"How sweet it is when mother fancy rocks
The wayward brain, to saunter through a wood;
An old place full of many a lovely brook,
Tall trees, green arbours, and ground flowers in flocks."
Wordsworth.
Scene: Still in the forest around the log fire, but the dying gipsy has
raised herself to nearly a sitting position, her dim and hollow eyes are
fixed on Leonard, and she beckons him to her side. As if under a
strange spell, the boy obeys, leaving Effie kneeling by Ossian, and
clasping his great neck in her terror.
"Fear not," the gipsy gasps, "I knew--your--father. And his father.
Kind, kind to me and mine were both."
She took Leonard's little white hand in her dark claws, and opened its
palm towards the firelight. "Never--never--will old Nell Bayne read
another fortune. But look; that line will lead you far ayont the seas.
You are _born to wander_, born to roam over the ocean, by mountain,
stream, and plain. Yet list! the water is not made to drown you, nor
hemp nor lead to take your life, yet list! again,--
"When dead yon lordly pike shall float,
While loud and hoarse the ravens call,
Then grief and woe shall be thy lot,
Glen Lyle's house must fall."
The aged crone dropped the hand she held, and sunk back into the arms of
her nurse, while the other gipsies, with scared faces, gathered closer
round and knelt beside her.
Neither Leonard nor Effie saw nor heard anything more. They fled away
from the firelight out into the darkness of the woods, which they much
preferred to the solemn scene they had just witnessed.
They walked in the direction, as they thought, of their caravan, but
after a while Ossian, whom Effie held by the collar, stopped short, and
then began pulling them in quite another direction. The noble dog knew
the road though they did not.
They were soon back now at their house-on-wheels. It was a gloomy
night's experience, but they slept none the less soundly, and when they
awoke in the morning Leonard felt as happy as if he were king of
Elfinland, and Effie his little queen. The sun was shining in a sky of
unusual brightness, and the woods all around were musical with the songs
of a thousand joyous birds.
Leonard made a fire of sticks, and boiled his kettle in true gipsy
fashion, and after everybody, including Don and Ossian, had enjoyed
breakfast, away they went again.
The country soon grew more open, and they were not at all sorry to leave
the darksome pine woods. They had nothing whereby to tell the time,
except the sun, and this was, in some measure, their guide also as to
the direction they were taking, but of course they left a deal to Don.
Sometimes, on coming to cross-roads, Don, as if he was quite aware of
the responsibility that lay on his pretty striped shoulders, would stop
short and eye all the three roads that lay before him. Ossian would
then caper round him and bark, upon which Don would shake his long ears
as much as to say,--
"Don't you be quite so fast, master; I know well enough what I'm about.
Catch me going wrong if I can help it."
Then having made up his mind Don would tramp on again.
Now Don was a wily old donkey, and I'm not sure that in choosing a road
he did not consult his own interest much more than that of his little
owners. For Effie soon noticed that if one road was hilly and the other
level, Don chose the latter. Again, he kept going northwards and east,
for he was very partial to a nice fresh green juicy thistle, just
sufficiently thorny to tickle his tongue, and the farther north and the
nearer the sea he got the fatter and finer the thistles grew.
"But it doesn't matter, Eff, you know," Leonard would say, "one road is
as good as another."
Next evening found them bivouacked near a pretty wee country cottage.
The good-wife of this humble home made them come in and sit by the fire,
and she regaled them on barley scones and butter with delicious milk to
wash it down, and made them tell their story over and over again.
Then the children all came round Effie, and she told their fortunes,
something good for each of them, and sent them all to bed happy.
The wanderers slept as before, but the good-wife of the cottage was up
before them, and had boiled fresh eggs for their breakfast, and made
them coffee. And so good was she, that she even packed a little hamper
and put it in their caravan, and blessed them and wished them God-speed.
And the children gathered round the door, and all of them cheered with
might and main as the caravan rolled away from the door.