Volume I Part 11 (1/2)
The few words that my old ayah had taught me in India had thus procured me a hearty welcome in a Mids.h.i.+re fir-plantation.
”Sit down by me, Peter Meredith, my son,” exclaimed the old woman; ”and do you fetch him water, Mina.”
I dismounted, and did as I was bid; while the young girl took a pitcher, and presently brought it filled from a running Stream near by, and offered it to me, like another Rebecca. But her grandmother--for such she was--cried, ”Stop! let me put something in it;” and produced from her pocket the self-same flask which she herself had given me a few weeks ago, and which I had thought was left behind at the Dovecot.
”Why, I was blaming myself for not having brought you that thing back to-day,” said I; ”I never heard of your coming to claim it.”
”Nor did I, young gentleman,” returned the old woman, proudly. ”Harvey Gerard is too kind a man to visit when one is not in need. That was why I left his house that day, directly I had told what had befallen Marmaduke Heath: I did not wish him to think I waited for my reward.
He returned me this with his own hands. He is not one of your proud ones. When we had the fever here--Mina, darling, you remember who came to see you, and saved your life?”
”Ah, yes!” cried the girl, clasping her dark hands, which gleamed with tawdry rings; ”and his daughter, too, how I love her!”
There was a little pause; I felt my ears tingle, my cheeks burn. I did not dare look up from the ground.
”Lucy Gerard is very fair,” whispered the old woman; ”she will make a good and loving wife;” then she added roguishly, and in that gipsy tone which smacks so of the race-course: ”Shall I tell your fortune, my pretty gentleman?”
”No, I thank you,” said I, hastily; ”I have no great confidence in your information as to the future. With respect to the past, on the other hand, you can doubtless satisfy me, if you will. I have a great curiosity to know how you became possessed of yonder flask with the Heath griffin.”
”Peter Meredith,” returned the old woman, very gravely, ”you have asked me to tell you a sad story, and one to relate which will cost me much.
It is not our custom, however, to refuse the first request of a new friend. But before I begin, let me ask you a question in my turn. Has it never struck you why Sir Ma.s.singberd Heath has not long ago taken to himself a young wife, and begotten an heir for the bonny lands of Fairburn, in despite of his nephew?”
Until that moment, the idea had never crossed my brain; but no sooner was it thus mooted than I wondered greatly at the shortsightedness of those among whom Marmaduke's affairs had been so lately discussed, and in particular at that of Mr. Clint, who, as a lawyer, should surely have at once foreseen such a contingency. ”Well,” said I, ”I confess that, for my part, I have never thought of it; but there cannot be much danger of Sir Ma.s.singberd's becoming a wooer now; why, what young woman would be won by such as he?”
”What young woman would not be won?” replied Rachel Liversedge, grimly. ”Think you that his white head and stony heart would weigh too heavy in the balance against his t.i.tle and the reversion of his lands?
Remember, all that is around us, and all that we could see from yonder hill to the right hand and to the left--pasture and corn-field, farm and park--would fall to the offspring of her who would venture, for a few years, to be Lady Heath. Peter, there is one maiden in Mids.h.i.+re, known to you and me, who would not consent to do this thing, though the offer were thrice as splendid; but I doubt if there be more than one.”
”If that be so,” said I, ”why does not Sir Ma.s.singberd marry?”
”The answer to that is the story I am about to tell you,” returned Rachel.
CHAPTER XIV.
WHY SIR Ma.s.sINGBERD DID NOT MARRY.
”I suppose you have heard, Peter Meredith, young as you are,” began the old woman, ”a great deal of ill-speaking against us Wanderers. We not only kill game, but even domestic poultry, if the opportunity is given to us; we not only steal wood, but horse-flesh; and since we are so partial to carrion, it is not to be wondered at that we sometimes suffocate a sheep with a piece of his own wool, in order to get the carca.s.s cheap from the farmer. Yet whatever false charges are current about us now, these are nothing, either in gravity or number, to what they were when I was a young girl--that is, fifty years ago. Every man's hand, every woman's tongue, was against us: magistrates committed us without testimony; rogues made a trade of accusing us solely to get blood-money. Our name was more than a by-word, it was a brand; to call a man a gipsy, was to say vagabond and thief in one. Under these circ.u.mstances, Ma.s.singberd Heath left his father's house yonder, and came to live with us as congenial company. We were in this very wood the day he did so. The sun shone as brightly as now, the streamlet ran just as blithe, the air was filled, as now, with the sweet-smelling pine. The people only are changed--ah me, how changed!--who made up that scene.
There was my father; he died! ten years younger than I am now; is not that strange, boy? his brother Morris, dead; poor Stanley Carew, you shall hear of him presently, a handsomer lad by far than his nephew there; my beautiful Sinnamenta, compared to little Mina yonder, though she is pretty enough, like a blush-rose to a mere peony, the flower of womankind. If there are ladies and women born into the world, then she was a lady. There are no such beauties now; no, friend, not even at the Dovecot. Let me see; I have counted four; then I was there also, comely enough, 'twas said, but not to be spoken of for looks with my younger sister.
”We were occupied pretty much as you see us now, for life in the Greenwood possesses but little variety, when Ma.s.singberd Heath strode in among us, with his gun upon his shoulder. We knew him well, but were not inclined to dislike him. He was a dissipated, wild, young fellow, but, as yet, his heart was thought, as the saying is, to be in the right place; his popularity, however, was princ.i.p.ally owing to his antagonism to his father. Sir Wentworth had long pa.s.sed through the spendthrift stage, and was very close with respect to money-matters; a harsh and griping landlord, and it is probable enough a n.i.g.g.ard parent. His son's extravagances were at that time insignificant compared to what they afterwards became, yet the old man was for ever complaining. He persecuted all who were poor and in his power, but the gipsies especially. He feared for his deer, for his game, for his fences, and, besides, I verily believe he detested us for our improvidence. I remember he sent two of my young brothers to prison for tossing for halfpence upon a Sunday--he who made not even a pretence of religion himself, and had been used invariably to pa.s.s his day of rest in town at Tattersall's, betting his thousands on some approaching race. It is said that this wretched old man used to horse-whip young Ma.s.singberd almost daily, until a certain occasion, when the latter found himself stronger than he imagined, and reversed the process. After that, Sir Wentworth confined himself to cursing his offspring whenever they quarrelled. It was after some dreadful outbreak of pa.s.sion on the part of the old man that Ma.s.singberd Heath left house and home, and elected to join our wandering fortunes. We were very unwilling that this should be. It was by no means so unusual a proceeding then as now, for persons of good birth, but broken fortunes, to become gipsies, but such had usually their private reasons for remaining so for life. They were very rarely criminals, but generally social outlaws, for whom there could be no reconciliation at home, or younger sons of respectable families, with quite a mountain of debt upon their shoulders. These were regularly nationalized among us; and if they conducted themselves for sufficient time in accordance with our regulations, they were permitted to intermarry with us.
”Now it was certain that Ma.s.singberd Heath sought only a temporary home; as soon as his father died, or even offered terms to him, he would leave us, and resume his proper station. Moreover, how was the maintenance of discipline and obedience to the chief of our tribe, absolutely essential as it is, to be kept up in the case of this new-comer? Even at that time, he was a headstrong, wilful man, to whom all authority, however lawful or natural, was hateful. Was it to be expected that he who defied his own father, himself a man of iron will, would obey Morris Liversedge? On the other hand, Uncle Morris rather liked the young fellow. He had connived at many a raid on his father's own preserves--to such a pitch had the quarrel grown between them--and kept our pot boiling with bird and beast. Many and many a time had he led the Fairburn keepers to one extremity of the preserves, while the slaughter was going on in the other. Moreover, it would be of great importance, could we make a friend of the man who would one day own all these pleasant haunts of ours, and who could say a good word, and a strong one, for the poor persecuted gipsies, when it was needed. Poor Morris did not know that the rebel but too often turns out a tyrant, when he gets his chance. He could not foresee Sir Ma.s.singberd Heath sending folks to prison, or getting them kidnapped, and sent across the seas, for snaring the hares that he held so cheaply when they did not happen to belong to himself. If you want to find a gentleman who in his youth, and landless, has been a poacher whenever the opportunity offered, look you among the game-preservers on the bench of justices. This, however, is among the least of the basenesses of him of whom I speak. It is not for his bitter guardians.h.i.+p of bird and beast, or his hateful oppression of his fellow-creatures, that my heart cries out for judgment against this man, that I look with eager longing for that hour when G.o.d shall take him into His own hand.”
The old woman paused a moment with closed eyes, and muttered something that was inaudible to me, rocking herself at the same time to and fro.
”Ma.s.singberd Heath became one of us, Peter Meredith as far as it is possible for such a wretch to be so; he ate with us, and drank with us, which they say is a sacred bond among even savages. It was not so with him. He cast his evil eyes upon Sinnamenta, to love her after the fas.h.i.+on of his accursed race. Perhaps you may think, Peter Meredith, that such an occurrence should have been foreseen by her father or her uncle Morris, and, for my part, I always thought that it was the presence of my lovely sister which mainly caused this man to join our company; but, at all events, neither they nor I dreaded any ill consequences. A gipsy girl is not a light-of-love maiden, like those of fairer skins. Heaven, who gives her beauty, gives her virtue also: this is not denied, even by our enemies. When you call your sweetheart 'Gipsy,' it is in love, not in reproach. Ma.s.singberd Heath knew this well, and therefore it was foe took such pains in the matter. It is true that we do not marry in church, but when we wed among ourselves, the marriage is not less sacred; It was a wedding of this sort, indissoluble by one party, but not by the other, which this man wished to compa.s.s. He did not gain his end.”