We once wandered, dearly beloved reader, you and I together, over some
steep bare hills which lie between Winslow Park and Northferry,
watching Chandos in his gardener's guise, as he travelled towards the
house of Mr. Tracy. Those hills, not at all unlike the Mendips in some
of their features, were somewhat different in others. The high road
took the most sterile and desolate part of them, where the curlew
loved to dwell in solitude, and the wild plover laid her spotted
eggs. But here and there, in their long range--which might extend some
five-and-thirty miles from the spot where they began to tower above
the plain in one county to that where they bend the head again in
another--were some dells and valleys, in which the woods nestled and
the streams glided on. The river which Chandos had swam at Winslow,
and which, passing on, increasing in size, gave to the village or
small town near Mr. Tracy's property the name it bore, by reason of
what is called a horse-ferry established there from time immemorial,
had at some period of the world's history undertaken the troublesome
task of forcing a way for itself through the opposing barrier of hill,
and had somehow succeeded. It is wonderful what feats rivers and
people will perform when they are driven into a corner, and have no
way out of it but by a great effort. Then, when they have accomplished
their task, how they rejoice in the triumphant exertions of their
vigour, and play in scorn with the obstacles they have surmounted.
In a deep valley amongst those hills, seldom if ever trodden by human
foot--for there was wanting footing for man or beast in many parts of
the gorge--is one scene of exceeding beauty, well worthy of being more
frequently visited than it has been. I know not whether in the spring,
when the young leaves coming out decorate the sides of the dell with
every hue of yellow and green, or in the autumn, when the mellow brown
and red of the decaying year spreads a melancholy splendour over the
woods, the picture is more beautiful; but to see it in its best aspect
must always be when the tears, either of the year's wayward youth or
of its sorrowful age, have been pouring down for some days before. The
reason is this,--that over a high shelf of rock, the river, having
overcome all the obstructions of the previous way, bounds down towards
the goal to which its eager course tends in the distant plains, then
first in sight, and the boughs of a thousand kinds of trees and shrubs
wave round the rejoicing waterfall as if in triumph. It is not indeed
with one boisterous leap that the river springs from the height, some
fifty feet above, to the tumbling pool beneath; but as if at two great
steps it strides upon its way, setting one white foot in foam upon a
rocky point about half-way down, and then again another in the depth
of the valley. A projecting point of crag, upon which a sapling
ash-tree has rooted itself, stands out between the two falls; and
round the point, scattered amongst the roots of the trees, lie
numerous large blocks of stone, riven from the rocks above, in times
the remoteness of which is told by the yellow and white lichens and
green moss with which they are covered.
About a hundred yards in front of the waterfall, one fine day in the
early spring of the year, when several hours of heavy rain during the
preceding night had gorged the river, and given the cataract the voice
of thunder, sat the gipsey woman, Sally Stanley, with her picturesque
costume in its varied and bright colouring, contrasting beautifully
with the cold gray stone, the rushing water, and the brown tints of
the uncovered branches; while, here and there, an early green leaf, or
the warm reddish brown of the unevolved buds, served to harmonize in
some degree the scene with the glowing hues of her dress, or at all
events to render the contrast not too strong. Nobody else was seen in
the neighbourhood; and yet there were the three cross sticks, with the
suspended pot, the glowing wood fire well piled up, and one small
dingy tent between two large masses of stone. The woman sat beside the
pot and sewed, with her left shoulder turned towards the waterfall,
and her eyes apparently looking down the dell.
Opposite to her, spanning the river, was a little rude bridge, made
with two trunks of trees, joining a narrow path on the one side to its
continuation on the other which might be seen winding from shelf to
shelf of the rock in its way to the prolongation of the valley above.
Sally Stanley sat and sewed, as we have said, an unusual occupation
for a gipsey; and while she sewed she sang, a much more frequent
custom of her people. But to neither affair did she seem to give much
attention, turning her ear towards the stream and path, as if for some
expected voice or footfall.
At length a step was heard; but she made no sudden movement, and with
her head bent, listened still, slowly turning her face in the
direction of the descending path, so as to gain a sight of the person
who was coming down, before he crossed the river. The figure which
appeared was that of a man in the prime of life--in the early prime,
well dressed after a country fashion, bearing himself with a free and
easy air, and, with his well-turned powerful limbs, and fine cut
features, presenting the aspect of as handsome a man as one would wish
to see.
A faint, almost sad smile came over the face of the gipsey woman; but
she took not the slightest notice till the traveller was in the midst
of the bridge, when, dropping the coarse blue stocking she was
mending, she advanced towards him, and addressed him in the usual cant
of her tribe, begging him to cross her hand and have his destiny told,
and promising him as pretty a fortune, and as extensive a matrimonial
connexion, as any moderate man could well desire.
Lockwood, for he it was who now approached, laughed, and replied, "I
have not time now, my good girl; for I am hungry, thirsty, sad, and
sorry, and have a long way to go before I can get food, drink, or
consolation."
"Not so, Master, not so," answered Sally Stanley; "you only cross my
hand with a pretty little half-crown, and I will give you food, drink,
and consolation, such as you cannot get where you are going, I am
sure."
"That is no bad offer either," answered Lockwood; "and I may as well
sit down by the side of your pot, and have a chat with you, as go and
eat bread and cheese, and drink beer by myself in a frowsy tap-room."
"A great deal better," said the woman with a laugh. "Where could you
be more comfortable than here, if you were going to the best house in
all the land? Do you think that man builds better than God?"
"Why, no," answered Lockwood; "and in those respects I am a bit of a
gipsey myself. I am as fond of the free air as any of you, and do not
much fear foul weather, even when Æolus unchains all his blasts. But
come, let us see your promised fare. I dare say it is of the best in
the county, as you certainly have the choice of all that is going.
Here is your half-crown for you."
He was soon seated close to where the woman had been previously
sitting, with a deep tin dish upon his knee, while she, with a large
wooden ladle, dipped into the pot and brought up a mixed mess, very
savory to the nose, and consisting a various materials, whereof a fine
turkey's leg was at all events the most conspicuous. Bread she had
none to give him, but a hard biscuit supplied its place very well, and
to say sooth, Lockwood, whose appetite was sharpened by a long walk,
enjoyed his meal exceedingly.
"Now then," he said, "for your drink and your consolation;" and the
woman brought him forth from her little tent a black bottle, the odour
emitted by which, as soon as the cork was pulled out, announced it as
that liquor to which we justly give the same name that eastern nations
bestow upon an evil spirit. But Lockwood would none of it, and while
he finished the contents of the platter, she brought him a large jug
of water from the stream.
"Well," he said, after taking a long draught, "I must now wend on my
way."
"You are in mighty haste," she answered, "to set out for a place you
will not reach."
"How do you know I will not reach it?" he asked, smiling in his
strength.
"Because I know all about you," answered Sally Stanley, "where you are
going, why you are going, what has been in your thoughts all the way
from Winslow hither."
"You are mighty wise," exclaimed Lockwood. "I know well enough that
you gipsies are famous for fishing out of gentlemen's servants all
about their masters and mistresses, but I did not know you troubled
your heads with such people as myself. As to my thoughts, however,
there I defy you."
"Do you?" said the woman, laughing aloud. "Now I will show you. You
have been thinking of Chandos Winslow, your half-brother, and of the
murder of good old Roberts, the steward; and you have been fancying
that another hand, as near akin to your own, might have shed the blood
that is charged upon Chandos Winslow's; and you are going down to
Northferry to see what you can make out of the case."
"A marvellous good guess," replied Lockwood; "but I now recollect you,
my pretty brown lass. You are the mother of the boy down at the
cottage; and, like all your people, you are good at putting two and
two together."
"I am the boy's mother," answered the woman; "but you are wrong in
thinking that is my only way of knowing. I see more things than you
fancy, hear more than people dream of; and I tell you, you will not
get to Northferry to-day nor to-morrow either; nor will you go to the
assizes, nor give your evidence in court: and if you did, you would
only mar what you try to mend."
"That won't stop me," answered Lockwood sturdily; "truth is truth, and
it shall be told: 'Magna est veritas, et prævalebit,' my pretty lass.
I will tell my plain, straightforward tale in spite of any one; but I
do not know what you have to do with it, and am rather curious to
hear; for, to tell you the truth, I do not like you the better for
wanting to stop me. If there were any gratitude in human nature, you
would be grateful to Chandos Winslow, for he did all in his power to
make your boy a good scholar and a good Christian: though, by the way,
I suppose you care very little about his being either."
The woman's eye flashed for an instant, with a very wild and peculiar
gleam in it, which I think I mentioned before, and she answered
vehemently, "You are wrong, Henry Lockwood, you are wrong; I am
grateful to him for everything;" and then she burst into a flood of
tears.
Lockwood gazed at her with some emotion, and then put his hand kindly
upon her arm, saying, "I did not mean to grieve you, my good woman;
but still I do not understand you rightly: you say that you are
grateful to this young gentleman; and yet you would prevent me from
doing what I can to save him when his life is in danger for another
man's act. You seem to know so much, that perhaps you know more; for
your people are always prying about, and it is not unlikely that some
of them saw the deed done. However, from what you said just now, and
from the way in which you divined what I had been thinking about, I am
sure you do not suspect Chandos Winslow, and that your suspicions take
the same direction as my own; though mine are well nigh certainties,
and yours can be but doubts."
"Are yours well nigh certainties?" she exclaimed eagerly. "Can you
prove it? Can you satisfy judge and jury? But, no," she added, in a
mournful tone, "it were better not--you cannot prove it--you can have
nothing but suspicions either. You did not see your bad brother's hand
strike the blow--you cannot tell what was the provocation given--you
can mention no cause for a man killing his own steward."
"Yes I can," answered Lockwood. "The blow struck I certainly did not
see; for I was well nigh two miles off at the time."
"I know that as well as you do," said the woman with a laugh; "I know
where you were, and all about you. But what is it you can prove if you
were so far distant?"
"I can prove that there was a cause," answered Lockwood, "a cause for
the act in one case, and none in the other; for the very night before,
poor Roberts found a note in Sir Harry's own handwriting, declaring
that he had left a copy of his second will, dated not five years ago,
in the hands of his eldest son. Roberts showed me the memorandum
himself, the moment after he had found it, and he was as well aware as
I am that Sir William has destroyed the will, because it did not suit
his purposes. Was that not cause enough for giving a knock on the head
to one who possessed such dangerous information? Besides, there is a
great deal more: the very next day he came over to seize on the
furniture in those two rooms, and lock it all up; but I have been
beforehand with him. All the papers that Roberts had found were safe
enough, and the furniture was moved to farmer Richards's great barn
and under my lock and key. He sent me down word that he would
prosecute me. I told him to do so if he dared. But now I must go, my
good woman; and I say the truth shall be told, whatever comes of it."
"Do you think, Lockwood," asked the gipsey woman, "that if Chandos
Winslow himself had seen the murder committed, he would bring such a
charge against his brother?"
"Perhaps not," replied Lockwood; "but that is not the question. Here
am I, no way partial in the business, whose duty it is to an innocent
man to tell the truth, whether he wishes it or not; and therefore I
shall go on to Northferry at once, and see Mr. Tracy, and tell him all
I know. If he does not do what is right, I will go on to the lawyers
and tell them."
"Mr. Tracy you cannot and you will not see," said Sally Stanley. "Have
you not heard he was arrested for debt, and taken to London yesterday
afternoon; and the two girls and their uncle are gone up after him
this morning?"
"Arrested?" exclaimed Lockwood; "what! the rich Mr. Tracy arrested? he
who was supposed to be the most wealthy man in all the county?"
"Aye, there it is, Harry Lockwood," said the woman: "that is the
difference between your people and the gipsies. We are content with
food and clothing, the open sunshine, and the free air; but you are
never content. If you are poor you must be rich; if you are rich, you
must be richer. The madness of gain is upon you all; and this wealthy
Mr. Tracy must needs speculate, to make himself more wealthy, till he
has made beggars of himself and his children. All on account of these
railroads, with which they are putting the whole land in fetters; he
who, a month ago, was rolling in riches, has not so much in his pocket
as Sally Stanley, who once begged her bread at a rich man's door, and
was driven away with a cur at her heels. You will not see Mr. Tracy
for a long time to come."
"Then I will go to the lawyers," rejoined Lockwood; "for the story
shall be told."
"No, it shall not," answered the woman, "that I am resolved. I tell
you, you will spoil all; and if you leave the matter alone, he is
quite safe."
"I will not trust to that," answered Lockwood. "There, take off your
hand!--you are not such a fool as to think you can stop me;" and at
the same moment he shook off the grasp which she had laid upon his
arm, somewhat rudely and impatiently, perhaps.
The next instant his collar was seized by a stout man, who sprang from
behind the masses of broken stone, while another leaped out and caught
his right arm, and a third seized him round the legs and tried to
throw him down. His great strength, however, sufficed to frustrate
their efforts for a moment or two. He disengaged his arm, aimed a blow
at the man who grasped his collar, which was parried with difficulty,
and kicked off the other gipsey who was grasping his legs; but three
or four more came running down from amongst the woods, and after a
sturdy resistance he was overpowered and his hands tied.
"What the devil do you mean by ill-treating one of our women?"
demanded a tall, powerful fellow, of about fifty years of age. But
Lockwood only replied by a loud laugh; and the gipsey grinned at the
open falsehood of his own pretext.
"What shall we do with him, Sally?" said the latter, turning to the
woman; "he must be looked sharp after if we are to keep him, for he is
a rough customer, I can tell you."
"Ah, you have found that out," cried Lockwood; "you will find me
rougher still before I have done with you."
"Hush! hush!" said Sally Stanley; "take him away and keep him where we
agreed upon. I will find those who will watch him well. You had better
go with them quietly, young man; for you must see by this time that
there is no use of struggling."
"Not much, I believe," answered Lockwood. "But I should wish to know,
before I go, my good woman, what it is you want, and what you are to
do with me."
"To keep you from making mischief," replied Sally Stanley. "There,
take him away, lads, and I will come up directly; but mind you keep
him safe."