Gypsy and Ginger

The last days of July had been so hot that the pavements steamed all night with the memory of them. In the early mornings Ginger would wake in a thin haze that was itself like the last thin veil between sleep and consciousness. One Monday morning as she stretched her arms, she half-opened her eyes upon London breathing forth its mists, and half-opened her ears to the lost sounds of bleating sheep. Ginger at once became six years old again.

Every Monday morning when she was six, sheep had shuffled under her window along the misty street. And as soon as the unseen sheep had passed with an unseen dog and an unseen shepherd, an unseen piper had followed with a little tune upon a penny whistle. This was all a part of being six years old, and she never wondered about it then; but whenever she thought of it afterwards she wondered why any piper should play his tune so early in the morning, when even the housemaids were not yet on the doorsteps to throw him pennies. Listening to the sheep go by, she now wondered all this over again. While she was wondering, the last sheep bleated itself into the distance, and at the same instant a penny whistle began piping in the mist. It was the tune she had always, and only heard when she was six.

She lifted herself on one elbow, and saw Gypsy lifting himself on his. They looked at each other, and she saw that he was exactly eight years old.

“Did you ever see him?” asked Ginger in a whisper.

Gypsy shook his head. “Did you?”

Ginger shook hers. “I always longed to.”

“I wonder if there’s any way of catching him?” whispered Gypsy; and reaching stealthily for the pillar-box, he shook out a dozen coppers. Then he picked out the gold ones which were the fine-weather pennies (he himself was always given brown pennies), and span one through the haze in the direction of the tune. They heard it ring on the road, and the tune stopped, and a moment later mended its broken bar. Gypsy sent a second penny not quite so far, and in the pause they heard three soft steps come their way. The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth pennies fell shorter still, and the seventh penny was so close that a form stood up like a shadow on the mist. Even then they couldn’t see the Piper very distinctly; but he was tall and thin, and Gypsy said he had the silver hair of a very old man, and Ginger said he had the blue eyes of the youngest babies.

But his gentle voice was neither young nor old as he said kindly, “What am I to do with seven pennies, children?”

“Spend them?” suggested Gypsy.

“That’s so difficult,” said the Piper.

“Spin them?” suggested Ginger.

“Ah, that’s easy,” said the Piper. And he sat down cross-legged a little way off on the pavement, and span one of the seven gold pennies. While it span he sang a song that began and ended with the penny.

“What a nice song,” said Ginger. “Do spin another.”

So the Piper span the second penny and sang.

The last note met the plop of the penny on the pavement.

“How do you manage it?” asked Gypsy.

“It manages itself,” said the Piper. “None of my songs lasts longer than the spin of a coin.” He span the third penny so badly that it only made a very little song, like this:

“Have you just come up the river?” asked Ginger.

“No,” said the Piper. “I have just come from a chickory field under Graffham. The Sussex chicory is as blue now as it will be, and the raspberries are ripening on the Downs.”

“Don’t!” implored Ginger, sitting up, “How could you bear to come to town?”

“I follow the sheep,” said the Piper, and span the fourth penny. While it turned he sang:

“Have all those riddles got answers?” asked Ginger.

“I think so,” said the Piper, “but they’re harder to find in the city than in the country. They grow best in the grass, like men and flowers. The grass is mown now, and Sussex smells hay and hears corn.”

He twisted his fifth penny, and sang while it hummed:

“Gypsy!” cried Ginger. “I can’t bear it any longer. Let’s go and live in a hut in a wood.”

“If you want a nice hut,” said the Piper, “I know where there is one on the banks of a Southdown river, with martins under the thatch.”

“But the Blacksmith’s Son lives in it,” wailed Ginger, “with Lizzie Hooker.”

“It was empty,” said the Piper, “when I saw it last.”

“How long ago was that?” asked Gypsy hopefully.

“A hundred and sixty years, I think,” said the Piper, “so I ought to be moving on, children.”

Before he rose he span his sixth penny, and while it twirled he moved away and sang as he went:

His voice died with the penny. And very far away they heard him once more pipe his Monday tune.

“Oh dear,” said Ginger restlessly, “I wish he’d told us what that tune was about. But I’m determined to remember every one of his other songs to-morrow morning.” (As a matter of fact she forgot them all, like the dreams we determine to remember in the middle of the night.)

“There’s one of the songs he forgot himself,” and Gypsy, picking up the seventh penny and spinning it. And while it span the distant piping seemed to turn to singing, but it was now such a long way off that I am not sure if Gypsy and Ginger got the words right.

When Ginger said she couldn’t bear it any more, she meant it. She had lived in London well over two months now, and that was longer than she had ever lived anywhere else in her life. She had a terror of falling into grooves and never being able to climb out again. Besides, August was upon them, and London in August is no place for anybody. So Ginger said to Gypsy,

“We must be off.”

“How?” asked Gypsy.

“By the first train from the nearest station,” said Ginger positively.

Gypsy looked at the Trafalgar Tube and said, “Shall we go to the Elephant and Castle, or to Edgeware Road?”

Ginger shed three tears and said, “If I don’t smell hay and hear corn to-day, I shall die.”

Gypsy shook the pillar-box gravely. He shook it to the extent of fivepence halfpenny.

“How did the halfpenny get in?” he said sternly. “Has somebody been cheating?”

“No,” said Ginger, “that was given me last Sunday by a poor child under twelve. What’s the matter with you? Children under twelve are half-price for everything, aren’t they?”

“Did you say a poor child?” asked Gypsy.

“Yes,” said Ginger. “I gave it sixpence change. It was so extremely under twelve, you see. It said it would come again to ask the weather next Sunday and bring its cousins.”

“Well, it’s going to be disappointed,” said Gypsy. “Though how we’re to take tickets to hay and corn on fivepence halfpenny, I don’t quite know. We shall have to walk; unless we stay over to-morrow and put in a really hard day’s work and earn our fares. What do you say to that?”

“Oh yes,” said Ginger, “and then we can give a party to-night and say good-bye to everybody.”

So they settled down to put in a really hard day’s work. The day helped them a lot. It was a sultry, many-minded day; it did a variety of things with heavy heatwaves to begin with, and then it muttered in the distance, and shed a few big drops, and slacked off for a bit; then it rolled up a lot of dark blue clouds, and then a lot of black ones. Mr. Morley came over from his hotel to say that it was so dark in the Reading Room that the visitors couldn’t read, and he wanted Gypsy’s advice about turning on the electric light. Gypsy, half in and half out of his door, looked at the sky and said:

“I think you’d better turn it on.”

Mr. Morley thanked him, and tipped him half-a-crown (they do it handsomely at Morley’s).

“Can I have it in pennies?” asked Gypsy.

“Certainly,” said Mr. Morley. He counted thirty pennies into Gypsy’s hand, and crossed the road.

Then quite suddenly a blue cloud hit a black one, and Gypsy leapt out of his door as far as he could go, and the hail came down like peas and rattled in a box by the theatre-men. So Gypsy called “Hi! hi!” very loudly, and Mr. Morley, who had just got under the portico, came out and crossed the road again.

“Yes?” said Mr. Morley.

“I know you’d better turn it on,” said Gypsy.

“Thank you very much,” said Mr. Morley, and gave Gypsy five shillings.

“Can I have it in pennies?” shouted Gypsy. (He had to shout because of the thunder.)

“Certainly,” shouted Mr. Morley, turning up his coat-collar a little too late, because ribbons of rain were already running down his neck from the guttering round his top hat. It took him a long time to count sixty pennies into Gypsy’s hands, which got very full; then Mr. Morley wasn’t certain he’d given him enough, and thought they’d better count them again to make sure. So they did, holding the pennies in their mouths or under their armpits, or between their knees, as they got them counted; and then Gypsy lifted his arm by mistake, to wipe the rain out of his eyes, and dropped a shillingsworth. They rolled and splashed about Trafalgar Square, which could now be paddled in. Gypsy wasn’t allowed to leave his post, so Mr. Morley knelt down on his beautifully-pressed trousers, and crawled about the Square, finding the shilling one by one. It took him some time, because he could hardly see for the water tumbling off his beautifully-ironed silk hat, and for the lightning making him start and say “Oh!” just as he was about to pick a penny up. But at last he brought them all back to Gypsy.

“So sorry to have troubled you,” said Gypsy.

“Not at all,” said Mr. Morley, because the Morley Hotel manners are faultless. Then he went back to the Hotel, and changed his boots, and turned on the light in the Reading-Room. And then the sun came out.

So he had to cross the Square again, and he found Ginger outside the Weatherhouse looking as nice as mixed ice-cream in a lovely summer smock.

“What delightful weather,” said Ginger. “Why have you got the Hotel lights on?”

“Would you turn them out if you were I?” asked Mr. Morley, for his grammar was as faultless as his manners.

“I would indeed,” said Ginger sunnily; “seldom have I seen so blue a sky.”

Mr. Morley tipped her handsomely (the information apart, her smile was worth it), lifted his hat to her, and fled.

“How fast he’s going,” said Gypsy, from the very back of the Weatherhouse. “What did he give you, darling?”

“A half-sovereign!” gasped Ginger. “A real old-fashioned half-sovereign!”

“No wonder he’s running,” said Gypsy. “But we must get it changed somehow.”

“Oh, must we?” pleaded Ginger.

“Think of the Pillar-Box,” said Ginger firmly. So they bought an evening newspaper which they didn’t want, and told the Evening Newsboy to let the children know there’d be a party in the Square during the small hours. Then they put the pennies in the Pillar-Box. They had had several other customers that day, and the Pound was nearly reached.

At ten minutes to seven an old lady in a black bonnet and corkscrew curls stepped up to ask the weather.

“Set fair, madam,” said Ginger.

“How much will that be?” said the old lady.

“One penny, madam,” said Ginger.

The old lady paid her penny. She was the Weatherhouse’s last customer. When they posted her penny the Pillar-Box burst.

The theatre crowd that evening found the Weatherhouse shutters up, and a placard outside saying:

THESE PREMISES ARE CLOSED.
GYPSY AND GINGER ARE RETIRING
FROM BUSINESS.

People who have only seen London on Coronation Day, or Lord Mayor’s Show Day, or on the day when the Ambassador of Calamiane is given the Freedom of the City, do not really know of what she is capable in the way of festival. All these occasions are foreseen and dress-rehearsed. The costume is provided in advance, and it is trusted that the spirit, as well as the body, may inhabit it on the day. But when the time comes it is usually about some business of its own; for in spite of the newspapers the spirit is not the body’s house-dog. It doesn’t come when it’s whistled for. Its breed is tameless.

But when it springs out of its wilds it does in an hour what Committees cannot do in six months. Only those who saw Trafalgar Square on the night of Gypsy and Ginger’s party know what the spirit of London can do in an hour.

The Evening Newsboy spread the rumour of the party with the swiftness and ubiquity of evening news. He had the newsboy’s art of subdividing a single rumour into a flight of swallows. Before midnight every slum in the city knew there was to be a party amongst the fountains of Trafalgar Square.

Gypsy and Ginger sat on the floor of the Weatherhouse making staircases of their two-hundred-and-forty pennies, and consulted how to spend them to the best advantage. They had quite forgotten their intention of spending them on railway tickets to Sussex.

“Which do you think the children would like best?” asked Gypsy. “Presents or supper?”

“Presents and supper,” said Ginger.

“It won’t run to both, darling. The guests will come in their thousands.”

“But think of a whole pound.”

“I know, but all the same,” said Gypsy. He was really the practical one of the two. “If we decided on presents, a lot could be done with beads and marbles.”

“If they had supper, we could give them farthing buns,” said Ginger. “For a pound you can get a thousand farthing buns, more or less, I’m never sure which. But if there are thousands of children—.”

“What about a Conjuror?” suggested Gypsy. “You ought to be able to buy quite a good Conjuror for a pound?”

“No,” said Ginger, “we can be our own conjurors. And I want the children to have something that will really go round without giving out, and I’ve thought of what it is.”

“Well?” said Gypsy.

“Sherbert,” said Ginger. “Packets and packets of it. In the fountains.”

“In one fountain,” said Gypsy, catching on with enthusiasm, “and lemonade crystals in the other.”

They went out to spend their pound. While they were absent, the Piccadilly Flower-Girls came and got to work. In a few minutes the Square was a garden of roses. Roses red and white, yellow and pink, garlanded the stone balustrades opposite the National Gallery and wreathed the basins of the fountains; arches of roses bloomed up the steps; the Weatherhouse was smothered in Crimson Ramblers; Dorothy Perkins climbed from the foot of the Nelson Column to the top of Nelson’s head, the base was mounded deep in moss, and every lion crouched in a temple of standards. Their work was barely accomplished when Mrs. Green arrived buried in balloons. They were gas balloons of every colour, and each was anchored with a fairy lamp, so that when she let them go they hung in chains and patterns of light fifteen feet in air. The other Moonlighters were now appearing in full force. The Punch-and-Judy Man set up his theatre between the fountains, Tonio’s striped and painted Hokey-Pokey booth was established in one corner, the Strawberry Girl had her great fruit-baskets in another. Jeremy, with an assortment of his brightest wares, turned the Weatherhouse into a Penny Toyshop. The Organ-Man and his barrel-organ took the middle of the Square, where there was plenty of room for dancing. The Muffin-and-Crumpet Man walked round and round and round ringing his bell. They told him that for once he was out of season, but the Night Watchman said that the moon was blue to-night, so that anything could happen for once.

By the time Gypsy and Ginger returned, laden with packets of Sherbert and Lemonade Powder, the party was ready.

“Oh!” cried Ginger.

She dropped her parcels and dashed from attraction to attraction; flew one of Jeremy’s windmills round the Square, tasted a strawberry, ate half a hokey-pokey, rang the muffin-bell in Toby’s ear, stuck a rose in her smock, and seizing Gypsy’s hands danced him three times round the barrel-organ.

Then they all turned their attention to the fountains, and just as the sherbert got really fizzing the Evening Newsboy appeared with the children.

Not many parties begin in full swing, but Gypsy’s and Ginger’s did. The moment the children of London saw Trafalgar Square, a dream of balloons and roses under the blue moon, they began to laugh; and for two hours, whether they were dancing to the organ music as only London Children can dance: or watching Punch thwack Judy as only Punch can thwack: or eating crumpets, and strawberries, and free ice-creams: or besieging the Weatherhouse for Jeremy’s free toys, or lying on their stomachs over the fountains with their faces in the sherbert: or playing Touch-Stone with Lily, Rose and Jessamine around the Column: they never stopped laughing. When the Taxi-Man appeared astride of Snow-Flame, and put him through his loveliest circus-tricks below the fairy lights, their laughter was louder than ever. And when Gypsy, inspired by the sound of it, painted this sign in luminuous paint on the National Gallery:

THERE IS NO TRUTH IN THE RUMOUR
THAT CHILDREN’S PARTIES WILL BE HELD IN
TRAFALGAR SQUARE ONCE A WEEK

their laughter was so loud that it was heard from Land’s End to John o’ Groats. It was so loud that it was heard by the Policeman in the Strand.

He blew his whistle.

In a trice the London Police were on the alert.

GYPSY AND GINGER MOVE ON

When the Policeman on the Strand Beat blew his whistle, it was heard by every Policeman on every confine of London. But it was not heard in Trafalgar Square, because the party was by this time at its height. And while the Moonshiners sang and danced and rioted with the children, the policemen were answering the summons from Ealing to Barking, and from Crowdon to Crouch End. Through the silent streets they streamed in hundreds, like blue fire streaming noiselessly around a Christmas Pudding. From all points of the compass they converged on Trafalgar Square.

Before they knew it, the Moonshiners were encircled.

It was the Night Watchman who gave the alarm, too late. Even he had been caught napping for once. He had been competing at Catherine Wheels with the Evening Newsboy when he ought to have been keeping an eye on the night. But now, as the foe advanced in massed formation through Pall Mall and Whitehall, the Strand and St. Martin’s Lane, he scented them like a hound and cried: “The Police!”

Dead silence fell upon Trafalgar Square. Only the ex-Professor made any demonstration, and that was a mute one. Meekly, yet carelessly, he bowed to right and left.

“What are we going to do?” whispered Ginger.

The Moonshiners drew together and consulted. The Taxi-Man was for defying the foe, but Ginger said,

“Think of the children.”

The Piccadilly Flower-Girls were for diddling the foe, but

“There aren’t enough of you,” said Gypsy.

“P’raps if we kep as still as mice,” said Rags, “they’d jest go away and not notice.”

But the Night Watchman looked at the thousands of children and roses and balloons, and at the luminous sign on the National Gallery, and said,

“Don’t count on it. The London Police have eyes like lynxes.”

“All right,” said Gypsy cheerfully.

We’re discovered. We’re trapped. But you shan’t suffer—it’s all me and Ginger” (he couldn’t be bothered with grammar at the moment), “and I’m going to tell them so. Come along, darling.”

And passing his arm around Ginger’s waist he leaped with her to the head of the Lion who looks towards St. James’s, and stood exposed to the gaze of the London Police.

The Strand Policeman advanced, and pointed with his truncheon to the legend on the National Gallery.

Gypsy gazed steadily down into his questioning eyes, and prepared to confess. As he opened his lips, the Strand Policeman saw a vision of rapid promotion, and Gypsy saw another of Six Months’ Hard.

But before he had uttered the first word of his confession, a sharp command rang out upon the night.

“Move on!” it said.

It was the voice of Lionel. And out of the mossy bank of the Nelson Column, the form of Lionel rose. Gypsy and Ginger nearly fell off the Lion.

“Move on!” said Lionel sternly.

“Where to?” whispered Ginger.

“Where would you like to?” whispered Lionel.

“S-S-Sussex!” stammered Ginger.

“Get down orf that Lion!” thundered Lionel, and he shook his truncheon truculently at Gypsy and Ginger. “Can’t you see you’re obstructing traffic?” He cast an eye over the crowd of children and Moonshiners. “Get along ’ome,” he said to them briefly. “Move on!” he said to Gypsy and Ginger, still more briefly.

This time Gypsy and Ginger quite fell off the Lion. With Lionel at their backs they moved on. A way melted for them like magic through the serried ranks of the London Police. The Police made no protest. One of them had the matter well in hand; they heard from his lips the sacred formula which is the motor power of the Police and the Solar Systems.

“Move on!” said Lionel at punctuated intervals. “Move on! Move on!”

Gypsy and Ginger moved on, as in a dream. They did not see the London Arabs shinning off to their respective slums; they did not see the London Police resume their respective beats, or the People of the London Streets return to their respective kerbs and cornerstones. With Lionel at their backs, they kept moving on. But it rather seemed as though it was the world, not they, that moved.

The silver water of the Thames and the black towers of Parliament went by them like visions. They saw the fiery smoke of Victorian trains stream by like dragon’s breath. “Move on!” said Lionel. They heard the dogs of Hackbridge bay at the moon, and smelt the Mitcham Lavender. Box Hill rose like a dark wave on their left, and sank away as Leith Hill rose like another on their right. “Move on!” said Lionel. The woods of Surrey dissolved into the woods of Sussex. A river sleeping between pink willow herb and purple loosestrife curled before them. “Move on!” said Lionel. A spur of the Downs rolled up like a green ball. A deep chalk road, cut like the Milky Way in the side of the hill, opened a channel for their feet. “Move on!” said Lionel.

Gypsy and Ginger moved on. At the top of the hill Ginger sat down all of a sudden.

“Lionel,” said she, “I can’t move another step.”

But Lionel did not answer. When they turned their heads he was not there. He had just completed the longest move on the Police Records, and was now speeding back to Scotland Yard to throw up his Roving Commission.

Gypsy and Ginger sat on the top of the Downs till daybreak. As the sun came up, Ginger uttered a cry.

“Oh!” said Ginger. “Look!”

Gypsy looked, and saw that they were on the end of one chain of hills that faced the end of another chain of hills. In the valley that lay between, a river ran very full and level among green grass and gold buttercups.

“There’s such a lot to look at,” said Gypsy. “Particularly what?”

“My cottage!” said Ginger, and rolled down the hill. Gypsy rolled after her. But she picked herself up first, shook her head, and was along the road like a hare. He tracked her to the cottage by the things that fell out of her pockets, peppermints and pencils and penknives and tangles of string. Just as Gypsy arrived at the cottage Ginger was coming away from it. She looked extremely excited.

“Gypsy,” she said, “it’s empty! The Blacksmith’s Son isn’t there.” (She had told him all about the Blacksmith’s Son on the wedding-day.) “I’m going to see the Blacksmith.”

They found the Blacksmith alone at work in the Forge. He looked round at them, and said to Ginger, “What d’ye want, missy?” “Where’s your son?” asked Ginger. “Emigrated,” said the Blacksmith. “When?” asked Ginger. “Day arter you was here,” said the Blacksmith. “Where’s Lizzie Hooker?” asked Ginger. “Emigrated,” said the Blacksmith. “When?” asked Ginger. “Day arter that,” said the Blacksmith. “What happened to them?” asked Ginger. “Married. Ship-Ranch. Canada,” said the Blacksmith. “Don’t they want to live in the cottage?” asked Ginger. “No,” said the Blacksmith. “Then,” said Ginger, “I and Gypsy want to, please.”

The Blacksmith scratched his chin with his hammer. “I’m sorry, missy,” said the Blacksmith, “but for three hundred years, ever since that cottage were built, it’s been kept in the family for one of the Blacksmith’s sons.”

“Have you any more sons?” asked Gypsy.

“None,” said the Blacksmith.

“Will that one ever come back?” asked Gypsy.

“Never,” said the Blacksmith.

“Adopt me!” said Gypsy.

The Blacksmith looked at Ginger, and adopted Gypsy. As soon as he’d done it, he gave them the key of the cottage and got on with his job.

Gypsy and Ginger went to the shop and bought a pound of bulls’ eyes and a bottle of gingerbeer; and then they walked back to the cottage and moved in.

The End.