Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men Read online

  CHAPTER III.

  "The animal Man," so I have heard my uncle, who was a learned hedgehog,say,--"the animal man is a diurnal animal; he comes out and feeds in thedaytime." But a second cousin, who had travelled as far as CoventGarden, and who lived for many years in a London kitchen, told me thathe thought my uncle was wrong, and that man comes out and feeds atnight. He said he knew of at least one house in which the crickets andblack-beetles never got a quiet kitchen to themselves till it was nearlymorning.

  But I think my uncle was right about men in the country. I am sure thetinker and his family slept at night. He and his wife were out a greatdeal during the day. They went away from the wood and left the childrenwith an old woman, who was the tinker's mother. At one time they wereaway for several days, and about my usual time for going out thechildren were asleep, and the old woman used to sit over the camp firewith her head on her hands.

  "The language of men, my dear," I observed to Mrs. Hedgehog, "is quitedifferent to ours, even in general tone; but I assure you that when Ifirst heard the tinker's mother, I could have wagered a louis d'or and abottle of brandy that I heard hedgehogs whining to each other. In fact,I was about to remonstrate with them for their imprudence, when I foundout that it was the old woman who was moaning and muttering to herself."

  "What is the matter with her?" asked Mrs. Hedgehog.

  "I was curious to know myself," said I, "and from what I have overheard,I think I can inform you. She is the tinker's mother, and judging fromwhat he said the other night, was not by any means indulgent to him whenhe was a child. She is harsh enough to his young brats now; but itappears that she was devoted to an older son, one of the children ofhis first wife; and that it is for the loss of this grandchild that shevexes herself."

  "Is he dead?"

  "No, my dear, but--"

  "Has he been flitted?"

  "Something of the kind, I fear. He has been taken to prison."

  "Dear, dear!" said Mrs. Hedgehog; "what a trial to a mother's feelings!Will they bake him?"

  "I think not," said I. "I fancy that he is tethered up as a punishmentfor taking what did not belong to him; and the grandmother's grievanceseems to be that she believes he was unjustly convicted. She thinks thereal robber was a gipsy. Just as if I were taken, and my skin nailed tothe keeper's door for pheasant's eggs which I had never had the pleasureof eating."

  Mrs. Hedgehog was now dying of curiosity. She said she thought thechildren's spines were strong enough for anything that was likely tohappen to them; and so the next fresh damp evening we sent the sevenurchins down to the burdocks to pick snails, and crept cautiouslytowards the tinker's encampment to see what we could see. And there, bythe smouldering embers of a bonfire, sat the old woman moaning, as I haddescribed her, with her elbows on her knees, rocking and nursing herhead, from which her long hair was looped and fell, like grey rags,about her withered fingers.

  "I don't like her looks," snorted Mrs. Hedgehog. "And how disgustinglythey have trampled the grass."

  "It is quite true," said I; "it will not recover itself this summer. Iwish they had left us our wood to ourselves."

  At this moment Mrs. Hedgehog laid her five toes on mine, to attract myattention, and whispered--"Is it a gipsy?" and lifting my nose in thedirection of the rustling brushwood, I saw Sybil. There was no mistakingher, though her cheeks looked hollower and her eyes larger than when Isaw her last.

  "Good-evening, mother," she said.

  The old woman raised her gaunt face with a start, and cried fiercely,"Begone with you! Begone!" and then bent it again upon her hands,muttering, "There are plenty of hedges and ditches too good for yourlot, without their coming to worrit us in our wood."

  The gipsy girl knelt quietly by the fire, and stirred up the embers.

  "What is the matter, mother?" she said. "We've only just come, and whenI heard that Tinker George and his mother were in the wood, I started tofind you. 'You makes too free with the tinkers,' says my brother'swife. 'I goes to see my mother,' says I, 'who nursed me through asickness, my real mother being dead, and my own people wanting to buryme through my not being able to speak or move, and their wanting to getto the Bartelmy Fair.' I never forget, mother; have you forgotten me,that you drives me away for bidding you good-day?"

  "Good days are over for me," moaned the old woman. "Begone, I say! Don'tlet me see or hear any that belongs to Black Basil, or it may be theworse for them."

  ("The tinker-mother whines very nastily," said Mrs. Hedgehog. "If I werethe young woman, I should bite her."

  "Hush!" I answered, "she is speaking.")

  "Basil is in prison," said the gipsy girl hoarsely.

  The old woman's eyes shone in their sockets, as she looked up at Sybilfor a minute, as if to read the gipsy's sentence on her face; and thenshe chuckled,

  "So they've taken the Terror of the Roads?"

  Sybil's eyes had not moved from the fire, before which she was nowstanding with clasped hands.

  "The Terror of the Roads?" she said. "Yes, they call him that,--but Icould turn him round my finger, mother." Her voice had dropped, and shesmoothed one of her black curls absently round her finger as she spoke.

  "You couldn't keep him out of prison," taunted the old woman.

  "I couldn't keep him out of mischief," said the girl, sadly; and then,with a sudden flash of anger, she clasped her hands above her head andcried, "A black curse on Jemmy and his gang!"

  "A black curse on them as lets the innocent go to prison in their stead.They comes there themselves in the end, and long may it hold them!" wasthe reply.

  Sybil moved swiftly to the old woman's side.

  "I heard you was in trouble, mother, about Christian; but you don'tthink--"

  "_Think!_" screamed the old woman, shaking her fists, whilst the girlinterrupted her--

  "Hush, mother, hush! tell me now, tell me all, but not so loud," andkneeling with her back to us, she said something more in a low voice, towhich the old woman replied in a whine so much moderated, that thoughMrs. Hedgehog and I strained our ears, and crept as near the group as wedared, we could not catch a word.

  Only, after a while Sybil rose up and walked back slowly to the fire,twisting the long lock of her hair as before, and saying--"I turns himround my finger, mother, as far as _that_ goes--"

  "So you thinks," said the old crone. "But he never will--even if youwould, Sybil Stanley! Oh Christian, my child, my child!"

  The gipsy girl stood still, like a young poplar-tree in the dead calmbefore thunder; and there fell a silence, in which I dared not havemoved myself, or allowed Mrs. Hedgehog to move, three steps through thesoftest grass, for fear of being heard.

  Then Sybil said abruptly, "I've never rightly heard about Christian,mother. What was it made you think so much more of him than you thinksabout the others?"