Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp?--As You Like It.
The sun broke cheerfully through the small lattice of the caravan, as
the youth opened his eyes and saw the good-humoured countenance of his
gypsy host bending over him complacently.
“You slept so soundly, sir, that I did not like to disturb you; but my
good wife only waits your rising to have all ready for breakfast.”
“It were a thousand pities,” cried the guest, leaping from his bed,
“that so pretty a face should look cross on my account, so I will not
keep her waiting an instant.”
The gypsy smiled, as he answered, “I require no professional help from
the devil, sir, to foretell your fortune.”
“No!--and what is it?”
“Honour, reputation, success: all that are ever won by a soft tongue, if
it be backed by a bold heart.”
Bright and keen was the flash which shot over the countenance of the one
for whom this prediction was made, as he listened to it with a fondness
for which his reason rebuked him.
He turned aside with a sigh, which did not escape the gypsy, and bathed
his face in the water which the provident hand of the good woman had set
out for his lavations.
“Well,” said his host, when the youth had finished his brief toilet,
“suppose we breathe the fresh air, while Lucy smooths your bed and
prepares the breakfast?”
“With all my heart,” replied the youth, and they descended the steps
which led into the wood. It was a beautiful, fresh morning; the air was
like a draught from a Spirit’s fountain, and filled the heart with new
youth and the blood with a rapturous delight; the leaves--the green,
green leaves of spring--were quivering on the trees, among which the
happy birds fluttered and breathed the gladness of their souls in song.
While the dewdrops that--
“strewed
A baptism o’er the flowers”--
gave back in their million mirrors the reflected smiles of the cloudless
and rejoicing sun.
“Nature,” said the gypsy, “has bestowed on her children a gorgeous
present in such a morning.”
“True,” said the youth; “and you, of us two, perhaps only deserve it; as
for me, when I think of the long road of dust, heat, and toil, that lies
before me, I could almost wish to stop here and ask an admission into
the gypsy’s tents.”
“You could not do a wiser thing!” said the gypsy, gravely.
“But fate leaves me no choice,” continued the youth, as seriously as
if he were in earnest; “and I must quit you immediately after I have a
second time tasted of your hospitable fare.”
“If it must be so,” answered the gypsy, “I will see you, at least, a
mile or two on your road.” The youth thanked him for a promise which his
curiosity made acceptable, and they turned once more to the caravan.
The meal, however obtained, met with as much honour as it could possibly
have received from the farmer from whom its materials were borrowed.
It was not without complacency that the worthy pair beheld the notice
their guest lavished upon a fair, curly-headed boy of about three years
old, the sole child and idol of the gypsy potentates. But they did not
perceive, when the youth rose to depart, that he slipped into the folds
of the child’s dress a ring of some value, the only one he possessed.
“And now,” said he, after having thanked his entertainers for their
hospitality, “I must say good-by to your flock, and set out upon my
day’s journey.”
Lucy, despite her bashfulness, shook hands with her handsome guest;
and the latter, accompanied by the gypsy chief, strolled down to the
encampments.
Open and free was his parting farewell to the inmates of the two tents,
and liberal was the hand which showered upon all--especially on the
damsel who had been his Thais of the evening feast--the silver coins
which made no inconsiderable portion of his present property.
It was amidst the oracular wishes and favourable predictions of the
whole crew that he recommenced his journey with the gypsy chief.
When the tents were fairly out of sight, and not till then, King Cole
broke the silence which had as yet subsisted between them.
“I suppose, my young gentleman, that you expect to meet some of your
friends or relations at W----? I know not what they will say when they
hear where you have spent the night.”
“Indeed!” said the youth; “whoever hears my adventures, relation or not,
will be delighted with my description; but in sober earnest, I expect to
find no one at W---- more my friend than a surly innkeeper, unless it be
his dog.”
“Why, they surely do not suffer a stripling of your youth and evident
quality to wander alone!” cried King Cole, in undisguised surprise.
The young traveller made no prompt answer, but bent down as if to pluck
a wild-flower which grew by the road-side: after a pause, he said,--
“Nay, Master Cole, you must not set me the example of playing the
inquisitor, or you cannot guess how troublesome I shall be. To tell you
the truth, I am dying with curiosity to know something more about you
than you may be disposed to tell me: you have already confessed that,
however boon companions your gypsies may be, it is not among gypsies
that you were born and bred.”
King Cole laughed: perhaps he was not ill pleased by the curiosity of
his guest, nor by the opportunity it afforded him of being his own hero.
“My story, sir,” said he, “would be soon told, if you thought it worth
the hearing, nor does it contain anything which should prevent my
telling it.”
“If so,” quoth the youth, “I shall conceive your satisfying my request a
still greater favour than those you have already bestowed upon me.”
The gypsy relaxed his pace into an indolent saunter, as he commenced:--
“The first scene that I remember was similar to that which you witnessed
last night. The savage tent, and the green moor; the fagot blaze; the
eternal pot, with its hissing note of preparation; the old dame who
tended it, and the ragged urchins who learned from its contents the
first reward of theft and the earliest temptation to it,--all these
are blended into agreeable confusion as the primal impressions of my
childhood. The woman who nurtured me as my mother was rather capricious
than kind, and my infancy passed away, like that of more favoured scions
of fortune, in alternate chastisement and caresses. In good truth,
Kinching Meg had the shrillest voice and the heaviest hand of the whole
crew; and I cannot complain of injustice, since she treated me no worse
than the rest. Notwithstanding the irregularity of my education, I grew
up strong and healthy, and my reputed mother had taught me so much fear
for herself that she left me none for anything else; accordingly, I
became bold, reckless, and adventurous, and at the age of thirteen
was as thorough a reprobate as the tribe could desire. At that time
a singular change befell me: we (that is, my mother and myself) were
begging not many miles hence at the door of a rich man’s house in which
the mistress lay on her death-bed. That mistress was my real mother,
from whom Meg had stolen me in the first year of existence. Whether it
was through the fear of conscience or the hope of reward, no sooner had
Meg learnt the dangerous state of my poor mother, the constant grief,
which they said had been the sole though slow cause of her disease, and
the large sums which had been repeatedly offered for my recovery; no
sooner, I say, did Meg ascertain all these particulars than she fought
her way up to the sick-chamber, fell on her knees before the bed, owned
her crime, and produced myself. Various little proofs of time, place,
circumstance; the clothing I had worn when stolen, and which was still
preserved, joined to the striking likeness I bore to both my parents,
especially to my father, silenced all doubt and incredulity: I was
welcomed home with a joy which it is in vain to describe. My return
seemed to recall my mother from the grave; she lingered on for many
months longer than her physicians thought it possible, and when she died
her last words commended me to my father’s protection.”
“My surviving parent needed no such request. He lavished upon me all
that superfluity of fondness and food of which those good people who are
resolved to spoil their children are so prodigal. He could not bear the
idea of sending me to school; accordingly he took a tutor for me,--a
simple-hearted, gentle, kind man, who possessed a vast store of
learning rather curious than useful. He was a tolerable, and at least an
enthusiastic antiquarian, a more than tolerable poetaster; and he had a
prodigious budget full of old ballads and songs, which he loved
better to teach and I to learn, than all the ‘Latin, Greek, geography,
astronomy, and the use of the globes,’ which my poor father had so
sedulously bargained for.”
“Accordingly, I became exceedingly well-informed in all the ‘precious
conceits’ and ‘golden garlands’ of our British ancients, and continued
exceedingly ignorant of everything else, save and except a few of
the most fashionable novels of the day, and the contents of six lying
volumes of voyages and travels, which flattered both my appetite for the
wonderful and my love of the adventurous. My studies, such as they were,
were not by any means suited to curb or direct the vagrant tastes my
childhood had acquired: on the contrary, the old poets, with their
luxurious description of the ‘green wood’ and the forest life; the
fashionable novelists, with their spirited accounts of the wanderings
of some fortunate rogue, and the ingenious travellers, with their wild
fables, so dear to the imagination of every boy, only fomented within
me a strong though secret regret at my change of life, and a restless
disgust to the tame home and bounded roamings to which I was condemned.
When I was about seventeen, my father sold his property (which he had
become possessed of in right of my mother), and transferred the purchase
money to the security of the Funds. Shortly afterwards he died; the bulk
of his fortune became mine; the remainder was settled upon a sister,
many years older than myself, whom, in consequence of her marriage and
residence in a remote part of Wales, I had never yet seen.”
“Now, then, I was perfectly free and unfettered; my guardian lived in
Scotland, and left me entirely to the guidance of my tutor, who was both
too simple and too indolent to resist my inclinations. I went to London,
became acquainted with a set of most royal scamps, frequented the
theatres and the taverns, the various resorts which constitute the
gayeties of a blood just above the middle class, and was one of the
noisiest and wildest ‘blades’ that ever heard the ‘chimes by midnight’
and the magistrate’s lecture for matins. I was a sort of leader among
the jolly dogs I consorted with.”
“My earlier education gave a raciness and nature to my delineations of
‘life’ which delighted them. But somehow or other I grew wearied of this
sort of existence. About a year after I was of age my fortune was more
than three parts spent; I fell ill with drinking and grew dull with
remorse: need I add that my comrades left me to myself? A fit of
the spleen, especially if accompanied with duns, makes one wofully
misanthropic; so, when I recovered from my illness, I set out on a tour
through Great Britain and France,--alone, and principally on foot. Oh,
the rapture of shaking off the half friends and cold formalities of
society and finding oneself all unfettered, with no companion but
Nature, no guide but youth, and no flatterer but hope!”
“Well, my young friend, I travelled for two years, and saw even in that
short time enough of this busy world to weary and disgust me with
its ordinary customs. I was not made to be polite, still less to be
ambitious. I sighed after the coarse comrades and the free tents of my
first associates; and a thousand remembrances of the gypsy wanderings,
steeped in all the green and exhilarating colours of childhood,
perpetually haunted my mind. On my return from my wanderings I found a
letter from my sister, who, having become a widow, had left Wales, and
had now fixed her residence in a well visited watering-place in the west
of England. I had never yet seen her, and her letter was a fine-ladylike
sort of epistle, with a great deal of romance and a very little sense,
written in an extremely pretty hand, and ending with a quotation from
Pope (I never could endure Pope, nor indeed any of the poets of the days
of Anne and her successors). It was a beautiful season of the year: I
had been inured to pedestrian excursions; so I set off on foot to see
my nearest surviving relative. On the way, I fell in (though on a very
different spot) with the very encampment you saw last night. By heavens,
that was a merry meeting to me! I joined, and journeyed with them for
several days: never do I remember a happier time. Then, after many years
of bondage and stiffness, and accordance with the world, I found myself
at ease, like a released bird; with what zest did I join in the rude
jokes and the knavish tricks, the stolen feasts and the roofless nights
of those careless vagabonds!”
“I left my fellow-travellers at the entrance of the town where my sister
lived. Now came the contrast. Somewhat hot, rather coarsely clad, and
covered with the dust of a long summer’s day, I was ushered into a
little drawing-room, eighteen feet by twelve, as I was afterwards
somewhat pompously informed. A flaunting carpet, green, red, and yellow,
covered the floor. A full-length picture of a thin woman, looking most
agreeably ill-tempered, stared down at me from the chimney-piece;
three stuffed birds--how emblematic of domestic life!--stood stiff
and imprisoned, even after death, in a glass cage. A fire-screen and a
bright fireplace; chairs covered with holland, to preserve them from
the atmosphere; and long mirrors, wrapped as to the frame-work in
yellow muslin, to keep off the flies,--finish the panorama of this
watering-place mansion. The door opened, silks rustled, a voice shrieked
‘My Brother!’ and a figure, a thin figure, the original of the picture
over the chimney-piece, rushed in.”
“I can well fancy her joy,” said the youth.
“You can do no such thing, begging your pardon, sir,” resumed King Cole.
“She had no joy at all: she was exceedingly surprised and disappointed.
In spite of my early adventures, I had nothing picturesque or romantic
about me at all. I was very thirsty, and I called for beer; I was very
tired, and I lay down on the sofa; I wore thick shoes and small buckles;
and my clothes were made God knows where, and were certainly put on God
knows how. My sister was miserably ashamed of me: she had not even the
manners to disguise it. In a higher rank of life than that which she
held she would have suffered far less mortification; for I fancy great
people pay but little real attention to externals. Even if a man of rank
is vulgar, it makes no difference in the orbit in which he moves: but
your ‘genteel gentlewomen’ are so terribly dependent upon what Mrs.
Tomkins will say; so very uneasy about their relations and the opinion
they are held in; and, above all, so made up of appearances and clothes;
so undone if they do not eat, drink, and talk a la mode,--that I can
fancy no shame like that of my poor sister at having found, and being
found with, a vulgar brother.”
“I saw how unwelcome I was and I did not punish myself by a long visit.
I left her house and returned towards London. On my road, I again met
with my gypsy friends: the warmth of their welcome enchanted me; you
may guess the rest. I stayed with them so long that I could not bear
to leave them; I re-entered their crew: I am one among them. Not that
I have become altogether and solely of the tribe: I still leave
them whenever the whim seizes me, and repair to the great cities and
thoroughfares of man. There I am soon driven back again to my favourite
and fresh fields, as a reed upon a wild stream is dashed back upon the
green rushes from which it has been torn. You perceive that I have many
comforts and distinctions above the rest; for, alas, sir, there is no
society, however free and democratic, where wealth will not create
an aristocracy; the remnant of my fortune provides me with my
unostentatious equipage and the few luxuries it contains; it repays
secretly to the poor what my fellow-vagrants occasionally filch from
them; it allows me to curb among the crew all the grosser and heavier
offences against the law to which want might otherwise compel them;
and it serves to keep up that sway and ascendency which my superior
education and fluent spirits enabled me at first to attain. Though not
legally their king, I assume that title over the few encampments with
which I am accustomed to travel; and you perceive that I have given my
simple name both to the jocular and kingly dignity of which the old song
will often remind you. My story is done.”
“Not quite,” said his companion: “your wife? How came you by that
blessing?”
“Ah! thereby hangs a pretty and a love-sick tale, which would not
stand ill in an ancient ballad; but I will content myself with briefly
sketching it. Lucy is the daughter of a gentleman farmer: about four
years ago I fell in love with her. I wooed her clandestinely, and at
last I owned I was a gypsy: I did not add my birth nor fortune; no, I
was full of the romance of the Nut-brown Maid’s lover, and attempted
a trial of woman’s affection, which even in these days was not
disappointed. Still her father would not consent to our marriage, till
very luckily things went bad with him; corn, crops, cattle,--the deuce
was in them all; an execution was in his house, and a writ out against
his person. I settled these matters for him, and in return received a
father-in-law’s blessing, and we are now the best friends in the world.
Poor Lucy is perfectly reconciled to her caravan and her wandering
husband, and has never, I believe, once repented the day on which she
became the gypsy’s wife!”
“I thank you heartily for your history,” said the youth, who had
listened very attentively to this detail; “and though my happiness and
pursuits are centred in that world which you despise, yet I confess that
I feel a sensation very like envy at your singular choice; and I would
not dare to ask of my heart whether that choice is not happier, as it is
certainly more philosophical, than mine.”
They had now reached a part of the road where the country assumed a
totally different character; the woods and moors were no longer visible,
but a broad and somewhat bleak extent of country lay before them. Here
and there only a few solitary trees broke the uniformity of the wide
fields and scanty hedgerows, and at distant intervals the thin spires
of the scattered churches rose, like the prayers of which they were the
symbols, to mingle themselves with heaven.
The gypsy paused: “I will accompany you,” said he, “no farther; your way
lies straight onwards, and you will reach W---- before noon; farewell,
and may God watch over you!”
“Farewell!” said the youth, warmly pressing the hand which was extended
to him. “If we ever meet again, it will probably solve a curious riddle;
namely, whether you are not disgusted with the caravan and I with the
world!”
“The latter is more likely than the former,” said the gypsy, for one
stands a much greater chance of being disgusted with others than with
one’s self; so changing a little the old lines, I will wish you adieu
after my own fashion, namely, in verse,--
‘Go, set thy heart on winged wealth,
Or unto honour’s towers aspire;
But give me freedom and my health,
And there’s the sum of my desire!’”