Saturday, November 10, 2007

 

Yankee Gypsies by John Greenleaf Whittier

Yankee Gypsies
by John Greenleaf Whittier
"Here's to budgets, packs, and wallets;
Here's to all the wandering train."
BURNS.(1)
I CONFESS it, I am keenly sensitive to "skyey influences."
(2) I profess no indifference to the movements of that
capricious old gentleman known as the clerk of the weather. I
cannot conceal my interest in the behavior of that patriarchal
bird whose wooden similitude gyrates on the church spire.
Winter proper is well enough. Let the thermometer go to zero
if it will; so much the better, if thereby the very winds are
frozen and unable to flap their stiff wings. Sounds of bells in
the keen air, clear, musical, heart-inspiring; quick tripping of
fair moccasined feet on glittering ice pavements; bright eyes
glancing above the uplifted muff like a sultana's behind the
folds of her *yashmak;*(3) schoolboys coasting down street
like mad Greenlanders; the cold brilliance of oblique sunbeams
flashing back from wide surfaces of glittering snow, or blazing
upon ice jewelry of tree and roof: there is nothing in all this to
complain of. A storm of summer has its redeeming
sublimities,--its slow, upheaving mountains of cloud glooming
in the western horizon like new-created volcanoes, veined
with fire, shattered by exploding thunders. Even the wild
gales of the equinox have their varieties,--sounds of windshaken
woods and waters, creak and clatter of sign and
casement, hurricane puffs, and down-rushing rain-spouts. But
this dull, dark autumn day of thaw and rain, when the very
clouds seem too spiritless and languid to storm outright or
take themselves out of the way of fair weather; wet beneath
and above, reminding one of that rayless atmosphere of
Dante's Third Circle, where the infernal Priessnitz(4)
administers his hydropathic torment,--
"A heavy, cursed, and relentless drench,--
The land it soaks is putrid;"
or rather, as everything animate and inanimate is seething in
warm mist, suggesting the idea that Nature, grown old and
rheumatic, is trying the efficacy of a Thomsonian steam-box(5)
on a grand scale; no sounds save the heavy plash of muddy
feet on the pavements; the monotonous, melancholy drip from
trees and roofs; the distressful gurgling of waterducts,
swallowing the dirty amalgam of the gutters; a dim, leadencolored
horizon of only a few yards in diameter, shutting down
about one, beyond which nothing is visible save in faint line or
dark projection; the ghost of a church spire or the eidolon of a
chimney-pot,--he who can extract pleasurable emotions from
the alembic of such a day has a trick of alchemy with which I
am wholly unacquainted.
(1) From the closing air in *The Jolly Beggars,* a cantata.
(2) "A breath thou art
Servile to all the skyey influences,
That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st
Hourly afflict."
Shakespeare: *Measure for Measure,* act III. scene 1.
(3) "She turns and turns again, and carefully glances around
her on all sides, to see that she is safe from the eyes of
Mussulmans, and then suddenly withdrawing the yashmak she
shines upon your heart and soul with all the pomp and might of
her beauty." Kinglake's *Eothen,* chap. iii. In a note to
*Yashmak* Kinglake explains that it is not a mere semitransparent
veil, but thoroughly conceals all the features except
the eyes: it is withdrawn by being pulled down.
(4) Vincenz Priessnitz was the originator of the water-cure.
After experimenting upon himself and his neighbors he took up
the profession of hydropathy and established baths at his native
place, Grafenberg in Silesia, in 1829. He died in 1851.
(5) Dr. Samuel Thomson, a New Hampshire physician,
advocated the use of the steam bath as a restorer of system
when diseased. He died in 1843 and left behind an
autobiography (*Life and Medical Discoveries*) which
contains a record of the persecutions he underwent.
Hark! a rap at my door. Welcome anybody just now. One
gains nothing by attempting to shut out the sprites of the
weather. They come in at the keyhole; they peer through the
dripping panes; they insinuate themselves through the crevices
of the casement, or plump down chimney astride of the
raindrops.
I rise and throw open the door. A tall, shambling, loosejointed
figure; a pinched, shrewd face, sun-brown and winddried;
small, quick-winking black eyes,--there he stands, the
water dripping from his pulpy hat and ragged elbows.
I speak to him; but he returns no answer. With a dumb
show of misery, quite touching, he hands me a soiled piece of
parchment, whereon I read what purports to be a melancholy
account of shipwreck and disaster, to the particular detriment,
loss, and damnification of one Pietro Frugoni, who is, in
consequence, sorely in want of the alms of all charitable
Christian persons, and who is, in short, the bearer of this
veracious document, duly certified and indorsed by an Italian
consul in one of our Atlantic cities, of a high-sounding, but to
Yankee organs unpronounceable, name.
Here commences a struggle. Every man, the Mahometans
tell us, has two attendant angels,--the good one on his right
shoulder, the bad on his left. "Give," says Benevolence, as
with some difficulty I fish up a small coin from the depths of
my pocket. "Not a cent," says selfish Prudence; and I drop it
from my fingers. "Think," says the good angel, "of the poor
stranger in a strange land, just escaped from the terrors of the
sea-storm, in which his little property has perished, thrown
half-naked and helpless on our shores, ignorant of our
language, and unable to find employment suited to his
capacity." "A vile impostor!" replies the left-hand sentinel;
"his paper purchased from one of those ready-writers in New
York who manufacture beggar-credentials at the low price of
one dollar per copy, with earthquakes, fires, or shipwrecks, to
suit customers."
Amidst this confusion of tongues I take another survey of
my visitant. Ha! a light dawns upon me. That shrewd, old
face, with its sharp, winking eyes, is no stranger to me. Pietro
Frugoni, I have seen thee before. *Si, signor,* that face of
thine has looked at me over a dirty white neckcloth, with the
corners of that cunning mouth drawn downwards, and those
small eyes turned up in sanctimonious gravity, while thou wast
offering to a crowd of half-grown boys an extemporaneous
exhortation in the capacity of a travelling preacher. Have I
not seen it peering out from under a blanket, as that of a poor
Penobscot Indian, who had lost the use of his hands while
trapping on the Madawaska? Is it not the face of the forlorn
father of six small children, whom the "marcury doctors" had
"pisened" and crippled? Did it not belong to that down-east
unfortunate who had been out to the "Genesee country"(1) and
got the "fevernnager," and whose hand shook so pitifully
when held out to receive my poor gift? The same, under all
disguises,--Stephen Leathers, of Barrington,--him, and none
other! Let me conjure him into his own likeness:--
(1) The *Genesee country* is the name by which the western
part of New York, bordering on Lakes Ontario and Erie, was
known, when, at the close of the last and beginning of this
century, it was to people on the Atlantic coast the Great West.
In 1792 communication was opened by a road with the
Pennsylvania settlements, but the early settlers were almost all
from New England.
"Well, Stephen, what news from old Barrington?"
"Oh, well, I thought I knew ye," he answers, not the least
disconcerted. "How do you do? and how's your folks? All
well, I hope. I took this 'ere paper, you see, to help a poor
furriner, who could n't make himself understood any more
than a wild goose. I though I'd just start him for'ard a little.
It seemed a marcy to do it."
Well and shiftily answered, thou ragged Proteus. One cannot
be angry with such a fellow. I will just inquire into the present
state of his Gospel mission and about the condition of his tribe
on the Penobscot; and it may be not amiss to congratulate him
on the success of the steam-doctors in sweating the "pisen" of
the regular faculty out of him. But he evidently has no wish to
enter into idle conversation. Intent upon his benevolent errand
he is already clattering down stairs. Involuntarily I glance out
of the window just in season to catch a single glimpse of him
ere he is swallowed up in the mist.
He has gone; and, knave as he is, I can hardly help
exclaiming, "Luck go with him!" He has broken in upon the
sombre train of my thoughts and called up before me pleasant
and grateful recollections. The old farm-house nestling in its
valley; hills stretching off to the south and green meadows to
the east; the small stream which came noisily down its ravine,
washing the old garden-wall and softly lapping on fallen stones
and mossy roots of beeches and hemlocks; the tall sentinel
poplars at the gateway; the oak-forest, sweeping unbroken to
the northern horizon; the grass-grown carriage-path, with its
rude and crazy bridge,--the dear old landscape of my boyhood
lies outstretched before me like a daguerreotype from that
picture within, which I have borne with me in all my
wanderings. I am a boy again, once more conscious of the
feeling, half terror, half exultation, with which I used to
announce the approach of this very vagabond and his "kindred
after the flesh."
The advent of wandering beggars, or "old stragglers," as we
were wont to call them, was an event of no ordinary interest in
the generally monotonous quietude of our farm-life. Many of
them were well known; they had their periodical revolutions
and transits; we would calculate them like eclipses or new
moons. Some were sturdy knaves, fat and saucy; and,
whenever they ascertained that the "men folks" were absent,
would order provisions and cider like men who expected to pay
for them, seating themselves at the hearth or table with the air
of Falstaff,--"Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?" Others,
poor, pale, patient, like Sterne's monk,(1) came creeping up to
the door, hat in hand, standing there in their gray wretchedness
with a look of heartbreak and forlornness which was never
without its effect on our juvenile sensibilities. At times,
however, we experienced a slight revulsion of feeling when
even these humblest children of sorrow somewhat petulantly
rejected our proffered bread and cheese, and demanded instead
a glass of cider. Whatever the temperance society might in
such cases have done, it was not in our hearts to refuse the poor
creatures a draught of their favorite beverage; and was n't it a
satisfaction to see their sad, melancholy faces light up as we
handed them the full pitcher, and, on receiving it back empty
from their brown, wrinkled hands, to hear them, half breathless
from their long, delicious draught, thanking us for the favor, as
"dear, good children"! Not unfrequently these wandering tests
of our benevolence made their appearance in interesting groups
of man, woman, and child, picturesque in their squalidness,
and manifesting a maudlin affection which would have done
honor to the revellers at Poosie-Nansie's, immortal in the
cantata of Burns. (2) I remember some who were evidently the
victims of monomania,--haunted and hunted by some dark
thought,--possessed by a fixed idea. One, a black-eyed, wildhaired
woman, with a whole tragedy of sin, shame, and
suffering written in her countenance, used often to visit us,
warm herself by our winter fire, and supply herself with a stock
of cakes and cold meat; but was never known to answer a
question or to ask one. She never smiled; the cold, stony look
of her eye never changed; a silent, impassive face, frozen rigid
by some great wrong or sin. We used to look with awe upon
the "still woman," and think of the demoniac of Scripture who
had a "dumb spirit."
(1) Whom he met at Calais, as described in his *Sentimental
Journey.*
(2) The *cantata* is *The Jolly Beggars,* from which the
motto heading this sketch was taken. *Poosie-Nansie* was the
keeper of a tavern in Mauchline, which was the favorite resort
of the lame sailors, maimed soldiers, travelling ballad-singers,
and all such loose companions as hang about the skirts of
society. The cantata has for its theme the rivalry of a "pigmy
scraper with his fiddle" and a strolling tinker for a beggar
woman: hence the *maudlin affection.*
One--I think I see him now, grim, gaunt, and ghastly,
working his slow way up to our door--used to gather herbs by
the wayside and called himself doctor. He was bearded like a
he-goat, and used to counterfeit lameness; yet, when he
supposed himself alone, would travel on lustily, as if walking
for a wager. At length, as if in punishment of his deceit, he
met with an accident in his rambles and became lame in
earnest, hobbling ever after with difficulty on his gnarled
crutches. Another used to go stooping, like Bunyan's pilgrim,
under a pack made of an old bed-sacking, stuffed out into most
plethoric dimensions, tottering on a pair of small, meagre legs,
and peering out with his wild, hairy face from under his burden
like a big-bodied spider. That "man with the pack" always
inspired me with awe and reverence. Huge, almost sublime, in
its tense rotundity, the father of all packs, never laid aside and
never opened, what might there not be within it? With what
flesh-creeping curiosity I used to walk round about it at a safe
distance, half expecting to see its striped covering stirred by the
motions of a mysterious life, or that some evil monsters would
leap out of it, like robbers from Ali Baba's jars or armed men
from the Trojan horse!
There was another class of peripatetic philosophers--half
pedler, half mendicant--who were in the habit of visiting us.
One we recollect, a lame, unshaven, sinister-eyed,
unwholesome fellow, with his basket of old newspapers and
pamphlets, and his tattered blue umbrella, serving rather as a
walking-staff than as a protection from the rain. he told us on
one occasion, in answer to our inquiring into the cause of his
lameness, that when a young man he was employed on the
farm of the chief magistrate of a neighboring State; where, as
his ill luck would have it, the governor's handsome daughter
fell in love with him. He was caught one day in the young
lady's room by her father; whereupon the irascible old
gentleman pitched him unceremoniously out of the window,
laming him for life, on a brick pavement below, like Vulcan on
the rocks of Lemnos.(1) As for the lady, he assured us "she
took on dreadfully about it." "Did she die?" we inquired,
anxiously. There was a cunning twinkle in the old rogue's eye
as he responded, "Well, no she did n't. She got married."
(1) It was upon the Isle of Lemnos that Vulcan was flung by
Jupiter, according to the myth, for attempting to aid his mother
Juno.
Twice a year, usually in the spring and autumn, we were
honored with a call from Jonathan Plummer, maker of verses,
pedler and poet, physician and parson,--a Yankee troubadour,--
first and last minstrel of the valley of the Merrimac, encircled,
to my wondering young eyes, with the very nimbus of
immortality. He brought with him pins, needles, tape, and
cotton-thread for my mother; jack-knives, razors, and soap for
my father; and verses of his own composing, coarsely printed
and illustrated with rude wood-cuts, for the delectation of the
younger branches of the family. No love-sick youth could
drown himself, no deserted maiden bewail the moon, no rogue
mount the gallows, without fitting memorial in Plummer's
verses. Earthquakes, fires, fevers, and shipwrecks he regarded
as personal favors from Providence, furnishing the raw material
of song and ballad. Welcome to us in our country seclusion, as
Autolycus to the clown in "Winter's Tale,"(1) we listened with
infinite satisfaction to his reading of his own verses, or to his
ready improvisation upon some domestic incident or topic
suggested by his auditors. When once fairly over the
difficulties at the outset of a new subject his rhymes flowed
freely, "as if he had eaten ballads, and all men's ears grew to
his tunes." His productions answered, as nearly as I can
remember, to Shakespeare's description of a proper ballad,--
"doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant theme sung
lamentably." He was scrupulously conscientious, devout,
inclined to theological disquisitions, and withal mighty in
Scripture. He was thoroughly independent; flattered nobody,
cared for nobody, trusted nobody. When invited to sit down at
our dinner-table he invariably took the precaution to place his
basket of valuables between his legs for safe keeping. "Never
mind they basket, Jonathan," said my father; "we shan't steal
thy verses." "I 'm not sure of that," returned the suspicious
guest. "It is written, 'Trust ye not in any brother.'"
(1) "He could never come better," says the clown in
Shakespeare's *The Winter's Tale,* when Autolycus, the
pedler, is announced; "he shall come in. I love a ballad but
even too well, if it be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very
pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably." Act IV. scene 4.
Thou, too, O Parson B.,--with thy pale student's brow and
rubicund nose, with thy rusty and tattered black coat overswept
by white, flowing locks, with thy professional white neckcloth
scrupulously preserved when even a shirt to thy back was
problematical,--art by no means to be overlooked in the musterroll
of vagrant gentlemen possessing the *entree* of our
farmhouse. Well do we remember with what grave and
dignified courtesy he used to step over its threshold, saluting its
inmates with the same air of gracious condescension and
patronage with which in better days he had delighted the hearts
of his parishioners. Poor old man! He had once been the
admired and almost worshipped minister of the largest church
in the town where he afterwards found support in the winter
season, as a pauper. He had early fallen into intemperate
habits; and at the age of three-score and ten, when I remember
him, he was only sober when he lacked the means of being
otherwise. Drunk or sober, however, he never altogether forgot
the proprieties of his profession; he was always grave,
decorous, and gentlemanly; he held fast the form of sound
words, and the weakness of the flesh abated nothing of the
rigor of his stringent theology. He had been a favorite pupil of
the learned and astute Emmons,(1) and was to the last a sturdy
defender of the peculiar dogmas of his school. The last time we
saw him he was holding a meeting in our district school-house,
with a vagabond pedler for deacon and travelling companion.
The tie which united the ill-assorted couple was doubtless the
same which endeared Tam O'Shanter to the souter:(2)--
"They had been fou for weeks thegither."
He took for his text the first seven verses of the concluding
chapter of Ecclesiastes, furnishing in himself its fitting
illustration. The evil days had come; the keepers of the house
trembled; the windows of life were darkened. A few months
later the silver cord was loosed, the golden bowl was broken,
and between the poor old man and the temptations which beset
him fell the thick curtains of the grave.
(1) Nathaniel Emmons was a New England theologian of
marked character and power, who for seventy years was
connected with a church in that part of Wrentham, Mass., now
called Franklin. He exercised considerable influence over the
religious thought of New England, and is still read by
theologians. He died in 1840, in his ninety-sixth year.
(2) Souter (or cobbler) Johnny, in Burns's poetic tale of *Tam
O'Shanter,* had been *fou* or *full* of drink with Tam for
weeks together.
One day we had a call from a "pawky auld carle"(1) of a
wandering Scotchman. To him I owe my first introduction to
the songs of Burns. After eating his bread and cheese and
drinking his mug of cider he gave us Bonny Doon, Highland
Mary, and Auld Lang Syne. He had a rich, full voice, and
entered heartily into the spirit of his lyrics. I have since
listened to the same melodies from the lips of Dempster(2)
(than whom the Scottish bard has had no sweeter or truer
interpreter), but the skilful performance of the artist lacked the
novel charm of the gaberlunzie's singing in the old farmhouse
kitchen. Another wanderer made us acquainted with the
humorous old ballad of "Our gude man cam hame at e'en." He
applied for supper and lodging, and the next morning was set
at work splitting stones in the pasture. While thus engaged the
village doctor came riding along the highway on his fine,
spirited horse, and stopped to talk with my father. The fellow
eyed the animal attentively, as if familiar with all his good
points, and hummed over a stanza of the old poem:--
"Our gude man cam hame at e'en,
And hame cam he;
And there he saw a saddle horse
Where nae horse should be.
'How cam this horse here?
How can it be?
How cam this horse here
Without the leave of me?'
'A horse?' quo she.
'Ay, a horse,' quo he.
'Ye auld fool, ye blind fool,--
And blinder might ye be,--
'T is naething but a milking cow
My mamma sent to me.'
'A milch cow?' quo he.
'Ay, a milch cow,' quo she.
'Weel, far hae I ridden,
And muckle hae I seen;
But milking cows wi' saddles on
Saw I never nane.'"(3)
(1) From the first line of *The Gaberlunzie Man,* attributed
to King James V. of Scotland,--
"The pawky auld carle came o'er the lee."
The original like Whittier's was a sly old fellow, as an English
phrase would translate the Scottish. *The Gaberlunzie Man* is
given in Percy's *Reliques of Ancient Poetry* and in Child's
*English and Scottish Ballads,* viii. 98.
(2) William R. Dempster, a Scottish vocalist who had
recently sung in America, and whose music to Burns's song "A
man 's a man for a' that" was very popular.
(3) The whole of this song may be found in Herd's *Ancient
and Modern Scottish Songs,* ii. 172.
That very night the rascal decamped, taking with him the
doctor's horse, and was never after heard of.
Often, in the gray of the morning, we used to see one or more
"gaberlunzie men," pack on shoulder and staff in hand,
emerging from the barn or other outbuildings where they had
passed the night. I was once sent to the barn to fodder the
cattle late in the evening, and, climbing into the mow to pitch
down hay for that purpose, I was startled by the sudden
apparition of a man rising up before me, just discernible in the
dim moonlight streaming through the seams of the boards. I
made a rapid retreat down the ladder; and was only reassured
by hearing the object of my terror calling after me, and
recognizing his voice as that of a harmless old pilgrim whom I
had known before. Our farmhouse was situated in a lonely
valley, half surrounded with woods, with no neighbors in sight.
One dark, cloudy night, when our parents chanced to be absent,
we were sitting with our aged grandmother in the fading light
of the kitchen fire, working ourselves into a very satisfactory
state of excitement and terror by recounting to each other all the
dismal stories we could remember of ghosts, witches, haunted
houses, and robbers, when we were suddenly startled by a loud
rap at the door. A strippling of fourteen, I was very naturally
regarded as the head of the household; so, with many
misgivings, I advanced to the door, which I slowly opened,
holding the candle tremulously above my head and peering out
into the darkness. The feeble glimmer played upon the
apparition of a gigantic horseman, mounted on a steed of a size
worthy of such a rider,--colossal, motionless, like images cut
out of the solid night. The strange visitant gruffly saluted me;
and, after making several ineffectual efforts to urge his horse in
at the door, dismounted and followed me into the room,
evidently enjoying the terror which his huge presence excited.
Announcing himself as the great Indian doctor, he drew
himself up before the fire, stretched his arms, clinched his fists,
struck his broad chest, and invited our attention to what he
called his "mortal frame." He demanded in succession all
kinds of intoxicating liquors; and on being assured that we had
none to give him, he grew angry, threatened to swallow my
younger brother alive, and, seizing me by the hair of my head
as the angel did the prophet at Babylon,(1) led me about from
room to room. After an ineffectual search, in the course of
which he mistook a jug of oil for one of brandy, and, contrary
to my explanations and remonstrances, insisted upon
swallowing a portion of its contents, he released me, fell to
crying and sobbing, and confessed that he was so drunk already
that his horse was ashamed of him. After bemoaning and
pitying himself to his satisfaction he wiped his eyes, and sat
down by the side of my grandmother, giving her to understand
that he was very much pleased with her appearance; adding
that, if agreeable to her, he should like the privilege of paying
his addresses to her. While vainly endeavoring to make the
excellent old lady comprehend his very flattering proposition,
he was interrupted by the return of my father, who, at once
understanding the matter, turned him out of doors without
ceremony.
(1) See Ezekiel viii. 3.
On one occasion, a few years ago, on my return from the field
at evening, I was told that a foreigner had asked for lodgings
during the night, but that, influenced by his dark, repulsive
appearance, my mother had very reluctantly refused his request.
I found her by no means satisfied with her decision. "What if a
son of mine was in a strange land?" she inquired, selfreproachfully.
Greatly to her relief, I volunteered to go in
pursuit of the wanderer, and, taking a cross-path over the
fields, soon overtook him. He had just been rejected at the
house of our nearest neighbor, and was standing in a state of
dubious perplexity in the street. He was an olivecomplexioned,
black-bearded Italian, with an eye like a live
coal, such a face as perchance looks out on the traveller in the
passes of the Abruzzi,(1)--one of those bandit visages which
Salvator(2) has painted. With some difficulty I gave him to
understand my errand, when he overwhelmed me with thanks,
and joyfully followed me back. He took his seat with us at the
supper-table; and, when we were all gathered around the hearth
that cold autumnal evening, he told us, partly by words and
partly by gestures, the story of his life and misfortunes, amused
us with descriptions of the grape-gatherings and festivals of his
sunny clime, edified my mother with a recipe for making bread
of chestnuts; and in the morning, when, after breakfast, his
dark sullen face lighted up and his fierce eye moistened with
grateful emotion as in his own silvery Tuscan accent he poured
out his thanks, we marvelled at the fears which had so nearly
closed our door against him; and, as he departed, we all felt
that he had left with us the blessing of the poor.
(1) Provinces into which the old Kingdom of Naples was
divided.
(2) Salvator Rosa was a Neapolitan by birth, and was said to
have been himself a bandit in his youth; his landscapes often
contain figures drawn from the wild life of the region.
It was not often that, as in the above instance, my mother's
prudence got the better of her charity. The regular "old
stragglers" regarded her as an unfailing friend; and the sight of
her plain cap was to them an assurance of forthcoming
creature-comforts. There was indeed a tribe of lazy strollers,
having their place of rendezvous in the town of Barrington,
New Hampshire, whose low vices had placed them beyond
even the pale of her benevolence. They were not unconscious
of their evil reputation; and experience had taught them the
necessity of concealing, under well-contrived disguises, their
true character. They came to us in all shapes and with all
appearances save the true one, with most miserable stories of
mishap and sickness and all "the ills which flesh is heir to." It
was particularly vexatious to discover, when too late, that our
sympathies and charities had been expended upon such
graceless vagabonds as the "Barrington beggars." An old
withered hag, known by the appellation of Hopping Pat,--the
wise woman of her tribe,--was in the habit of visiting us, with
her hopeful grandson, who had "a gift for preaching" as well as
for many other things not exactly compatible with holy orders.
He sometimes brought with him a tame crow, a shrewd,
knavish-looking bird, who, when in the humor for it, could talk
like Barnaby Rudge's raven. He used to say he could "do
nothin' at exhortin' without a white handkercher on his neck
and money in his pocket,"--a fact going far to confirm the
opinions of the Bishop of Exeter and the Puseyites generally,
that there can be no priest without tithes and surplice.
These people have for several generations lived distinct from
the great mass of the community, like the gypsies of Europe,
whom in many respects they closely resemble. They have the
same settled aversion to labor and the same disposition to avail
themselves of the fruits of the industry of others. They love a
wild, out-of-door life, sing songs, tell fortunes, and have an
instinctive hatred of "missionaries and cold water." It has been
said--I know not upon what grounds--that their ancestors were
indeed a veritable importation of English gypsyhood; but if so,
they have undoubtedly lost a good deal of the picturesque
charm of its unhoused and free condition. I very much fear that
my friend Mary Russell Mitford,--sweetest of England's rural
painters,--who has a poet's eye for the fine points in gypsy
character, would scarcely allow their claims to fraternity with
her own vagrant friends, whose camp-fires welcomed her to her
new home at Swallowfield.(1)
(1) See in Miss Mitford's *Our Village.*
"The proper study of mankind is man;" and, according to my
view, no phase of our common humanity is altogether
unworthy of investigation. Acting upon this belief two or three
summers ago, when making, in company with my sister, a little
excursion into the hill-country of New Hampshire, I turned my
horse's head towards Barrington for the purpose of seeing these
semi-civilized strollers in their own home, and returning, once
for all, their numerous visits. Taking leave of our hospitable
cousins in old Lee with about as much solemnity as we may
suppose Major Laing(1) parted with his friends when he set out
in search of desert-girdled Timbuctoo, we drove several miles
over a rough road, passed the Devil's Den unmolested, crossed
a fretful little streamlet noisily working its way into a valley,
where it turned a lonely, half-ruinous mill, and, climbing a
steep hill beyond, saw before us a wide, sandy level, skirted on
the west and north by low, scraggy hills, and dotted here and
there with dwarf pitch-pines. In the centre of this desolate
region were some twenty or thirty small dwellings, grouped
together as irregularly as a Hottentot kraal. Unfenced,
unguarded, open to all comers and goers, stood that city of the
beggars,--no wall or paling between the ragged cabins to
remind one of the jealous distinctions of property. The great
idea of its founders seemed visible in its unappropriated
freedom. Was not the whole round world their own? and
should they haggle about boundaries and title-deeds? For
them, on distant plains, ripened golden harvests; for them, in
far-off workshops, busy hands were toiling; for them, if they
had but the grace to note it, the broad earth put on her garniture
of beauty, and over them hung the silent mystery of heaven and
its stars. That comfortable philosophy which modern
transcendentalism has but dimly shadowed forth--that poetic
agrarianism, which gives all to each and each to all--is the real
life of this city of unwork. To each of its dingy dwellers might
be not unaptly applied the language of one who, I trust, will
pardon me for quoting her beautiful poem in this connection:--
"Other hands may grasp the field and forest,
Proud proprietors in pomp may shine,
. . . . . . .
Thou art wealthier,--all the world is thine."(2)
(1) Alexander Gordon Laing was a major in the British army,
who served on the west coast of Africa and made journeys into
the interior in the attempt to establish commercial relations
with the natives, and especially to discover the sources of the
Niger. He was treacherously murdered in 1826 by the guard
that was attending him on his return from Timbuctoo to the
coast. His travels excited great interest in their day in England
and America.
(2) From a poem, *Why Thus Longing?* by Mrs. Harriet
Winslow Sewall, preserved in Whittier's *Songs of Three
Centuries.*
But look! the clouds are breaking. "Fair weather cometh out
of the north." The wind has blown away the mists; on the
gilded spire of John Street glimmers a beam of sunshine; and
there is the sky again, hard, blue, and cold in its eternal purity,
not a whit the worse for the storm. In the beautiful present the
past is no longer needed. Reverently and gratefully let its
volume be laid aside; and when again the shadows of the
outward world fall upon the spirit may I not lack a good angel
to remind me of its solace, even if he comes in the shape of a
Barrington beggar.

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