A GYPSY MAID.
In a few moments every one in Lavender House was made acquainted with
Susan's story. At such a time ceremony was laid aside, dinner forgotten,
teachers, pupils, servants all congregated in the grounds, all rushed to
the spot where Nan's withered daisies still lay, all peered through the
underwood, and all, alas! looked in vain for the tall dark woman and the
little child. Little Nan, the baby of the school, had been stolen--there
were loud and terrified lamentations. Nan's nurse was almost tearing her
hair, was rushing frantically here, there, and everywhere. No one blamed
the nurse for leaving her little charge in apparent safety for a few
moments, but the poor woman's own distress was pitiable to see. Mrs.
Willis took Hester's hand, and told the poor stunned girl that she was
sending to Sefton immediately for two or three policemen, and that in the
meantime every man on the place should commence the search for the woman
and child.
"Without any doubt," Mrs. Willis added, "we shall soon have our little
Nan back again; it is quite impossible that the woman, whoever she is,
can have taken her so far away in so short a time."
In the meantime, Annie in her bedroom heard the fuss and the noise. She
leaned out of her window and saw Phyllis in the distance; she called to
her. Phyllis ran up, the tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Oh, something so dreadful!" she gasped; "a wicked, wicked woman has
stolen little Nan Thornton. She ran off with her just where the
undergrowth is so thick at the end of the shady walk. It happened to her
half an hour ago, and they are all looking, but they cannot find the
woman or little Nan anywhere. Oh, it is so dreadful! Is that you, Mary?"
Phyllis ran off to join her sister, and Annie put her head in again, and
looked round her pretty room.
"The gypsy," she murmured, "the tall, dark gypsy has taken little Nan!"
Her face was very white, her eyes shone, her lips expressed a firm and
almost obstinate determination. With all her usual impulsiveness, she
decided on a course of action--she snatched up a piece of paper and
scribbled a hasty line:
"DEAR MOTHER-FRIEND:--However badly you think of Annie, Annie loves
you with all her heart. Forgive me, I must go myself to look for
little Nan. That tall, dark woman is a gypsy--I have seen her
before; her name is Mother Rachel. Tell Hetty I won't return until
I bring her little sister back.--Your repentant and sorrowful
ANNIE."
Annie twisted up the note, directed it to Mrs. Willis, and left it on her
dressing-table.
Then, with a wonderful amount of forethought for her, she emptied the
contents of a little purse into a tiny gingham bag, which she fastened
inside the front of her dress. She put on her shady hat, and threw a
shawl across her arm, and then, slipping softly downstairs, she went out
through the deserted kitchens, down the back avenue, and past the laurel
bush, until she came to the stile which led into the wood--she was going
straight to the gypsies' encampment.
Annie, with some of the gypsy's characteristics in her own blood, had
always taken an extraordinary interest in these queer wandering people.
Gypsies had a fascination for her, she loved stories about them; if a
gypsy encampment was near, she always begged the teachers to walk in that
direction. Annie had a very vivid imagination, and in the days when she
reigned as favorite in the school she used to make up stories for the
express benefit of her companions. These stories, as a rule, always
turned upon the gypsies. Many and many a time had the girls of Lavender
House almost gasped with horror as Annie described the queer ways of
these people. For her, personally, their wildness and their freedom had a
certain fascination, and she was heard in her gayest moments to remark
that she would rather like to be stolen and adopted by a gypsy tribe.
Whenever Annie had an opportunity, she chatted with the gypsy wives, and
allowed them to tell her fortune, and listened eagerly to their
narratives. When a little child she had once for several months been
under the care of a nurse who was a reclaimed gypsy, and this girl had
given her all kinds of information about them. Annie often felt that she
quite loved these wild people, and Mother Rachel was the first gypsy she
cordially shrank from and disliked.
When the little girl started now on her wild-goose chase after Nan, she
was by no means devoid of a plan of action. The knowledge she had taken
so many years to acquire came to her aid, and she determined to use it
for Nan's benefit. She knew that the gypsies, with all their wandering
and erratic habits, had a certain attachment, if not for homes, at least
for sites; she knew that as a rule they encamped over and over again in
the same place; she knew that their wanderings were conducted with
method, and their apparently lawless lives governed by strict self-made
rules.
Annie made straight now for the encampment, which stood in a little dell
at the other side of the fairies' field. Here for weeks past the gypsies'
tents had been seen; here the gypsy children had played, and the men and
women smoked and lain about in the sun.
Annie entered the small field now, but uttered no exclamation of surprise
when she found that all the tents, with the exception of one, had been
removed, and that this tent also was being rapidly taken down by a man
and a girl, while a tall boy stood by, holding a donkey by the bridle.
Annie wasted no time in looking for Nan here. Before the girl and the man
could see her, she darted behind a bush, and removing her little bag of
money, hid it carefully under some long grass; then she pulled a very
bright yellow sash out of her pocket, tied it round her blue cotton
dress, and leaving her little shawl also on the ground, tripped gaily up
to the tent.
She saw with pleasure that the girl who was helping the man was about her
own size. She went up and touched her on the shoulder.
"Look here," she said, "I want to make such a pretty play by-and-by--I
want to play that I'm a gypsy girl. Will you give me your clothes, if I
give you mine? See, mine are neat, and this sash is very handsome. Will
you have them? Do. I am so anxious to play at being a gypsy."
The girl turned and stared. Annie's pretty blue print and gay sash were
certainly tempting bait. She glanced at her father.
"The little lady wants to change," she said in an eager voice.
The man nodded acquiescence, and the girl taking Annie's hand, ran
quickly with her to the bottom of the field.
"You don't mean it, surely?" she said. "Eh, but I'm uncommon willing."
"Yes, I certainly mean it," said Annie. "You are a dear, good, obliging
girl, and how nice you will look in my pretty blue cotton! I like that
striped petticoat of yours, too, and that gay handkerchief you wear round
your shoulders. Thank you so very much. Now, do I look like a real, real
gypsy?"
"Your hair ain't ragged enough, miss."
"Oh, clip it, then; clip it away. I want to be quite the real thing. Have
you got a pair of scissors?"
The girl ran back to the tent, and presently returned to shear poor
Annie's beautiful hair in truly rough fashion.
"Now, miss, you look much more like, only your arms are a bit too white.
Stay, we has got some walnut-juice; we was just a-using of it. I'll touch
you up fine, miss."
So she did, darkening Annie's brown skin to a real gypsy tone.
"You're a dear, good girl," said Annie, in conclusion; and as the girl's
father called her roughly at this moment, she was obliged to go away,
looking ungainly enough in the English child's neat clothes.