Part 30

The red shawl was on the trail. "Je crois que ca mord," remarked my uncle. We allowed our artist guide to pass on, when, as I expected, I felt a twitch at my outer garment. I turned, and the witch eyes, distended with awe and amazement, were glaring into mine, while she said, in a hurried whisper,--

"Wasn't it Romanes?"

"Avah," I replied, "mendui rakker sarja adovo jib. Butikumi ryeskro lis se denna Gorgines." (Yes, we always talk that language. Much more genteel it is than English.)

"Te adovo wavero rye?" (And that other gentleman?) with a glance of suspicion at our artist friend.

"Sar tacho" (He's all right), remarked mine uncle, which I greatly fear meant, when correctly translated in a Christian sense, "He's all wrong." But there is a natural sympathy and intelligence between Bohemians of every grade, all the world over, and I never knew a gypsy who did not understand an artist. One glance satisfied her that he was quite worthy of our society.

"And where are you tannin kenna?" (tenting now), I inquired.

"We are not tenting at this time of year; we're kairin," i.e., houseing, or home-ing. It is a good verb, and might be introduced into English.

"And where is your house?"

"There, right by Mammy Sauerkraut's Row. Come in and sit down."

I need not give the Romany which was spoken, but will simply translate. The house was like all the others. We passed through a close, dark passage, in which lay canvas and poles, a kettle and a sarshta, or the iron which is stuck into the ground, and by which a kettle hangs. The old-fashioned tripod, popularly supposed to be used by gypsies, in all probability never existed, since the Roms of India to-day use the sarshta, as mine uncle tells me he learned from a ci-devant Indian gypsy Dacoit, or wandering thief, who was one of his intimates in London.

We entered an inner room, and I was at once struck by its general indescribable unlikeness to ordinary rooms. Architects declare that the type of the tent is to be distinctly found in all Chinese and Arab or Turkish architecture; it is also as marked in a gypsy's house--when he gets one. This room, which was evidently the common home of a large family, suggested, in its arrangement of furniture and the manner in which its occupants sat around the tent and the wagon. There was a bed, it is true but there was a roll of sail-cloth, which evidently did duty for sleeping on at night, but which now, rolled up, acted the part described by Goldsmith:--

"A thing contrived a double part to play, A bed by night, a sofa during day."

There was one chair and a saddle, a stove and a chest of drawers. I observed an engraving hanging up which I have several times seen in gypsy tents. It represents a very dark Italian youth. It is a favorite also with Roman Catholics, because the boy has a consecrated medal. The gypsies, however, believe that the boy stole the medal. The Catholics think the picture is that of a Roman boy, because the inscription says so; and the gypsies call it a Romany, so that all are satisfied. There were some eight or nine children in the room, and among them more than one whose resemblance to the dark-skinned saint might have given color enough to the theory that he was

"One whose blood Had rolled through gypsies ever since the flood."

There was also a girl, of the pantherine type, and one damsel of about ten, who had light hair and fair complexion, but whose air was gypsy and whose youthful countenance suggested not the golden, but the brazenest, age of life. Scarcely was I seated in the only chair, when this little maiden, after keenly scrutinizing my appearance, and apparently taking in the situation, came up to me and said,--

"Yer come here to have yer fortune told. I'll tell it to yer for five cents."

"Can tute pen dukkerin aja?" (Can you tell fortunes already?) I inquired. And if that damsel had been lifted at that instant by the hair into the infinite glory of the seventh sphere, her countenance could not have manifested more amazement. She stood bouche beante, stock still staring, open-mouthed wide. I believe one might have put a brandy ball into it, or a "bull's eye," without her jaws closing on the dainty. It was a stare of twenty-four carats, and fourth proof.

"This here rye" remarked mine uncle, affably, in middle English, "is a hartist. He puts 'is heart into all he does; that's why. He ain't Romanes, but he may be trusted. He's come here, that wot he has, to draw this 'ere Mammy Sauerkraut's Row, because it's interestin'. He ain't a tax-gatherer. We don't approve o' payin' taxes, none of hus. We practices heconomy, and dislike the po-lice. Who was Mammy Sauerkraut?"

"I know!" cried the youthful would-be fortune-teller. "She was a witch."

"Tool yer chib!" (Hold your tongue!) cried the parent. "Don't bother the lady with stories about chovihanis" (witches).

"But that's just what I want to hear!" I cried. "Go on, my little dear, about Mammy Sauerkraut, and you will get your five cents yet, if you only give me enough of it."

"Well, then, Mammy Sauerkraut was a witch, and a little black girl who lives next door told me so. And Mammy Sauerkraut used to change herself into a pig of nights, and that's why they called her Sauerkraut. This was because they had pig ketchers going about in those times, and once they ketched a pig that belonged to her, and to be revenged on them she used to look like a pig, and they would follow her clear out of town way up the river, and she'd run, and they'd run after her, till by and by fire would begin to fly out of her bristles, and she jumped into the river and sizzed."

This I thought worthy of the five cents. Then my uncle began to put questions in Romany.

"Where is Anselo W.? He that was staruben for a gry?" (imprisoned for a horse).

"Staruben apopli." (Imprisoned again.)

"I am sorry for it, sister Nell. He used to play the fiddle well. I wot he was a canty chiel', and dearly lo'ed the whusky, oh!"

"Yes, he was too fond of that. How well he could play!"

"Yes," said my uncle, "he could. And I have sung to his fiddling when the tatto-pani [hot water, i.e., spirits] boiled within us, and made us gay, oh, my golden sister! That's the way we Hungarian gypsy gentlemen always call the ladies of our people. I sang in Romany."