Centuries ago man’s inhumanity taught Gypsies the lesson that language is given them for the purpose of concealing their thoughts, and even now a Gypsy invitation, especially if it be pressing and cordial, often proves to have been a device for preventing a second visit. I was assured that carts had been ordered for seven o’clock to effect the removal of the band to two houses they had rented in Pitt Street. Wishing to see the flitting, I returned earlier than the time stated, found that they had departed at six, tracked them with difficulty, and overtook them, not in Pitt Street, but on the Landing-stage, awaiting the Birkenhead luggage-boat. At the head of the procession was a large tilted cart in which squatted all the women and children, from elderly and angular Mothers of Egypt to beautiful Vola, the chief’s daughter-in-law, carrying her little baby. Two waggons followed, loaded with luggage, over which, high piled, was the bedding, and on top of all, dressed in the costume of theatrical brigands, the black-bearded men carrying long staves elaborately decorated with silver.
There were full forty souls in the party, but when the boat arrived at Birkenhead, Kola, the chief, held up the traffic by engaging the ticket-collector in an altercation as to the exact number. Since he spoke in Russian and the official in English, neither convinced the other. The chief maintained that there were only fourteen; the collector set the figure considerably higher, but as no two of his repeated attempts at enumeration agreed with one another, while the chiefs estimate never varied, Kola may be said to have had, on the whole, the best of the argument. At all events the management preferred giving way to being detained all night, and Uncle Kola triumphantly led his procession up the bridge.
Meanwhile a spectator passing along Green Lane, Tranmere, might have seen a very curious spectacle in the English Gypsies’ camp, for that was the destination of the aliens. On a bare patch of cindery earth between the dark brown tents of the Boswells and Robinsons, a piece of carpet had been spread, and on it, as advanced guard awaiting the main body, sat portly Tinka, the chief’s wife. Cross-legged, motionless, aloof, her eyes fixed on a distant infinity, quite alone yet totally unconcerned, she smoked her cigarette calmly in a long meerschaum holder. Red-robed as ever, wearing an immense weight of solid gold, brilliant as a flame, she contrasted strangely with the dingy colouring of the place: a Chinese idol in a Methodist chapel would have been less incongruous. But the English Gypsies, aping her detachment, feigned absence of interest; no one was visible—nevertheless many an eye was eagerly pressed to a hole in the tent-blanket.