Overnight a welcome rain had fallen upon a thirsty land, and morning broke cool and grey, with a lively breeze stirring the tree-tops, and shaking the raindrops from the grasses, as I strode along the banks of the river Trent, with my face set towards West Stockwith Horse Fair. The long, dry summer was drawing to a close, and there was an agreeable sense of novelty in the rain-drenched aspect of the countryside. After a harvest prematurely ripened by an exuberance of sunshine, brown-cheeked September was now hastening to splash here a leaf and there a spray with rich colour, and on this particular morning it seemed to me that reeds, flags, and willows were taking on autumnal tints earlier than usual. Occasionally, from the river bank, I spied a water-rat or a coot swimming amongst the sedges, and once on the path stretching before me a pert wagtail—the Gypsy bird—foretold, as the Gypsies say, a coming encounter with roving friends.

Pleasantly enough my early morning walk terminated at the old-world Trentside village of my destination. By this time, between the vapours rolling overhead, the sun had appeared, and was gilding the barges moored to a primitive quay below the long line of straggling houses. On the Lincolnshire side of the Trent quite a colony of Gypsy vans had drawn up on a turfy plateau, and their owners were now to be seen crossing the river by ferry-boat, their laughter floating to me over the water. This was by no means my first visit to the riverside horse fair, and after refreshing at one of the inns, I went down the lane to the fair-ground occupying two fields, in the larger of which were already assembled horses and dealers in a state of lively commotion beyond a fringe of ale-booths and luncheon tents; while in the smaller field were gathered numerous Gypsy families with their carts and smoking fires.

Never in my life do I remember to have witnessed such a horde of ancient vagabonds of both sexes as on this occasion, and with no little delight I stood and gazed upon the picture. What struck me in particular was the motley character of the party. Decrepit great-grandfolks mumbling together; grandfathers in ragged garb and battered hats; wizened grandmothers sucking their pipes; aged uncles and aunts in time-stained tatters; wives in their teens dandling babies; bright-eyed children drumming happily on the bottoms of inverted pots and pans; merry lads and lasses, interspersed amongst an assembly of the quaintest rag dolls it has ever been my fortune to behold. It seemed to me as if all the old Romany folk of several counties had met together for the last time in their lives.

Moving into the larger field, I had not gone far before I felt a tug at my sleeve, and, looking round, I saw the two lads whom I had met with Jonathan by the watermill. They led me straight to a little covered cart drawn under the hedge where Boswell was conversing with ’Plisti Smith.

As I have said elsewhere, the play-spirit is strong in the Gypsy, even in his latter years, and while talking with my two friends up came a comical-looking Gypsy, Charley Welch, who must have been nearer ninety than seventy, and, picking up a potato lying on the ground—the large field had grown a crop of potatoes that summer—he laughingly dropped it into Jonathan’s coat pocket.

“There, don’t say that Old Charley never gave you nothink.”

After that I walked with Jonathan among the horses, and we came upon Flash Arno and Black Înan, who found time to accompany us to one of the refreshment booths where the talk ranged through a variety of topics. Înan knew Mister Groome, the book-writer, up Edinburgh way. He had met him there not long before in company with my friend Frampton Boswell. I soon found that these Gypsies did not hold with folks writing books about their race and telling the mumpli gawjÊ (nasty gentiles) about their ways.

No one loves a little fun more than the Gypsy, and generally he means no harm by his playful romancing. After all, he is but a grown-up child, and loves to make-believe. The Gypsy’s world is a haphazard one, in which luck plays a large part. He knows nothing of the orderly cosmos of providence or science. I make these remarks by way of prelude to examples of this spirit.

Who can help laughing inwardly as the Gypsy weaves a romantic tale about you, all for the benefit of a stranger? And in the course of my morning’s ramble through West Stockwith Fair I had several experiences of the kind.

“See that little dealer over there?” said Peter Smith, indicating a small Gypsy man holding a tall black horse by a halter. The animal looked gigantic by the side of its owner.

“Come along with me, and while I roker (talk) to him, maw puker a lav” (don’t speak a word). Then we both went up to the little Gypsy, and with the gravest of countenances Peter began to spin a long romance all about an imaginary sister of mine who lived at Brighton and was wanting just such a horse as the one before us. It really was a fine animal, and I could not refrain from stroking its glossy skin.

Peter continued: “This here gentleman doesn’t ride hisself, you see, but his sister has asked him to look out for a horse, and this one ’ull just suit her.” I found it difficult to preserve silence, but somehow I managed to do so. Finally, Peter took me aside and talked mysteriously about nothing in particular, and quietly bade me walk away. A few minutes later I beheld Peter quaffing a large mug of ale evidently at the little man’s expense.

Moving in and out among the throng, I presently walked out along the road, and there I came upon HamalÊn Smith, who, after some talk, suggested a bit of fun. Pointing to a Gypsy camp down a lane, he said—

“That’s Belinda Trickett sitting by the fire with her children. Go you down the lane and have a little game. I’ll stop here and see how you get on. You don’t know the woman, I suppose?”

“Not I. She’s a stranger to me.”

“That’s all right. Togged as you are, she’ll never take you for a parson, not she. Mind you look severe-like and say to Belinda, ‘Is your husband at home? What’s his name?’ It’s Harry, but she’s sure to say it’s something else.”

Down the lane I went, and, approaching Mrs. Trickett and family, I drew out a notebook and pencil—a sure way to frighten a Gypsy. Why these things should suggest “police” I can scarcely say, but they do. The woman’s clay pipe dropped from her mouth and fell upon the grass, and beneath the brown of her cheeks a pallor crept. Mrs. Trickett was alarmed.

“What is your husband’s name?”

“George Smith.”

“When will he be at home?”“I can’t say. He’s gone to the fair.”

Under their mother’s shawl three tiny children huddled like little brown partridges beneath an outspread wing, a sight which caused me some pricking of heart. The biggest child kept saying, “What does the gawjo want, mammy?” Just then I looked up the lane and saw a man coming down, who by his jaunty air I guessed was the woman’s husband.

“Kushti sawla (Good morning), Mr. Trickett; take a little tuvalo.” I handed him my tobacco pouch. “I’ve come a long way to see you. Ask me to sit down a bit, now I’ve got here.”

Mrs. Trickett’s face was a study in wonderment, as I sat down for a friendly chat. “Dawdi,” said she, “you did trasher mandi (frighten me). I thought there was tshumani oprÊ” (something up).

When HamalÊn Smith, from the top of the lane, saw that the episode had arrived at a happy termination, he strolled down the lane and joined us.

A far-travelled Gypsy is HamalÊn, and many a tale can he unfold.

“One morning,” said he, “a policeman came up to my wagon and told me as how twenty-four fowls was missing from the next field to where we was stopping. Somebody had stole ’em in the night. ‘Of course you suspects us,’ says I to the policeman, ‘but you’re wrong. We’ve never touched a feather of ’em.’ However, nothing would do but the man must search my wagon from top to bottom, and for all his trouble he found nothing. I know’d very well I hadn’t touched ’em, and I was telling him the truth.

“‘Wait a bit,’ says he. ‘Didn’t I see three vans in this field last night as I was going along the high road?’

“‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘My boys have gone on in front with the other wagons.’

“Says he, ‘That looks suspicious. I must make haste and find them. Where have they gone?’

“‘I can’t say, for I don’t know myself.’

“‘Well, I shall have to come with you, and you must show me where to find them.’ The policeman jumped up and sat on the seat along with me and my wife, and off we went to find the boys. Of course it was plain to see by the wheel-marks just outside the gate which way they had turned, but when we got to the cross-roads about three miles furder on, the road was that hard and dry that no wheel-marks could be seen. Now I could easily have misled the policeman, but I thought it best to try to find the boys as quick as I could, for I didn’t believe for a minute they had done it. Looking down the road, I saw the boys’ patrin (guiding sign). The policeman didn’t know what I was looking at, and it wasn’t likely as I should show him our signs, so I says we’ll take this road, and we turned off to the left.

“‘How did you know which way the boys had gone?’ asked the policeman. ‘Was it some thing tied on that tree bough hanging over the road?’

“‘I never sees nothing on the tree bough,’ says I.

“I thought to myself the policeman must have been reading some tale about the Gypsies. Anyway, he had heard something about patrins and such-like, but I wasn’t going to be the one to larn him our signs, so I changed the subject.

“‘Yon’s my boys on in front,’ says I. The policeman began rubbing his hands and smiling. At last we caught up with the boys, and the policeman searched inside the two wagons and found nothing. Then he says—

“‘I might as well look on the top,’ and he climbed on to the roofs of the wagons.

“‘Hello, what have we here?’ says he, in a way that made me turn warm. He lifted up a dead pigeon.

“‘Where did you get that from?’ I asked the boys.

“‘Picked it up a bit o’ way down the road. It had just killed itself on the telegraph wires by the wood side.’

“After that, the disappointed policeman went away, and the thieves were never found out.

“Another time we draw’d into a rutted lane lying off the high road. We had our three wagons, and at night we always covered the big one up, because we didn’t sleep in it. It was a nice quiet lane, and we thought there would be nobody to trouble us as there was no willage near. But about midnight a man knocked on the wagon and woke us up.

“‘What are you doing here?’

“‘No harm, I hope. We’ll clear out first thing in the morning.’ He said he’d been knocking at the big wagon what was covered up, and he couldn’t make anybody hear.

“‘Well,’ says I, ‘whatever you do, don’t you touch that big wagon agen.’

“‘Why, what’s in it?’

“‘Wild beasts, for sure—a lion and a tiger.’

“You’d ha’ laughed at the way that man made hisself scarce. Next morning, as we draw’d out of the lane, we met a policeman.

“‘I hear you have some wild beasts in that big wagon of yours. Wasn’t it a bit dangerous stopping so near the highway?’

“‘Well, we’re clearing out in good time.’

“‘Get along with you then.’

“A few miles furder on the road we come to a little town, and as it was market day we pulled up in the big square, and I took the cover off the big wagon. Just as I was doing this, who should come up but the policeman we’d met in the early morning.

“‘Where’s those wild beasts of yours?’ says he.

“‘Oh,’ says I, ‘I’ll soon show you.’ And I went inside my brush and carpet wagon and brought out two big rugs, and I showed him a tiger skin and a lion skin, both lined with red. ‘There’s my wild beasts,’ said I.

“Talk about laughing, I thought that policeman would never ha’ stopped.”