_I love to rise on a Summer morn
When birds sing on every tree.
The distant huntsman winds his horn,
And the skylarks sing with me.
O, what sweet company!_
W. BLAKE.
One day the children went on a long expedition with Freedom. It
was to a neighbouring race meeting. They started in the early
morning, and it was a treat to them to escape for once the morning
maledictions of Granny Petulengro, and the rough service of the camp.
Freedom liked to have them with her, and it was the one day in all
their long adventure that the children looked back on with delight.
It was nice to be with some one who was not always rating, and
Freedom was a good companion for a walk. She stepped free and
lightly, a slim brown hand always ready to help any one over hedges
or ditches, and, once away from the camp, the lines about her mouth
fell into peace and happiness; and she would sing now and again--
“Full many a night in the clear moonlight
Have I wandered by valley and Down,
Where the owls fly low, and hoot as they go,
The white-winged owl, and the brown.
For it’s up and away, e’er the dawn of the day,
Where the glowworm shines in the grasses,
And the dusk lies cool on the reed-set pool,
And the night wind passes.”
She showed them how to gather the gipsies’ tent-pins, which are the
thorns that grow on the sloe bushes. And she picked the thyme, that
grew in scented cushions on the turf, to make tea from it later in
the day. She saw squirrels before they did, and beetles whose noses
bleed a bright ruby drop when you touch them--not because you’ve
touched them too hard, but because that is their weapon of defence
when in danger, and they do it to frighten you away.
And she showed them the larder of a butcher-bird, the bird who
impales the things he is going to eat on the sharp points of thorns.
Beetles and nestlings, and shrew-mice, and it’s interesting to find
a strike’s larder, because it’s not a thing you very often see.
And so on through the lovely day in September they walked on, or
sang, or rested, or lay quite flat, and looked up through clinched
eyelids to see who could best bear the light of the wide blue sky.
When they arrived at the race meeting, Freedom caught back her hair
under a yellow kerchief, which she tied round her head, and the real
fun of the day was over, for the children found themselves once more
in a crowd. Freedom kept them closely with her, so that they might
not get lost, and they were interested in listening to her telling
people’s fortunes. Have you ever heard a gipsy tell a fortune? It is
something like this. You must imagine a very rapid utterance, and a
face thrust forward. An almost closed lid, veiling a very sharp eye,
the face set sideways looking upwards, and a wheedling tone of voice.
“Shall I tell the pretty lady’s fortune? Bless her pretty heart, just
cross the gipsy’s palm with a silver coin, my dear, and let the gipsy
tell the fortune of the pretty lady, so her fate shan’t cross her
wishes, but everything come true just as the lady (bless her pretty
heart!) will be joyful and thankful for the good fortune to be. And
remember the poor gipsy girl when she gives her hand into the hand of
her true lover, the sweetheart who has vowed to be true. It’s just
a coin that does it, thank you, my lovely lady, cross the gipsy’s
palm with a silver coin, and the good luck will follow it.... Thank
you, my dear, thank you, place your hand on mine and let the lines
tell the gipsy girl what never a print book can’t reveal, but only
the stars as does it; yes, my dear; there’s a ship coming, a long
journey, I see a distant land, but there’s happiness in store for
those as believe it, though for those as sets their hearts agen’ it,
it may be far from otherwise.
“I see a beautiful young man, a bee-utiful young man, O, but the
strength of him, hasn’t he got an eye like a hawk, and a chin to him?
There’ll be never no turning him from the pretty lady as he loves,
not though others may say whatsoever they likes, but he’ll come
straight as a beam of the morning, though I see a dark lady and two
enemies what will do what they _can_, but don’t you believe ’em, my
dear, never you believe the written words of crooked tongues, but
you trust the gipsy girl, my dear, and she sees troth plighted, and
love united, and a golden blessing, brighter than the stars; and a
clergyman standin’ by and all.
“Now, there’s a letter to you coming, my dear, but don’t take nothing
written on a Thursday, for the dark lady’s in it, and you must turn
from your enemies if you trust the poor gipsy girl, for you’re one of
those as may be led but can’t be druv, not though they stand never
so. But three moons must shine before you hear what the gipsy girl
sees in your pretty hand, but just cross the palm with another bit o’
silver, my dear, because then she can do it better with the cards,
my dear, and bring the good fortune that tarries. Bless your heart,
and thank you, my dear, and may you never go sorrowful, but find the
lucky shoe-leather that’ll take you where you will.”
And so it goes on. The wheedling voice, the cringing manner, the
crazy medley of sound and sense, with here and there a pretty phrase
that is the garbled garrulity of the gipsy.
Perhaps it was this that made the children glad when the hours spent
among the crowd were over. It was not pleasant to see Freedom change
herself into this semblance of one of the most artful of her thieving
tribe. But we know that she was bound over by the masterful nature of
Bill, under whose tyranny she suffered, belieing indeed her beautiful
name. While she belonged to the camp she had to work for it, and
to-day had she returned from the race meeting without any money, Bill
would have been furiously enraged. She looked back to the days when
Jasper had been one of the camp--Jasper who had broken away and had
begged her to go with him. But a foolish waywardness had turned her
to the stronger mastery of Bill. She had not seen or exchanged words
with Jasper since then, with the exception of the written message
sent by the children on the evening of the fire and the fair. But all
this time she had been growing fonder of the children, and there was
a plan for their release maturing in her mind.
[Illustration: _Cotman._ MOUSEHOLD HEATH.]
She knew that Bill was making for a wide common in the county of
Norfolk, called Mousehold Heath. You may see the place in the
picture, by Cotman, over the drawing-room mantelpiece. And if
you look into it you will see it is an open common with several
windmills, eight sheep, some poplars, and a white donkey, and a road
of a warm red, that goes up the hill with a sudden jag in it, towards
a row of cottages set on the crest of the hill.
It took the gipsies some time to reach this place. They had loitered,
and lingered, and trespassed, and poached their way through four
counties, only the poorer by the boy’s coat, which had been left in a
farmer’s hands one night while its owner was stealing hens.
Both children were stained brown, and clad roughly, in old unsavoury
garments, and nearly all their high spirits and gaiety cuffed out of
them by the old crone. We will not dwell on this part of the story,
for at last there came a break in their dark sky.
Mousie woke one night to find Freedom bending over her, whispering.
“Listen, dear; it’s Freedom talking. Don’t answer now, but just
move your hand if you understand. We mustn’t wake Granny, and old
Petulengro is close outside. When you go with Robin to-morrow to
fetch the water, leave the pitcher and make straight for the mill.
You’ll see it standing high above ye, and never stop running till you
reach the lintel, and there knock, and say ye come from me. I’ve told
Robin; do ye understand me? Once in the mill, we’ll get ye home.”
The words seemed to dance and sing in Mousie’s ears. “Once in the
mill, we’ll get ye home.” She saw them gold and shining before her,
and “O Freedom, dear,” she said, “O Freedom!”
But Freedom had stepped out again beneath the stars. Only old Granny
snored and grunted, in her corner of the van.