The Romany Rye

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"During the 'sizes I had made acquaintance with old Fulcher. I was
in the town on my father's account, and he was there on his son's,
who, having committed a small larceny, was in trouble. Young
Fulcher, however, unlike my father, got off, though he did not give
the son of a lord a hundred guineas to speak for him, and ten more
to pledge his sacred honour for his honesty, but gave Counsellor P-
-- one-and-twenty shillings to defend him, who so frightened the
principal evidence, a plain honest farming-man, that he flatly
contradicted what he had first said, and at last acknowledged
himself to be all the rogues in the world, and, amongst other
things, a perjured villain. Old Fulcher, before he left the town
with his son,--and here it will be well to say that he and his son
left it in a kind of triumph, the base drummer of a militia
regiment, to whom they had given half-a-crown, beating his drum
before them--old Fulcher, I say, asked me to go and visit him,
telling me where, at such a time, I might find him and his caravan
and family; offering, if I thought fit, to teach me basket-making:
so, after my father had been sent off, I went and found up old
Fulcher, and became his apprentice in the basket-making line. I
stayed with him till the time of his death, which happened in about
three months, travelling about with him and his family, and living
in green lanes, where we saw gypsies and trampers, and all kinds of
strange characters. Old Fulcher, besides being an industrious
basket-maker, was an out-and-out thief, as was also his son, and,
indeed, every member of his family. They used to make baskets
during the day, and thieve during a great part of the night. I had
not been with them twelve hours before old Fulcher told me that I
must thieve as well as the rest. I demurred at first, for I
remembered the fate of my father, and what he had told me about
leaving off bad courses, but soon allowed myself to be over-
persuaded; more especially as the first robbery I was asked to do
was a fruit robbery. I was to go with young Fulcher, and steal
some fine Morell cherries, which grew against a wall in a
gentleman's garden; so young Fulcher and I went and stole the
cherries, one half of which we ate, and gave the rest to the old
man, who sold them to a fruiterer ten miles off from the place
where we had stolen them. The next night old Fulcher took me out
with himself. He was a great thief, though in a small way. He
used to say, that they were fools, who did not always manage to
keep the rope below their shoulders, by which he meant, that it was
not advisable to commit a robbery, or do anything which could bring
you to the gallows. He was all for petty larceny, and knew where
to put his hand upon any little thing in England, which it was
possible to steal. I submit it to the better judgment of the
Romany Rye, who I see is a great hand for words and names, whether
he ought not to have been called old Filcher, instead of Fulcher.
I shan't give a regular account of the larcenies he committed
during the short time I knew him, either alone by himself, or with
me and his son. I shall merely relate the last.

"A melancholy gentleman, who lived a very solitary life, had a
large carp in a shady pond in a meadow close to his house; he was
exceedingly fond of it, and used to feed it with his own hand, the
creature being so tame that it would put its snout out of the water
to be fed when it was whistled to; feeding and looking at his carp
were the only pleasures the poor melancholy gentleman possessed.
Old Fulcher--being in the neighbourhood, and having an order from a
fishmonger for a large fish, which was wanted at a great city
dinner, at which His Majesty was to be present--swore he would
steal the carp, and asked me to go with him. I had heard of the
gentleman's fondness for his creature, and begged him to let it be,
advising him to go and steal some other fish; but old Fulcher
swore, and said he would have the carp, although its master should
hang himself; I told him he might go by himself, but he took his
son and stole the carp, which weighed seventeen pounds. Old
Fulcher got thirty shillings for the carp, which I afterwards heard
was much admired and relished by His Majesty. The master, however,
of the carp, on losing his favourite, became more melancholy than
ever, and in a little time hanged himself. 'What's sport for one,
is death to another,' I once heard at the village-school read out
of a copy-book.

"This was the last larceny old Fulcher ever committed. He could
keep his neck always out of the noose, but he could not always keep
his leg out of the trap. A few nights after, having removed to a
distance, he went to an osier car in order to steal some osiers for
his basket-making, for he never bought any. I followed a little
way behind. Old Fulcher had frequently stolen osiers out of the
car, whilst in the neighbourhood, but during his absence the
property, of which the car was a part, had been let to a young
gentleman, a great hand for preserving game. Old Fulcher had not
got far into the car before he put his foot into a man-trap.
Hearing old Fulcher shriek, I ran up, and found him in a dreadful
condition. Putting a large stick which I carried into the jaws of
the trap, I contrived to prize them open, and get old Fulcher's leg
out, but the leg was broken. So I ran to the caravan, and told
young Fulcher of what had happened, and he and I helped his father
home. A doctor was sent for, who said that it was necessary to
take the leg off, but old Fulcher, being very much afraid of pain,
said it should not be taken off, and the doctor went away, but
after some days, old Fulcher becoming worse, ordered the doctor to
be sent for, who came and took off his leg, but it was then too
late, mortification had come on, and in a little time old Fulcher
died.

"Thus perished old Fulcher; he was succeeded in his business by his
son, young Fulcher, who, immediately after the death of his father,
was called old Fulcher, it being our English custom to call
everybody old, as soon as their fathers are buried; young Fulcher--
I mean he who had been called young, but was now old Fulcher--
wanted me to go out and commit larcenies with him; but I told him
that I would have nothing more to do with thieving, having seen the
ill effects of it, and that I should leave them in the morning.
Old Fulcher begged me to think better of it, and his mother joined
with him. They offered, if I would stay, to give me Mary Fulcher
as a mort, till she and I were old enough to be regularly married,
she being the daughter of the one, and the sister of the other. I
liked the girl very well, for she had always been civil to me, and
had a fair complexion and nice red hair, both of which I like,
being a bit of a black myself; but I refused, being determined to
see something more of the world than I could hope to do with the
Fulchers, and, moreover, to live honestly, which I could never do
along with them. So the next morning I left them: I was, as I
said before, quite determined upon an honest livelihood, and I soon
found one. He is a great fool who is ever dishonest in England.
Any person who has any natural gift, and everybody has some natural
gift, is sure of finding encouragement in this noble country of
ours, provided he will but exhibit it. I had not walked more than
three miles before I came to a wonderfully high church steeple,
which stood close by the road; I looked at the steeple, and going
to a heap of smooth pebbles which lay by the roadside, I took up
some, and then went into the churchyard, and placing myself just
below the tower, my right foot resting on a ledge, about two foot
from the ground, I, with my left hand--being a left-handed person,
do you see--flung or chucked up a stone, which, lighting on the top
of the steeple, which was at least a hundred and fifty feet high,
did there remain. After repeating this feat two or three times, I
'hulled' up a stone, which went clean over the tower, and then one,
my right foot still on the ledge, which rising at least five yards
above the steeple, did fall down just at my feet. Without knowing
it, I was showing off my gift to others besides myself, doing what,
perhaps, not five men in England could do. Two men, who were
passing by, stopped and looked at my proceedings, and when I had
done flinging came into the churchyard, and, after paying me a
compliment on what they had seen me do, proposed that I should join
company with them; I asked them who they were, and they told me.
The one was Hopping Ned, and the other Biting Giles. Both had
their gifts, by which they got their livelihood; Ned could hop a
hundred yards with any man in England, and Giles could lift up with
his teeth any dresser or kitchen-table in the country, and,
standing erect, hold it dangling in his jaws. There's many a big
oak table and dresser in certain districts of England, which bear
the marks of Giles's teeth; and I make no doubt that, a hundred or
two years hence, there'll be strange stories about those marks, and
that people will point them out as a proof that there were giants
in bygone time, and that many a dentist will moralize on the decays
which human teeth have undergone.

"They wanted me to go about with them, and exhibit my gift
occasionally, as they did theirs, promising that the money that was
got by the exhibitions should be honestly divided. I consented,
and we set off together, and that evening coming to a village, and
putting up at the ale-house, all the grand folks of the village
being there smoking their pipes, we contrived to introduce the
subject of hopping--the upshot being that Ned hopped against the
school-master for a pound, and beat him hollow; shortly after,
Giles, for a wager, took up the kitchen table in his jaws, though
he had to pay a shilling to the landlady for the marks he left,
whose grandchildren will perhaps get money by exhibiting them. As
for myself, I did nothing that day, but the next, on which my
companions did nothing, I showed off at hulling stones against a
cripple, the crack man for stone-throwing, of a small town, a few
miles farther on. Bets were made to the tune of some pounds; I
contrived to beat the cripple, and just contrived; for to do him
justice I must acknowledge he was a first-rate hand at stones,
though he had a game hip, and went sideways; his head, when he
walked--if his movements could be called walking--not being above
three feet above the ground. So we travelled, I and my companions,
showing off our gifts, Giles and I occasionally for a gathering,
but Ned never hopping, unless against somebody for a wager. We
lived honestly and comfortably, making no little money by our
natural endowments, and were known over a great part of England as
'Hopping Ned,' 'Biting Giles,' and 'Hull over the Head Jack,' which
was my name, it being the blackguard fashion of the English, do you
see, to--"

Here I interrupted the jockey. "You may call it a blackguard
fashion," said I, "and I dare say it is, or it would scarcely be
English; but it is an immensely ancient one, and is handed down to
us from our northern ancestry, especially the Danes, who were in
the habit of giving people surnames, or rather nicknames, from some
quality of body or mind, but generally from some disadvantageous
peculiarity of feature; for there is no denying that the English,
Norse, or whatever we may please to call them, are an envious,
depreciatory set of people, who not only give their poor comrades
contemptuous names, but their great people also. They didn't call
you the matchless Hurler, because, by doing so, they would have
paid you a compliment, but Hull over the Head Jack, as much as to
say that after all you were a scrub; so, in ancient time, instead
of calling Regner the great conqueror, the Nation Tamer, they
surnamed him Lodbrog, which signifies Rough or Hairy Breeks--lod or
loddin signifying rough or hairy; and instead of complimenting
Halgerdr, the wife of Gunnar of Hlitharend, the great champion of
Iceland, upon her majestic presence, by calling her Halgerdr, the
stately or tall; what must they do but term her Ha-brokr, or
Highbreeks, it being the fashion in old times for Northern ladies
to wear breeks, or breeches, which English ladies of the present
day never think of doing; and just, as of old, they called Halgerdr
Long-breeks, so this very day a fellow of Horncastle called, in my
hearing, our noble-looking Hungarian friend here, Long-stockings.
Oh, I could give you a hundred instances, both ancient and modern,
of this unseemly propensity of our illustrious race, though I will
only trouble you with a few more ancient ones; they not only
nicknamed Regner, but his sons also, who were all kings, and
distinguished men: one, whose name was Biorn, they nicknamed
Ironsides; another, Sigurd, Snake in the Eye; another, White Sark,
or White Shirt--I wonder they did not call him Dirty Shirt; and
Ivarr, another, who was king of Northumberland, they called
Bienlausi, or the Legless, because he was spindle-shanked, had no
sap in his bones, and consequently no children. He was a great
king, it is true, and very wise, nevertheless his blackguard
countrymen, always averse, as their descendants are, to give credit
to anybody, for any valuable quality or possession, must needs lay
hold, do you see--"

But before I could say any more, the jockey, having laid down his
pipe, rose, and having taken off his coat, advanced towards me.

CHAPTER XLII

A Short-tempered Person--Gravitation--The Best Endowment--Mary
Fulcher--Fair Dealing--Horse-witchery--Darius and his Groom--The
Jockey's Tricks--The Two Characters--The Jockey's Song.

The jockey, having taken off his coat and advanced towards me, as I
have stated in the preceding chapter, exclaimed, in an angry tone,
"This is the third time you have interrupted me in my tale, Mr.
Rye; I passed over the two first times with a simple warning, but
you will now please to get up and give me the satisfaction of a
man."

"I am really sorry," said I, "if I have given you offence, but you
were talking of our English habits of bestowing nicknames, and I
could not refrain from giving a few examples tending to prove what
a very ancient habit it is."

"But you interrupted me," said the jockey, "and put me out of my
tale, which you had no right to do; and as for your examples, how
do you know that I wasn't going to give some as old or older than
yourn? Now stand up, and I'll make an example of you."

"Well," said I, "I confess it was wrong in me to interrupt you, and
I ask your pardon."

"That won't do," said the jockey, "asking pardon won't do."

"Oh," said I, getting up, "if asking pardon does not satisfy you,
you are a different man from what I considered you."

But here the Hungarian, also getting up, interposed his tall form
and pipe between us, saying in English, scarcely intelligible, "Let
there be no dispute! As for myself, I am very much obliged to the
young man of Horncastle for his interruption, though he has told me
that one of his dirty townsmen called me 'Long-stocking.' By
Isten! there is more learning in what he has just said than in all
the verdammt English histories of Thor and Tzernebock I ever read."

"I care nothing for his learning," said the jockey. "I consider
myself as good a man as he, for all his learning; so stand out of
the way, Mr. Sixfooteleven, or--"

"I shall do no such thing," said the Hungarian. "I wonder you are
not ashamed of yourself. You ask a young man to drink champagne
with you, you make him dronk, he interrupt you with very good
sense; he ask your pardon, yet you not--"

"Well," said the jockey, "I am satisfied. I am rather a short-
tempered person, but I bear no malice. He is, as you say, drinking
my wine, and has perhaps taken a drop too much, not being used to
such high liquor; but one doesn't like to be put out of one's tale,
more especially when one was about to moralize, do you see,
oneself, and to show off what little learning one has. However, I
bears no malice. Here is a hand to each of you; we'll take another
glass each, and think no more about it."

The jockey having shaken both of our hands, and filled our glasses
and his own with what champagne remained in the bottle, put on his
coat, sat down, and resumed his pipe and story.

"Where was I? Oh, roaming about the country with Hopping Ned and
Biting Giles. Those were happy days, and a merry and prosperous
life we led. However, nothing continues under the sun in the same
state in which it begins, and our firm was soon destined to undergo
a change. We came to a village where there was a very high church
steeple, and in a little time my comrades induced a crowd of people
to go and see me display my gift by flinging stones above the heads
of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, who stood at the four corners on
the top, carved in stone. The parson, seeing the crowd, came
waddling out of his rectory to see what was going on. After I had
flung up the stones, letting them fall just where I liked--and one,
I remember, fell on the head of Mark, where I dare say it remains
to the present day--the parson, who was one of the description of
people called philosophers, held up his hand, and asked me to let
the next stone I flung up fall upon it. He wished, do you see, to
know with what weight the stone would fall down, and talked
something about gravitation--a word which I could never understand
to the present day, save that it turned out a grave matter to me.
I, like a silly fellow myself, must needs consent, and, flinging
the stone up to a vast height, contrived so that it fell into the
parson's hand, which it cut dreadfully. The parson flew into a
great rage, more particularly as everybody laughed at him, and,
being a magistrate, ordered his clerk, who was likewise constable,
to conduct me to prison as a rogue and vagabond, telling my
comrades that if they did not take themselves off, he would serve
them in the same manner. So Ned hopped off, and Giles ran after
him, without making any gathering, and I was led to Bridewell, my
mittimus following at the end of a week, the parson's hand not
permitting him to write before that time. In the Bridewell I
remained a month, when, being dismissed, I went in quest of my
companions, whom, after some time, I found up, but they refused to
keep my company any longer; telling me that I was a dangerous
character, likely to bring them more trouble than profit; they had,
moreover, filled up my place. Going into a cottage to ask for a
drink of water, they saw a country fellow making faces to amuse his
children; the faces were so wonderful that Hopping Ned and Biting
Giles at once proposed taking him into partnership, and the man--
who was a fellow not very fond of work--after a little entreaty,
went away with them. I saw him exhibit his gift, and couldn't
blame the others for preferring him to me; he was a proper ugly
fellow at all times, but when he made faces his countenance was
like nothing human. He was called Ugly Moses. I was so amazed at
his faces, that though poor myself I gave him sixpence, which I
have never grudged to this day, for I never saw anything like them.
The firm throve wonderfully after he had been admitted into it. He
died some little time ago, keeper of a public-house, which he had
been enabled to take from the profits of his faces. A son of his,
one of the children he was making faces to when my comrades entered
his door, is at present a barrister, and a very rising one. He has
his gift--he has not, it is true, the gift of the gab, but he has
something better, he was born with a grin on his face, a quiet
grin; he would not have done to grin through a collar like his
father, and would never have been taken up by Hopping Ned and
Biting Giles, but that grin of his caused him to be noticed by a
much greater person than either; an attorney observing it took a
liking to the lad, and prophesied that he would some day be heard
of in the world; and in order to give him the first lift, took him
into his office, at first to light fires and do such kind of work,
and after a little time taught him to write, then promoted him to a
desk, articled him afterwards, and being unmarried, and without
children, left him what he had when he died. The young fellow,
after practising at the law some time, went to the bar, where, in a
few years, helped on by his grin, for he had nothing else to
recommend him, he became, as I said before, a rising barrister. He
comes our circuit, and I occasionally employ him, when I am obliged
to go to law about such a thing as an unsound horse. He generally
brings me through--or rather that grin of his does--and yet I don't
like the fellow, confound him, but I'm an oddity--no, the one I
like, and whom I generally employ, is a fellow quite different, a
bluff sturdy dog, with no grin on his face, but with a look that
seems to say I am an honest man, and what cares I for any one? And
an honest man he is, and something more. I have known coves with a
better gift of the gab, though not many, but he always speaks to
the purpose, and understands law thoroughly; and that's not all.
When at college, for he has been at college, he carried off
everything before him as a Latiner, and was first-rate at a game
they call matthew mattocks. I don't exactly know what it is, but I
have heard that he who is first-rate at matthew mattocks is thought
more of than if he were first-rate Latiner.

"Well, the chap that I'm talking about, not only came out first-
rate Latiner, but first-rate at matthew mattocks too; doing, in
fact, as I am told by those who knows, for I was never at college
myself, what no one had ever done before. Well, he makes his
appearance at our circuit, does very well, of course, but he has a
somewhat high front, as becomes an honest man, and one who has beat
every one at Latin and matthew mattocks; and one who can speak
first-rate law and sense;--but see now, the cove with the grin, who
has like myself never been at college; knows nothing of Latin, or
matthew mattocks, and has no particular gift of the gab, has two
briefs for his one, and I suppose very properly, for that grin of
his curries favour with the juries; and mark me, that grin of his
will enable him to beat the other in the long run. We all know
what all barrister coves looks forward to--a seat on the hop sack.
Well, I'll bet a bull to fivepence, that the grinner gets upon it,
and the snarler doesn't; at any rate, that he gets there first. I
calls my cove--for he is my cove--a snarler; because your first-
rates at matthew mattocks are called snarlers, and for no other
reason; for the chap, though with a high front, is a good chap, and
once drank a glass of ale with me, after buying an animal out of my
stable. I have often thought it a pity he wasn't born with a grin
on his face like the son of Ugly Moses. It is true he would
scarcely then have been an out and outer at Latin and matthew
mattocks, but what need of either to a chap born with a grin? Talk
of being born with a silver spoon in one's mouth! give me a cove
born with a grin on his face--a much better endowment.

"I will now shorten my history as much as I can, for we have talked
as much as folks do during a whole night in the Commons' House,
though, of course, not with so much learning, or so much to the
purpose, because--why? They are in the House of Commons, and we in
a public room of an inn at Horncastle. The goodness of the ale, do
ye see, never depending on what it is made of, oh, no! but on the
fashion and appearance of the jug in which it is served up. After
being turned out of the firm, I got my living in two or three
honest ways, which I shall not trouble you with describing. I did
not like any of them, however, as they did not exactly suit my
humour; at last I found one which did. One Saturday afternoon, I
chanced to be in the cattle-market of a place about eighty miles
from here; there I won the favour of an old gentleman who sold
dickeys. He had a very shabby squad of animals, without soul or
spirit; nobody would buy them, till I leaped upon their hinder
ends, and by merely wriggling in a particular manner, made them
caper and bound so to people's liking, that in a few hours every
one of them was sold at very sufficient prices. The old gentleman
was so pleased with my skill, that he took me home with him, and in
a very little time into partnership. It's a good thing to have a
gift, but yet better to have two. I might have got a very decent
livelihood by throwing stones, but I much question whether I should
ever have attained to the position in society which I now occupy,
but for my knowledge of animals. I lived very comfortably with the
old gentleman till he died, which he did in about a fortnight after
he had laid his old lady in the ground. Having no children, he
left me what should remain after he had been buried decently, and
the remainder was six dickeys and thirty shillings in silver. I
remained in the dickey trade ten years, during which time I saved a
hundred pounds. I then embarked in the horse line. One day, being
in the--market on a Saturday, I saw Mary Fulcher with a halter
round her neck, led about by a man, who offered to sell her for
eighteen-pence. I took out the money forthwith and bought her; the
man was her husband, a basket-maker, with whom she had lived
several years without having any children; he was a drunken,
quarrel-some fellow, and having had a dispute with her the day
before, he determined to get rid of her, by putting a halter round
her neck and leading her to the cattle-market, as if she were a
mare, which he had, it seems, a right to do;--all women being
considered mares by old English law, and, indeed, still called
mares in certain counties, where genuine old English is still
preserved. That same afternoon, the man who had been her husband,
having got drunk in a public-house, with the money which he had
received for her, quarrelled with another man, and receiving a blow
under the ear, fell upon the floor, and died of artiflex; and in
less than three weeks I was married to Mary Fulcher, by virtue of
regular bans. I am told she was legally my property by virtue of
my having bought her with a halter round her neck; but, to tell you
the truth, I think everybody should live by his trade, and I didn't
wish to act shabbily towards our parson, who is a good fellow, and
has certainly a right to his fees. A better wife than Mary
Fulcher--I mean Mary Dale--no one ever had; she has borne me
several children, and has at all times shown a willingness to
oblige me, and to be my faithful wife. Amongst other things, I
begged her to have done with her family, and I believe she has
never spoken to them since.

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