I turned the bridge, adown the bank, and found myself near two young men mending chairs.  They greeted me civilly; and when I spoke Rommany, they answered me in the same language; but they did not speak it well, nor did they, indeed, claim to be “Gipsies” at all, though their complexions had the peculiar hue which indicates some other than Saxon admixture of blood.  Half Rommany in their knowledge, and yet not regarded as such, these “travellers” represented a very large class in England, which is as yet but little understood by our writers, whether of fact or fiction.  They laughed while telling me anecdotes of gentlemen who had mistaken them for real Rommany chals, and finally referred me to “Old Henry,” further down, who “could talk with me.”  This ancient I found a hundred yards beyond, basketing in the sun at the door of his tent.  He greeted me civilly enough, but worked away with his osiers most industriously, while his comrades, less busy, employed themselves vigorously in looking virtuous.  One nursed his infant with tender embraces, another began to examine green sticks with a view to converting them into clothes-pegs—­in fact I was in a model community of wandering Shakers.

I regret to say that the instant I uttered a Rommany word, and was recognised, this discipline of decorum was immediately relaxed.  It was not complimentary to my moral character, but it at least showed confidence.  The Ancient Henry, who bore, as I found, in several respects a strong likeness to the Old Harry, had heard of me, and after a short conversation confided the little fact, that from the moment in which I had been seen watching them, they were sure I was a gav-mush, or police or village authority, come to spy into their ways, and to at least order them to move on.  But when they found that I was not as one having authority, but, on the contrary, came talking Rommany with the firm intention of imparting to them three pots of beer just at the thirstiest hour of a warm day, a great change came over their faces.  A chair was brought to me from a caravan at some distance, and I was told the latest news of the road.

“Matty’s got his slangs,” observed Henry, as he inserted a ranya or osier-withy into his basket, and deftly twined it like a serpent to right and left, and almost as rapidly.  Now a slang means, among divers things, a hawker’s licence.

“I’m glad to hear it,” I remarked.  There was deep sincerity in this reply, as I had more than once contributed to the fees for the aforesaid slangs, which somehow or other were invariably refused to the applicant.  At last, however, the slangs came; and his two boys, provided with them (at ten shillings per head), were now, in their sphere of life, in the position of young men who had received an education or been amply established in business, and were gifted with all that could be expected from a doting father.  In its way this bit of intelligence meant as much to the basketmaker as, “Have you heard that young Fitz-Grubber has just got the double-first at Oxford?” or, “Do you know that old Cheshire has managed that appointment in India for his boy?—­splendid independence, isn’t it?” And I was shrewdly suspected by my audience, as the question implied, that I had had a hand in expanding this magnificent opening for the two fortunate young men.