead and buried this many a year, and
his sticks and titles are now mine. Poor soul, I hope he is happy;
indeed I know he is, for he lies in Cockleshell churchyard, the
place he was always so fond of, and has his Sunday waistcoat on him
with the fine gold buttons, which he was always so proud of. Ah,
you may well call it a long time since we met - why, it can't be
less than thirty year."
"Something about that - you were a boy then of about fifteen."
"So I was, and you a tall young slip of about twenty; well, how did
you come to jin mande?"
"Why, I knew you by your fighting mug - there ain't such another
mug in England."
"No more there an't - my old father always used to say it was of no
use hitting it for it always broke his knuckles. Well, it was kind
of you to jin mande after so many years. The last time I think I
saw you was near Brummagem, when you were travelling about with
Jasper Petulengro and - I say, what's become of the young woman you
used to keep company with?"
"I don't know."
"You don't? Well, she was a fine young woman and a vartuous. I
remember her knocking down and giving a black eye to my old mother,
who was wonderfully deep in Romany, for making a bit of a gillie
about you and she. What was the song? Lord, how my memory fails
me! Oh, here it is:-
"'Ando berkho Rye cano
Oteh pivo teh khavo
Tu lerasque ando berkho piranee
Teh corbatcha por pico.'"
"Have you seen Jasper Petulengro lately?" said I.
"Yes, I have seen him, but it was at a very considerable distance.
Jasper Petulengro doesn't come near the likes of we now. Lord! you
can't think what grand folks he and his wife have become of late
years, and all along of a trumpery lil which somebody has written
about them. Why, they are hand and glove with the Queen and
Prince, and folks say that his wife is going to be made dame of
honour, and Jasper Justice of the Peace and Deputy Ranger of
Windsor Park."
"Only think," said I. "And now tell me, what brought you into
Wales?"
"What brought me into Wales? I'll tell you; my own fool's head. I
was doing nicely in the Kaulo Gav and the neighbourhood, when I
must needs pack up and come into these parts with bag and baggage,
wife and childer. I thought that Wales was what it was some thirty
years agone when our foky used to say - for I was never here before
- that there was something to be done in it; but I was never more
mistaken in my life. The country is overrun with Hindity mescrey,
woild Irish, with whom the Romany foky stand no chance. The
fellows underwork me at tinkering, and the women outscream my wife
at telling fortunes - moreover, they say the country is theirs and
not intended for niggers like we, and as they are generally in vast
numbers what can a poor little Roman family do but flee away before
them? A pretty journey I have made into Wales. Had I not
contrived to pass off a poggado bav engro - a broken-winded horse -
at a fair, I at this moment should be without a tringoruschee piece
in my pocket. I am now making the best of my way back to
Brummagem, and if ever I come again to this Hindity country may
Calcraft nash me."
"I wonder you didn't try to serve some of the Irish out," said I.
"I served one out, brother; and my wife and childer helped to wipe
off a little of the score. We had stopped on a nice green, near a
village over the hills in Glamorganshire, when up comes a Hindity
family, and bids us take ourselves off. Now it so happened that
there was but one man and a woman and some childer, so I laughed,
and told them to drive us off.
