How hot was that drawing-room to the tired little boy! His head quite
ached, he did not know why; he could not understand his own sensations.
There was a very ugly look-out, too, for the bay window opened into a
tiny garden, which was full now of clothes hanging on lines and flapping
in what little breeze there was. Ralph could not see anything beyond
the white line of clothes.
He went to the window, half inclined to go into the garden; but, as it
was so uninviting, he did not venture. He returned to the ugly room,
and looked at what was left of the make-shift tea. It certainly was
hard that he had not been allowed to go to the fair. He would so have
liked to have a ride on the merry-go-round, and to see the fat lady and
the man with two heads. How was it possible for anyone to have two
heads? He felt his own little soft neck, and wondered where the other
head could appear. He sat down very thoughtfully to consider this
problem. It was really more difficult than borrowing ten, and much,
_much_ more interesting. It seemed to him even more interesting than
seeing gipsies: the brown, brown gipsies, with their house on wheels,
had none of them two heads. He would love beyond anything to gaze at
the person who possessed such treasures.
Certainly his school-mother was not too kind. He could not understand
her to-day, but, having chosen her, he felt somehow that it was his
bounden duty to be as good as possible, and to think as kindly as
possible about her. So he very determinedly shut away from his little
mind all unkind thoughts with regard to Harriet. Of course, he was a
troublesome little boy, and he ought to have known all about borrowing
ten, and he ought to understand now why little boys should stay in very
hot rooms while big girls went away to fairs and merry-go-rounds, and
delightful shows full of queer people. Oh, yes: of course, it was all
right; only he did wish his head was not so swimmy--yes, that was how he
expressed his feeling.
He sank down at last on a very uncomfortable sofa with a broken spring,
and the next minute fell fast asleep. He did not know, poor little boy,
how long he slept; but when he awoke he felt very much startled and
puzzled, for it had grown quite late, and the sun had gone away, and the
room was no longer so hot. The clothes, too, had all been taken down
from their lines, and he could see across the ugly garden.
It was a very small garden; but there was a gate at the further end, and
the gate was standing open; and beyond the gate was a field with a path
leading across it; and, lo and behold! at the far, far end of the field
was a very brown man standing quite still, and holding a lot of baskets
in his hand. They were baskets of all sorts and shapes and sizes; and
there was something about the man and the baskets which caused Ralph's
heart to beat.
He went cautiously to the window, and gazed across the garden and across
the fields at the man. The man was very brown, and he carried baskets.
Gipsies carried baskets; they always did; Ralph had heard so. He did
not believe that there was ever a basket in the whole world that had not
once been carried by a gipsy.
Suppose he went and talked to the man; there would be no harm in that;
it would be interesting to him. Harriet had told him to stay where he
was, but then Harriet did not know that there would be--first, an open
window, and then an open gate, and beyond the gate a gipsy--the very
person Ralph longed to see!
The temptation was too much for him. He was too tired, and too lonely,
and too much a very little boy to resist it. Swiftly he rose from his
uncomfortable sofa, pushed back his tumbled hair, and flying, first
across the garden and then across the field, reached the brown man's
side.
"Please," said Ralph earnestly, looking up with his brown eyes at the
brown face, "is you a gipsy?"
"I be that, little master," said the man, and he gazed down
inquisitively and perhaps not unkindly at Ralph.
Ralph looked at him with great wonder and intense curiosity.
"Wot be yer wanting o' me, little master?" said the man.
"I love gipsies!" said Ralph.
"Do yer, indeed? And wot's yer name?"
"I am Ralph Durrant. I live at a school near. There are lots of girls
in the school, and I've got a school-mother. My school-mother is at the
fair, and I am alone here. I'm rather lonesome, and I'm so glad you
have come, gipsy man, 'cause you can talk to me."
"To be sure," said the man, seating himself on a low stile, and taking
from his pocket a very large clasp knife, with which he proceeded to
sharpen a stick.
Ralph stood very near him without speaking, just glad to be close to
him. From time to time the man looked at the child, and the child
returned the man's gaze.
"Where did yer say yer held out, youngster?" he remarked after a long
pause.
"At a school with a lot of girls," said Ralph. "Father sent me; it's
all right. How funny and sharp you make that stick, gipsy man!"
"I guess you mean you live at Abbeyfield?" said the man, now shutting up
his knife and returning it to his pocket. "They be rich folks there, so
I guess you must be rich. We gipsies is poor; our folks haven't got any
money."
"Nor have I," said Ralph eagerly. "I haven't any money at all; if I had
I 'spec' I'd have been took to the fair. See, gipsy man, see, my
pockets is quite empty."
He turned out both his little pockets as he spoke, and looked at the man
for sympathy.
"Dear, dear, dear!" said the man. "That is 'ard, now. But your folks
is rich, bean't they?"
"Father's made of money; I've heard folks say so."
"Well, now; that is nice for you; and he's fond of a little chap like
you, ain't he?"
"Father?" said Ralph. He paused for a minute; then said with great
force: "Yes, Father's fond of me."
The man looked to right of him and to left of him. There was no one in
sight. There was only very pretty little Ralph, in his pretty and
expensive dress. There was a wood behind them, a wood to right of them,
and a wood to left of them, and the doctor's little, old-fashioned house
at the further end of the field; the house was to all appearance empty
for the time being.
The gipsy man drew Ralph close and took his hand. Ralph felt that brown
hand of the gipsy man's as hard as iron. His little heart gave a sort
of jump; but he was not going to be at all frightened. He was glad, he
was very glad, he had seen a brown, brown gipsy man for himself; he had
spoken to him; whatever Harriet might or might not do in the future,
_he_ had seen a gipsy man himself.
"I must be saying good-night, now," he remarked in a very polite voice.
"I am so glad I has met you. Please, good-night, Mr Gipsy Man. I am
going back. I must wait in a horrid, ugly drawing-room for my
school-mother: I must say good-night, Mr Gipsy."
"Not so fast, master," said the man. "How do you know that I wants to
say good-night to you? I've took a sort of a fancy to yer, little
master."
"Have you?" said Ralph, looking up at him.
"Yes--'tain't every little master as says such pretty words to us brown
folks."
"Oh, I love you all," said Ralph.
"Now, see," said the man, "that's very pretty talk, very pretty, indeed;
and how would little master like a basket for his very own to hold
things--marbles and knives--"
"Oh--and matches!" said Ralph, intensely excited all in a minute.
"Yes, and matches."
"And pocket-hankershers," said Ralph.
"To be sure! How would little master like such a basket with a lid to
it, now, and a little handle?"
"Oh--it would be lovely!" said Ralph.
"There's my good wife 'as got one, not like these,"--he kicked his own
baskets with a look of contempt--"but a pretty one, to home. You come
along 'ome with me, and I'll give you one."
"How far off is your house?" asked Ralph, in great excitement.
"No way 'tall; just through this wood, and through another field, and
there you be."
"Is it a house on wheels?" asked Ralph.
"Now, ain't you a 'cute little master! There are wheels to our house."
"And does it move?"
"In _course_, it moves!"
"I should love it to move," said Ralph--"and to _feel_ it move."
"Then, you shall, my pretty little dear. You come along with me, and
we'll harness old Dobbin to the house, and take you a bit across the
field and give you a basket, and you shall be back again here in time
for your school-mother afore she misses you."
Ralph considered for a minute.
"We must be very, very quick," he said. "I shouldn't like to vex my
school-mother. Shall we run, brown gipsy man?"
"Yes," said the man.
The next minute he had sprung lightly over the stile, had lifted Ralph
across, and hand-in-hand they were running through the wood. In a very
short time they had also crossed a field, and beyond the field was a
wide clearing, where were tents, and brown babies, and brown men and
women, and some mongrel dogs that rose lazily and wagged their tails
when the big brown man and the little brown boy approached. A very
hideous old woman, nearly bent double, and with a toothless jaw,
advanced towards the pair, and a very young woman with a handsome face
and flashing black eyes followed her.
The young woman wore a scarlet shawl twisted round her head, and a lot
of beads round her neck, and long ear-rings in her ears. The man spoke
at once:
"Here's a little master," he said, "who wants a basket. Flavia--you
choose him the very prettiest basket we 'as got, and put a knife into it
and some coloured beads, and take him into our house on wheels, and put
Dobbin to the house, and make the house move right across the field.
You understand, Flavia?" Flavia's eyes flashed. She knelt down by
Ralph, and took his two little hands, and looked into his face.
"Eh, but you are a sweet little man!" she said, and she kissed him on
his red lips. Then, lifting him bodily in her arms, she carried him up
the steps into the house on wheels.
"Here we be!" said Flavia; "and I'll just find the prettiest basket of
all for you, and I'll find a knife, too, and show you how to sharpen
sticks so as to make them like arrows. I'll show yer lots o' things,
and I'll be real good to yer."
"Only--I must be going home," said Ralph, who, somehow, now that he had
got into the house on wheels, was not quite so sure that he liked it.
It was so full of smoke, and so crowded with furniture, and there were
such a number of brown babies bobbing up their heads in every direction
that at first he felt he could not breathe. And then he wondered why
his eyes hurt so much.
"You shall go home," said Flavia, "as soon as ever the house moves
across the field."
"Perhaps," said Ralph, trying to be very polite and not to show the
least scrap of fear, "perhaps, gipsy lady, it might be best for me not
to wait just now for your pretty house to move. Perhaps I had best come
'nother day, pretty lady, 'cause my school-mother will be coming back,
and she'll be wanting me."
"Where do you live?" asked Flavia.
"In a big school with a lot of girls. I's the only boy, and I's staying
there till Father comes back to fetch me."
"He must mean Abbeyfield," said the toothless crone, raising her head
from where she was lying on a bundle of old sacks.
She had a pipe in her mouth, and as she spoke she puffed out a volume of
smoke.
"Now, to think of it," said Flavia. "Is that the house, the pretty
house, you're in? We go past Abbeyfield: we'll put you out when we get
there; it'll save a lot of time."
"But," said Ralph, very nearly crying, and very nearly losing his
manhood, "I's not to wait in that house; I's to wait in the house of a
doctor--in a hot drawing-room. Oh, please, let me out!"
"There," said Flavia, "we're off at last. Just once across the field,
little master, and then back you'll go, basket and all."
It was exciting; with whoops, and shouts, and cracking of several whips,
the house on wheels began slowly to go forward. Gipsy men ran by it,
and gipsy children shouted at each side of it, and the mongrel dogs all
barked in chorus; and one little boy sat very still inside with a sad,
beating heart.
What was going to happen? It was lovely to be in a house that moved,
and Flavia was very pretty. But, somehow, he was very nearly losing his
manhood, and he did think that in another minute tears must rush to his
eyes.
Book 1--CHAPTER ELEVEN.