The record-union., 1894-11-17


Then came the nights and days of this
strange. quaintlife with my gypsy friends
among the Breads"
we seldom remained long at one moor
ing. There were countless cottages of
farmers. ienmen and marshmen TO be
visited, ana the gypsies were welcome
everywhere.
| Old anglers and fowlers passing in their
wineries gave CHEEKY greetings, often
made purchases, and never passed With
out hinging white money" into our out
| landlsh punt, while many or the passen-
! gers OF pleasure yachts visited, patron
lied and tipped" US handsomely for our
ever-ready secrets of where the perch
! and pike were hiding.
All day long it was greeting and part
lng-now wherry with a single occu-
pant, fierce and restless in quest of game;
| now boatIoad of royStererS, careless OF
all but carelessness and enjoyment; now
a market-boat being pooled" or rowed, or
| both, 10 the market village, the entire
| family on board as in Holland, and now
perhaps some lone naturalist In hungry,
harmless quest of rare butterflies and
| bugs.
There came evenings when the sun
went down in forests of waving reeds,
| flaming the thatches of some low-lying
cottage on opposite shore, weirdly light
! ing the arms of the huge windmllIs Of the
|
the grim Norman towers of some lar
| olden church, or gliding the top OF some
medieval ruin as with gold.
AS the red globe sank from sight, the
| waters Tor a moment were purple, the
| reeds puce, and then, in another moment
everything was pitchy black; till the stars
shining in the depths above and from the
waters beneath, seemed to envelop all.
| Then the songs and chlrps of myriad in
sects, the whirr and splash OF late-hom-
ing waterfowl, and the wltching whls-
! pering soughing OF the breeze in the
rushes and the reeds. And then Gran
pop" Wharton, hugging his thin old nd
die to his thin old breast, played many
tuneful gypsy lullaby, that seemed TO
merrily or plaintively answer back the
witch-tongues Of the reeds, until, as the
| ''peat hovers' tlickered fainter and
fainter on our cabin, all nature in the
| Breads seemed to have gone with US
into the land of silence and OF dreams.
But all idyllic hours like these have
| their glad or rude awakening.
My confession is an unavoidable one
that from the vagarous and genial mood
OF a happy, contented guest, my feelings
gradually merged into strange forebod-
| IngS and unrest.
/ was in the presence of tremendous
human study. In my wanderlngs l had
| known scores of gypsieS like good old
Gran pop" Wharton; hundreds more
| like the stolid, philosophic father, calm
and sunny fatalist in the face of all good
or i'll happening; thousands like the
| canny mother, marvel of cunning acqui-
sition and thrift; and tens OF thousands
| like the happy-hearted chauvies of our
houseboat, for gypsy children are alike
| the world over in their endless Outbursts
of wild and irrepressible hilarity and
! mirth.
But these three gypsy maidens, Fash
ion, Melinda and Bess, startled me into
new and limitless fields OF thought and
! conjecture.
| Romany true in their keen and almost
savage affection Tor any condition that
would bring them and hold them close to
| the throbbings of natures tender heart,
! they were still unconsciously nodded in
| TIE most winsome graces of chaste re-
| finement. Marvellous in their knowl-
| edge of myriad passages from natures
| open book, masters of her most stealthily
| whispered and uncouth and gentle Sc
| crets, they also bore the added charm
| springing from quicbeneo human SYM
paLhies, from the revelation OF human
activities, from the uplifting and mellow
| ing Influences OF music. art and books.
| These things came to me III countless
! little surprises. They awakened pride in
me that my friends, the despised gyp-
sizes, had precisely the same capabilities
OF Improvement and evolution as all
| nulnD1e, A0dIL-OpSH lOih Va any
| other race.
They filled me with pain and forebod-
| ing for the future OF any three souls like
them in that time which must inevitably
come when three wonderful characters
! like these, when three beautiful women
| like these, must fix or by circumstances
| be allotted their separate life horizons.
| Would the environment be like ours
who ever seek, if we fail in finding,
higher lands of brightness and upgrow-
| ing? Or would they sink back TO the
lowly life of the houseboat, the tent, the
van and the road?
Day by day as looked in their hand
some faces, watched their graceful move
ments and pondered over the possible
fates of such strangely envlroned ma
! lures, a curious strain of reflection
| crowded in upon me.
1 found myself longing to prevent their
| gradual fading out Of the new world their
| intellectual gainings had dawned upon
| them. l became at least deeply mentally
| concerned in adjusting their future lives
| on the plane of my own and that of my
| fellows. l even opened the door, through
these keen and and persistent human
| compositions, to the soft and stealthy tread
of thoughts and fancies which, back with
| Aunt Prue at Three Bachelors Court, in
London, would have tingled my cheeks
| with the flush of conscious weakness or
set me roaring with derisive laughter at
my own objectionable and mex plicable
! knight errantry.
(Which of us have you chosen ?" archly
inquired Fashion, looking up from her
work one day, and instantly reading my
thoughts with that marvellous intuition Of
the female gypsy.
The abruptness and incisiveness of the
! girls divination confused me tor a mo-
inent, as the laughter Of the three gypsy
maidens rang tauntingly out over the ST.
! lent waters of the Broad.
| But l had an answer ready; one that
silenced them amid bushes and deeper
confusion than my own for little; one
| which had for days been ready for some
opportune moment like this, an answer
| IN verse:
TO THREE GYPSY MAIDENs.
o. Fashion, Melinda and Bess,l
Not in all the fair lands where, piIgriming
Meath the tents and the stars thy tawny
race be,
Have lusterful face and the tress
OF the raven so haunted my waking and
So thrilled all my heart to its uttermost
| deep
AS Fashion, Melinda and Bess
o, Fashion, Melinda and Bess,
With dainty step light as the fall of the
With graceful forms 1.-THE as the marginal
| sheaves
OF willows in wild winds caress
Your eyes are like sloes in dark copsewood
Your voices were stolen from songs of the
| brooks,
o, Fashion, Melinda and Bess!
o, Fashion, Melinda and Bess!
| Brave hearts as the lions in Africa's caves.
| But coy as the tribes beneath ripping
In the tremulous hiIl-pools' duress.
Oh, could l have choice from these sweet