go out to make a fool of him, Ursula?”
“Merely go out to make a fool of him, brother, I assure you.”
“But such proceedings really have an odd look, Ursula.”
“Amongst gorgios, very so, brother.”
“Well, it must be rather unpleasant to lose one’s character even amongst gorgios, Ursula; and suppose the officer, out of revenge for being tricked and duped by you, were to say of you the thing that is not, were to meet you on the race-course the next day, and boast of receiving favours which he never had, amidst a knot of jeering militia-men, how would you proceed, Ursula? would you not be abashed?”
“By no means, brother; I should bring my action of law against him.”
“Your action at law, Ursula?”
“Yes, brother; I should give a whistle, whereupon all one’s cokos and batus, and all my near and distant relations, would leave their fiddling, dukkerin, and horse-dealing, and come flocking about me. ‘What’s the matter, Ursula?’ says my coko. ‘Nothing at all,’ I replies, ‘save and except that gorgio, in his greens and his Lincolns, says that I have played the … with him.’ ‘Oho, he does, Ursula,’ says my coko; ‘try your action of law against him, my lamb,’ and he puts something privily into my hands; whereupon I goes close up to the grinning gorgio, and staring him in the face, with my head pushed forward, I cries out: ‘You say I did what was wrong with you last night when I was out with you abroad?’ ‘Yes,’ says the local officer, ‘I says you did,’ looking down all the time. ‘You are a liar,’ says I, and forthwith I breaks his head with the stick which I holds behind me, and which my coko has conveyed privily into my hand.”
“And this is your action at law, Ursula?”
“Yes, brother, this is my action at club-law.”
“And would your breaking the fellow’s head quite clear you of all suspicion in the eyes of your batus, cokos, and what not?”
“They would never suspect me at all, brother, because they would know that I would never condescend to be over intimate with a gorgio; the breaking the head would be merely intended to justify Ursula in the eyes of the gorgios.”
“And would it clear you in their eyes?”
“Would it not, brother? When they saw the blood running down from the fellow’s cracked poll on his greens and Lincolns, they would be quite satisfied; why, the fellow would not be able to show his face at fair or merry-making for a year and three quarters.”
“Did you ever try it, Ursula?”
“Can’t say I ever did, brother, but it would do.”
“And how did you ever learn such a method of proceeding?”
“Why, ’tis advised by gypsy liri, brother. It’s part of our way of settling difficulties amongst ourselves; for example, if a young Roman were to say the thing which is not respecting Ursula and himself, Ursula would call a great meeting of the people, who would all sit down in a ring, the young fellow amongst them; a coko would then put a stick in Ursula’s hand, who would then get up and go to the young fellow, and say, ‘Did I play the … with you?’ and were he to say ‘Yes,’ she would crack his head before the eyes of all.”
“Well,” said I, “Ursula, I was bred an apprentice to gorgio law, and of course ought to stand up for it, whenever I conscientiously can, but I must say the gypsy manner of bringing an action for defamation is much less tedious, and far more satisfactory, than the gorgiko one. I wish you now to clear up a certain point which is rather mysterious to me. You say that for a Romany chi to do what is unseemly with a gorgio is quite out of the question, yet only the other day I heard you singing a song in which a Romany chi confesses herself to be cambri by a grand gorgious gentleman.”
“A sad let down,” said Ursula.
“Well,” said I, “sad or not, there’s the song that speaks of the thing, which you give me to understand is not.”
“Well, if the thing ever was,” said Ursula, “it was a long time ago, and perhaps, after all, not true.”
“Then why do you sing the song?”
“I’ll tell you, brother: we sings the song now and then to be a warning to ourselves to have as little to do as possible in the way of acquaintance with the gorgios; and a warning it is. You see how the young woman in the song was driven out of her tent by her mother, with all kind of disgrace and bad language; but you don’t know that she was afterwards buried alive by her cokos and pals, in an uninhabited place. The song doesn’t say it, but the story says it; for there is a story about it, though, as I said before, it was a long time ago, and perhaps, after all, wasn’t true.”
“But if such a thing were to happen at present, would the cokos and pals bury the girl alive?”
“I can’t say what they would do,” said Ursula. “I suppose they are not so strict as they were long ago; at any rate she would be driven from the tan, and avoided by all her family and relations as a gorgio’s acquaintance, so that, perhaps, at last, she would be glad if they would bury her alive.”
“Well, I can conceive that there would be an objection on the part of the cokos and batus that a Romany chi should form an improper acquaintance with a gorgio, but I should think that the batus and cokos could hardly object to the chi’s entering into the honourable estate of wedlock with a gorgio.”
Ursula was silent.
“Marriage is an honourable estate, Ursula.”
“Well, brother, suppose it be?”
“I don’t see why a Romany chi should object to enter into the honourable estate of wedlock with a gorgio.”
“You don’t, brother; don’t you?”
“No,” said I, “and, moreover, I am aware, notwithstanding your evasion, Ursula, that marriages and connections now and then occur between gorgios and Romany chies; the result of which is the mixed breed, called half-and-half, which is at present travelling about England, and to which the Flaming Tinman belongs, otherwise called Anselo Herne.”
“As for the half-and-halfs,” said Ursula, “they are a bad set; and there is not a worse blackguard in England than Anselo Herne.”
“All what you say may be very true, Ursula, but you admit that there are half-and-halfs.”
“The more’s the pity, brother.”
“Pity or not, you admit the fact; but how do you account for it?”
“How do I account for it? why, I will tell you, by the break up of a Roman family, brother—the father of a small family dies, and perhaps the mother; and the poor children are left behind; sometimes they are gathered up by their relations, and sometimes, if they have none, by charitable Romans, who bring them up in the observance of gypsy law; but sometimes they are not so lucky, and falls into the company of gorgios, trampers, and basket-makers, who live in caravans, with whom they take up, and so … I hate to talk of the matter, brother; but so comes this race of the half-and-halfs.”
“Then
