"We are all creatures of habit." So my learned uncle, Draen y Coed, who
was a Welsh hedgehog, used to say. "Which was why an ancestor of my own,
who acted as turnspit in the kitchen of a farmhouse in Yorkshire, quite
abandoned the family custom of walking out in the cool of the evening,
and declared that he couldn't take two steps in comfort except in a
circle, and in front of a kitchen-fire at roasting heat."
Uncle Draen y Coed was right, and I must add that I doubt if, in all his
experience, or among the strange traditions of his most eccentric
ancestors, he could find an instance of change of habits so unexpected,
so complete, I may say so headlong, as when very quiet people, with an
almost surly attachment to home, break the bounds of the domestic
circle, and take to gadding, gossiping, and excitement.
Perhaps it is because they find that their fellow-creatures are nicer
than they have been wont to allow them to be, and that other people's
affairs are quite as interesting as their own.
Perhaps--but what is the good of trying to explain infatuations?
Why do we all love valerian? I can only record that, having set up every
prickle on our backs against intruders into our wood, we now dreaded
nothing more than that our neighbours should forsake us, and wished for
nothing better than for fresh arrivals.
In old days, when my excellent partner and I used to take our evening
stroll up the field, we were wont to regard it quite as a grievance if a
cousin, who lived at the far end of the hedge, came out and caught us
and detained us for a gossip. But now I could hardly settle to my midday
nap for thinking of the tinker-mother; and as to Mrs. Hedgehog, she
almost annoyed me by her anxiety to see Christian. However, curiosity is
the foible of her sex, and I accompanied her daily to the encampment
without a murmur.
The seven urchins we sent down to the burdocks to pick snails.
It was not many days after that on which we heard the old tinker-mother
relate Christian's history, that we were stopped on our way to the
corner where we usually concealed ourselves, by hearing strange voices
from the winding pathway above us.
"It's a young man," said I.
"It's Christian!" cried Mrs. Hedgehog.
"I feel sure that it is not," said I; "but if you will keep quiet, I
will creep a little forward and see."
I am always in the right, as I make a point of reminding Mrs. Hedgehog
whenever we dispute; and I was right on this occasion.
The lad who spoke was a young gentleman of about seventeen, and no more
like a gipsy than I am. His fair hair was closely cropped, his eyes were
quick and bright, his manner was alert and almost anxious, and though he
was very slight as well as very young, he carried himself with dignity
and some little importance. A lady, much older than himself, was with
him, whom he was helping down the path.
"Take care, Gertrude, take care. There is no hurry, and I believe
there's no one in the wood but ourselves."
"The people at the inn told us that there were gipsies in the
neighbourhood," said the lady; "and oh, Ted! this is exactly the wood I
dreamt of, except the purple and white--"
"Gertrude! What on earth are you after?"
"The flowers, Ted, the flowers in my dream! There they are, a perfect
carpet of them. White--oh, how lovely!--and there, on the other side,
are the purple ones. What are they, dear? I know you are a good
botanist. He always raved about your collection."
"Nonsense, I'm not a botanist. Several other fellows went in for it when
the prize was offered, and all that my collection was good for was his
doing. I never did see any one arrange flowers as he did, I must say.
Every specimen was pressed so as somehow to keep its own way of growing.
And when I did them, a columbine looked as stiff as a dog-daisy. I never
could keep any character in them. Watson--the fellow who drew so
well--made vignettes on the blank pages to lots of the specimens--'Likely
Habitats' we called them. He used to sit with his paint-box in my
window, and Christian used to sit outside the window, on the edge,
dangling his legs, and describing scenes out of his head for Watson to
draw. Watson used to say, 'I wish I could paint with my brush as that
fellow paints with his tongue'--and when the vignettes were admired,
I've heard him say, in his dry way, 'I copied them from Christian's
paintings;' and the fellows used to stare, for you know he couldn't
draw a line. And when--But I say, Gertrude, for Heaven's sake, don't
devour everything I say with those great pitiful eyes of yours. I am a
regular brute to talk about him."
"No, Ted, no. It makes me so happy to hear you, and to know that you
know how good he really was, and how much he must have been aggravated
before--"
"For goodness' sake, don't cry. Christian was a very good fellow, a
capital fellow. I never thought I could have got on so well with any one
who was--I mean who wasn't--well, of course I mean who was really a
gipsy. I don't blame him a bit for resenting being bullied about his
parents. I only blame myself for not looking better after him. But you
know that well enough--you know it's because I never can forgive myself
for having managed so badly when you put him in my care, that I am
backing you through this mad expedition, though I don't approve of it
one bit, and though I know John will blame me awfully."
("It's the clergywoman," whispered Mrs. Hedgehog excitedly, "and I must
and will see her."
When it comes to this with Mrs. Hedgehog's sex, there is nothing for it
but to let the dear creatures have their own way, and take the
consequences. She pushed her nose straight through the lower branches of
an arbutus in which we were concealed, and I myself managed to get a
nearer sight of our new neighbours.
As we crept forward, the clergywoman got up from where she was kneeling
amongst the flowers, and laid her hand on the young gentleman's arm. I
noticed it because I had never seen such a white hand before; Sybil's
paws were nearly as dark as my own.)
"John will blame no one if we find Christian," she said. "You are very,
very good, Cousin Ted, to come with me and help me when you do not
believe in my dream. But you must say it is odd about the flowers. And
you haven't told me yet what they are."
"It is the bulbous-rooted fumitory," said the young man, pulling a piece
at random in the reckless way in which men do disfigure forest
flower-beds. "It isn't strictly indigenous, but it is naturalized in
many places, and you must have seen it before, though you fancy you
haven't."
"I have seen it once before," she said earnestly--"all in delicate
glaucous-green masses, studded with purple and white, like these; but it
was in my dream. I never saw it otherwise, though I know you don't
believe me."
"Dear Gertrude, I'll believe anything you like to tell me, if you'll
come home. I'm sure I have done very wrong. You know I'm always hard up,
but I declare I'd give a hundred pounds if you'd come home with me at
once. I don't believe there's a gipsy within--"
"Good-day, my pretty young gentleman. Let the poor gipsy girl tell you
your fortune."
He turned round and saw Sybil standing at his elbow, her eyes flashing
and her white teeth gleaming in a broad smile. He stood speechless in
sudden surprise; but the clergywoman, who was not surprised, came
forward with her white hands stretched so expressively towards Sybil's
brown ones, that the gipsy girl all but took them in her own.
"Please kindly tell me--do you know anything of a young gipsy, named
Christian?"
The clergywoman spoke with such vehemence that Sybil answered directly,
"I know his grandmother"--and then suddenly stopped herself.
But as she spoke, she had turned her head with an expressive gesture in
the direction of the encampment, and without waiting for more, the
clergywoman ran down the path, calling on her cousin to follow her.