Tales from Many Sources Part 14

"Rachel! Rachel Ray!"

Then paused suddenly, for fastened by the bridle to a low post close to the cottage door, she perceived a fine bay horse that she knew well. She drew rein, swiftly debating within herself whether she should go on, or draw back, then shaking back her proud little head she rode forward.

Betty feared nothing on earth; should she be scared by the odd feeling in her heart that made it beat so fast and loud? A thousand times no.

Before she had reached the cottage, the door opened, and a small troop of ragged children tumbled out to meet her, children with black elfin locks, and eyes gleaming like live coals, showing wild gipsy blood.

Betty leapt from her horse, and called the eldest boy to her side.

"Here, Reuben," she said, "I will give you a silver penny if you hold Conrad steadily, and like a good boy, while I visit your grandmother."

She opened the door with a slight knock and went in. An odd sight met her eyes.

By the table stood the vigorous figure of old Rachel Ray, handsome yet, with the dark gipsy characteristics of her grandchildren--before her the tall fine figure of John Johnstone in full hunting scarlet, just stooping in the act of giving her a kiss.

The old woman started, and pushed him aside when she saw Betty come in.

She advanced to meet her visitor, who stood during the s.p.a.ce of a minute without advancing, so great was her astonishment.

"You are surprised to see an old woman kiss her nursling," cried old Rachel. "But it would be odd if he did not, bless his brave heart!"

"Not surprised at his kissing you, Dame Rachel," said Betty, a little less steadily than usual. "But I did not know that you were acquainted, I thought Mr. Johnstone was a stranger to this part of the world."

The old woman turned her eyes on the young man, eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with burning tears, and with a look of entreaty in them.

John Johnstone gave a little impatient stamp of the foot.

It seemed to Betty watching them, that thus he gave a mute answer to some mute question or entreaty made.

"Sit down, sit down, my pretty lady," said Rachel drawing forward and dusting a chair. "You are welcome as flowers in May, or as the first swallow that heralds the spring. Are you well, my bonnie dear? and the good gentleman your father?"

"We are all well, dame. I am ashamed not to have been to see you for so long, but I am glad that you have had other visitors," and she glanced at Mr. Johnstone.

"We are old friends," he said with a smile of rare sweetness. "One of my most faithful servants and friends was my foster-brother Harry Ray, Rachel's eldest son."

"Aye, aye, was!" cried the woman, her voice rising to a kind of wail."

We speak of Hal Ray in the past now."

Johnstone bit his lip, and a bitter frown contracted his brow.

"Alas, is he dead, dame?" asked Betty tenderly.

"Aye, dear heart, dead, and his bones have no grave, and happen his spirit no rest."

"This is terrible," said Betty with a shiver.

Mr. Johnstone moved restlessly to the window, and busied himself with his sword-knot.

"I have often told you, good mother," he said, and his voice had in it an odd mixture of grief and irritation, "that the less we dwell on these things the better. Mistress Betty," he went on hurriedly, "Harry Ray when he left my service, joined his fortunes with Wild Jack Barnstaple.

He had ill-luck, poor lad, he was taken and ... and hanged."

His mother uttered a shuddering cry.

"And by the road he must hang," she cried, "till the earth and the wild winds have done their worst, and never a one to scare the wild birds from the flesh of my boy!"

"Dear dame," said Betty earnestly, "the soul recks little of its earthly tenement."

"G.o.d rest his soul, he was a good fellow and brave," said Johnstone earnestly.

"I also have seen Wild Jack," said Betty, willing to turn the poor woman from her troubles.

"Seen him! seen Wild Jack?" cried she.

"Aye, seen him and been his prisoner; and say who will to the contrary, I have reason to maintain that he is a true gentleman."

"Is it so?" said Mr. Johnstone, smiling. "A cut-throat, a robber, a highwayman, a true gentleman?"

Betty gave him an indignant glance. "I speak of him as I found him," she said. "And we of the country have always known how to distinguish between common malefactors and the gentlemen of the road."

"So, so!" answered Johnstone, still smiling. "And yet both end too often on Tyburn Hill."

Betty turned pale and shivered. It seemed as if she gasped for breath; she turned her large eyes on her lover and said, "Ah, these matters are far too serious for so grim a jest."

But her eyes were caught and arrested by the look which met them; so long, so burning with pa.s.sionate admiration and love, with a strange expression of exaltation, almost grat.i.tude. Betty's heart beat fast. He had forced her to love him, and such maidens as Betty Ives when they give love at last, give life itself. Dame Rachel glanced from one to another, then she rose quickly, and from a dark corner of the room produced a pack of cards. "Come, fair lady and n.o.ble gentleman," she said, with a touch of the professional whine in her voice. "Will you hear your fortunes? Cross the old gipsy's hand with silver, my pretty dears, and you shall hear all the good things past, present, and future, that may fall to your lot."

"Will you try?" said John Johnstone, bending forward.

The rosy colour rushed into Betty's cheek, the light shone in her eyes.

"I will try," she said, half laughing.

"Then all that is good we will believe, and all that is bad will cast to the winds as false and untrue."

"Nothing can be bad in the future of faces like yours, dear hearts,"

said Rachel, rapidly shuffling the cards.

Some minutes pa.s.sed, the gipsy busily and with growing discomfiture turning the cards, trying them in every way--the two were silent.

Betty leant her head on her hand, shading her eyes from view, full of shyness for the first time in her bold young life. John Johnstone gazed on her with his soul in his eyes, and yet with a strange impatient interest in the business that was going on.

Presently Rachel flung all the cards down with violence.

"I am losing the trick of the trade," she said, in a harsh, frightened voice. "I am getting afraid of the cards, and when you are afraid of them, they master you."

"Tut, tut!" said John kindly. "Do not blame yourself, good mother, if they show not all the gilded coaches and six, and the lovely bride and gay bridegroom you would fain have promised us."

"The combinations turn to evil--all evil. Pah! it is the old story. I was afraid of the cards, and they have mastered me."

"Was there no warning conveyed in these strange combinations, Dame?"

asked Johnstone eagerly.