The Gipsy Part 46

She spoke with all the energy of pa.s.sion and indignation: her eyes flashed, her arms waved, her very form seemed to increase in size with the wild vehemence of her feelings; and the unhappy youth in the meantime stood before her, with bent head and averted glance, like a convicted criminal before his judge.

"You are guilty, William," said Brown, gazing on him with pity, mingling a drop or two of milder feeling with the sternness of his abhorrence for a crime almost unknown among them,--"you are guilty."

The youth made no answer; and after a pause the other went on:--"You must go out from among us, for we cannot shelter a traitor. And yet I grieve for you, William, that anything should have tempted you to commit such a crime. But still you must go out from among us; for if we be not all faithful to each other, in whom can we trust? Yet I would not cast you alone upon the world, so that one fault might bring on a hundred; and therefore I will send you down to the north country, where, on the side of Cheviot, you will find more of our people, among whom I have a brother: seek him out, and tell him I sent you to him."

"I will not go there," answered the youth, doggedly--"I will not go there, to have this story thrown in my teeth every hour; I will rather go and seek out d.i.c.kon, and rove with him."

"No, no, Billy, my chick," cried the old woman Gray--"no, no, go down to the Yetholmers, as Brown says--a merry set they are, and a free, and I will go with you, my lad. I dare say d.i.c.kon has gone thither already; and, do you hear, Bill, I dare say among the bold young lads thereabouts we may be able to get up as fresh a band as this is; and I have got a good penny under my cloak, and I will be a mother to you, my boy. Then who knows when you are a smart young fellow, with a goodly band of your own, whether this young minx here, who has flown at you like a wild cat, about that Pharold, who is no great loss any how--perhaps she may be sorry enough that she was not more civil."

"I shall be sorry," said Lena, in a less violent, but not less determined, tone than she had before used--"I shall be sorry if ever I hear the name of such a base and cowardly thing as he is upon this earth again."

"Well, well, scornful mistress Lena, you may rue," replied the beldam.

"What say you, Will, will you take me with you?"

The youth at first had shown no very strong liking for the old woman's company; but the hopes of better fortunes which she had held out to him, the boldness with which she had taken his part, the stern and reproachful looks of all around, and the feeling that he was parting for ever from all those with whom his life had hitherto been spent, made him willing to cling to any fragment of familiar things which would remain with him to soften the breaking of all accustomed ties.

His conscience, too, reproached him bitterly with what he had done; and the company of any one would have been preferable to solitude with his own heart. Willingly, therefore, he caught at her proposal; and drawing himself up, prepared to steel himself against the contempt of his comrades, while the old woman went to make her brief preparations: but he saw nothing around but the stern, cold looks of persons who, in hatred and scorn, were waiting to see his departure. It was more than he could bear; and, calling to the old woman to follow him down the stream, he turned sullenly away, and walked slowly on without a word of adieu to any one.

"Brown," said Lena, laying her hand upon the gipsy's arm--"Brown, I know what I am going to ask is in vain, for Pharold, when he went, felt the shadow of death upon him, and I am a widow; but did he not tell you any way to rescue him, if he should be taken? He spoke with you long, and he said to me, too, that there was some way that might deliver him, though he spoke not clearly. Oh, if it be so, and he have told you how, lose no time, spare no exertion; for though, G.o.d knows, I was deceived by that base villain's artful speeches, and believed that my husband was safe, yet I feel--although I know my innocence of thought, or word, or deed--I feel as if I were guilty of his death."

"No, no, Lena, no, no. We all know that you are not," answered Brown, in a kindly tone; "but go you to your tent, poor girl, and trust to me to do every thing to rescue Pharold that can be done. First, I will try the only means that he himself pointed out. I will follow his directions to the letter. Then, if that should fail, I will try what strength of arm can do; for I will not let him be lost if I can save him. He was a good man, and a wonderful man, Lena. We shall never see his like among us."

Lena burst into tears: they were the first that she had shed, but they were too bitter for any restraint; and turning to her tent, she gave way to them in solitude. In the mean time Brown turned to call one of the younger gipsies, who, on more than one occasion, had been Pharold's messenger, to inquire after Edward de Vaux; but ere the young man had joined him, Mother Gray, as she was called, tottered up, with a bundle on her arm, to bid him adieu.

"Fare ye well, Brown," she said; "fare ye well. I hope you may make a better head of the people than Pharold has been: a pretty mess he has got us all into here. I hope you may do better; but I doubt it, for you were great cronies, and would never listen to what I advised. So I am going to people who know how to manage matters better."

"Get ye gone, then, old mischief-maker," answered Brown; "get ye gone, and the sooner your back is turned upon us the better. I have seen nothing prosper yet with which you had any thing to do; and I dare prophesy that those people will never know peace or happiness where you are suffered to meddle. So get you gone, and Heaven send you a better heart and judgment. And now," he continued, speaking to the young man who had come up, "tell me, Arral, have you not been for Pharold to a house on the other side of the hill--the house of one Harley?"

"To be sure," answered the young man, "I have been four times."

"Then come with me thither, now," answered Brown, "and lead me by the shortest way, for I would be there, if possible, before day-break."

"That is not possible, Brown," answered the other; "for it wants less than an hour of the light, and go as you will it will take two hours and a half."

"We must do our best," answered Brown, "and can do no more. Go on.

Keep together, my lads," he continued, turning to the rest of the gipsies,--"keep together till I come back, which will be before the sun is more than half-way up. But have everything ready to go in case of need."

Thus saying, he followed his guide; and pursuing very nearly the path by which Pharold had returned, he arrived in about two hours and a half at the same house to which Colonel Manners had been conducted. By this time, however, the sun had been long above the horizon; and when, after walking through the little shrubbery, they approached the door of the dwelling, a carriage and four smoking horses, with two servants in Mrs. Falkland's livery, were seen standing before the house. The gipsies, however, made their way boldly on, and rang the bell. This intimation was instantly answered by the servant, and, while they were still speaking to him, a shrill cry--evidently from a woman's lips--rang through the pa.s.sage. Ere the servant could ask their business, a door on the right was thrown open, and the fine head of Sir William Ryder appeared, exclaiming, "Henry, Henry! Bring water!

She has fainted!"

A few moments of bustle and confusion succeeded, during which the gipsies were allowed to remain with the door open, and without any of those suspicious precautions which the very fact of their race would have excited against them in any other dwelling. At length the servant returned; and Brown's first question was, "Is the gentleman who was hurt worse?"

"No, much better!" answered the servant, "and you may tell Mr.

Pharold--"

"I can tell him nothing," interrupted Brown, "for that is what I have come here to say--that his enemies have caught him; and that, if Mr.

Harley would save him, he must bestir himself speedily."

"Indeed!" said the servant, "indeed! that will not be good news to my master's ear; but I must break in upon him to tell it nevertheless.

Wait a minute, my friends, and I will go and see what he says."

The servant then entered the room where his master was, and from which proceeded the sounds of eager voices speaking. A moment or two after the door again opened, and the gipsies were joined by the person they sought. Their story was soon told, and easily understood; and the brow of their auditor knit into more than one deep wrinkle, as they spoke.

"I will bestir myself," he said, in answer to Brown; "I will bestir myself, and that instantly too. So rest satisfied in regard to your friend's fate; for, be a.s.sured, that I can break the net in which they have entangled him as easily as I could a spider's web; and I will do it, too, with less remorse than I would the toils of the hunter-insect. I will not lose a moment. Henry, have horses to the carriage, and let me know when it is here."

CHAPTER XI.

"Has the parson come?" demanded the low faint voice of Sir Roger Millington, as he turned round from a brief and half-delirious doze, on the morning after Pharold's capture: "has the parson come?"

"Not yet, sir," answered a sick-nurse, who was now the only person left to attend him. "It is not ten minutes ago since you first told me to send for him."

"I thought it had been much longer," said the dying man. "But what is all that noise in the house? They seem as if they were making all the disturbance that they could, on purpose to kill me with the headache."

"I dare say, sir, it is some of the other magistrates come, sir,"

answered the nurse; "for last night it seems they caught the gipsy, Pharold; and, when I went down to send for Dr. Edwards, his lordship was sitting in the great parlour with Mr. Arden, waiting for two other magistrates to make examination, as I think they call it. I should scarcely have dared to send else--that is, if I had not known he had his hands full for many a good hour, because you see, sir, he forbade any one to let Dr. Edwards see you, whether you wished it or not."

"Ah! did he so?" said the dying man, bitterly; and then, after a long pause, he added, "but he would not care about it now, my good woman.

That declaration that he teased me into making last night, was all that he wanted; and now I may die when I like--with or without benefit of clergy?" and he groaned faintly and sadly at his bitter jest upon himself. "But do you think I am dying, woman?" He went on, "I have lost all the pain; but I am fearfully weak; and my legs and feet have no feeling in them. Do you think I am dying? Ha, nurse, what does the doctor say?"

"He says you are very bad, sir; but he hopes--" replied the nurse.

"Pshaw!" interrupted the other; "you have been tutored too. I wish the parson would come; he would tell me the truth."

"I am sure I wish he would too," cried the woman; "for he knows better than I what ought to be said to you, sir."

"Ah, I see how it is, I see how it is," cried the unhappy man; "I am dying, and they have kept it from me till they had got all that they sought;" and, like the stricken king of Israel, he turned his face to the wall, while one or two hot and bitter drops scorched his eyelids, and trickled over his cheeks. After a long silence, however, he again turned towards the woman, saying, "He is very long; I wish to G.o.d he would come! I have a great deal that lies heavy at my heart; and I would fain hear some words of comfort before I die. You do not think he will be frightened away by what that rascally lord has said?"

"Ah! no, sir; no fear!" answered the nurse; "Dr. Edwards is not a man to be frightened away by any body or any thing, so long as he thinks he's doing his duty. He is not one of that sort, sir. Why, last year, when the terrible catching fever was raging down in the village, and every one that took it died, he was night and day at the bedsides of the poor people that had it, although the doctor told him a thousand times that he was risking his own precious life: but he saw that it gave them more comfort than any thing to see him; and so he went at all hours, and into all places."

"I wish he would come," groaned the dying man; "I wish he would come."

Almost as he spoke, there was a cautious step in the anteroom, and the lock of the door turned under the quiet noiseless hand of one evidently accustomed to the chambers of the sick. The next moment the clergyman entered, and advanced closely towards the bed, although his heated brow and quick breathing showed that he had lost no time in obeying the summons he had received. He was a man between sixty and seventy, with scanty white hair covering thinly a high broad forehead, across which the cares and sorrows of others, more than his own, had traced two or three deep furrows. His countenance was grave, but mild; and his eyes full of both the light of feeling and the light of sense.

The nurse rose up from the chair in which she had been sitting at the pillow of the dying man, and Dr. Edwards quietly took her place, without appearing to see that Sir Roger Millington was eying him from head to foot; and, notwithstanding his situation, was comparing the person before him with the prejudiced image of a _parson_, which habits of vice had alone enabled his imagination to draw.

"I am much obliged to you for admitting me, my dear sir," said the rector, in a kindly tone. "How do you feel yourself? Are you in less pain than when I last saw you?"

"Yes, I am in less pain, sir," answered the other; "but I rather believe that is no good sign. At least they told me, when I was in torture, that pain was a good omen for my recovery; and now I am in no pain at all, I suppose it is a bad one."

"I am not sure that it is a good one," answered the clergyman gravely; "but at all events it has this good with it, that it leaves your mind and faculties perfectly free to consider fully your situation, and to take whatever measures, temporal or spiritual, may be necessary for your comfort and consolation."

"Ay, that is what I want to come to, Dr. Edwards," answered Sir Roger, "and I am glad you have come to it at once. But first tell me--and I adjure you by Heaven to tell me true, for these people deceive me--am I dying, or am I not?"

"I would have answered you truly without any adjuration," answered the clergyman. "None can, sir, or ought to say to another that it is impossible he can recover; for G.o.d can and does show us every day the fallacy of our judgment in the things that we best comprehend: but I do believe that you are in such a situation that it were wise to prepare yourself for another world without loss of time."