CAST TO THE WINDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21076, 9 January 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

CAST TO THE WINDS.

NOTED SCHOLAR'S ASHES. CEREMONY ON MOUNTAIN TOP. TWO THOUSAND CLIMB. Hero's tho top-peak! The multitude, below Live, for "Ihey can there. , _ Thia jutui decided not to Livo but Know-p-Bury this mini there? Here—here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form, Lightnings are loosened. Stars come and go l let joy break with tho stormPeace let tho clew send! Lofty designs must close ill like effects: Loftily lying Leave him—still loftier than tho world suspects, Living and dying. —Browning (" A Grammarian's Funeral.") Mr. Augustus John, the famous R.A., looking rather gip,sy-like with his full grey beard and his scarlet-spotted scarf, stood recently in the midst of a company of gipsies on tho top of Fool Goch—the Red Hill—a few miles from Corwen, Wales, and saw scattered to the winds the ashes of his friend, Dr. John Sampson, one of the world's chief Romany scholars, says the Daily Express. The great painter and gipsies from all over Wales and the north had climbed the • 2000 ft. of the mountain from the village of Llangwm to the music of gipsy harps and fiddles, with the ashes borne in a wooden casket by Ithal Lee, a blackhaired, dark-faced Birkenhead gipsy who had known Dr. Sampson for forty years. Mr. Augustus John stood bareheaded in a little circle on the mountain top. The sky was a brilliant blue, and the sun shone. All around rose the immemorial hills, green and brown, and in the far distance the black shoulders of the Snowdqn range. The wind lifted the hair of those present. The Romany Benediction. Mr, Augustus John spoke, his eyes fixed on the distance, a smouldering cigarette in his hand. " Obeying his last wishes," lie said, " we, his friends, bear hither the ashes of John Sampson in order that, scattered over flie slopes of this beautiful mountain, they may become part, of the land he loved and, rest near the remnant of the ancient race for whom he lived. We" rejoice that he was sent among us to be our companion in sorrow and in joy, to protect from decay our old traditions, and to enrich the world's store of learning." Thero was a pause—an eerie stillness. Then tho strong voice rang out again in the Romany tongue: "Over the dark water of death I givo tlico my hand. Mayest thou sleep well." The mourners repealed the Romany benediction: "Te soves misto " (Sleep thou well). The sun shone. The wind lifted tho hair. A little stir in tho crowd. Mr.. Michael Sampson, Dr. Sampson's son, and Gipsy Leo together. The gipsy held tho wooden casket, while the son, with a set, expressionless face, drew out a handful of dust and flung it into the air. Again and again he drew out his hand, again and again the white powder that hacj once been u man sprinkled the grass. No one spoke. No one stirred. Then the harps and fiddles began their music, and Ithal Lee took the empty box, filled it with paper, and struck a match. When, the flame began to leap and flutter in the breeze he stooped down solemnly and lit his pipe t at tho fire. Air of Proud Penury. . Professors, judges, and other of the dead man's Liverpool friends, representatives of the Gipsy Lore Society, farmhands in their rough moleskin, village girls and young men chattering in shrill, excited Welsh, were among thoso who climbed to "the mountain-top. - Thero were gipsies with flaming scarves round their heads, strings of coins that jingled as they moved, tattered jackets of exotic patch-work design. An air of proud penury about them. The writer talked with Turpin Wood, a witty, black-browed little man 'who had walked that morning with his wife and children over the mountains from a village miles away. Of course, he had known Dr. Sampson. They all had. " Indeed,'' he said, "my father taught Dr. Sampson tho Welsh Romany dialect." Among those present were the Roberts family—grandfather, father, and son, all named Reuben—who had played before royalty and whose wild music was the last homage to their dead friend.