“But if such a thing were to happen at present, would the cokos and pals bury the girl alive?”
“I can’t say what they would do,” said Ursula; “I suppose they are not so strict as they were long ago; at any rate, she would be driven from the tan, and avoided by all her family and relations as a gorgio’s acquaintance; so that, perhaps, at last, she would be glad if they would bury her alive.”
“Well, I can conceive that there would be an objection on the part of the cokos and batus that a Romany chi should form an improper acquaintance with a gorgio, but I should think that the batus and cokos could hardly object to the chi’s entering into the honourable estate of wedlock with a gorgio.”
“Marriage is an honourable estate, Ursula.”
“I don’t see why a Romany chi should object to enter into the honourable estate of wedlock with a gorgio.”
“No,” said I; “and, moreover, I am aware, notwithstanding your evasion, Ursula, that marriages and connections now and then occur between gorgios and Romany chies, the result of which is the mixed breed, called half and half, which is at present travelling about England, and to which the Flaming Tinman belongs, otherwise called Anselo Herne.”
“As for the half and halfs,” said Ursula, “they are a bad set; and there is not a worse blackguard in England than Anselo Herne.”
“All that you say may be very true, Ursula, but you admit that there are half and halfs.”
“Pity, or not, you admit the fact; but how do you account for it?”
“How do I account for it? why, I will tell you, by the break up of a Roman family, brother—the father of a small family dies, and, perhaps, the mother; and the poor children are left behind; sometimes they are gathered up by their relations, and sometimes, if they have none, by charitable Romans, who bring them up in the observance of gypsy law; but sometimes they are not so lucky, and falls into the company of gorgios, trampers and basket-makers, who live in caravans, with whom they take up, and so—I hate to talk of the matter, brother; but so comes this race of the half and halfs.”
“Then you mean to say, Ursula, that no Romany chi, unless compelled by hard necessity would have anything to do with a gorgio?”
“We are not over-fond of gorgios, brother, and we hates basket-makers, and folks that live in caravans.”