I.

"I tell you what it is, Abel. You think of everybody else before

yourself. The Squire says there's no sense in it."

"No sense in what, Master Johnny?"

"Why, in supplying those ill-doing Standishes with your substance.

Herbs, and honey, and medicine--they are always getting something or

other out of you."

"But they generally _need_ it, sir."

"Well, they don't deserve it, you know. The Squire went into a temper

to-day, saying the vagabonds ought to be left to starve if they did not

choose to work, instead of being helped by the public."

Our hen-roosts had been robbed, and it was pretty certain that one or

other of the Standish brothers was the thief. Perhaps all three had a

hand in it. Chancing to pass Abel Carew's garden, where he was at work,

I turned in to tell him of the raid; and stayed, talking. It was

pleasant to sit on the bench outside the cottage-window, and watch him

tend his roots and flowers. The air was redolent of perfume; the bees

were humming as they sailed in the summer sunshine from herb to herb,

flower to flower; the dark blue sky was unclouded.

"Just look at those queer-looking people, Abel! They must be gipsies."

Abel let his hands rest on his rake, and lifted his eyes to the common.

Crossing it, came two women, one elderly, one very young--a girl, in

fact. Their red cloaks shone in the sun; very coarse and sunburnt straw

hats were tied down with red kerchiefs. That they belonged to the gipsy

fraternity was apparent at the first glance. Pale olive complexions, the

elder one's almost yellow, were lighted up with black eyes of wonderful

brilliancy. The young girl was strikingly beautiful; her features

clearly cut and delicate, as though carved from marble, her smooth and

abundant hair of a purple black. The other's hair was purple black also,

and had not a grey thread in it.

"They must be coming to tell our fortunes, Abel," I said jestingly. For

the two women seemed to be making direct for the gate.

No answer from Abel, and I turned to look at him. He was gazing at the

coming figures with the most intense gaze, a curious expression of

inquiring doubt on his face. The rake fell from his hand.

"My search is ended," spoke the woman, halting at the gate, her

glittering black eyes scanning him intently. "You are Abel Carew."

"Is it Ketira?" he asked, the words dropping from him in slow

hesitation, as he took a step forward.

"Am I so much changed that you need doubt it for a moment?" she

returned: and her tone and accent fell soft and liquid; her diction was

of the purest, with just the slightest foreign ring in it. "Forty years

have rolled on since you and I met, Abel Carew; but I come of a race

whose faces do not change. As we are in youth, so we are in age--save

for the inevitable traces left by time."

"And this?" questioned Abel, as he looked at the girl and drew back his

gate.

"She is Ketira also; my youngest and dearest. The youngest of sixteen

children, Abel Carew; and every one of them, save herself, lying under

the sod."

"What--dead?" he exclaimed. "Sixteen!"

"Fifteen are dead, and are resting in peace in different lands: ten of

them died in infancy ere I had well taken my first look at their little

faces. She is the sixteenth. See you the likeness?" added the gipsy,

pointing to the girl's face; as she stood, modest and silent, a

conscious colour tingeing her olive cheeks, and glancing up now and

again through her long black eyelashes at Abel Carew.

"Likeness to you, Ketira?"

"Not to me: though there exists enough of it between us to betray that

we are mother and daughter. To him--her father."

And, while Abel was looking at the girl, I looked. And in that moment

it struck me that her face bore a remarkable likeness to his own. The

features were of the same high-bred cast, pure and refined; you might

have said they were made in the same mould.

"I see; yes," said Abel.

"He has been gone, too, this many a year; as you, perhaps, may know,

Abel; and is with the rest, waiting for us in the spirit-land. Kettie

does not remember him, it is so long ago. There are only she and I left

to go now. Kettie----"

She suddenly changed her language to one I did not understand. Neither,

as was easy to be seen, did Abel Carew. Whether it was Hebrew, or

Egyptian, or any other rare tongue, I knew not; but I had never in my

life heard its sounds before.

"I am telling Kettie that in you she may see what her father was--for

the likeness in your face and his, allowing for the difference of age,

is great."

"Does Kettie not speak English?" inquired Abel.

"Oh yes, I speak it," answered the girl, slightly smiling, and her tones

were soft and perfect as those of her mother.

"And where have you been since his death, Ketira? Stationary in Ai----"

He dropped his voice to a whisper at the last word, and I did not catch

it. I suppose he did not intend me to.

"Not stationary for long anywhere," she answered, passing into the

cottage with a majestic step. I lifted my hat to the women--who, for all

their gipsy dress and origin, seemed to command consideration--and made

off.

The arrival of these curious people caused some commotion at Church

Dykely. It was so rare we had any event to enliven us. They took up

their abode in a lonely cottage no better than a hut (one room up and

one down) that stood within that lively place, the wilderness on the

outskirts of Chanasse Grange; and there they stayed. How they got a

living nobody knew: some thought the gipsy must have an income, others

that Abel helped them.

"She was very handsome in her youth," he said to me one day, as if he

wished to give some explanation of the arrival I had chanced to witness.

"Handsomer and finer by far than her daughter is; and one who was very

near of kin to me married her--_would_ marry her. She was a born gipsy,

of what is called a high-caste tribe."

That was all he said. For Abel's sake, who was so respected, Church

Dykely felt inclined to give respect to the women. But, when it was

discovered that Ketira would tell the fortune of any one who cared to

go surreptitiously to her lonely hut, the respect cooled down. "Ketira

the gipsy," she was universally called: nobody knew her by any other

name. The fortune-telling came to the ears of Abel, arousing his

indignation. He went to Ketira in distress, begging of her to cease

such practices--but she waved him majestically out of the hut, and

bade him mind his own business. Occasionally the mother and daughter

shut up their dwelling and disappeared for weeks together. It was

assumed they went to attend fairs and races, camping out with the

gipsy fraternity. Kettie at all times and seasons was modest and good;

never was an unmaidenly look seen from her, or a bold word heard. In

appearance and manner and diction she might have been a born lady, and

a high-bred one. Graceful and innocent was Kettie; but heedless and

giddy, as girls are apt to be.

"Look there, Johnny!"

We were at Worcester races, walking about on the course. I turned at

Tod's words, and saw Ketira the gipsy, her red cloak gleaming in the

sun, just as it had gleamed that day, a year before, on Dykely Common.

For the past month she had been away, and her cottage shut up.

She stood at the open door of a carriage, reading the hand of the lady

inside it. A notable object was Ketira on the course, with her quaint

attire, her majestic figure, her fine olive-dark features, and the fire

of her brilliant eyes. What good or ill luck she was promising, I know

not; but I saw the lady turn pale and snatch her hand away. "You cannot

_know_ what you tell me," she cried in a haughty tone, sharp enough and

loud enough to be heard.

"Wait and see," rejoined Ketira, turning away.

"So you have come here to see the fun, Ketira," I said to her, as she

was brushing by me. During the past year I had seen more of her than

many people had, and we had grown familiar; for she, as she once

expressed it, "took" to me.

"The fun and the business; the pleasure and the wickedness," she

answered, with a sweep of the hand round the course. "There's plenty of

it abroad."

"Is Kettie not here?" I asked: and the question made her eyes glare.

Though, why, I was at a loss to know, seeing that a race-ground is the

legitimate resort of gipsies.

"Kettie! Do you suppose I bring Kettie to _these_ scenes--to be gazed at

by this ribald mass?"

"Well, it is a rabble, and a good one," I answered, looking at the

crowd.

"Nay, boy," said she, following my glance, "it's not the rabble Kettie

need fear, as you count rabble; it's their betters"--swaying her arms

towards the carriages, and the dandies, their owners or guests; some of

whom were balancing themselves on the steps to talk to the pretty girls

within, and some were strolling about the enclosed paddock, forbidden

ground but to the "upper few." "Ketira is too fair to be shown to

_them_."

"They would not eat her, Ketira."

"No, they would not eat her," she replied in a dreamy tone, as if her

thoughts were elsewhere.

"And I don't see any other harm they could do her, guarded by you."

"Boy," she said, dropping her voice to an impressive whisper, and

lightly touching my arm with her yellow hand, "I have read Kettie's fate

in the stars, and I see that there is some great and grievous peril

approaching her. It _may_ be averted; there's just a chance that it may:

meanwhile I am encompassing her about with care, guarding her as the

apple of my eye."

"And if it should not be averted?" I asked in the moment's impulse,

carried away by the woman's impressive earnestness.

"Then woe be to those who bring the evil upon her!"

"And of what nature is the evil?"

"I know not," she replied, her eyes taking again their dreamy, far-off

look. "Woe is me!--for I know it not."

"How do you do, Ludlow? Not here alone, are you?"

A good-looking young fellow, Hyde Stockhausen, had reined in his horse

to ask the question: giving at the same time a keen glance to the gipsy

woman and then a half-smile at me, as if he suspected I was having my

fortune told.

"The rest are on the course somewhere. The Squire is driving old

Jacobson about."

As Hyde nodded and rode on, I chanced to see Ketira's face. It was

stretched out after him with the most eager gaze on it, a defiant look

in her black eyes. I thought Stockhausen must have offended her.

"Do you know him?" I asked involuntarily.

"I never saw him before; but I don't like him," she answered, showing

her white and gleaming teeth. "Who is he?"

"His name is Stockhausen."

"I don't like him," she repeated in a muttering tone. "He is an enemy.

I don't like his look."

Considering that he was a well-looking man, with a pleasant face and gay

blue eyes, a face that no reasonable spirit could take umbrage at, I

wondered to hear her say this.

"You must have a peculiar taste in looks, Ketira, to dislike his."

"You don't understand," she said abruptly: and, turning away,

disappeared in the throng.

Only once more did I catch sight of Ketira that day. It was at the lower

end of Pitchcroft, near the show. She was standing in front of a booth,

staring at a group of horsemen who seemed to have met and halted there,

one of whom was young Stockhausen. Again the notion crossed me that he

must in some way have affronted her. It was on him her eyes were fixed:

and in them lay the same curious, defiant expression of antagonism,

mingled with fear.

Hyde Stockhausen was the step-son of old Massock of South Crabb. The

Stockhausens had a name in Worcestershire for dying off, as I have told

the reader before. Hyde's father had proved no exception. After his

death the widow married Massock the brickmaker, putting up with the

man's vulgarity for the sake of his riches. It took people by surprise:

for she had been a lady always, as Miss Hyde and as Mrs. Stockhausen;

one might have thought she would rather have put up with a clown from

Pershore fair than with Massock the illiterate. Hyde Stockhausen was

well educated: his uncle, Tom Hyde the parson, had taken care of that.

At twenty-one he came into some money, and at once began to do his best

to spend it. He was to have been a parson, but could not get through at

Oxford, and gave up trying for it. His uncle quarrelled with him then:

he knew Hyde had not _tried_ to pass, and that he openly said nobody

should make a parson of _him_. After the quarrel, Hyde went off to see

what the Continent was like. He stayed so long that the world at home

thought he was lost. For the past ten or eleven months he had been back

at his mother's at South Crabb, knocking about, as Massock phrased it to

the Squire one day. Hyde said he was "looking-out" for something to do:

but he was quite easy as to the future, feeling sure his old uncle would

leave him well off. Parson Hyde had never married; and had plenty of

money to bequeath to somebody. As to Hyde's own money, that had nearly

come to an end.

Naturally old Massock (an ill-conditioned kind of man) grew impatient

over this state of things, reproaching Hyde with his idle habits, which

were a bad example for his own sons. And only just before this very day

that we were on Worcester racecourse, rumours reached Church Dykely that

Stockhausen was coming over to settle there and superintend certain

fields of brick-making, which Massock had recently purchased and

commenced working. As if Massock could not have kept himself and his

bricks at South Crabb! But it was hardly likely that Hyde, really a

gentleman, would take to brick-making.

We did not know much of him. His connection with Massock had kept people

aloof. Many who would have been glad enough to make friends with Hyde

would not do it as long as he had his home at Massock's. His mother's

strange and fatal marriage with the man (fatal as regarded her place in

society) told upon Hyde, and there's no doubt he must have felt the

smart.

* * * * *

The rumour proved to be correct. Hyde Stockhausen took up his abode at

Church Dykely, as overseer, or clerk, or manager--whatever might be

the right term for it--of the men employed in his step-father's brick

operations. The pretty little house, called Virginia Cottage, owned by

Henry Rimmer, which had the Virginia creeper trailing up its red walls,

and flowers clustering in its productive garden, was furnished for him;

and Hyde installed himself in it as thoroughly and completely as though

he had entered on brick-making for life. Some people laughed. "But it's

only while I am turning myself round," he said, one day, to the Squire.

Hyde soon got acquainted with Church Dykely, and would drop into

people's houses of an evening, laughing over his occupation, and saying

he should be able to make bricks himself in time. His chief work seemed

to be in standing about the brick-yard watching the men, and in writing

and book-keeping at home. Old Massock made his appearance once a month,

when accounts and such-like items were gone over between them.

When it was that Hyde first got on speaking terms with Kettie, or

where, or how, I cannot tell. So far as I know, nobody could tell. It

was late in the autumn when Ketira and her daughter came back to their

hut; and by the following early spring some of us had grown accustomed

to seeing Hyde and Kettie together in an evening, snatching a short

whisper or a five-minutes' walk. In March, I think it was, she and

Ketira went away again, and returned in May.

The twenty-ninth of May was at that time kept as a holiday in

Worcestershire, though it has dropped out of use as such in late years.

In Worcester itself there was a grand procession, which country people

went in to see, and a special service in the cathedral. We had service

also at Church Dykely, and the villagers adorned their front-doors with

immense oak boughs, sprays of which we young ones wore in our jackets,

the oak-balls and leaves gilded. I remember one year that the big bough

(almost a tree) which Henry Rimmer had hoisted over his sign, the

"Silver Bear," came to grief. Whether Rimmer had not secured it as

firmly as usual, or that the cords were rotten, down came the huge bough

with a crash on old Mr. Stirling's head, who chanced to be coming out of

the inn. He went on at Rimmer finely, vowing his neck was broken, and

that Rimmer ought to be hung up there himself.

On this twenty-ninth of May I met Kettie. It was on the common, near

Abel Carew's. Kettie had caught up the fashion of the place, and wore a

little spray of oak peeping out from between the folds of her red cloak.

And I may as well say that neither she nor her mother ever went out

without the cloak. In cold and heat, in rain and sunshine, the red cloak

was worn out-of-doors.

"Are you making holiday to-day, Kettie?"

"Not more than usual; all days are the same to us," she answered, in her

sweet, soft voice, and with the slightly foreign accent that attended

the speech of both. But Kettie had it more strongly than her mother.

"You have not gilded your oak-ball."

Kettie glanced down at the one ball, nestling amid its green leaves.

"I had no gilding to put on it, Mr. Johnny."

"No! I have some in my pocket. Let me gild it for you."

Her teeth shone like pearls as she smiled and held out the spray. How

beautiful she was! with those delicate features and the large dark

eyes!--eyes that were softer than Ketira's. Taking the little paper

book from my pocket, and some of the gilt leaf from between its tissue

leaves, I wetted the oak-ball and gilded it. Kettie watched intently.

"Where did you get it all from?" she asked, meaning the gilt leaf.

"I bought it at Hewitt's. Don't you know the shop? A stationer's; next

door to Pettipher the druggist's. Hewitt does no end of a trade in these

leaves on the twenty-ninth of May."

"Did you buy it to gild oak-balls for yourself, sir?"

"For the young ones at home: Hugh and Lena. There it is, Kettie."

Had it been a ball of solid gold that I put into her hand, instead of

a gilded oak-ball, Kettie could not have shown more intense delight.

Her cheeks flushed; the wonderful brilliancy that joy brought to her

eyes caused my own eyes to turn away. For her eighteen years she was

childish in some things; very much so, considering the experience that

her wandering life must (as one would suppose) have brought her. In

replacing the spray within her cloak, Kettie dropped something out of

her hand--apparently a small box folded in paper. I picked it up.

"Is it a fairing, Kettie? But this is not fair time."

"It is--I forget the name," she replied, looking at me and hesitating.

"My mother is ill; the pains are in her shoulder again; and my uncle

Abel has given me this to rub upon it, the same that did her good

before. I cannot just call the name to mind in the English tongue."

"Say it in your own."

She spoke a very outlandish word, laughed, and turned red again.

Certainly there never lived a more modest girl than Kettie.

"Is it liniment?--ointment?"

"Yes, it is that, the last," she said: "Abel calls it so. I thank you

for what you have done for me, sir. Good-day."

To show so much gratitude for that foolish bit of gilt leaf on her

oak-ball! It illumined every line of her face. I liked Kettie: liked her

for her innocent simplicity. Had she not been a gipsy, many a gentleman

might have been proud to make her his wife.

Close upon that, it was known that Ketira was laid up with rheumatism.

The weather came in hot, and the days went on: and Kettie and Hyde were

now and then seen together.

One evening, on leaving Mrs. Scott's, where we had been to arrange with

Sam to go fishing with us on the morrow, Tod said he would invite Hyde

Stockhausen to be of the party; so we took Virginia Cottage on our road

home, and asked for Hyde.

"Not at home!" retorted Tod, resenting the old woman's answer, as though

it had been a personal affront. "Where is he?"

"Master Hyde has only just stepped out, sir; twenty minutes ago, or so,"

said she, pleadingly excusing the fact. Which was but natural: she had

been Hyde's nurse when he was a child; and had now come here to do for

him. "I dare say, sir, he be only walking about a bit, to get the fresh

air."

Tod whistled some bars of a tune thoughtfully. He did not like to be

crossed.

"Well, look here, Mrs. Preen," said he. "Some of us are going to fish in

the long pond on Mr. Jacobson's grounds to-morrow: tell Mr. Hyde that

if he would like to join us, I shall be happy to see him. Breakfast,

half-past eight o'clock; sharp."

In turning out beyond the garden, I could not help noticing how pretty

and romantic was the scene. A good many trees grew about that part,

thick enough almost for a wood in places; and the light and shade, cast

by the moon on the grass amidst them, had quite a weird appearance. It

was a bright night; the moon high in the sky.

"Is that Hyde?" cried Tod.

Halting for a moment in doubt, he peered out over the field to the

distance. Some one was leisurely pacing under the opposite trees. _Two_

people, I thought: but they were completely in the shade.

"I think it is Hyde, Tod. Somebody is with him."

"Just wait another instant, lad, and they'll be in that patch of

moonlight by the turning."

But they did not go into that patch of moonlight. Just before they

reached it (and the two figures were plain enough now) they turned back

again and took the narrow inlet that led to Oxlip Dell. Whoever it was

with Hyde had a hooded cloak on. Was it a red one? Tod laughed.

"Oh, by George, here's fun! He has got Kettie out for a moonlight

stroll. Let's go and ask them how they enjoy it."

"Hyde might not like us to."

"There you are again, Johnny, with your queer scruples! Stuff and

nonsense! Stockhausen can't have anything to say to Kettie that all the

world may not hear. I want to tell him about to-morrow."

Tod made off across the grass for the inlet, I after him. Yes, there

they were, promenading Oxlip Dell in the flickering light, now in the

shade, now in the brightest of the moonbeams; Hyde's arm hugging her red

cloak.

Tod gave a grunt of displeasure. "Stockhausen must be doing it for

pastime," he said; "but he ought not to be so thoughtless. Ketira the

gipsy would give the girl a shaking if she knew: she----"

The words came to an abrupt ending. There stood Ketira herself.

She was at the extreme end of the inlet amid the trees, holding on by

the trunk of one, round which her head was cautiously pushed to view

the promenaders. Comparatively speaking, it was dark just here; but I

could see the strangely-wild look in the gipsy's eyes: the woe-begone

expression of her remarkable face.

"It is coming," she said, apparently in answer to Tod's remarks, which

she could not have failed to hear. "It is coming quickly."

"What is coming?" I asked.

"The fate in store for her. And it's worse than death."

"If you don't like her to walk out by moonlight, why not keep her

in?--not that there can be any harm in it," interposed Tod. "If you

don't approve of her being friendly with Hyde Stockhausen," he went on

after a pause, for Ketira made no answer, "why don't you put a stop to

it?"

"Because she has her mother's spirit and her mother's _will_" cried

Ketira. "And she likes to have her own way: and I fear, woe's me! that

if I forced her to mine, things might become worse than they are even

now: that she might take some fatal step."

"I am going home," said Tod at this juncture, perhaps fancying

the matter was getting complicated: and, of all things, he hated

complications. "Good-night, old lady. We heard you were in bed with

rheumatism."

He set off back, up the narrow inlet. I said I'd catch him up: and

stayed behind for a last word with Ketira.

"What did you mean by a fatal step?"

"That she might leave me and seek the protection of the Tribe. We

have had words about this. Kettie says little, but I see the signs of

determination in her silent face. 'I will not have you meet or speak to

that man,' I said to her this morning--for she was out with him last

evening also. She made me no reply: but--you see--how she has obeyed!

Her heart's life has been awakened, and by _him_. There's only one

object to whom she clings now in all the whole earth; and that is to

him. I am nothing."

"He will not bring any great harm upon her: you need not fear that of

Hyde Stockhausen."

"Did I say he would?" she answered fiercely, her black eyes glaring and

gleaming. "But he will bring _sorrow_ on her and rend her heart-strings.

A man's fancies are light as the summer wind, fickle as the ocean waves:

but when a woman loves it is for life; sometimes for death."

Hyde and Kettie had disappeared at the upper end of the dell, taking the

way that in a minute or two would bring them out in the open fields.

Ketira turned back along the narrow path, and I with her.

"I knew he would bring some ill upon me, that first moment when I saw

him on Worcester race-ground," resumed Ketira in a low tone of pain.

"Instinct warned me that he was an enemy. And what ill can be like that

of stealing my young child's heart! Once a girl's heart is taken--and

taken but to be toyed with, to be flung back at will--her day-dreams in

this life are over."

Emerging into the open ground, the first thing we saw was the pair of

lovers about to part. They were standing face to face: Hyde held both

her hands while speaking his last words, and then bent suddenly down, as

if to whisper them. Ketira gave a sharp cry at that, perhaps she fancied

he was stealing a kiss, and lifted her right hand menacingly. The girl

ran swiftly in the direction of her home--which was not far off--and

Hyde strode, not much less quickly, towards his. Ketira stood as still

as a stone image, watching him till he disappeared within his gate.

"There's no harm in it," I persuasively said, sorry to see her so full

of trouble. But she was as one who heard not.

"No harm at all, Ketira. I dare answer for it that a score of lads and

lasses are out. Why should we not walk in the moonlight as well as the

sunlight? For my part, I should call it a shame to stay indoors on this

glorious night."

"An enemy, an enemy! A grand gentleman, who will leave her to pine

her heart away! What kind of man is he, that Hyde Stockhausen?" she

continued, turning to me fiercely.

"Kind of man? A pleasant one. I have not heard any ill of him."

"Rich?"

"No. Perhaps he will be rich some time. He makes bricks, you know, now.

That is, he superintends the men."

"Yes, I know," she answered: and I don't suppose there was much

connected with Hyde she did not know. Looking this way, looking that,

she at length began to walk, slowly and painfully, towards Hyde's gate.

The thought had crossed me--why did she not take Kettie away on one of

their long expeditions, if she dreaded him so much. But the rheumatism

lay upon her still too heavily.

Flinging open the gate, she went across the garden, not making for the

proper entrance, but for a lighted room, whose French-window stood open

to the ground. Hyde was there, just sitting down to supper.

"Come in with me," she said, turning her head round to beckon me on.

But I did not choose to go in. It was no affair of mine that I should

beard Hyde in his den. Very astonished indeed must he have been, when

she glided in at the window, and stood before him. I saw him rise from

his chair; I saw the astounded look of old Deborah Preen when she came

in with his supper ale in a jug.

What they said to one another, I know not. I did not wish to listen:

though it was only natural I should stay to see the play out. Just as

natural as it was for Preen to come stealing round through the kidney

beans to the front-garden, an anxious look on her face.

"What does that old gipsy woman want with the young master, Mr. Ludlow?

Is he having his fortune told?"

"I shouldn't wonder. Wish some good genius would tell mine!"

The interview seemed to have been short and sharp. Ketira was coming out

again. Hyde followed her to the window. Both were talking at once, and

the tail of the dispute reached our ears.

"I repeat to you that you are totally mistaken," Hyde was saying. "I

have no 'designs,' as you put it, on your daughter, good or bad; no

design whatever. She is perfectly free to go her own way, for me. My

good woman, you have no cause to adjure me in that solemn manner.

Sacred? 'Under Heaven's protection?' Well, so she may be. I hope she is.

Why should I wish to hinder it? I don't wish to, I don't intend to. You

need not glare so."

Ketira, outside the window now, turned and faced him, her great eyes

fixed on him, her hand raised in menace.

"Do not forget that. I have warned you, Hyde Stockhausen. By the Great

Power that regulates all things, human and divine, I affirm that I speak

the truth. If harm in any shape or of any kind comes to my child, my

dear one, my only one, through you, it will cost you more than you would

now care to have foretold."

"Bless my heart!" faintly ejaculated old Preen. And she drew away, and

backed for shelter into the bean rows.

Ketira brushed against me as she passed, taking no notice whatever; left

the garden, and limped away. Hyde saw me swinging through the gate.

"Are you there, Johnny?" he said, coming forward. "Did you hear that old

gipsy woman?" And in a few words I told him all about it.

"Such a fuss for nothing!" he exclaimed. "I'm sure I wish no ill to the

girl. Kettie's very nice; bright as the day: and I thought no more harm

of strolling a bit with her in the moonlight than I should think it if

she were my sister."

"But she is not your sister, you see, Hyde. And old Ketira does not like

it."

"I'll take precious good care to keep Kettie at arm's-length for the

future; make you very sure of that," he said, in a short, fractious

tone. "I don't care to be blamed for nothing. Tell Todhetley I can't

spare the time to go fishing to-morrow--wish I could. Good-night."

* * * * *

A fine commotion. Church Dykely up in arms. Kettie had disappeared.

About a fortnight had gone on since the above night, during which period

Ketira's rheumatism took so obstinate a turn that she had the felicity

of keeping her bed. And one morning, upon Duffham's chancing to pay his

visit to her before breakfast, for he was passing the hut on his way

home from an early patient, he found the gipsy up and dressed, and just

as wild as a lioness rampant. Kettie had gone away in the night.

"Where's she gone to?" naturally asked Duffham, leaning on his cane, and

watching the poor woman; who was whirling about like one demented, her

rheumatism forgotten.

"Ah, where's she gone to?--where?" raved old Ketira. "When I lay down

last night, leaving her to put the plates away and to follow me up when

she had done it, I dropped asleep at once. All night long I never woke;

the pain was easier, all but gone, and I had been well-nigh worn out

with it. 'Why, what's the time, Kettie?' I said to her in our own

tongue, when I opened my eyes and saw the sun was high. She did not

answer, and I supposed she had gone down to get the breakfast. I called,

and called; in vain. I began to put my clothes on; and then I found that

she had not lain down that night; and--woe's me! she's gone."

Duffham could not make anything of it; it was less in his line than

rheumatism and broken legs. Being sharp-set for his breakfast, he came

away, telling Ketira he would see her again by-and-by.

And, shortly afterwards, he chanced to meet her. Coming out on his round

of visits, he encountered Ketira near Virginia Cottage. She had been

making a call on Hyde Stockhausen.

"He baffles me," she said to the doctor: and Duffham thought if ever

a woman's face had the expression "baffled" plainly written on it,

Ketira's had then. "I don't know what to make of him. His speech is

fair: but--there's the instinct lying in my heart."

"Why, you don't suppose, do you, that Mr. Stockhausen has stolen the

child?" questioned Duffham, after a good pause of thought.

"And by whom do _you_ suppose the child has been stolen, if not by him?"

retorted the gipsy.

"Nay," said Duffham, "I should say she has not been stolen at all. It

is difficult to steal girls of her age, remember. Last night was fine;

the stars were bright as silver: perhaps, tempted by it, she went out

a-roaming, and you will see her back in the course of the day."

"I suspect him," repeated Ketira, her great black eyes flashing their

anger on Hyde's cottage. "He acts cleverly; but, I suspect him."

Drawing her scarlet cloak higher on her shoulders, she bent her steps

towards Oxlip Dell. Duffham was turning on his way, when old Abel Crew

came up. We called him "Crew," you know, at Church Dykely.

"Are you looking for Kettie?" questioned Duffham.

"I don't know where to look for her," was Abel's answer. "This morning

I was out before sunrise searching for rare herbs: the round I took

was an unusually large one, but I did not see anything of the child.

Ketira suspects that Mr. Stockhausen must know where she is."

"And do you suspect he does?"

"It is a question that I cannot answer, even to my own mind," replied

Abel. "That they were sometimes seen talking and walking together, is

certain; and, so far, he may be open to suspicion. But, sir, I know

nothing else against him, and I cannot think he would wish to hurt her.

I am on my way to ask him."

Interested by this time in the drama, Duffham followed Abel to Virginia

Cottage. Hyde Stockhausen was in the little den that he made his

counting-house, adding up columns of figures in a ledger, and stared

considerably upon being thus pounced upon.

"I wonder what next!" he burst forth, turning crusty before Abel had got

out half a sentence. "That confounded old gipsy has just been here with

her abuse; and now you have come! She has accused me of I know not what

all."

"Of spiriting away her daughter," put in Duffham; who was standing back

against the shelves.

"But I have not done it," spluttered Hyde, talking too fast for

convenience in his passion. "If I had spirited her away, as you call it,

here she would be. Where could I spirit her to?--up into the air, or

below the ground?"

"That's just the question--where is she?" rejoined Duffham, gently

swaying his big cane.

"How should I know where she is?" retorted Hyde. "If I had 'spirited'

her away--I must say I like that word!--here she'd be. Do you suppose I

have got her in my house?--or down at the brick-kilns?"

Abel, since his first checked sentence, had been standing quietly and

thoughtfully, giving his whole attention to Hyde, as if wanting to see

what he was made of. For the second time he essayed to speak.

"You see, sir, we do not know that she is not here. We have your word

for it; but----"

"Then you had better look," interrupted Hyde, adding something about

"insolence" under his breath. "Search the house. You are welcome to. Mr.

Duffham can show you about it; he knows all its turnings and windings."

What could have been in old Abel's thoughts did not appear on the

surface; but he left the room with just a word of respectful apology for

accepting the offer. Hyde, who had made it at random in his passion,

never supposing it would be caught at, threw back his head disdainfully,

and sent a contemptuous word after him. But when Duffham moved off in

the same direction, he was utterly surprised.

"Are _you_ going to search?"

"I thought you meant me to be his pilot," said Duffham, as cool as you

please. "There's not much to be seen. I expect, but the chairs and

tables."

Any way, Kettie was not to be seen. The house was but a small one, with

no surreptitious closets or cupboards, or other hiding-places. All the

rooms and passages stood open to the morning sun, and never a suspicious

thing was in them.

Hyde had settled to his accounts again when they got back. He did not

condescend to turn his head or notice the offenders any way. Abel waited

a moment, and then spoke.

"It may seem to you that I have done a discourteous thing in availing

myself of your offer, Mr. Stockhausen; if so, I crave your pardon for

it. Sir, you cannot imagine how seriously this disappearance of the

child is affecting her mother. Let it plead my excuse."

"It cannot excuse your suspicion of me," returned Hyde, pausing for a

moment in his adding up.

"In all the ends of this wide earth there lies not elsewhere a shadow of

clue to any motive for her departure. At least, none that we can gather.

The only ground for thinking of you, sir, is that you and she have been

friendly. For all our sakes, Mr. Stockhausen, I trust that she will be

found, and the mystery cleared up."

"Don't you think you had better have the brick-kilns visited--as well

as my house?" sarcastically asked Hyde. But Abel, making no rejoinder,

save a civil good-morning, departed.

"And now I'll go," said Duffham.

"The sooner the better," retorted Hyde, taking a penful of ink and

splashing some of it on the floor.

"There's no cause for you to put yourself out, young man."

"I think there is cause," flashed Hyde. "When you can come to my house

with such an accusation as this!--and insolently search it!"

"The searching was the result of your own proposal. As to an accusation,

none has been made in my hearing. Kettie has mysteriously disappeared,

and it is only natural her people should wish to know where she is, and

to look for her. You take up the matter in a wrong light, Mr. Hyde."

"I don't know anything of Kettie"--in an injured tone; "I don't want to.

It's rather hard to have her vagaries put upon my back."

"Well, you have only to tell them you don't in an honest manner; I dare

say they'll believe you. Abel Carew is one of the most reasonable men I

ever knew; sensible, too. Try and find the child yourself; help them to

do it, if you can see a clue; make common cause with them."

"You would not like to be told that you had 'spirited' somebody away,

more than I like it," grumbled Hyde; who, thoroughly put out, was hard

to bring round. "I'm sure you are as likely to turn kidnapper as I am.

It must be a good two weeks since anybody saw me speak to the girl."

"I shall have my patients thinking I am kidnapped if I don't get off to

them," cried Duffham. "Mrs. Godfrey's ill, and she is the very essence

of impatience. Good-day."

Thoroughly at home in the house, Duffham made no ceremony of departing

by the back-door, it being more convenient for the road he was going.

Deborah Preen was washing endive at the pump in the yard. She turned

round to address Duffham as he was passing.

"Has the master spoke to you about his throat, sir?"

"No," said Duffham, halting. "What is amiss with his throat?"

"He has been given to sore throats all his life, Dr. Duffham. Many's the

time I have had him laid up with them when he was a child. Yesterday he

was quite bad with one, sir; and so he is this morning."

"Perhaps that's why he's cross," remarked Duffham.

"Cross! and enough to make him cross!" returned she, taking up the

implication warmly. "I ask your pard'n, sir, for speaking so to you; but

I'd like to know what gentleman could help being cross when that yellow

gipsy comes to attack him with her slanderous tongue, and say to him,

Have you come across to my hut in the night and stole my daughter out of

it?"

"You think your master did not go across and commit the theft?"

"I know he did not," was Preen's indignant answer. "He never stirred out

of his own home, sir, all last night; he was nursing his throat indoors.

At ten o'clock he went to bed, and I took him up a posset after he was

in it. Well, sir, I was uneasy, for I don't like these sore throats,

and between two and three o'clock I crept into his room and found him

sleeping quietly; and I was in again this morning and woke him up with

a cup o' tea."

"A pretty good proof that he did not go out," said Duffham.

"He never was as much as out of his bed, sir. The man that sleeps

indoors locked up the house last night, and opened it again this

morning. Ketira the gipsy would be in gaol if she got her deservings!"

"I wonder where the rest of us would be if we got ours!" quoth Duffham.

"I suppose I had better go back and take a look at this throat!"

To see the miserable distress of Ketira that day, and the despair

upon her face as she dodged about between Virginia Cottage and the

brickfields, was like a gloomy picture.

"Do you remember telling me once that you feared Kettie might run away

to the tribe?" I asked, meeting her on one of these wanderings in the

afternoon. "Perhaps that is where she is gone?"

The suggestion seemed to offend her mortally. "Boy, I know better," she

said, facing round upon me fiercely. "With the tribe she would be safe,

and I at rest. The stars never deceive me."

And, when the sun went down that night and the stars came out, the

environs of Virginia Cottage were still haunted by Ketira the gipsy.