I'll tell you a story if you please to attend.
G. KNIGHT: Limbo.
It was the evening of a soft, warm day in the May of 17--. The sun
had already set, and the twilight was gathering slowly over the large,
still masses of wood which lay on either side of one of those green
lanes so peculiar to England. Here and there, the outline of the
trees irregularly shrunk back from the road, leaving broad patches of
waste land covered with fern and the yellow blossoms of the dwarf
furze, and at more distant intervals thick clusters of rushes, from
which came the small hum of gnats,--those "evening revellers"
alternately rising and sinking in the customary manner of their
unknown sports,--till, as the shadows grew darker and darker, their
thin and airy shapes were no longer distinguishable, and no solitary
token of life or motion broke the voiceless monotony of the
surrounding woods.
The first sound which invaded the silence came from the light, quick
footsteps of a person whose youth betrayed itself in its elastic and
unmeasured tread, and in the gay, free carol which broke out by fits
and starts upon the gentle stillness of the evening.
There was something rather indicative of poetical taste than musical
science in the selection of this vesper hymn, which always commenced
with,--
"'T is merry, 't is merry, in good green wood,"
and never proceeded a syllable further than the end of the second
line,--
"when birds are about and singing;"
from the last word of which, after a brief pause, it invariably
started forth into joyous "iteration."
Presently a heavier, yet still more rapid, step than that of the youth
was heard behind; and, as it overtook the latter, a loud, clear, good-
humoured voice gave the salutation of the evening. The tone in which
this courtesy was returned was frank, distinct, and peculiarly
harmonious.
"Good evening, my friend. How far is it to W----? I hope I am not
out of the direct road?"
"To W----, sir?" said the man, touching his hat, as he perceived, in
spite of the dusk, something in the air and voice of his new
acquaintance which called for a greater degree of respect than he was
at first disposed to accord to a pedestrian traveller,--"to W----,
sir? why, you will not surely go there to-night? it is more than
eight miles distant, and the roads none of the best"
"Now, a curse on all rogues!" quoth the youth, with a serious sort of
vivacity. "Why, the miller at the foot of the hill assured me I
should be at my journey's end in less than an hour."
"He may have said right, sir," returned the man, "yet you will not
reach W---- in twice that time."
"How do you mean?" said the younger stranger.
"Why, that you may for once force a miller to speak truth in spite of
himself, and make a public-house, about three miles hence, the end of
your day's journey."
"Thank you for the hint," said the youth. "Does the house you speak
of lie on the road-side?"
"No, sir: the lane branches off about two miles hence, and you must
then turn to the right; but till then our way is the same, and if you
would not prefer your own company to mine we can trudge on together."
"With all my heart," rejoined the younger stranger; "and not the less
willingly from the brisk pace you walk. I thought I had few equals in
pedestrianism; but it should not be for a small wager that I would
undertake to keep up with you."
"Perhaps, sir," said the man, laughing, "I'll have had in the course of
my life a better usage and a longer experience of my heels than you
have."
Somewhat startled by a speech of so equivocal a meaning, the youth,
for the first time, turned round to examine, as well as the increasing
darkness would permit, the size and appearance of his companion. He
was not perhaps too well satisfied with his survey. His fellow
pedestrian was about six feet high, and of a corresponding girth of
limb and frame, which would have made him fearful odds in any
encounter where bodily strength was the best means of conquest.
Notwithstanding the mildness of the weather, he was closely buttoned
in a rough great-coat, which was well calculated to give all due
effect to the athletic proportions of the wearer.
There was a pause of some moments.
"This is but a wild, savage sort of scene for England, sir, in this
day of new-fashioned ploughs and farming improvements," said the tall
stranger, looking round at the ragged wastes and grim woods, which lay
steeped in the shade beside and before them.
"True," answered the youth; "and in a few years agricultural
innovation will scarcely leave, even in these wastes, a single furze-
blossom for the bee or a tuft of green-sward for the grasshopper; but,
however unpleasant the change may be for us foot-travellers, we must
not repine at what they tell us is so sure a witness of the prosperity
of the country."
"They tell us! who tell us?" exclaimed the stranger, with great
vivacity. "Is it the puny and spiritless artisan, or the debased and
crippled slave of the counter and the till, or the sallow speculator
on morals, who would mete us out our liberty, our happiness, our very
feelings by the yard and inch and fraction? No, no, let them follow
what the books and precepts of their own wisdom teach them; let them
cultivate more highly the lands they have already parcelled out by
dikes and fences, and leave, though at scanty intervals, some green
patches of unpolluted land for the poor man's beast and the free man's
foot."
"You are an enthusiast on this subject," said the younger traveller,
not a little surprised at the tone and words of the last speech; "and
if I were not just about to commence the world with a firm persuasion
that enthusiasm on any matter is a great obstacle to success, I could
be as warm though not so eloquent as yourself."
"Ah, sir," said the stranger, sinking into a more natural and careless
tone, "I have a better right than I imagine you can claim to repine or
even to inveigh against the boundaries which are, day by day and hour
by hour, encroaching upon what I have learned to look upon as my own
territory. You were, just before I joined you, singing an old song; I
honour you for your taste: and no offence, sir, but a sort of
fellowship in feeling made me take the liberty to accost you. I am no
very great scholar in other things; but I owe my present circumstances
of life solely to my fondness for those old songs and quaint
madrigals. And I believe no person can better apply to himself Will
Shakspeare's invitation,--
'Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
And tune his merry note
Unto the sweet bird's throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither,
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.'"
Relieved from his former fear, but with increased curiosity at this
quotation, which was half said, half sung, in a tone which seemed to
evince a hearty relish for the sense of the words, the youth replied,--
"Truly, I did not expect to meet among the travellers of this wild
country with so well-stored a memory. And, indeed, I should have
imagined that the only persons to whom your verses could exactly have
applied were those honourable vagrants from the Nile whom in vulgar
language we term gypsies."
"Precisely so, sir," answered the tall stranger, indifferently;
"precisely so. It is to that ancient body that I belong."
"The devil you do!" quoth the youth, in unsophisticated surprise; "the
progress of education is indeed astonishing!"
"Why," answered the stranger, laughing, "to tell you the truth, sir, I
am a gypsy by inclination, not birth. The illustrious Bamfylde Moore
Carew is not the only example of one of gentle blood and honourable
education whom the fleshpots of Egypt have seduced."
"I congratulate myself," quoth the youth, in a tone that might have
been in jest, "upon becoming acquainted with a character at once so
respectable and so novel; and, to return your quotation in the way of
a compliment, I cry out with the most fashionable author of
Elizabeth's days,--
'O for a bowl of fat Canary,
Rich Palermo, sparkling Sherry,'
in order to drink to our better acquaintance."
"Thank you, sir,--thank you," cried the strange gypsy, seemingly
delighted with the spirit with which his young acquaintance appeared
to enter into his character, and his quotation from a class of authors
at that time much less known and appreciated than at present; "and if
you have seen already enough of the world to take up with ale when
neither Canary, Palermo, nor Sherry are forthcoming, I will promise,
at least, to pledge you in large draughts of that homely beverage.
What say you to passing a night with us? our tents are yet more at
hand than the public-house of which I spoke to you." The young man
hesitated a moment, then replied,--
"I will answer you frankly, my friend, even though I may find cause to
repent my confidence. I have a few guineas about me, which, though
not a large sum, are my all. Now, however ancient and honourable your
fraternity may be, they labour under a sad confusion, I fear, in their
ideas of meum and tuum."
"Faith, sir, I believe you are right; and were you some years older, I
think you would not have favoured me with the same disclosure you have
done now; but you may be quite easy on that score. If you were made
of gold, the rascals would not filch off the corner of your garment as
long as you were under my protection. Does this assurance satisfy
you?"
"Perfectly," said the youth; "and now how far are we from your
encampment? I assure you I am all eagerness to be among a set of
which I have witnessed such a specimen."
"Nay, nay," returned the gypsy, "you must not judge of all my brethren
by me: I confess that they are but a rough tribe. However, I love
them dearly; and am only the more inclined to think them honest to
each other, because they are rogues to all the rest of the world."
By this time our travellers had advanced nearly two miles since they
had commenced companionship; and at a turn in the lane, about three
hundred yards farther on, they caught a glimpse of a distant fire
burning brightly through the dim trees. They quickened their pace,
and striking a little out of their path into a common, soon approached
two tents, the Arab homes of the vagrant and singular people with whom
the gypsy claimed brotherhood and alliance.