The Romany Rye

  SONG OF THE BROKEN CHASTITY. {46a}

  By URSULA.

  Penn'd the Romany chi {46b} ke laki dye 'Miry dearie dye mi shom cambri!' {46c} 'And savo {46d} kair'd tute cambri, Miry dearie chi, miry Romany chi?' 'O miry dye a boro rye, A bovalo {46e} rye, a gorgiko rye, Sos {46f} kistur {46g} pre a pellengo grye, 'Twas yov sos kerdo man cambri.' 'Tu tawnie vassavie lubbeny, Tu chal {46h} from miry tan abri; {46i} Had a Romany chal kair'd tute cambri, Then I had penn'd ke tute chie, {46j} But tu shan a vassavie lubbeny With gorgikie {46k} rat to be cambri.'

  'There's some kernel in those songs, brother,' said Mr. Petulengro, whenthe songs and music were over.

  'Yes,' said I, 'they are certainly very remarkable songs. I say, Jasper,I hope you have not been drabbing baulor {47a} lately.'

  'And suppose we have, brother, what then?'

  'Why, it is a very dangerous practice, to say nothing of the wickednessof it.'

  'Necessity has no law, brother.'

  'That is true,' said I, 'I have always said so, but you are notnecessitous, and should not drab baulor.'

  'And who told you we had been drabbing baulor?'

  'Why, you have had a banquet of pork, and after the banquet Mrs. Chiknosang a song about drabbing baulor, so I naturally thought you might havelately been engaged in such a thing.'

  'Brother, you occasionally utter a word or two of common-sense. It wasnatural for you to suppose, after seeing that dinner of pork, and hearingthat song, that we had been drabbing baulor; I will now tell you that wehave not been doing so. What have you to say to that?'

  'That I am very glad of it.'

  'Had you tasted that pork, brother, you would have found that it wassweet and tasty, which balluva {47b} that is drabbed can hardly beexpected to be. We have no reason to drab baulor at present, we havemoney and credit; but necessity has no law. Our forefathers occasionallydrabbed baulor, some of our people may still do such a thing, but onlyfrom compulsion.'

  'I see,' said I, 'and at your merry meetings you sing songs upon thecompulsatory deeds of your people, alias their villainous actions; andafter all, what would the stirring poetry of any nation be, but for itscompulsatory deeds? Look at the poetry of Scotland, the heroic partfounded almost entirely on the villainous deeds of the Scotch nation;cow-stealing, for example, which is very little better than drabbingbaulor; whilst the softer part is mostly about the slips of its femalesamong the broom, so that no upholder of Scotch poetry could censureUrsula's song as indelicate, even if he understood it. What do youthink, Jasper?'

  'I think, brother, as I before said, that occasionally you utter a wordof common-sense; you were talking of the Scotch, brother; what do youthink of a Scotchman finding fault with Romany?'

  'A Scotchman finding fault with Romany, Jasper? Oh dear, but you joke,the thing could never be.'

  'Yes; and at Piramus's fiddle; what do you think of a Scotchman turningup his nose at Piramus's fiddle?'

  'A Scotchman turning up his nose at Piramus's fiddle! nonsense, Jasper.'

  'Do you know what I most dislike, brother?'

  'I do not, unless it be the constable, Jasper.'

  'It is not the constable, it's a beggar on horseback, brother.'

  'What do you mean by a beggar on horseback?'

  'Why, a scamp, brother, raised above his proper place, who takes everyopportunity of giving himself fine airs. About a week ago, my people andmyself camped on a green by a plantation in the neighbourhood of a greathouse. In the evening we were making merry, the girls were dancing,while Piramus was playing on the fiddle a tune of his own composing, towhich he has given his own name, Piramus of Rome, and which is muchcelebrated amongst our people, and from which I have been told that oneof the grand gorgio composers, who once heard it, has taken severalhints. So, as we were making merry, a great many grand people--lords andladies, I believe, came from the great house and looked on, as the girlsdanced to the tune of Piramus of Rome, and seemed much pleased; and whenthe girls had left off dancing, and Piramus playing, the ladies wanted tohave their fortunes told; so I bade Mikailia Chikno, who can tell afortune when she pleases better than anyone else, tell them a fortune,and she, being in a good mind, told them a fortune which pleased themvery much. So after they had heard their fortunes, one of them asked ifany of our women could sing, and I told them several could, moreparticularly Leviathan--you know Leviathan, she is not here now, but somemiles distant, she is our best singer, Ursula coming next. So the ladysaid she should like to hear Leviathan sing, whereupon Leviathan sang theGudlo pesham, {48} and Piramus played the tune of the same name, which,as you know, means the honeycomb, the song and the tune being wellentitled to the name, being wonderfully sweet. Well, everybody presentseemed mighty well pleased with the song and music, with the exception ofone person, a carroty-haired Scotch body; how he came there I don't know,but there he was; and coming forward, he began in Scotch as broad as abarndoor, to find fault with the music and the song, saying that he hadnever heard viler stuff than either. Well, brother, out of considerationfor the civil gentry with whom the fellow had come, I held my peace for along time, and in order to get the subject changed, I said to Mikailia inRomany, 'you have told the ladies their fortunes, now tell the gentlementheirs, quick, quick--pen lende dukkerin. {49} Well, brother, theScotchman, I suppose, thinking I was speaking ill of him, fell into agreater passion than before, and catching hold of the worddukkerin--"Dukkerin," said he, "what's dukkerin?" "Dukkerin," said I,"is fortune--a man or woman's destiny; don't you like the word?" "Word!d'ye ca' that a word? a bonnie word," said he. "Perhaps you'll tell uswhat it is in Scotch," said I, "in order that we may improve our languageby a Scotch word; a pal of mine has told me that we have taken a greatmany words from foreign lingos." "Why, then, if that be the case,fellow, I will tell you; it is e'en 'spaeing,'" said he very seriously."Well, then," said I, "I'll keep my own word, which is much theprettiest--spaeing! spaeing! why, I should be ashamed to make use of theword, it sounds so much like a certain other word," and then I made aface as if I were unwell. "Perhaps it's Scotch also for that?" "What doye mean by speaking in that guise to a gentleman?" said he, "you insolentvagabond, without a name or a country." "There you are mistaken," saidI, "my country is Egypt, but we 'Gyptians, like you Scotch, are ratherfond of travelling, and as for name--my name is Jasper Petulengro,perhaps you have a better; what is it?" "Sandy Macraw." At that,brother, the gentlemen burst into a roar of laughter, and all the ladiestittered.'

  'You were rather severe on the Scotchman, Jasper.'

  'Not at all, brother, and suppose I were, he began first; I am thecivilest man in the world, and never interfere with anybody who lets meand mine alone. He finds fault with Romany, forsooth! why L---dA'mighty, what's Scotch? He doesn't like our songs; what are his own? Iunderstand them as little as he mine; I have heard one or two of them,and pretty rubbish they seemed. But the best of the joke is, thefellow's finding fault with Piramus's fiddle--a chap from the land ofbagpipes finding fault with Piramus's fiddle! Why, I'll back that fiddleagainst all the bagpipes in Scotland, and Piramus against all thebagpipers; for though Piramus weighs but ten stone, he shall flog aScotchman of twenty.'

  'Scotchmen are never so fat as that,' said I, 'unless indeed, they havebeen a long time pensioners of England. I say, Jasper, what remarkablenames your people have!'

  'And what pretty names, brother; there's my own, for example, Jasper;then there's Ambrose {50} and Sylvester; then there's Culvato, whichsignifies Claude; then there's Piramus, that's a nice name brother.'

  'Then there's your wife's name, Pakomovna, then there's Ursula andMorella.'

  'Then, brother, there's Ercilla.'

  'Ercilla! the name of the great poet of Spain, how wonderful; thenLeviathan.'

  'The name of a ship, brother; Leviathan was named after a ship, so don'tmake a wonder out of her. But there's Sanpriel and Synfye.'

  'Ay, and Clementina and
Lavinia, Camillia and Lydia, Curlanda, andOrlanda; wherever did they get those names?'

  'Where did my wife get her necklace, brother?'

  'She knows best, Jasper. I hope--'

  'Come, no hoping! She got it from her grandmother, who died at the ageof a hundred and three, and sleeps in Coggeshall churchyard. She got itfrom her mother, who also died very old, and who could give no otheraccount of it than that it had been in the family time out of mind.'

  'Whence could they have got it?'

  'Why, perhaps where they got their names, brother. A gentleman who hadtravelled much, once told me that he had seen the sister of it about theneck of an Indian queen.'

  'Some of your names, Jasper, appear to be church names--your own, forexample, and Ambrose and Sylvester; perhaps you got them from thePapists, in the times of Popery, but where did you get such a name asPiramus, a name of Grecian romance. Then some of them appear to beSlavonian; for example Mikailia and Pakomovna. I don't know much ofSlavonian; but--'

  'What is Slavonian, brother?'

  'The family name of certain nations, the principal of which is theRussian, and from which the word slave is originally derived. You haveheard of the Russians, Jasper?'

  'Yes, brother, and seen some. I saw their crallis at the time of thepeace; he was not a bad-looking man for a Russian.'

  'By-the-bye, Jasper, I'm half inclined to think that crallis {51a} is aSlavish word. I saw something like it in a lil {51b} called "Voltaire'sLife of Charles." How you should have come by such names and words is tome incomprehensible.'

  'You seem posed, brother.'

  'I really know very little about you, Jasper.'

  'Very little indeed, brother. We know very little about ourselves, andyou know nothing, save what we have told you; and we have now and thentold you things about us which are not exactly true, simply to make afool of you brother. You will say that was wrong; perhaps it was. Well,Sunday will be here in a day or two, when we will go to church, wherepossibly we shall hear a sermon on the disastrous consequences of lying.'