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

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СКАЧАТЬ well," answered the other; "but how did he look?--Tell me, Pharold, how did he look?"

      "Dark enough, and gloomy," answered the gipsy: "he came with his hands behind his back, and his hat over his brows, and his eyes bent upon the ground; and ever as he walked onward, his white teeth--for he has fine teeth still--gnawed his under lip; and, for my part, if my solitary walk were every day to be like that, I would not walk at all; but would rather lie me down by the roadside and die at once. Well then, often too as he came, he would stop and fix his eyes upon one particular pebble in the gravel, and stare at it, as if it had been enchanted; and then, with a great start, would look behind him to see if there was anyone watching his gloomy ways; or would suddenly whistle, as if for his dogs, though he had no dog with him."

      His companion drew a deep sigh, and then asked, "But how seemed he in health, Pharold? Is he much changed? He was once as strong a man as any one could see--does he still seem vigorous and well?"

      "You would not know him," replied the gipsy, and was going on, but the other broke in vehemently.

      "Not know him? That I would!" he exclaimed, "though age might have whitened his hair and dimmed his eye--though suffering might have shrivelled his flesh and bowed his stature--though death itself, and corruption in its train, might have wrought for days upon him, I would know him so long as the dust held together.--What, Pharold, not know him?--I not know him?"

      "Well, well," answered the gipsy, "I meant that he was changed--far, far more changed than you are--you were a young man when last we met, at least in your prime of strength, and now you are an old one, that is all. But he--he does not seem aged but blighted. It is not like a flower that has blown, and bloomed, and withered, but one that with a worm in its heart has shrunk, and shrivelled, and faded. He is yellower than I am, though I gain my colour from a long race who brought it centuries ago from a land of sunshine, and he has got it in less than twenty years from the scorching of a heart on fire. He is bent, too; and his features are as thin as a heron's bill."

      "Sad--sad--sad," said his companion; "but how could it be otherwise? Well, what more? Tell me what happened when you met him? Did he know you?"

      "At once," answered the gipsy; "no, no; I have seen one of my tribe with a hot iron and an oaken board make painting of men's faces that no water could wash out; and none should know better than you, that my face has been burnt in upon his heart in such a way that it would take a river of tears to sweep away the marks of it. But let me tell my tale. When I saw that he was near, I sprang over the wall into the walk, and stood before him at once. When first he saw me he started back, as if it had been a snake that crossed him; but the moment after, I could see him recollect himself; and I knew that he was calculating whether to own he knew me, or to affect forgetfulness. He chose the first, and asked mildly enough what I did there. 'I thought you were out of the kingdom,' he said, 'and had promised Sir William Ryder never to return.' I replied that he said true, and that I had not returned till Sir William Ryder had told me to do so."

      "What said he then?" asked the other, eagerly; "what said he to that?"

      "He started," replied the gipsy, "and then muttered something about a villain and betraying him; but the moment after, as you must have seen him to do long ago, he gathered himself up, and looking as proud and stern as if the lives of a whole world were at his disposal, he asked, what was Sir William Ryder's motive in bidding me return. 'Some motive of course, he has,' he added, looking at me bitterly. 'Does he intend to play villain, or fool, or both,--for whatever folly his knavery may tempt him to commit, he will only injure himself; for at this time of day it is somewhat too late to try to injure me;' and as he spoke," continued the gipsy, "he nodded his head gravely but meaningly, as if he would have said, 'You know that I speak truth.'"

      The lip of the stranger curled as his companion related this part of a conversation in which he seemed to take no slight interest; but as we do not choose to know any thing of what was passing in his bosom, we must leave that somewhat bitter smile to interpret itself.

      "I told him," continued the gipsy, "as you directed me, that his friend stood in some need of five thousand pounds, and trusting to his lordship's kindness and generosity, had directed me to come back and apply to him for that sum. So when he heard that, his face grew very dark; and after thinking for a minute of two, he looked up two of the walks, for he stood in the crossing, to see if he could see any of the park-keepers, to give me into their hands--I know that was what he wanted. However there was no one there; and he answered, looking at me as if he would have withered me into dust, 'Tell Sir William Ryder, wherever he is, that he shall ring no more from me. I have sent him his thousand a year regularly, and if any of the packets missed him, he should have let me know; but I will be no sponge to be squeezed by any man's pleasure; nor do I care,' he went on, 'who conspires to bring any false accusation against me. I am prepared to meet every charge boldly, and to prove my innocence before the whole world, if any one dare to accuse me.' He spoke very firmly," added the gipsy; "and as long as he continued speaking I kept my eyes upon the ground, though I felt that his were bent upon me: but the moment he had done, I raised mine and looked full upon his face, and his lip quivered and his eye fell in a moment."

      "Did he hold his resolution of refusing?" demanded the other, over whose countenance, as he listened, had been passing emotions as various as those which the gipsy had depicted; "did he hold his resolution to the end?"

      "Firmly!" replied Pharold, "though he softened his tone a great deal towards me. He said he was only angry with Sir William Ryder, not with me, and asked where I had been during so many years; and when I told him in Ireland, he replied, that it was a poor country: I could not have made much money there; and then he talked of other days, when the old lord took me to the hall because I was a handsome boy, and kept me for two years and more, and would have had me educated; and he vowed I did mighty wrong to run away and join my own people again; and he took out his purse and gave me all that it contained, and was sorry that it was no more; but if I would tell him, he said, where we were lying, he would send me more, for old acquaintance sake; and all the while he talked to me he looked up the walks to see if he could see the park-keepers, to have me taken up, and to accuse me of robbing him, or of some such thing. I could see it all in his eye; and so I told him that we were lying five miles to the east; and took leave of him civily, and came away, laughing that he should think I was fool enough to fancy he and I could ever do anything but hate each other to our dying day."

      His companion mused for several minutes; and even when he did speak, he took no notice either of the gipsy's suspicions or of the news he gave him, but rather,--as one sometimes does when one wishes any thing just heard to mature itself in the mind, ere further comment be made upon it,--he linked on what he next said, to that part of Pharold's speech which might have seemed the least interesting, namely, the gipsy's own history; and yet, although he certainly did this, in order to avoid, for the time, the most important parts of his narrative, he did not do it with the commonplace tone of one who speaks of feelings with which he has no sympathy: on the contrary, he spoke with warmth, and kindness, and enthusiasm; and expressed profound regret that the gipsy had, in his boyhood, thrown away advantages so seldom held out to one of his tribe.

      "Why? why?" cried the gipsy, "why should you grieve? I did but what you have done yourself. I quitted a life of sloth, effeminacy, and bondage, for one of ease, freedom, and activity. I left false forms, unnatural restraints, enfeebling habits--ay! and sickness too, for the customs of my fathers, for man's native mode of life, for a continual existence in the bosom of beautiful nature, and for blessed health. We know no sickness but that which carries us to our grave; we feel no vapours; we know no nerves. Go, ask the multitude of doctors,--a curse which man's own luxurious habits have brought upon him,--go, ask your doctor's whether a gipsy be not to be envied, for his exemption from the plagues that punish other men's effeminate habits."

      "True, Pharold! true!" replied his companion; "but still, even the short time that you lived in other СКАЧАТЬ