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

  CHAPTER VII.

  My ancestor's artifice was very successful when the race was run on twosides of a hedge, backwards and forwards; but if a louis d'or and abottle of brandy had depended on my reaching the tinker-mother beforethe clergywoman, I should have lost the wager. We hurried after her,however, as fast as we were able, keeping well under the brushwood.

  When we could see our neighbours again, the tinker-mother was standingup, and speaking hurriedly, with a wild look in her eyes.

  "Let me be, Sybil Stanley, and let me speak. I says again, what has finefolk to do with coming and worriting us in our wood? If I did sell him,I sold him fair--and if I got him back, I bought him back fair. Aye mydelicate gentlewoman, you may look at me, but I did!

  "Five years, five years of wind and weather, and hard days and lonelynights:--

  "Five years of food your men would chuck to the pigs, and of clothesyour maids would think scorn to scour in:--

  "Five years--but I scraped it together, and _then_ they baulked me. Youshuts the door in the poor tinker-woman's face; you gives the words ofwarning to the police.

  "Five more years--it was five more, wasn't it, my daughter?--Sometimes Ifancies I makes a mistake and overcounts. But, _he'll_ know. Christian,my dear! Christian, I say!"

  "Sit down, Mother, sit down," said the gipsy girl; and the old woman satdown, but she went on muttering,--

  "I will speak! What has they to do, I say, to ask me where he has goneto? A fine place for the fine gentleman they made of him. What has suchas them to say to it, if I couldn't keep him when I got him--that theycomes to taunt me and my grey hairs?"

  She wrung her grey locks with a passionate gesture as she spoke, andthen dropped her elbows on her knees and her head upon her hands.

  The clergywoman had been standing very still, with her two white handsfolded before her, and her eyes, that had dark circles round them whichmade them look large, fixed upon the tinker-mother, as she muttered;but when she ceased muttering the clergywoman unlocked her hands, andwith one movement took off her hat. Her hair was smoothly drawn over theroundness of her head, and gathered in a knot at the back of her neck,and the brown of it was all streaked with grey. She threw her hat on tothe grass, and moving swiftly to the old woman's side, she knelt by her,as we had seen Sybil kneel, speaking very clearly, and, touching thetinker-mother's hand.

  "Christian's grandmother--you are his grandmother, are you not?--youmust be much, much older than me, but look at _my_ hair. Am I likely totaunt any one with having grown grey or with being miserable? It takes agood deal of pain, good mother, to make young hair as white as mine."

  "So it should," muttered the old woman, "so it should. It is a plaguyworld, I say, as it is; but it would be plaguy past any bearing for thepoor, if them that has everything could do just as they likes and neverfeel no aches nor pains afterwards. And there's a many fine gentlefolkthinks they can, till they feels the difference.

  "'What's ten pound to me?' says you. 'I wants the pretty baby with thedark eyes and the long lashes,' says you.

  "'Them it belongs to is poor, they'd sell anything,' says you.

  "'I wants a son,' you says; 'and having the advantages of gold andsilver, I can buy one.'

  "You calls him by a name of your own choosing, and puts your own name atthe end of that. His hands are something dark for the son of such adelicate white lady-mother, but they can be covered with the kid glovesof gentility.

  "You buys fine clothes for him, and nurses and tutors and schools forhim.

  "You teaches him the speech of gentlefolk, and the airs of gentlefolk,and the learning of gentlefolk.

  "You crams his head with religion, which is a thing I doesn't hold with,and with holy words, which I thinks brings ill-luck.

  "You has the advantages of silver and gold, to make a fine gentleman ofhim, but the blood that flies to his face when he hears the words ofinsult is gipsy blood, and he comes back to the woods where he was born.

  "Let me be, my daughter, I say I will speak--(Heaven keep my headcool!)--it's good for such as them to hear the truth once in a way.She's a dainty fine lady, and she taught him many fine things, besidesreligion, which I sets my face against. Tell her she took mighty goodcare of him--Ha! ha! the old tinker-woman had only one chance ofteaching him anything--_but she taught him the patteran_!"

  The clergywoman had never moved, except that when the tinker-mothershook off her hand she locked her white fingers in front of her asbefore, and her eyes wandered from the old woman's face, and lookedbeyond it, as if she were doing what I have often done, and counting thebits of blue sky which show through the oak-leaves before they growthick. But she must have been paying attention all the same, for shespoke very earnestly.

  "Good mother, listen to me. If I bought him, you sold him. Perhaps I didwrong to tempt you--perhaps I did wrong to hope to buy for myself whatGOD was not pleased to give me. I was very young, and one makesmany mistakes when one is young. I thought I was childless and unhappy,but I know now that only those are childless who have had children andlost them.

  "Do you know that in all the years my son was with me, I do not thinkthere was a day when I did not think of you? I used to wonder if youregretted him, and I lived in dread of your getting him back; and whenhe ran away, I knew you had. I never agreed with the lawyer's plans--myhusband will tell you so--I always wanted to find you to speak to youmyself. I knew what you must feel, and I thought I should like you toknow that I knew it.

  "Night after night I lay awake and thought what I would say to you whenwe met. I thought I would tell you that I could quite understand thatour ways might become irksome to Christian, if he inherited a love foroutdoor life, and for moving from place to place. I thought I would saythat perhaps I was wrong ever to have taken him away from his ownpeople; but as it was done and could not be undone, we might perhapsmake the best of it together. I hope you understand me, though you saynothing? You see, if he is a gipsy at heart, he has also been brought upto many comforts you cannot give him, and with the habits and ideas of agentleman. You are too clever, and too fond of him, to mind my speakingplainly. Now there are things which a gentleman might do if he had themoney, which would satisfy his love of roving as well. Many richgentlemen dislike the confinement of houses and domestic ways as much asChristian, and they leave their fine homes to travel among dangers anddiscomforts. I could find the money for Christian to do this by and by.If he likes a wandering life, he can live it easily so--only he would beable to wander hundreds of miles where you wander one, and to sleepunder other skies and among new flowers, and in forests to which suchwoods as these are shrubberies. He need not fall into any of the badways to which you know people are tempted by being poor. I have thoughtof it all, night after night, and longed to be able to tell you aboutit. He might become a famous traveller, you know; he is very clever andvery fond of books of adventure. This young gentleman will tell you so.How proud we should both be of him! That is what I have thought might beif you did not hide him from me, and I did not keep him from you.

  "And as to religion--dear good mother, listen to me. Look at me--see ifreligion has been a fashion or a plaything to _me_. If it had not stoodby me when my heart was as heavy as yours, what profit should I have init?

  "Christian's grandmother--you are his grandmother, I know, and have thebetter right to him--if you cannot agree to my plans--if you won't letme help you about him--if you hide him from me, and I must live out mylife and never see his dear face again--spare me the hope of seeing itwhen this life is over.

  "If I did my best for your grandson--and you know I did--oh! for thelove of Christ, our only Refuge, do not stand between him and the Fatherof us all!

  "If you have felt what he must suffer if he is poor, and if you know sowell how little it makes sure of happiness to be rich--if in a long lifeyou have found out how hard it is to be good, and how rare it is to behappy--if you know what it is to love and lose, to hope and to bedisappointed in one's hoping--let him be religious, good mother!
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  "If you care for Christian, leave him the only strength that is strongenough to hold us back from sin, and to do instead of joy."

  The tinker-mother lifted her head; but before she could say a word, theyoung gentleman burst into indignant speech.

  "Gertrude, I can bear it no longer. Not even for you, not even for thechance of getting Christian back. It's empty swagger to say that I wishto GOD I'd the chance of giving my life to get him back foryou. But you must come home now. I've bitten my lip through in holdingmy tongue, but I won't see you kneel another minute at the feet of thatsulky old gipsy hag."

  Whilst he was speaking the tinker-mother had risen to her feet, and whenshe stood quite upright she was much taller than I had thought. Theyoung gentleman had moved to take his cousin by the hand, but the oldwoman waved him back.

  "Stay where you are, young gentleman," she said. "This is no matter forboys to mix and meddle in. Sybil, my daughter--Sybil, I say! Come andstand near me, for I gets confused at times, and I fears I may notexplain myself to the noble gentlewoman with all the respect that Icould wish. She says a great deal that is very true, my daughter, andshe has no vulgar insolence in her manners of speaking. I thinks I shalllet her do as she says, if we can get Christian out, which perhaps, ifshe is cousin to any of the justiciary, she may be able to do.

  "The poor tinker-folk returns you the deepest of obligations, my gentlelady. If she'll let me see him when I wants to, it will be best, mydaughter; for I thinks I am failing, and I shouldn't like to leave himwith George and that drunken slut.

  "I thinks I am failing, I say. Trouble and age and the lone company ofyour own thoughts, my noble gentlewoman, has a tendency to confuse you,though I was always highly esteemed for the facility of my speech,especially in the telling of fortunes.

  "Let the poor gipsy look into your white hand, my pretty lady. The linesof life are somewhat broken with trouble, but they joins in peace.There's a dark young gentleman with a great influence on your happiness,and I sees grandchildren gathered at your knees.

  "What did the lady snatch away her hand for, my daughter? I means nooffence. She shall have Christian. I have told her so. Tell him to getready and go before his father gets back. He's a bad 'un is my sonGeorge, and I knows now that she was far too good for him.

  "Come a little nearer, my dear, that I may touch you. I sees your faceso often, when I knows you can't be there, that it pleases me to be ableto feel you. I was afraid you bore me ill-will for selling Christian;but I bought him back, my dear, I bought him back. Take him away withyou, my dear, for I am failing, and I shouldn't like to leave him withGeorge. Your eyes looks very hollow and your hair is grey. Not, that Ibegrudges your making so much of my son, but he treats you ill, hetreats you very ill. Don't cry, my dear, it comes to an end at last,though I thinks sometimes that all the men in the world put together isnot worth the love we wastes upon one. You hear what I say, Sybil? Andthat rascal, Black Basil, is the worst of a bad lot."

  "Hold your jaw, Mother," said Sybil sharply; and she added, "Be pleasedto excuse her, my lady: she is old and gets confused at times, and shethinks you are Christian's mother, who is dead."

  The old woman was bursting out again, when Sybil raised her hand, and weall pricked our ears at a sound of noisy quarrelling that came nearer.

  "It's George and his wife," said Sybil. "Mother, the gentlefolks hadbetter go. I'll go to the inn afterwards, and tell them about Christian.Take the lady away, sir. Come, Mother, come!"

  I've a horror of gipsy men, and even before our neighbours haddispersed I hustled away with Mrs. Hedgehog into the bushes.