Are you seeking a recipe for youth? Go a-Gypsying. Forth to the winding road under the open sky, the Gypsies are calling you. Scorning our hurrying mode of life, these folk are content to loiter beneath the green beeches, or in the shadow of some old inn on the fringe of a windy common. Like Nature herself, these wildlings of hers overflow with the play-spirit and therefore remain ever youthful. To rub shoulders with them, I have found, is to acquire a laughing indifference to dull care and all its melancholy train. Whoever then would grow light-hearted and become just a happy child of sun and star and stream, let him respond to the call of the road: let him go a-Gypsying.

Long ago I observed that during the pleasanter months of the year a few families of wanderers were generally to be found encamped upon a secluded waste—which I will call Furzemoor—where, by the courtesy of the owner, they were allowed to remain as long as they pleased. They resorted thither, so it seemed to me, to recuperate from the effects of their winter’s sojourn upon the city ash-patches hemmed in by unsavoury gas-lit streets.

One April afternoon, following close upon a lengthy stay in London, I remember how blithely I tramped along the grassy cart-track, which, after winding between hedgerows full of green sprays, sweet odours and tinkling bird-notes, emerged upon rugged Furzemoor—one of those few places which in after years become for you backgrounds of dream-like delight by reason of the memories associated with them. Is it not to such spots that the fancy turns when the mood of the commonplace hangs heavily upon you, and any shred of adventure would be more stirring to the heart than “the cackle of our burg,” which is too often mistaken for “the murmur of the world”?

No matter how often I came, the moor had ever the power to stir one’s imagination anew by its suggestive atmosphere of the remote, the aloof, the wild; and having paused at the end of the lane to renew old recollections, I went forward and peered over the edge of a declivity fringed with bushes of furze in golden flower. Ah! there below the slope, kissed by the warm sun and fanned by the breath of spring from off the heath, lay the brown tents, tilt-carts, and smouldering fires of a Romany camp, looking strangely deserted save for a girlish figure reclining near one of the fires over which a kettle was slung. Pushing between the bushes, my blundering feet loosened some large stones which rolled down the bank with a rattle, causing the girl to look sharply over her shoulder, and simultaneously from her red lips came a warning whistle, a shrill penetrating note first ascending then dropping again. I had heard that whistle of old and knew well its significance. In response thereto a Gypsy man appeared from behind the tents, his keen eyes gleaming with recognition. “Hey, rashai, we’s been a-talking about you lately. Only last night I was saying, p’raps our pass’n will be coming to see us one of these days, and here you are!”

Such was the greeting I got from Gypsy Sam, who now wheeled about and walked me off to a sandy hollow where his wife Lottie and her bairns sat by the fire. On catching sight of me, the children—a black-eyed troop—raised a shout of welcome, and, like little savages, soon began tugging at my coat tails. After an absence of several months from the camping-place this was a joyful meeting, and I guessed that my friends had much news to tell.

Gypsy Children. Photo. Illustrations Bureau

“It’s no use pretending to offer you a chair,” said Lottie, giving my hand a hearty shake, “for we haven’t got one. If there’s anything I does detest, it’s chairs. The nasty things make sich draughts about ’ur legs.” So, squatting on the ground, I awaited the unfolding of the family budget.

There was a touch of the Orient on every side. Stuck in the wind-rippled sand under a bold wall of rock were curved tent-rods with brown blankets pinned round them. Between the golden furze clumps a lean horse and a shaggy ass ripped the grasses. A greyhound lay asleep under a tilt-cart upon the shafts of which sundry gay garments were hanging to dry. Upon this picture my eye rested with pleasure.

Now Gypsy Sam ignites his tobacco by scooping up a red ember with the bowl of his pipe. His wife does the same, and I follow suit.

“A prettier place is this,” quoth Lottie, “than when you see’d us under that ugly railway bank at Hull.”

Verily the Gypsies are possessed of an Æsthetic sense, and their roving eyes grow wistful as they take in the beauty of the distant hills and the sun-gleams lighting up grassy knolls and spindly fir-trees rising from patches of sand.

“You remember that pawno grai (white horse) of ours?” says Sam. “Well, we lost him a little while back. A bit of wafro bok (bad luck) that was for us. We was stopping at a place with nasty bogs around us, and one stormy night the grai got into one of ’em unbeknown to we, and i’ the morning we found him with no more than his nose sticking out. Of course he were dead as a stone. Then there was that kawlo jukel (black dog) what you saw at Hull—brother to this one under the cart—he got poisoned up yonder by Rotherham. I reckon a keeper done it as had a spite agen us. I wouldn’t ha’ parted with that dog for a good deal; he’s got us many a rabbit.”

The steaming splutter of the kettle suggests a meal, which is soon spread in winsome style. Meanwhile, from another fire hard by, a black pot is brought, and a savoury stew is followed by tea and slices of buttered bread with green cresses fresh from the brook. As Lottie lifts the silver teapot to pour out tea, I cannot help admiring the lovely old thing, and the Gypsy sees my appreciation.

“Yes,” (holding it up in the sunlight), “it’s a beauty, ain’t it? Did you ever hear of my Aunt Joni’s quart silver teapot? Squire Shandres used to fix greedy eyes on it whenever he come down to the camp, but my aunt wouldn’t part with it, not likely. You won’t remember Joni, of course. A funny old woman she were, to be sure. There was one thing I minds her a-telling of us. She’d been out with her kipsi (basket) but it weren’t one of her good days, and by night her basket was nearly as heavy as when she’d set out. Twopence was all she’d made, as she passed through three or four willages, tumble-down sort of places, where the house walls were bent and the thatches of the cottages were sinking into the rooms underneath ’em. At one of these cottages as stood in an odd corner, Joni stopped to knock. Two steps led up to a green door with a bird-cage hanging outside. She waited a minute, but as nobody came she gave two more raps and tried the door. It was bolted. After that she heard sounds inside, a muttering voice came nearer, and slip-slap went the shoes, as an old woman opened the door. Talk about ugly, she was that, if you like; and there was hair growing on her lip and chin. Fixing her black eyes on Joni, she scowled and scolded, and, pointing a finger at her, she cursed poor Joni, and for ten days afterwards my aunt couldn’t speak proper. Whenever she tried to talk, she could only groan and bark and moo like the beastses, and it wasn’t till after the tenth day that she were herself at all.”

From witches it was not a long leap to wise men.

Said Lottie, “Did I ever tell you about the wise man of Northampton? Well, it was one time as I’d had wery bad luck indeed with my basket. I couldn’t sell nothing at all in the willages agen that town, but I know’d a gozvero mush (wise man) as lived there, so I went to see him, and he give me a rabbit’s head and a cake of bread. ‘Now,’ says he, ‘go you and call at the places where you’ve took nothing, and you’ll take money at all of ’em.’

“And what he told me came true, every word of it. I’ll take my sacrium oath it did. That there gozvero mush (wise man) could tell the names of folks as had stolen things, and he could dÛker (tell fortunes) like one of us. He could tell folk a lot about theirselves by rubbing his hand over the bumps on their heads, and he could read the stars like a book, and find out things by the cards and by the crystal. He was sort of friendly with our people, and they liked him, but they would never go near a witch if they knew it.”

It has been truly said, “No one is fond of Gypsies, but is fonder of Gypsy children.” Grave-eyed pixies, at once bold and reserved, these quaint little sprites are simply irresistible. When the meal is over, I stroll off with a party of these romping rascals towards a gorsy hollow which the sun warms into a gayer gold. Asking the children if they would like a tale, and what sort? Answer comes, “A muleno gudlo” (fairy tale).

“How long?”

“A mile long, in course.”

Into my tale creeps a ghost, and when I had done, little Reuben says—

“I know something about mulos (ghosts). One time a man was killed by a bull at the corner of the lane down yonder, and we allus hurries past that place for fear of dikin his mulo” (seeing his ghost). “And then there was two Gypsies as father once know’d. They begged some straw from a farmer and put it in a little shed for to sleep on. Then they went into the willage to buy a loaf, and when they got back they found the straw had gone. A little ways off they see’d a woman running away with the straw, but ’stid of follering her they went straight to the farmhouse where they’d got leave to sleep in the shed, and they told the farmer about the woman, and he says—

“‘Why, that’s my old woman as died ten year ago.’ My word, those Gypsies soon began to look out for a sleeping-place somewhere else. Yes, we knows a lot about mulos.”“What’s that noise?” asked one of the girls, springing up.

“Come away tshavÊ (children). Come away, sir. Don’t you hear that nasty little sap” (snake)?

From among the mossy stones near at hand came a hissing sound, and there, sure enough, was a small viper wagging his black-forked tongue at us. We got up and moved nearer the camp.

“Norfolk’s the place for sarpints,” said one of the boys; “I once see one with a frog in its mouth. Lor, how the poor thing did squeal. There’s lots of lizards about here, and they say that a hotshi (hedgehog) will eat ’em, but if I thought that I’d never touch no more hotshi s’long as I live.”

I told the children of a little incident which had happened on my way to Furzemoor, how I had cycled into a family of weasels crossing the road but didn’t run over any of them, and, dismounting, I banged one of the little fellows with my hat. He lay still, and I thought he was dead, but when I turned my head for a moment he was gone like a flash. Lottie, who had drawn near and was listening, remarked—

“It’s bad luck to meet a wezzel on the drom (road), but if there’s anything we does like to meet, it’s the Romany tshiriklo (bird),” which I knew to be the pied wagtail, the foreteller of coming Gypsies.

“When we sees our tshiriklo on the road, and it flies, we knows we are going to meet Gypsies who’ll be akin to us, but if it only runs away, the travellers coming will be strangers. One day me and my man was on the drom and we see a young hare tumbling over and over in front of us. That’s a sign as means ill, and, sure enough, a few days after we heard tell of the death of my man’s uncle ’Lijah. Talking about meeting things, I’ve heard it said that if you meet two carts, one tied behind t’other, you’ll soon go to prison.”

The strains of a fiddle now proceeded from where Sam sat alone by the fire, and we joined him. As the sun was going down one of the girls proposed a dance, and soon a merry whirl of Gypsy elves enlivened the camp. By the fireside, reminiscences came crowding into Sam’s brain.

“Many’s the time, as you know, we’ve draw’d on to this place, and I takes good care to be friendly with all the keepers round here. I never meddles wi’ nothink, you see, so we never gets across wi’ ’em. Ay, but I minds when I didn’t used to be so pertikler. See that oak wood up yonder? In my young days me and my old mammy got leave from a keeper to gather acorns in that wood. Us used to take ’ur sacks and fill ’em with acorns and sell ’em to a man as we know’d. And mam ’ud warn me not to meddle with the rabbits, lest we should be forbid to stop on here. One afternoon mam had half-filled her sack, and when her back was turned, I tumbled the acorns out, and slipped into the sack three rabbits as I’d knocked over, and I put the acorns back on the top of ’em. I was a good big lad then, and, my, wasn’t I frit when I see the keeper coming with his dog. When he got up to us, he and mam got a-talking, and I see the dog sniffing round the bag. The keeper, thinking that there was only acorns in it, shouts to the dog, “Come away there.” But the dog stuck there, and I was trembling in my boots for fear we should get into trouble. Howsiver, the keeper kept calling the dog off, and soon they goes away. Then I nips up the bag and trots off home with it, and when I told mam about it afterwards she gave me a downright good scolding and begged me never to do it no more.

“Our old folks allus travelled with pack-donkeys, and they had one donkey as was a wery knowing animal. I’ll tell you one thing it did. We was stopping in a lane of a summer’s evening, and our foki (people) was smoking afore the fire under a hedge with the children playing round, and everybody was as happy as the Lord in Heaven, but all at once our maila (donkey) comes and pokes its head atween daddy and me, and I taps it on the nose, playful-like, to send it away, but it comes back, and it was that restless and fidgety, poking and pulling at us—it wouldn’t be druv off. My mammy had been watching it from the tent, and she come up and says—

“‘That maila knows summut, I reckons.’

“‘Ay, it’s a sign sure enough,’ says daddy. And the donkey still kep’ on poking and pulling at us. Long and by last dad says—

“‘We’d better clear out of here,’ for he thought there was summut queer about the donkey’s goings on. Well, we pulled up the tent rods and packed ’ur things, and we’d only just got out of the lane when two horsemen come along and began inquiring about a little pig as was missing from a farm. They made us unpack, and they searched through everythink, but, of course, they couldn’t find nothink agen us, and they goes their way and we goes ours. And that night, after we had settled down in an old quarry a bit furder on, my daddy beckoned me and took me to a deep hollow full o’ dead leaves, and, scrabbling among ’em, he takes out—what do you think? The nicest little bawlo (porker) you ever see’d, and we gets it safe home. That donkey did know summut after all. Ay, them were the old times. Things is wery different now.

“If you come here to-morrow you’ll mebbe walk up with me to the planting on t’other side of yon beck. The rai as this land belongs to lets me tshin (cut) all the wuzen (elder) I wants. My old daddy used to say—

“‘You should never lay a chopper to a tree wi’out first axing the fairies’ leave,’ but folks forgets to do it now.”

The eyes of my friends here began to turn frequently in the direction of the cart-track. Indeed, when their eyes were not looking that way it seemed to me that their minds still were. Nor was this expectancy to go long unsatisfied, for soon there appeared in the sunken lane a black chimney topping a green-hooded vehicle, a light cart bringing up the rear. These Gypsies turned out to be a married son of Sam, with his wife and family. Here was a jolly arrival. With surprising rapidity the horses were unyoked, and the newcomers were gathered round their parents on the grass. Off to a well-known spring run the girls to fill the kettle and a bucket or two, and the boys scamper off towards a spinney to return with an abundance of dead wood. Then how the fires crackle and spurt, and in next to no time the steam is puffing from kettle spouts.

Feeling ten years younger for my visit to the Furzemoor Gypsies, I climbed up the deeply-rutted lane on the way to the distant railway station, and, as I turned for a last look, brown hands were waving, and kushto bok (good luck), which is the Gypsy’s “good-bye,” was shouted after me. On my part I felt a strong tugging at the heart when, at a bend in the lane, I caught a farewell glimpse of the domed tents, upcurling blue smoke, and happy Gypsies among the golden gorse.