RESCUE.
The wooded islands which closed the river view from St. Euphrase, shut
out from sight the homestead of Farmer Belmore lower down the stream.
Only the unreclaimed outskirts of his land could be seen from the
village, repeating the shaggy bush of the islands upon the farther
shore, and carrying it backward and upward to the sky line. A dense
umbrageous bush it was, containing much choice timber, a resort of
game, and also, in the warm weather, of tramps, at times, and
specimens of the rougher dwellers in the city, who sought in its leafy
recesses temporary change of abode, to the loss of neighbouring
gardens and hen-roosts. The farmer, however, was safe while the
depredators dwelt upon his land, by tacit understanding; and therefore
he made a point of closing his eyes, and never was cognizant of their
presence.
At this moment a gang of gypsies[2] were encamped in Belmore's bush.
Their waggons, tents, and children had lain there for a week or two,
while the men scoured the surrounding country, selling horses, and
picking them up, the screws in honest trade, the others as might
happen: for strays were certainly not unfrequent about the time of
their visits, though none were ever traced into their hands, which is
not remarkable, as who would look for a Canadian colt in New York
State, or a New York one in Ohio or Kentucky?
These people, like other European products transported to America,
have thriven luxuriantly. They have ceased to be tinkers, though
fortune-telling is still practised by the women; their donkeys have
been exchanged for waggons and horses, and they traverse the settled
States from the Gulf of Mexico to the St. Lawrence, following the warm
weather northward, as the red-birds and wild canaries do, and
returning South again when summer is over, in time to avoid the cold.
Their native love of wandering finds a wider range in their new
country, and they are comparatively wealthy, though still, as ever,
they live in the open air and apart from their fellow men.
The morning fires were alight in the gypsy camp near the river bank.
The meal was over, but the children and the dogs still brawled and
scrambled for the scraps. The women, and such young men as were not
away, had dispersed themselves along the woody banks to fish or bathe;
and old Jess, the mother of the gang, sat smoking her corn-cob pipe
upon a fallen pine which stretched far out, dabbing its humbled
plumage in the current, and raising murmurs for its downfall in the
lapping of the water among its boughs. Jess sat and smoked in the
pleasant morning air, so full of warmth and sunshine and gentle sound,
watching the smoke-rings vanish into air and thinking the passive
unconscious thoughts of physical well-being, the thoughts which want
no words because they call for no expression. The ox knows them,
ruminating in his meadow; and mankind, innocent of printed lore, and
under no stress to act or say, must know them too, in their harmonious
vagueness, bringing the luxury and refreshment of perfect sleep,
without the diminishment of sleep's unconsciousness.
The even movement of the glancing water called up in a day-dream the
images of bygone things--her childhood and youth in England, her
voyage across the sea, her husband and her sons; and then her
husband's death, as he was fording Licken River in a freshet, riding
an unruly horse. The current before her seemed to swell and darken and
grow turbid as she recalled the affrighted beast plunging and
floundering through the swirling flood, swerve suddenly aside, losing
his footing, and roll over, disappearing in a vortex, and by-and-by
emerge alone and struggle up the bank. It was a long time since it all
had happened; the very recollection had ceased to be present in her
daily life, with its cares and enjoyments so completely of the
present--the affairs of her numerous descendants and their hangers-on,
over whom she would fain retain authority as much as might be; and its
equivalent, the money, in her own hands.
This morning it felt different, the long ago seemed more actual than
the present as she sat and smoked, her grizzled hair hanging in wisps
upon her shoulders, and her sun-bonnet of yellow gingham pushed back
upon her head. A something in the water, surging up through the
surface and sinking again, leaving rings upon the current coming down,
caught her eye as she sat gazing up stream. It might only be a log,
but yet, how it carried back her thoughts to her old man hurried down
on that Licken freshet into the muddy Ohio, and rolling on and on for
hundreds of miles through the yellow oozy water, till the body stuck
fast in a clay-bank and was hid for ever. It might be a log; but no,
it was not, for now she saw white hair, which spread and shrank again,
as it sank and rose in the water. A horse, was it? or an ox, with a
hide worth stripping off to sell? but no--it was a man! She could see
it plainly now, as it drifted near, and she felt the thud as it struck
against the branches of her tree, branches which caught it and blocked
its forward course. A man! and still alive, perhaps, for there was a
redness as from oozing blood around. She threw her pipe away, and
shouting to those within hail, she leaped into the water and waded out
with the assistance of her tree. A youth had hurried to her aid, the
water did not reach above his chest, and their united efforts drew the
body ashore.
"A fine clean-limbed man," sighed Jess, comparing him with her own old
man, whom partial hap, alas, had carried away for ever. "A fine
strapping man, but never so spry as thy own grandfer. Will. _He was_
the man, but he's away; let's see to this coon. Hm----" a smothered
exclamation, and a suspicious glance at Will, to see if he had
observed her pull a diamond ring from the drowned man's finger; but
Will's attention was drawn to something else at the moment.
"He ain't come by's end fair, granny," he said; "see to the blood on's
back--running still, by gum! The man maybe ain't dead, granny."
Granny slipped the ring into her mouth for safety, till she should
find leisure and privacy to conceal it elsewhere, and then resumed her
interest in the drowned man.
"Runnin' sure, the blood is, Will. And shot he's been. I heard the
crack of a gun up stream the now, I reckon, but I gave no heed. Lay
down his head, lad, and lift his feet. Help shake the water out of
him, and roll him round. There was none by to roll thy poor grandfer
the day he fell in Licken River. Never fear to hurt him, lad! The man
can't feel, and more's the pity. Shake him well and roll him round,
keep down his head, and let the filthy water run off his stommick."
There was little of that same fluid ever privileged to enter Jess's
anatomy, or, indeed to come near her person, save in the inevitable
form of rain or a fordable stream.
It was a rough and uncouth process of resuscitation, in which the
others, as they gathered about, joined with energy, chafing the limbs,
rubbing, rolling, and kneading; but fortunately for himself Considine
was unconscious of the liberties which the gypsies were taking with
his person; a brown skinned black-eyed rabble, pawing, and pulling,
and fingering him all over, without diffidence or any respect.
The warm sun and the vigorous handling had their effect at last, a
sigh escaped from the inactive chest, and by-and-by another, and then
old Jess had him carried into the bush and laid on her own bed in one
of the waggons, where she practised such surgery as she knew in the
way of binding up his wound, poured a quantity of whisky down his
throat, and left him to sleep.
Just then some of the gypsies, who had come on the boat lying grounded
among the weedy shallows round the island, brought it ashore; and
Considine's towels and clothing were appropriated and divided among
the gang, who then pushed the boat back into the stream and let it
drift. When this was done, the camp sank back into rest and leisure.
The people wandered off into the bush, to spend the summer day as
liked them best, some to stretch themselves in the shadow, others to
bask in the sun, while the children picked berries or snared birds, a
happy and unsophisticated crew, till the lengthening shadows of
afternoon warned the women to prepare supper against the return of
their men.
The men returned earlier than was expected. A shrill whistle rang
through the bush as they appeared, which brought in the stragglers
from every direction to hover round the fire and snuff in expectancy
the savoury odours which issued from the bubbling pots.
Reuben, the chief man, led Jess aside, muttering to her a rambling
story of his troubles during the day, which she listened to with
impatience and disgust.
"As usual, Reuben, al'us getting in a row along of them strays you
pick up and let join us. Thou'lt have the hull country raised agin us
ere long, and we shan't know whar to go--us as were so well liked
every whar a while back."
"It was yourself let him wive with Sall, mother; and you've no call to
cast it up to me. A fine thing it would have been to let the pore
wench go off with her lad, all alone; and her the handiest gal to tell
a fortn' 'twixt here and Allegany. Needs must when the devil drives,
so we let the coon stay. And there's no harm in the lad as I kin see,
'cep' that he's kind o' soft like, and not peart. He's cl'ar off the
now, and he's makin' for the Lines, but, like's not, they'll be down
here the morrow to look for him, and there's a many thing's round this
camp as wuddn't be good for sheriff's men to see. We mun cl'ar out,
mother; cl'ar out the night."
"I have a half-drownded man in the waggon wi' me, lad--I pulled him
out o' th' water myself, for the love o' your old dad as is drownded
and gone this many a year--and what am I to do with 'n, think you?"
"Let him slide. Put him back whar you brought 'n from. I wants no
stranger wi 's this night."
"We cud not leave him here for the sheriff to find. They'd say we did
for him. He has a gunshot in's body as it is, and I hain't a rag to
cover him wi' when we leave him. You'd not be for givin' him your own
coat, I reckon, and I know of nowt else, for I need my blanket to keep
my own old bones warm o' nights. The lads have his pants, and boots,
and things among them, the gals have the shirt and the towels, and I
have the gold ticker for yourself, Reuben, and you wouldn't be for
hanging it round's neck, I reckon, to show we didn't rob him, if we
tote him to Belmore's place afore we start."
Reuben took the watch, opened it, held it to his ear, bit the chain
with his teeth, tested it in such ways as occurred to him, and
finally, satisfied of its value, slipped it into his pocket.
"We'll have to take him, I s'pose. Keep him quiet, and keep the duds
away from him. He'll be bound to stay then, cuddn't make off ye know
wi' nothin' but's own pelt on's back. He'll kin pay for's liberty and
new duds afore long. And willin' too. But you'll have to keep dark."
There was no light in the gypsy camp that night. The fires had
smouldered out, and the shadows of the trees excluded every glance of
the moonlight. There was no sound either; no yelp of cur or cry of
wakeful infant; only the hooting of a solitary owl overhead, blinking
at the moon through the leaves, or the rustle of a fox stealing away
through the underbush, making off with a half-picked bone. A mile away
a creaking of wheels labouring through deep encumbered ruts, and the
cracking of branches might have been heard in the stillness, while
dusky figures shone momentarily in the moonlight as they passed from
one obscurity of shadow to the next.
Ere morning the gang was encamped again in another quiet corner,
twenty miles distant from Belmore's bush, and next day they resumed
their retreat to the Vermont Line, journeying calmly through a
neighbourhood which knew nothing of the misdoings of Sall's husband.
Old Jess rode in the waggon with her charge, nursing and caring for
him with much skill, but unable to extract the bullet from his wound.
That was now growing fevered and inflamed, the jolting must have
caused him pain, and might have elicited a groan liable to be
overheard at an inconvenient moment; but she contrived to keep him in
a drowse with strange drinks of her own devising, which she
administered to him, and it was a whole day from the time of his
rescue before he was able to take note of his situation. Even then his
head was dizzy, his shoulder ached; his body was so wretched, and his
mind so confused, that he was glad to turn round and court sleep and
unconsciousness again.