Part 17

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 glasses 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 passed 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 passed 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 associations 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 Dick, 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 "coker-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' gallery. But here I did the gypsies great injustice; for they will allow their likenesses to be taken if you will give them a shoe-string. That this old superstition relative to the binding and loosing of ill-luck by the shoe-string should exist in this connection is of itself curious. In the earliest times the shoe-latchet brought luck, just as the shoe itself did, especially when filled with corn or rice, and thrown after the bride. It is a great pity that the ignorant Gentiles, who are so careful to do this at every wedding, do not know that it is all in vain unless they cry aloud in Hebrew, "Peru urphu!" {159} with all their might when the shoe is cast, and that the shoe should be filled with rice.

She went away, and in a few minutes the photographer came in great glee to show a picture which he had taken.

"'Ere you are, sir. An elegant photograph, surroundin' sentimental scenery and horiental coker-nuts thrown in,--all for a diminitive little shillin'."

"Now that time you missed it," I said; "for on my honor as a gentleman, I have only ninepence in all my pockets."

"A gent like you with only ninepence!" said the artist.

"If he hasn't got money in his pocket now," said Old Liz, speaking up in my defense, "he has plenty at home. He has given pounds and pounds to us gypsies."

"Dovo's a huckaben," I said to her in Romany. "Mandy kekker delled tute kumi'n a trin-grushi." (That is untrue. I never gave you more than a shilling.)

"Anyhow," said Liz, "ninepence is enough for it." And the man, assenting, gave it to me. It was a very good picture, and I have since had several copies taken of it.

"Yes, rya," said Old Liz, when I regretted the absence of my Lady Lee, and talked with her about shoe-strings and old shoes, and how necessary it was to cry out "Peru urphu!" when you throw them,--"yes. That's the way the Gorgis always half does things. You see 'em get a horse-shoe off the roads, and what do they do with it! Goes like dinneli idiots and nails it up with the p'ints down, which, as is well beknown, brings all the bad luck there is flyin' in the air into the house, and taders chovihanees [draws witches] like anise-seed does rats. Now common sense ought to teach that the shoe ought to be put like horns, with the p'ints up. For if it's lucky to put real horns up, of course the horse-shoe goes the same drom . And it's lucky to pick up a red string in the morning,--yes, or at any time; but it's sure love from a girl if you do,--specially silk. And if so be she gives you a red string or cord, or a strip of red stuff, that means she'll be bound to you and loves you."

VI. STREET SKETCHES.

London, during hot weather, after the close of the wise season, suggests to the upper ten thousand, and to the lower twenty thousand who reflect their ways, and to the lowest millions who minister to them all, a scene of doleful dullness. I call the time which has passed wise, because that which succeeds is universally known as the silly season. Then the editors in town have recourse to the American newspapers for amusing murders, while their rural brethren invent great gooseberries. Then the sea-serpent again lifts his awful head. I am always glad when this sterling inheritance of the Northern races reappears; for while we have him I know that the capacity for swallowing a big bouncer, or for inventing one, is not lost. He is characteristic of a fine, bold race. Long may he wave! It is true that we cannot lie as gloriously as our ancestors did about him. When the great news-dealer of Norse times had no home-news he took his lyre, and either spun a yarn about Vinland such as would smash the "Telegraph," or else sung about "that sea-snake tremendous curled, whose girth encircles half the world." It is wonderful, it is awful, to consider how true we remain to the traditions of the older time. The French boast that they invented the canard. Let them boast. They also invented the shirt-collar; but hoary legends say that an Englishman invented the shirt for it, as well as the art of washing it. What the shirt is to the collar, that is the glorious, tough old Northern saga, or maritime spun yarn, to the canard, or duck. The yarn will wash; it passes into myth and history; it fits exactly, because it was made to order; its age and glory illustrate the survival of the fittest.

I have, during three or four summers, remained a month in London after the family had taken flight to the sea-side. I stayed to finish books promised for the autumn. It is true that nearly four million of people remain in London during the later summer; but it is wonderful what an influence the absence of a few exerts on them and on the town. Then you realize by the long lines of idle vehicles in the ranks how few people in this world can afford a cab; then you find out how scanty is the number of those who buy goods at the really excellent shops; and then you may finally find out by satisfactory experience, if you are inclined to grumble at your lot in life or your fortune, how much better off you are than ninety-nine in a hundred of your fellow-murmurers at fate.