The Gipsy: A Tale (Vols I & II). G. P. R. James

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СКАЧАТЬ and well tended, came down the slope of a long hill, exposing its course to the eye for near a mile. There was a gentle rise on each side, covered with wood; but this rise, and its forest burden, did not advance within a hundred yards of the road on either hand, leaving between--except where it was interrupted by some old sand-pits--a space of open ground covered with short green turf, with here and there an ancient oak standing forward before the other trees, and spreading its branches to the way-side. To the right was a little rivulet gurgling along the deep bed it had worn for itself among the short grass, in its way towards a considerable river that flowed through the valley at about two miles' distance; and, on the left, the eye might range far amid the tall, separate trees--now, perhaps, lighting upon a stag at gaze, or a fallow deer tripping away over the dewy ground as light and gracefully as a lady in a ballroom--till sight became lost in the green shade and the dim wilderness of leaves and branches.

      Amid the scattered oaks in advance of the wood, and nestled into the dry nooks of the sand-pits, appeared about half a dozen dirty brown shreds of canvass, none of which seemed larger than a dinner napkin, yet which--spread over hoops, cross sticks, and other contrivances--served as habitations to six or seven families of that wild and dingy race, whose existence and history is a phenomenon, not among the least strange of all the wonderful things that we pass by daily without investigation or inquiry. At the mouths of one or two of these little dwelling-places might be seen some gipsy women with their peculiar straw bonnets, red cloaks, and silk handkerchiefs; some withered, shrunk, and witch-like, bore evident the traces of long years of wandering exposure and vicissitude; while others, with the warm rose of health and youth glowing through the golden brown of their skins, and their dark gem-like eyes flashing undimmed by sorrow or infirmity, gave the beau idéal of a beautiful nation long passed away from thrones and dignities, and left but as the fragments of a wreck dashed to atoms by the waves of the past.

      At one point, amid white wood ashes, and many an unlawful feather from the plundered cock and violated turkey, sparkled a fire and boiled a caldron; and, round about the ancient beldam who presided over the pot were placed in various easy attitudes several of the male members of the tribe--mostly covered with long loose great-coats, which bespoke the owners either changed or shrunk. A number of half-naked brats, engaged in many a sport, filled up the scene, and promised a sturdy and increasing race of rogues and vagabonds for after years.

      Over the whole--wood, and road, and streamlet, and gipsy encampment--was pouring in full stream the purple light of evening, with the long shadows stretching across, and marking the distances all the way up the slope of the hill. Where an undulation of the ground, about half-way up the ascent, gave a wider space of light than ordinary, were seen, as we have before said, two strangers riding slowly down the road, whose appearance soon called the eyes of the gipsy fraternity upon their movements; for the laws in regard to vagabondism^[1] had lately been strained somewhat hard, especially in that part of the country, and the natural consequence was, that the gipsy and the beggar looked upon almost every human thing as an enemy.

      With their usual quick perception, however, they soon gathered that the travellers were not of that cast from whom they had anything to fear; and indeed there was nothing of the swaggering bailiff or bullying constable in the aspect of either. The one was a man of about six-and-twenty years of age, with fine features, a slight but well-made person, and a brown but somewhat pale complexion. His eyes were remarkably fine, and his mouth and chin beautifully cut; he rode his horse, too, with skill and grace; and withal he had that air of consequence which is at any time worth the riband of the Bath. His companion was older, taller, stronger. In age he might be thirty-two or three, in height he was fully six feet, and seldom was there ever a form which excelled his in all those points where great strength is afforded without any appearance of clumsiness. He rode his horse, which was a powerful dark-brown gelding, as if half his life were spent on horseback; and as he came down the hill with the peculiar appearance of ease and power which great bodily strength and activity usually give, one might well have concluded that he was as fine-looking a man as one had ever beheld. But when he approached so as to allow his features to be seen, all one's prepossessions were dispelled, and one perceived that, notwithstanding this fine person, he was in some respects as ugly a man as it was possible to conceive.

      Thanks to Jenner and vaccination, we (the English) are nowadays as handsome a people as any, perhaps, in Europe, with smooth skins and features as nature made them; but in the times I talk of, vaccination, alas! was unknown; and whatever the traveller we speak of might have been before he had been attacked by the smallpox, the traces which that horrible malady had left upon his face had deprived it of every vestige of beauty--if, indeed, we except his eyes and eyelashes, which had been spared as if just to redeem his countenance from the frightful. They--his eyes and eyelashes--were certainly fine, very fine; but they were like the beauty of Tadmor in the wilderness, for all was ugliness around them. However, his countenance had a good-humoured expression, which made up for much; neither was it of that vulgar ugliness which robes and ermine but serve to render more low and unprepossessing. But still, when first you saw him, you could not but feel that he was excessively plain; and yet there was always something at the heart which made one--as the ravages of the disease struck the eye--think, if not say, "What a pity!"

      The dress of the two strangers was alike, and it was military; but although an officer of those days did not feel it at all scandalous or wrong to show himself in his regimentals, yet such was not the case in the present instance; and the habiliments of the two horsemen consisted, as far as could be seen, of a blue riding-coat, bound round the waist by a crimson scarf, with a pair of heavy boots, of that form which afterward obtained the name of Pendragon. Swords were at their sides, and--as was usual in those days, even for the most pacific travellers--large fur-covered holsters were at their saddle-bows; so that, although they had no servants with them, and were evidently of that class of society upon which the more liberal-minded prey and have preyed in all ages, there was about them "something dangerous," to attack which would have implied great necessity or a very combative disposition.

      As the travellers rode on, the gipsy men, without moving from the places they had before occupied, eyed them from under their bent brows, affecting withal hardly to see them; while the urchins ran like young apes by the side of their horses, performing all sorts of antics, and begging hard for halfpence; and at length a girl of about fifteen or sixteen--notwithstanding some forcible injunctions to forbear on the part of the old woman who was tending the caldron--sprang up the bank, beseeching the gentlemen, in the usual singsong of her tribe, to cross her hand with silver, and have their fortunes told; promising them at the same time a golden future, and, like Launcelot, "a pretty trifle of wives."

      In regard to her chiromantic science the gentlemen were obdurate, though each of them gave her one of those flat polished pieces of silver which were sixpences in our young days; and having done this, they rode on, turning for a moment or two their conversation, which had been flowing in a very different channel, to the subject of the gipsies they had just passed, moralizing deeply on their strange history and wayward fate, and wondering that no philanthropic government had ever endeavoured to give them a "local habitation and a name" among the sons and daughters of honest industry.

      "I am afraid that the attempt would be in vain," answered the younger of the two to his companion. "And besides, it would be doing a notable injustice to the profession of petty larceny to deprive it of its only avowed and honourable professors, while we have too many of its amateur practitioners in the very best society already."

      "Nay, nay! Society is not as bad as that would argue it," rejoined the other. "Thank God, there are few thieves or pilferers within the circle of my acquaintance, which is not small."

      "Indeed!" said his companion. "Think for a moment, my dear colonel, how many of your dearly-beloved friends are there who, for but a small gratification, would pilfer from you those things that you value most highly! How many would steal from one the affection of one's mistress or wife! How many, for some flimsy honour, some dignity of riband or of place, would pocket the reputation of deeds they had never done! How many, for some party interest or political rancour, would СКАЧАТЬ