AMONG GIPSY WOMEN
I cannot say how long it was after my senses had gone when I began to
grope for them on the warmest of heaving soft pillows, and lost the
slight hold I had on them with the effort. Then came a series of
climbings and fallings, risings to the surface and sinkings fathoms
below. Any attempt to speculate pitched me back into darkness. Gifted
with a pair of enormous eyes, which threw surrounding objects to a
distance of a mile away, I could not induce the diminutive things to
approach; and shutting eyes led to such a rolling of mountains in my
brain, that, terrified by the gigantic revolution, I lay determinedly
staring; clothed, it seemed positive, in a tight-fitting suit of
sheet-lead; but why? I wondered why, and immediately received an
extinguishing blow. My pillow was heavenly; I was constantly being
cooled on it, and grew used to hear a croon no more musical than the
unstopped reed above my head; a sound as of a breeze about a cavern's
mouth, more soothing than a melody. Conjecture of my state, after
hovering timidly in dread of relapses, settled and assured me I was
lying baked, half-buried in an old river-bed; moss at my cheek, my body
inextricable; water now and then feebly striving to float me out, with
horrid pain, with infinite refreshingness. A shady light, like the
light through leafage, I could see; the water I felt. Why did it keep
trying to move me? I questioned and sank to the depths again.
The excruciated patient was having his wet bandages folded across his
bruises, and could not bear a motion of the mind.
The mind's total apathy was the sign of recovering health. Kind nature
put that district to sleep while she operated on the disquieted lower
functions. I looked on my later self as one observes the mossy bearded
substances travelling blind along the undercurrent of the stream,
clinging to this and that, twirling absurdly.
Where was I? Not in a house. But for my condition of absolute calm,
owing to skilful treatment, open air, and physical robustness, the
scene would have been of a kind to scatter the busy little workmen
setting up the fabric of my wits. A lighted oil-cup stood on a tripod
in the middle of a tent-roof, and over it the creased neck and chin of
a tall old woman, splendid in age, reddened vividly; her black eyes and
grey brows, and greyish-black hair fell away in a dusk of their own. I
thought her marvellous. Something she held in her hands that sent a
thin steam between her and the light. Outside, in the A cutting of the
tent's threshold, a heavy-coloured sunset hung upon dark land. My
pillow meantime lifted me gently at a regular measure, and it was with
untroubled wonder that I came to the knowledge of a human heart beating
within it. So soft could only be feminine; so firm still young. The
bosom was Kiomi's. A girl sidled at the opening of the tent, peeping
in, and from a muffled rattle of subpectoral thunder discharged at her
in quick heated snaps, I knew Kiomi's voice. After an altercation of
their monotonous gipsy undertones, the girl dropped and crouched
outside.
It was morning when I woke next, stronger, and aching worse. I was
lying in the air, and she who served for nurse, pillow, parasol, and
bank of herbage, had her arms round beneath mine cherishingly, all the
fingers outspread and flat on me, just as they had been when I went to
sleep.
'Kiomi!'
'Now, you be quiet.'
'Can I stand up a minute or two?'
'No, and you won't talk.'
I submitted. This was our duel all day: she slipped from me only twice,
and when she did the girl took her place.
I began to think of Bulsted and Riversley.
'Kiomi, how long have I been here?'
'You's be twice as long as you've been.'
'A couple of days?'
'More like a dozen.'
'Just tell me what happened.'
'Ghm-m-m,' she growled admonishingly.
Reflecting on it, I felt sure there must have been searching parties
over the heath.
'Kiomi, I say, how was it they missed me?'
She struck at once on my thought.
'They're fools.'
'How did you cheat them?'
'I didn't tie a handkercher across their eyes.'
'You half smothered me once, in the combe.'
'You go to sleep.'
'Have you been doctor?'
The growling tigerish 'Ghm-m-m' constrained me to take it for a
lullaby.
'Kiomi, why the deuce did your people attack me?' She repeated the
sound resembling that which sometimes issues from the vent of a mine;
but I insisted upon her answering.
'I'll put you down and be off,' she threatened.
'Brute of a girl! I hate you!'
'Hate away.'
'Tell me who found me.'
'I shan't. You shut your peepers.'
The other and younger girl sung out: 'I found you.'
Kiomi sent a volley at her.
'I did,' said the girl; 'yes, and I nursed you first, I did; and mother
doctored you. Kiomi hasn't been here a day.'
The old mother came out of the tent. She felt my pulse, and forthwith
squatted in front of me. 'You're hard to kill, and oily as a bean,'
said she. 'You've only to lie quiet in the sun like a handsome
gentleman; I'm sure you couldn't wish for more. Air and water's the
doctor for such as you. You've got the bound in you to jump the ditch:
don't you fret at it, or you'll lose your spring, my good gentleman.'
'Leave off talking to me as a stranger,' I bawled. 'Out with it; why
have you kept me here? Why did your men pitch into me?'
'OUR men, my good gentleman!' the old woman ejaculated. There was
innocence indeed! sufficient to pass the whole tribe before a bench of
magistrates. She wheedled: 'What have they against a handsome gentleman
like you? They'd run for you fifty mile a day, and show you all their
tricks and secrets for nothing.'
My despot Kiomi fired invectives at her mother. The old mother
retorted; the girl joined in. All three were scowling, flashing,
showing teeth, driving the wordy javelin upon one another,
indiscriminately, or two to one, without a pause; all to a sound like
the slack silver string of the fiddle.
I sang out truce to them; they racked me with laughter; and such
laughter!—the shaking of husks in a half-empty sack.
Ultimately, on a sudden cessation of the storm of tongues, they agreed
that I must have my broth.
Sheer weariness, seasoned with some hope that the broth would give me
strength to mount on my legs and walk, persuaded me to drink it. Still
the old mother declared that none of her men would ever have laid hands
on me. Why should they? she asked. What had I done to them? Was it
their way?
Kiomi's arms tightened over my breast. The involuntary pressure was
like an illumination to me.
No longer asking for the grounds of the attack on a mistaken person,
and bowing to the fiction that none of the tribe had been among my
assailants, I obtained information. The girl Eveleen had spied me
entering Durstan. Quite by chance, she was concealed near Bulsted Park
gates when the groom arrived and told the lodge-keeper that Mr. Harry
Richmond was coming up over the heath, and might have lost his way.
'Richmond!' the girl threw a world of meaning into the unexpected name.
Kiomi clutched me to her bosom, but no one breathed the name we had in
our thoughts.
Eveleen and the old mother had searched for me upon the heath, and
having haled me head and foot to their tent, despatched a message to
bring Kiomi down from London to aid them in their desperate shift. They
knew Squire Beltham's temper. He would have scattered the tribe to the
shores of the kingdom at a rumour of foul play to his grandson. Kiomi
came in time to smuggle me through an inspection of the tent and
cross-examination of its ostensible denizens by Captain Bulsted, who
had no suspicions, though he was in a state of wonderment. Hearing all
this, I was the first to say it would be better I should get out of the
neighbourhood as soon as my legs should support me. The grin that goes
for a laugh among gipsies followed my question of how Kiomi had managed
to smuggle me. Eveleen was my informant when the dreaded Kiomi happened
to be off duty for a minute. By a hasty transformation, due to a
nightcap on the bandages about the head, and an old petticoat over my
feet, Captain William's insensible friend was introduced to him as the
sore sick great-grandmother of the tribe, mother of Kiomi's mother,
aged ninety-one. The captain paid like a man for doctor and burial
fees; he undertook also to send the old lady a pound of snuff to assist
her to a last sneeze or two on the right side of the grave, and he kept
his word; for, deeming it necessary to paint her in a characteristic,
these prodigious serpents told him gravely that she delighted in snuff;
it was almost the only thing that kept her alive, barring a sip of
broth. Captain William's comment on the interesting piece of longevity
whose well-covered length and framework lay exposed to his respectful
contemplation, was, that she must have been a devilish fine old lady in
her day. 'Six foot' was given as her measurement.
One pound of snuff, a bottle of rum, and five sovereigns were the
fruits of the captain's sensibility. I shattered my ribs with laughter
over the story. Eveleen dwelt on the triumph, twinkling. Kiomi despised
laughter or triumph resulting from the natural exercise of craft in an
emergency. 'But my handsome gentleman he won't tell on us, will he,
when we've nursed him and doctored him, and made him one of us, and as
good a stick o' timber as grows in the forest?' whined the old mother.
I had to swear I would not.
'He!' cried Kiomi.
'He may forget us when he's gone,' the mother said. She would have
liked me to kiss a book to seal the oath. Anxiety about the safety of
their 'homes,' that is, the assurance of an untroubled reception upon
their customary camping-ground, is a peculiarity of the gipsies,
distinguishing them, equally with their cleanliness and thriftiness,
from mumpers and the common wanderers.
It is their tribute to civilization, which generally keeps them within
the laws.
Who that does not know them will believe that under their domestic
system I had the best broth and the best tea I have ever tasted! They
are very cunning brewers and sagacious buyers too; their maxims show
them to direct all their acuteness upon obtaining quality for their
money. A compliment not backed by silver is hardly intelligible to the
pretty ones: money is a really credible thing to them; and when they
have it, they know how to use it. Apparently because they know so well,
so perfectly appreciating it, they have only vague ideas of a
corresponding sentiment on the opposite side to the bargain, and
imagine that they fool people much more often than they succeed in
doing. Once duped themselves, they are the wariest of the dog-burnt;
the place is notched where it occurred, and for ever avoided. On the
other hand, they repose implicit faith in a reputation vouched for by
their experience. I was amused by the girl Eveleen's dotting of houses
over the breadth of five counties, where for this and that article of
apparel she designed to expend portions of a golden guinea, confident
that she would get the very best, and a shilling besides. The unwonted
coin gave her the joy of supposing she cheated the Mint of that sum.
This guinea was a present to the girl (to whom I owed my thrashing, by
the way) that excused itself under cover of being a bribe for sight of
a mirror interdicted by the implacable Kiomi. I wanted to have a look
at my face. Now that the familiar scenes were beginning to wear their
original features to me, my dread of personal hideousness was
distressing, though Eveleen declared the bad blood in my cheeks and
eyes 'had been sucked by pounds of red meat.' I wondered, whether if I
stood up and walked to either one of the three great halls lying in an
obtuse triangle within view, I should easily be recognized. When I did
see myself, I groaned verily. With the silence of profound resignation,
I handed back to Eveleen the curious fragment of her boudoir, which
would have grimaced at Helen of Troy.
'You're feeling your nose—you've been looking at a glass!' Kiomi said,
with supernatural swiftness of deduction on her return.
She added for my comfort that nothing was broken, but confessed me to
be still 'a sight'; and thereupon drove knotty language at Eveleen. The
girl retorted, and though these two would never acknowledge to me that
any of their men had been in this neighbourhood recently, the fact was
treated as a matter of course in their spiteful altercation, and each
saddled the other with the mistake they had committed. Eveleen snatched
the last word. What she said I did not comprehend, she must have hit
hard. Kiomi's eyes lightened, and her lips twitched; she coloured like
the roofing smoke of the tent fire; twice she showed her teeth, as in a
spasm, struck to the heart, unable to speak, breathing in and out of a
bitterly disjoined mouth. Eveleen ran. I guessed at the ill-word
spoken. Kiomi sat eyeing the wood-ashes, a devouring gaze that shot
straight and read but one thing. They who have seen wild creatures die
will have her before them, saving the fiery eyes. She became an
ashen-colour, I took her little hand. Unconscious of me, her brown
fingers clutching at mine, she flung up her nostrils, craving air.
This was the picture of the woman who could not weep in her misery.
'Kiomi, old friend!' I called to her. I could have cursed that other
friend, the son of mischief; for she, I could have sworn, had been
fiercely and wantonly hunted. Chastity of nature, intense personal
pride, were as proper to her as the free winds are to the heaths: they
were as visible to dull divination as the milky blue about the iris of
her eyeballs. She had actually no animal vileness, animal though she
might be termed, and would have appeared if compared with Heriot's
admirable Cissies and Gwennies, and other ladies of the Graces that run
to fall, and spend their pains more in kindling the scent of the
huntsman than in effectively flying.
There was no consolation for her.
The girl Eveleen came in sight, loitering and looking, kicking her idle
heels.
Kiomi turned sharp round to me.
'I'm going. Your father's here, up at Bulsted. I'll see him. He won't
tell. He'll come soon. You'll be fit to walk in a day. You're sound as
a nail. Goodbye—I shan't say good-bye twice,' she answered my attempt
to keep her, and passed into the tent, out of which she brought a small
bundle tied in a yellow handkerchief, and walked away, without nodding
or speaking.
'What was that you said to Kiomi?' I questioned Eveleen, who was
quickly beside me.
She replied, accurately or not: 'I told her our men'd give her as good
as she gave me, let her wait and see.'
Therewith she pouted; or, to sketch her with precision, 'snouted' would
better convey the vivacity of her ugly flash of features. It was an
error in me to think her heartless. She talked of her aunt Kiomi
affectionately, for a gipsy girl, whose modulated tones are all
addressed to the soft public. Eveleen spoke with the pride of bated
breath of the ferocious unforgivingness of their men. Perhaps if she
had known that I traced the good repute of the tribes for purity to the
sweeter instincts of the women, she would have eulogized her sex to
amuse me. Gipsy girls, like other people, are fond of showing off; but
it would have been a victory of education to have helped her to feel
the distinction of the feminine sense of shame half as awfully and
warmly as she did the inscrutable iron despotism of the males. She
hinted that the mistake of which I had been the victim would be
rectified.
'Tell your men I'll hunt them down like rats if I hear of it,' said I.
While we were conversing my father arrived. Eveleen, not knowing him,
would have had me accept the friendly covering of a mat.
'Here's a big one! he's a clergyman,' she muttered to herself, and ran
to him and set up a gipsy whine, fronting me up to the last step while
she advanced; she only yielded ground to my outcry.
My father bent over me. Kiomi had prepared him for what he saw. I
quieted his alarm by talking currently and easily. Julia Bulsted had
despatched a messenger to inform him of my mysterious disappearance;
but he, as his way was, revelling in large conjectures, had half
imagined me seized by a gust of passion, and bound for Germany.
'Without my luggage?' I laughed.
'Ay, without your luggage, Richie,' he answered seriously. His conceit
of a better knowledge of me than others possessed, had buoyed him up.
'For I knew,' he said, 'we two do nothing like the herd of men. I
thought you were off to her, my boy. Now!' he looked at me, and this
look of dismay was a perfect mirror. I was not a presentable object.
He stretched his limbs on the heather and kept hold of my hand, looking
and talking watchfully, doctor-like, doubting me to be as sound in body
as I assured him I was, despite aches and pains. Eveleen hung near.
'These people have been kind to you?' he said.
'No, the biggest brutes on the earth,' said I.
'Oh! you say that, when I spotted you out in the dark where you might
have lied to be eaten, and carried you and washed your bloody face, and
watched you, and never slept, I didn't, to mother you and wet your
head!' cried the girl.
My father beckoned to her and thanked her appreciably in the yellow
tongue.
'So these scoundrels of the high road fell upon you and robbed you,
Richie?'
I nodded.
'You let him think they robbed you, and you had your purse to give me a
gold guinea out of it!' Eveleen cried, and finding herself in the wrong
track, volubly resumed: 'That they didn't, for they hadn't time,
whether they meant to, and the night black as a coal, whoever they
were.'
The mystery of my not having sent word to Bulsted or to Riversley
perplexed my father.
'Comfortable here!' he echoed me, disconsolately, and glanced at the
heath, the tent, the black circle of the broth-pot, and the wild girl.