Lavengro by George Borrow (read me a book txt) 📕

id="noteref-266" epub:type="noteref">266 about ninety years ago, in imitation of the Morgante of Pulci. It treats of the wars of Charlemagne and his paladins with various barbarous nations, who came to besiege Paris. Despina was the daughter and heiress of Scricca, King of Cafria; she was the beloved of Ricciardetto, and was beautiful as an angel; but I make no doubt you are quite as handsome as she.”

“Brother,” said Ursula⁠—but the reply of Ursula I reserve for another chapter, the present having attained to rather an uncommon length, for which, however, the importance of the matter discussed is a sufficient apology.

XI

“Brother,” said Ursula, plucking a dandelion which grew at her feet, “I have always said that a more civil and pleasant-spoken person than yourself can’t be found. I have a great regard for you and your learning, and am willing to do you any pleasure in the way of words or conversation. Mine is not a very happy story, but as you wish to hear it, it is quite at your service. Launcelot Lovell made me an offer, as you call it, and we were married in Roman fashion; that is, we gave each other our right hands, and promised to be true to each other. We lived together two years, travelling sometimes by ourselves, sometimes with our relations; I bore him two children, both of which were stillborn, partly, I believe, from the fatigue I underwent in running about the country telling dukkerin when I was not exactly in a state to do so, and partly from the kicks and blows which my husband Launcelot was in the habit of giving me every night, provided I came home with less than five shillings, which it is sometimes impossible to make in the country, provided no fair or merrymaking is going on. At the end of two years my husband, Launcelot, whistled a horse from a farmer’s field, and sold it for forty pounds; and for that horse he was taken, put in prison, tried and condemned to be sent to the other country for life. Two days before he was to be sent away, I got leave to see him in the prison, and in the presence of the turnkey I gave him a thin cake of gingerbread, in which there was a dainty saw which could cut through iron. I then took on wonderfully, turned my eyes inside out, fell down in a seeming fit, and was carried out of the prison. That same night my husband sawed his irons off, cut through the bars of his window, and dropping down a height of fifty feet, lighted on his legs, and came and joined me on a heath where I was camped alone. We were just getting things ready to be off, when we heard people coming, and sure enough they were runners after my husband, Launcelot Lovell; for his escape had been discovered within a quarter of an hour after he had got away. My husband, without bidding me farewell, set off at full speed, and they after him, but they could not take him, and so they came back and took me, and shook me, and threatened me, and had me before the poknees, who shook his head at me, and threatened me in order to make me discover where my husband was, but I said I did not know, which was true enough; not that I would have told him if I had. So at last the poknees and the runners, not being able to make anything out of me, were obliged to let me go, and I went in search of my husband. I wandered about with my cart for several days in the direction in which I saw him run off, with my eyes bent on the ground, but could see no marks of him; at last, coming to four cross roads, I saw my husband’s patteran.”

“You saw your husband’s patteran?”

“Yes, brother. Do you know what patteran means?”

“Of course, Ursula; the gypsy trail, the handful of grass which the gypsies strew in the roads as they travel, to give information to any of their companions who may be behind, as to the route they have taken. The gypsy patteran has always had a strange interest for me, Ursula.”

“Like enough, brother; but what does patteran mean?”

“Why, the gypsy trail, formed as I told you before.”

“And you know nothing more about patteran, brother?”

“Nothing at all, Ursula; do you?”

“What’s the name for the leaf of a tree, brother?”

“I don’t know,” said I; “it’s odd enough that I have asked that question of a dozen Romany chals and chies, and they always told me that they did not know.”

“No more they did, brother; there’s only one person in England that knows, and that’s myself⁠—the name for a leaf is patteran. Now there are two that knows it⁠—the other is yourself.”

“Dear me, Ursula, how very strange! I am much obliged to you. I think I never saw you look so pretty as you do now; but who told you?”

“My mother, Mrs. Herne, told it me one day, brother, when she was in a good humour, which she very seldom was, as no one has a better right to know than yourself, as she hated you mortally: it was one day when you had been asking our company what was the word for a leaf, and nobody could tell you, that she took me aside and told me, for she was in a good humour, and triumphed in seeing you baulked. She told me the word for leaf was patteran, which our people use now for trail, having forgotten the true meaning. She said that the trail was called patteran, because the gypsies of old were in the habit of making the marks with the leaves and branches