“Then the krallis bitchered his mushis to lel Samson, but he koshered ‘em, an’ pash mored the tat of ’em; they couldn’t kurry him, and he sillered ’em to praster for their miraben.  An’ ’cause they couldn’t serber him a koorin’, they kaired it sidd pre the chingerben drum.  Now Samson was a seehiatty mush, wery cammoben to the juvas, so they got a wery rinkeni chi to kutter an’ kuzzer him.  So yuv welled a laki to a worretty tan, an’ she hocussed him with drab till yuv was pilfry o’ sutto, an his sherro hungered hooper side a lacker; an’ when yuv was selvered, the mushis welled and chinned his ballos apre an’ chivved him adree the sturaben.

“An’ yeck divvus the foki hitchered him avree the sturaben to kair pyass for ’em.  And as they were gillerin’ and huljerin’ him, Samson chivved his wasters kettenus the boro chongurs of the sturaben, and bongered his kokerus adree, an sar the ker pet a lay with a boro gudli, an’ sar the pooro mushis were mullered an’ the ker poggered to bitti cutters.”

“Samson was a great man, very fierce and expert at fighting, so that he drove all men away, and they were afraid of him.  He was so strong that once when he broke into a house, and it had a great iron door, he just put it on his back, and carried it away and went home and sold it.

“One day he caught some foxes, and tied firebrands to their tails and let them go.  And they ran away like old devils, early in the morning, when all the people were asleep, across the field, and burned all the wheat.

“Then the king sent his men to take Samson, but he hurt them, and half killed the whole of them; they could not injure him, and he compelled them to run for life.  And because they could not capture him by fighting, they did it otherwise by an opposite way.  Now Samson was a man full of life, very fond of the girls, so they got a very pretty woman to cajole and coax him.  And he went with her to a lonely house, and she ‘hocussed’ him with poison till he was heavy with sleep, and his head drooped by her side; and when he was poisoned, the people came and cut his hair off and threw him into prison.

“And one day the people dragged him out of prison to make sport for them.  And as they were making fun of him and teasing him, Samson threw his hands around the great pillars of the prison, and bowed himself in, and all the house fell down with a great noise, and all the poor men were killed and the house broken to small pieces.

“And so he died.”

“Do you know what the judgment day is, Puro?”

“Avo, rya.  The judgment day is when you soves alay (go in sleep, or dream away) to the boro Duvel.”

I reflected long on this reply of the untutored Rommany.  I had often thought that the deepest and most beautiful phrase in all Tennyson’s poems was that in which the impassioned lover promised his mistress to love her after death, ever on “into the dream beyond.”  And here I had the same thought as beautifully expressed by an old Gipsy, who, he declared, for two months hadn’t seen three nights when he wasn’t as drunk as four fiddlers.  And the same might have been said of Carolan, the Irish bard, who lived in poetry and died in whisky.