A TYPICAL colliery village in a bleak northern county was the scene of my first curacy. Silhouettes of ugliness were its black pit buildings, dominated by a mountain of burning refuse exhaling night and day a poisonous breath which tarnished your brass candlesticks and rendered noxious the “long, unlovely street” of the parish. What in the name of wisdom induced me to pitch my tent in such a spot, I can scarcely say at this distance of time, unless perhaps it was a mad desire to rub against something rough and rude after having been reared in the drowsy atmosphere of pastoral Lincolnshire.

But if the picture which met my gaze on parochial rounds possessed no inspiring feature, you may take my word for it that the setting of the picture was undeniably charming. Close at hand lay the valley of the Wear, by whose brown and amber waters, broken by frequent beds of gravel, I used to wander, trout-rod in hand, or, wading ankle-deep in bluebells, I added to my store of nature-knowledge by observing the ways of the wood-folk—the tawny squirrel on his fir-bough, the red-polled woodpecker hammering at a decayed elm-branch, or a lank heron standing stiff as a stake on the margin of a pool.

Across the airy uplands at the back of the village runs a road which was ever a favourite walk of mine. Away in the distance, Durham’s towers lift their grey stones, and nearer across the fields, “like a roebuck at bay,” rises the castle, which together with the lordship of Brancepeth, Geoffrey, grandson of the Norman Gilbert de Nevil, received as dowry with Emma Bulmer, his Saxon bride. Right well I came to know the weathered walls of Brancepeth Castle, where in fancy I used to hear the blare of bugle (not the motor-horn), and to a dreamer it is still a place where “the swords shine and the armour rings.”

One June day I took the byway over the hills, and as I leaned upon a gate looking towards the castle, a sound of wheels not far off was heard on the gritty roadway, and from round the corner a party of Gypsies hove in sight. There were two or three carts bearing the name of Watland, with several comely people aboard, and lagging in the rear came a pair of shaggy colts, whipped up by a shock-headed lad of fifteen. When I greeted these wanderers, they drew rein and descended from the carts, and standing there in the sunshine on the road, they appeared to me more than anything like a gang of prehistoric folk risen from some tumulus on the moor; features, garments, horses, vehicles—all were tinctured with Mother Earth’s reds and browns picked up from wild heaths, clay-pits, and sandy lanes. To my mind the sight was an agreeable variation from the daily procession of miners so black with coal-dust that you could not for the life of you distinguish Bill from Bob, or Jack from Jerry.

“Are you stopping about here?” I asked, after an exchange of salutations.

“Yes; come and see us to-night on top o’ the moor. We’ll be fixed up by then.” Turning to his wife, the leader of the party said—

“Ay, doesn’t he remind you of that young priest up yonder by Newcastle, what used to come and take a cup of tea with us?”

There was something about these Watlands which impressed me. Although obviously poor, they were light-hearted—I had caught the lilt of a song before they came in sight. A blithesome spirit of acceptance, a serenity drawn from Nature’s bosom was theirs, and I could imagine them whistling cheerily as they bent their heads to buffeting storms.

“Take no thought for the morrow,” is the Gypsy’s own philosophy. Were real road-folk ever able to tell you the route of the morrow’s itinerary? Break of day will be time enough to discuss the next stage of the journey.

Sundown’s fires burned redly behind the black pines, as I found myself on the moor, a wide expanse tracked by little paths worn by passing feet, a haunt of whin-chats, grasshoppers, and bright-eyed lizards—sun-lovers all.

Knowing the whimsicalities of the Gypsy nature, I had half expected to draw a blank after dawdling through the afternoon at Brancepeth Castle. I wondered whether my luck would be the same as on a past occasion whereon it happened that down a green lane I had located a picturesque lot of Gypsies who might almost have stepped straight out of a Morland canvas, and most anxious I was to secure a few snapshots, but unfortunately my camera had been left at home.

“You’ll be here all day, I expect?”

“To be sure we shall, my rai, you’ll find us here koliko sawla (to-morrow morning), if you’s a mind to come.”

Preferring to act upon the carpe diem principle, I returned with my camera as expeditiously as I could, and though but an hour and a half had elapsed, alas! my birds had flown. Homewards I trudged, a joy-bereft soul for whom the world had suddenly grown empty.

This leads me to remark that the Gypsies are far from easy to photograph. The degree of friendship does not enter into the problem. I have known strangers to pose readily, while old friends have doggedly refused to be “took.” Once a friend and I had talked one of the reticent Herons into a willingness to be photographed. Yes, on the morrow he would be “took.” But with the morrow his mood had changed. “No, raia, not for a thousand pounds.”

I remember photographing a Gypsy girl under curious conditions. Said I, as she sat upon the grass—

“You’ll allow me to take a little picture? Your hair is so pretty, and you have a happy face.”

A North-Country Gypsy Girl. Photo. H. Stimpson

But, no, my words were wasted. Bad luck followed that sort of thing, a cousin of hers had died a fortnight after being “took.”

“But isn’t there some charm for keeping off bad luck?”

Looking thoughtful for a moment, she replied—

“Oh yes, if you’ll give me a pair of bootlaces, you can lel mi mui (take my face) as many times as you kom” (like).

I had a pair of laces, but they were in my boots. Nothing daunted, however, I went off to a shop in the village half a mile away, and was soon back again presenting the laces to the girl with an Oriental salaam.

Then I got my picture.

On the Moorland. Photo. Chas. Reid

Reverting to the Watlands, I was not disappointed. There in a hollow on the moor I found them squatting around their fires. Wearied by travel, some of the elders had retired for the night. “Dik lesti’s pÎro” (look at his foot), said one of the boys, pointing to a man’s bare brown foot protruding from beneath a tent cover. Within view of Durham’s twinkling lights we sat, and my tobacco pouch having gone the round, we were soon deep in the sayings and doings of the Watlands of other days, for when business is off Gypsies ever talk of Gypsies. As I looked at these folk, it seemed as though behind them through the dusk peered the shades of Romanies of an older, weirder sort, who shunned contact with cities and hated gawjÊ (non-Gypsies) with a bitterness unknown to-day.

Here is a tale of the old times, obtained from grizzled “Durham” Mike Watland, and translated more or less into my own words.

“When I was a little fellow, I used to listen with delight to a blood-curdling story which my grandfather used to tell as we sat watching the red embers die out at night. One time he found himself in a strange predicament, and got such a “gliff” as he had never experienced before. This of course was many years ago, for my grandfather lived to the age of ninety-four, and I am one of the third generation of a long-lived family of Gypsies. The ways of our people were a bit different then. In those days, you saw no harm in taking anything you had a fancy for, if you could get it. My grandfather was a young fellow, and on this particular morning he crossed a moor and came to a hamlet containing three or four straggling houses, and near one of these stood a cowshed and a low barn. In passing the shed he saw hanging there a nice porker which had been killed early that morning, and round it was wrapped a sack to prevent dogs or cats from gnawing it. All this my grandfather observed as he hawked his goods at the cottage door, inwardly resolving to pay Mr. Piggy a visit by night. All was quiet when at a late hour he re-crossed the moor and arrived at the shed, on entering which he put out his hands and felt for the pig where he had seen it hanging in the morning, but, no, it had been removed. It then occurred to him that for greater safety it might have been carried into the low-roofed barn, so in he went and felt all along the cross-beam. He was right. Sure enough the pig’s face struck cold to his hand. Quickly he cut the rope, and, slinging piggy across his shoulder, was soon making his way back to the camping-place. But crossing that rough land with a heavy load was no easy task, and you may be sure that the farther he went the heavier it became. When descending a slope, he caught his foot in a hole, and down he tumbled with his burden. Now as he arose and laid hold of the rope in order to hoist the pig once more, the moon came out from behind a cloud, and revealed the face of—a dead man! For a moment he stood mesmerized by fright, then sick at heart he proceeded to acquaint the nearest constable with the fact. The corpse was identified as that of a feeble-minded cottager who had hanged himself in the barn.”

One day I was exploring the city of Durham, for my early life in Lincoln had imbued me with a love of old architecture, and the nave of Durham minster profoundly gratified my love of the sombre, when, lo, just over the way, I saw a weather-beaten vÂdo (living-van), and near it was the owner, looking up and down the street as if expecting someone to appear. Crossing the road, I greeted the Gypsy, who turned out to be one of the Winters, a North-Country family to whom has been applied (not without reason) the epithet “wild,” and I remembered how Hoyland, in his Historical Survey of the Gypsies, had written—

“The distinguished Northern poet, Walter Scott, who is Sheriff of Selkirkshire, has in a very obliging manner communicated the following statement—‘ . . . some of the most atrocious families have been extirpated. I allude to the Winters, a Northumberland clan, who, I fancy, are all buried by this time.’”

But Sheriff Scott was wrong.

The Winters had only changed their haunts, and on being driven out of the Border Country had moved southward.

As I stood chatting with Mr. Winter, his handsome wife came up with a hawking-basket on her arm. I shall always remember her in connection with a story she told me.

“One day I was sitting on a bank under a garden hedge. It was a hot day and I was very thirsty. I said aloud, ‘Oh, for a drink of beer.’ Just then a voice came over the hedge, a nice, clear, silvery voice it was, like as if an angel from heaven was a-talking to me—‘You shall have one, my dearie.’ And in a minute or two a kind lady came down with a big jug of beer. How I did bless that lady for her kindness to a poor Gypsy, and I drank the lot. About a month afterwards, I heard of the death of that lady, and I vowed to myself and to the rawni’s muli (lady’s spirit) that I would never touch another drop of beer as long as I lived, and I never have done and never will no more.”