Morning journal and courier., 1891-06-06
No. i35

bed for the gipsy and his wife, with a ca- pacious door-clossd 'lockern beneath. In this all the provisions and valuables were stored Extending towards the middle of the boat were four hunks, two on either side, with sliding windows above. In these slept Fashion, Miranda, Bess and couple of the lesser progeny. Still in front of this was the most curious com pertinent of all. In its center, on the bottom of the put where there had been made solid bed of baked clay, shaped that is never allowed to go out; and above it the real gipsy crooked iron kettla stick, firmly embedded in the clay. Here is where our kettles sung, and where the sweet perch and luscious pike were broiled; while the smoke escaped sometimes through 8 round hole in the roof, but gen erally and principally where 1t listed This was kitchen and psrlor in our boat house. Necessary utensils hung against the walls, but could not quite hide many efforts at decorative art, from the illustra- ted papers, pasted solidly in their places, and given antique and generous coloring from the smoke of the burning "hovers" of peat.
 Amidships was our salon. It was not large, but, as 'gran'pop Wharton" re- marked, Hit 'ad good prospecs an airy ones!" This was covered by an old sail that had once done duty with the Var mouth rerring fleet. Here our hearty meals were taken; and this place was also the work-room where the nimble fingers of the gipsies wrought the pouches and bas- kets of flag and osier. Beyond this, and extending to the end of the boat opposite that occupied at night by father, mother and daughters was little shed-like coop, where the gipsy grandfather, the huge lad, myself and a few of the children had comfortable hunks for the night; and on top of this, something after the fashion of the "upper deck" of our American willow
 ware hawkers' wagons, was 8 sail-coyered place where the stores of baskets and pouches were kept until sale-the show room as it were for the fishers and hunters of the lagoons.
 Then came the nights and days of this strange, quaint life with my gipsy friends among the "Broads" We seldom re-
 mained long at one mooring' There were countless cottages of farmers, fenmen and msrshmen to be visited. The gipsies were
 welcome everywhere. Old anglers and fowlers paused in the wineries, gave
 cheery greetings, often made purchases, and never passed without fiinging white money" into our outlandish punt. Many | of the passengers of yachts visited, pa tronized and tipped us handsomely for our | ever-ready secrets of where the perch and | pike were hiding. All day long it was | greeting and parting;-now s wherry with | single occupant fierce and restless in | quest for game; now s boat-load of roy sterers, careless of all but carelessness and | enjoyment; now a market-boat being
 "polled" or rowed, or both, to the market | village, with the entire family on board,
 as in Holland; and now perhaps some lone
 naturalist in hungry harmless quest of rare butterflies and bugs.
 Then came evenings when the sun went down in forests of waving reeds flaming the matches of some low-lying cottage on | the opposite shore, weirdly lighting the arms of the huge wind-mills of the region, bringing to a looming nearness the grim Norman towers of some far olden church, | or gliding the top of some medieval ruin | as with gold Then as it sank from sight, l the waters for a moment were purple, the | roeds puce, and then, in another moment, | everything was pitchy black, until the | stars, shining in the depths above and | from the waters beneath, seemed to envel- | op all. Then the songs and chrips of Inyr- | fad insects: the whirr and splash of late | homing waterfowl; and the witching
 whispered soughing of the breeze in the
 rushes and the reeds. And then gran
 pop Wharton" hugging his thin old fiddle
 to his thin old breast. played many gipsy
 lullaby tune that seemed to merrily or | plaintively answer back the witch tongues
 of the reeds, until, as the '-peat1 1hoveTs'
 iickered fainter and fainter in our cabin,
 all nature in the "Broads" seemed to have
 gone with us into the land of silences and
 dreams EDGAR L. WAKEMAS.