Theodore Watts-Dunton: Poet, Novelist, Critic. Douglas James

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      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Do it pison Pep’s milk?’ said Rhona.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘That ain’t true,’ said Perpinia – ‘can’t be true.’

      ‘It is true,’ said I. ‘If you don’t give up that pipe for a time, the child will die, or else be a ricketty thing all his life. If you do give it up, it will grow up to be as fine a gypsy as ever your husband can be.’

      ‘Chavo agin pipe, Pep!’ said Rhona.

      ‘Lend me your pipe, Perpinia,’ said Dereham, in that hail-fellow-well-met tone of his, which he reserved for the Romanies – a tone which no Romany could ever resist. And he took it gently from the woman’s lips. ‘Don’t smoke any more till I come to the camp and see the chavo again.’

      ‘He be’s a good friend to the Romanies,’ said Rhona, in an appeasing tone.

      ‘That’s true,’ said the woman; ‘but he’s no business to take my pipe out o’ my mouth for all that.’

      She soon began to smile again, however, and let Dereham retain the pipe. Dereham and I then moved away towards the dusty high-road leading to the camp, and were joined by Rhona. Perpinia remained, keeping guard over the magpie that was to bring luck to the sinking child.

      It was determined now that Rhona was the very person to be used as the test-critic of the Romany mind upon Arnold’s poem, for she was exceptionally intelligent. So instead of going to the camp, the oddly assorted little party of three struck across the ferns, gorse, and heather towards ‘Kingfisher brook,’ and when we reached it we sat down on a fallen tree.

      Nothing, as afterwards I came to know, delights a gypsy girl so much, in whatever country she may be born, as to listen to a story either told or read to her, and when I pulled my book from my pocket the gypsy girl began to clap her hands. Her anticipation of enjoyment sent over her face a warm glow.

      Her complexion, though darker than an English girl’s, was rather lighter than an ordinary gypsy’s. Her eyes were of an indescribable hue; but an artist who has since then painted her portrait for me, described it as a mingling of pansy purple and dark tawny. The pupils were so large that, being set in the somewhat almond-shaped and long-eyelashed lids of her race, they were partly curtained both above and below, and this had the peculiar effect of making the eyes seem always a little contracted and just about to smile. The great size and deep richness of the eyes made the straight little nose seem smaller than it really was; they also lessened the apparent size of the mouth, which, red as a rosebud, looked quite small until she laughed, when the white teeth made quite a wide glitter.

      Before three lines of the poem had been read she jumped up and cried, ‘Look at the Devil’s needles! They’re come to sew my eyes up for killing their brothers.’

      And surely enough a gigantic dragon-fly, whose body-armour of sky blue and jet black, and great lace-woven wings, shining like a rainbow gauze, caught the sun as he swept dazzling by, did really seem to be attracted either by the wings of his dead brothers or by the lights shed from the girl’s eyes.

      ‘I dussn’t set here,’ said she. ‘Us Romanies call this ‘Dragon-fly Brook.’ And that’s the king o’ the dragon-flies: he lives here.’

      As she rose she seemed to be surrounded by dragon-flies of about a dozen different species of all sizes, some crimson, some bronze, some green and gold, whirling and dancing round her as if they meant to justify their Romany name and sew up the girl’s eyes.

      ‘The Romanies call them the Devil’s needles,’ said Dereham; ‘their business is to sew up pretty girls’ eyes.’

      In a second, however, they all vanished, and the girl after a while sat down again to listen to the ‘lil,’ as she called the story.

      Glanville’s prose story, upon which Arnold’s poem is based, was read first. In this Rhona was much interested. But when I went on to read to her Arnold’s poem, though her eyes flashed now and then at the lovely bits of description – for the country about Oxford is quite remarkably like the country in which she was born – she looked sadly bewildered, and then asked to have it all read again. After a second reading she said in a meditative way: ‘Can’t make out what the lil’s all about – seems all about nothink! Seems to me that the pretty sights what makes a Romany fit to jump out o’ her skin for joy makes this ’ere gorgio want to cry. What a rum lot gorgios is surely!’

      And then she sprang up and ran off towards the camp with the agility of a greyhound, turning round every few moments, pirouetting and laughing aloud.

      ‘Let’s go to the camp!’ said Dereham. ‘That was all true about the nicotine – was it not?’

      ‘Partly, I think,’ said I, ‘but not being a medical man I must not be too emphatic. If it is true it ought to be a criminal offence for any woman to smoke in excess while she is suckling a child.’

      ‘Say it ought to be a criminal offence for a woman to smoke at all,’ growled Dereham. ‘Fancy kissing a woman’s mouth that smelt of stale tobacco – pheugh!’”

      After giving these two delightful descriptions of Borrow and his environment, I will now quote Mr. Watts-Dunton’s description of their last meeting: —

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      1

      ‘Studies in Prose.’

      2

      ‘Chambers’s Encyclopædia,’ vol. x., p. 581.

      3

      The meanings of the gypsy words are:

      4

      ‘Notes and Queries,’ August 2, 1902.

      5

      Among the gypsies of all countries the happiest possible ‘Dukkeripen’ (i.e. prophetic symbol of Natura Mystica) is a hand-shaped golden cloud floating in the sky. It is singular that the same idea is found among СКАЧАТЬ