THE GIPSY CAMP.
At this point a peculiar fragrance was borne to them upon the light
wind, the far-blowing smell of a wood-fire, together with the odour of
boiling and fragrant stew--a compound and delicious wild-wood scent,
which almost created the taste by which it was to be enjoyed, as they
say all good literature must. There was also another smell, less
idyllic but equally characteristic--the odour of drying paint. All
these came from the camp of the gipsies set up on the corner of the
common lands of Windy Standard.
The gipsies' wood was a barren acre of tall, ill-nurtured Scotch firs,
with nothing to break their sturdy monotony of trunk right up to the
spreading crown of twisted red branches and dark green spines.
Beneath, the earth was covered with a carpet of dry and brown
pine-needles, several inches thick, soft and silent under the feet as
velvet pile. Ditches wet and dry closed in the place of sanctuary for
the wandering tribes of Egypt on all sides, save only towards the high
road, where a joggly, much-rutted cart track led deviously in between
high banks, through which the protruding roots of the Scotch firs,
knotted and scarred, were seen twisting and grappling each other like
a nest of snakes. Suddenly, between the ridges of pine-trees, the pair
came in sight of the camp.
"I declare," cried Hugh John, "they are painting the waggons. I wish
they would let me help. I can slick it on like a daisy. Now I'm
telling you. Andrew Penman at the coach-works in Church Street showed
me how. He says I can 'line' as well as any workman in the place. I'm
going to be a coach-painter. They get bully wages, I tell you."
"I thought you were going to be a soldier," commented Cissy, with the
cool and inviting criticism of the model domestic lady, who is always
on hand with a bucket of cold water for the enthusiasms of her
men-folk.
Hugh John remembered, saw his mistake, and shifted his ground all in
the twinkling of an eye; for of course a man of spirit ought never to
own himself in the wrong--at least to a girl. It is a bad precedent,
occasionally even fatal.
"Oh yes, of course I am going to be a soldier," he said with the
hesitation of one who stops to think what he is going to say; "but I'm
to be a coach-painter in my odd time and on holidays. Besides,
officers get so little pay now-a-days, it's shameful--I heard my
father say. So one must do something."
"Oh, here's the terrier--pretty thing, I declare he quite knows
me--see, Hugh John," cried Cissy, kneeling with delight in her eye,
and taking hold of the little dog, which came bounding forward to meet
her--stopping midway, however, to paw at its neck, to which the
Chianti wicker-work still clung tightly round the edge of the bandage.
Billy Blythe came towards them, touching his cap as he did so in a
half-military manner; for had he not a brother in the county militia,
who was the best fighter (with his fists) in the regiment, the pest of
his colonel, but in private the particular pet of all the other
officers, who were always ready to put their money on Gipsy Blythe to
any amount.
"Yes, miss," he said; "I done it. He's better a'ready, and as lively
as a green grass-chirper. Never seed the like o' that ointment. 'Tis
worth its weight in gold when ye have dogs."
A tall girl came up at this moment, dusky and lithe, her face and neck
tanned to a fine healthy brown almost as dark as saddle-leather, but
with a rolling black eye so full and piercing that even her complexion
seemed light by comparison. She carried a back load of tinware of all
sorts, and by her wearied air appeared to be returning to the
encampment after a day's tramp.
"Ah, young lady and gentleman, sure I can see by your eyes that you
are going to buy something from a poor girl--ribbons for the hair, or
for the house some nice collanders, saucepans, fish-pans, stew-pans,
patty-pans, jelly-pans----"
[Illustration: "SHE CARRIED A BACK LOAD OF TINWARE."]
"Go 'way, Lepronia Lovell," growled Billy; "don't you see that this is
the young lady that cured my dog?"
"And who may the young gentleman be?" said the girl. "Certain I am
I've seen him before somewhere at the back o' beyant."
"Belike aye, Lepronia, tha art a clever wench, and hast got eyes in
the back o' thee yead," said Billy, in a tone of irony. "Do you not
know the son of Master Smith o' t' Windy Standard--him as lets us bide
on his land, when all the neighbours were on for nothing else but
turning us off with never a rest for the soles of our feet?"
"And what is his name?" said the girl.
"Why, the same as his father of course, lass--what else?" cried Billy;
"young Master Smith as ever was. Did you think it was Blythe?"
"'Faith then, God forbid!" said Lepronia, "ye have lashin's of that
name in them parts already. Sure it is lonesome for a poor orphan like
me among so many Blythes; and good-looking young chaps some o' them
too, and never a wan o' ye man enough to ask me to change my name, and
go to church and be thransmogrified into a Blythe like the rest of
yez!"
Some of the gipsies standing round laughed at the boldness of the
girl, and Billy reddened. "I'm not by way of takin' up with no Paddy,"
he said, and turned on his heel.
"Paddy is ut," cried the girl indignantly after him, "'faith now, and
it wad be tellin' ye if ye could get a daycent single woman only half
as good lookin' as me, to take as much notice av the likes o' ye as to
kick ye out of her road!"
She turned away, calling over her shoulder to Cissy, "Can I tell your
fortune, pretty lady?"
Quick as a flash, Cissy's answer came back.
"No, but I can tell yours!"
The girl stopped, surprised that a maid of the Gentiles should tell
fortunes without glass balls, cards, or even looking at the lines of
the hand.
"Tell it then," she said defiantly.
"You will live to marry Billy!" she said.
Then Lepronia Lovell laughed a short laugh, and said, "Never while
there's a daycent scarecrow in the world will I set up a tent-stick
along with the likes of Billy Blythe!"
But all the same she walked away very thoughtful, her basketful of
tinware clattering at her back.
After the fox-terrier had been examined, commented upon, and duly
dressed, Billy Blythe walked with them part of the way homeward, and
Hugh John opened out to him his troubles. He told him of the feud
against the town boys, and related all the manifold misdeeds of the
Smoutchies. All the while Billy said nothing, but the twitching of his
hands and a peculiarly covert look about his dusky face told that he
was listening intently. Scarcely had Hugh John come to the end of his
tale when, with the blood mounting darkly to his cheeks, Billy turned
about to see if he were observed. There was no one near.
"We are the lads to help ye to turn out Nipper Donnan and all his
crew," he said. "Him and his would soon make short work of us gipsies
if they had the rights of castle and common. Why, Nipper's father is
what they call a bailie of their burgh court, and he fined my father
for leaving his horses out on the roadside, while he went for a doctor
when my mother was took ill a year past last November."
Hugh John had found his ally.
"There's a round dozen and more of us lads," continued Billy, "that
'ud make small potatoes and mince meat of every one of them, if they
was all Nipper Donnans--which they ain't, not by a long sight. I know
them. A fig for them and their flag! We'll take their castle, and
we'll take it too in a way they won't forget till their dying day."
The gipsy lad was so earnest that Hugh John, though as much as ever
bent upon conquering the enemy, began to be a little alarmed.
"Of course it's part pretending," he said, "for my father could put
them out if we were to tell on them. But then we won't tell, and we
want just to drive them out ourselves, and thrash them for stealing
our pet lamb as well!"
"Right!" said Billy, "don't be afraid; we won't do more than just give
them a blazing good hiding. Tell 'ee what, they'll be main sore from
top to toe before we get through with 'em!"