A Little Gipsy Lass

A STORY OF MOORLAND AND WILD By GORDON-STABLES, M.D., C.M., R.N. Author of 'Peggy M'Queen,' 'The Rover Caravan,' &c. WITH SIX ILLUSTRATIONS by William Rainey LONDON: 47 Paternoster Row W. & R. CHAMBERS, LIMITED EDINBURGH: 47 Paternoster Row 1907

Edinburgh: Printed by W. & R. Chambers, Limited.

BOOKS FOR GIRLS By May Baldwin.

W. & R. Chambers, Limited, London and Edinburgh.{1}

CHAPTER I. LOTTY LEE.

THE young man stood on the deserted platform of the small, north-country station, just where the train had left him, on that bright August evening. Yonder she was speeding east-wards against the breeze.

Against the breeze, and along towards the cliffs that o'erhung the wild, wide sea, the end of the last carriage gilded with the rays of the setting sun, the smoke streaming backwards and losing itself over the brown-green woods that stretched away and away till lost in a haze at the foot of the hills.

He hailed a solitary porter.

'This isn't a very inviting station of yours, Tom, is it?'

'An awful good guess at my name, sir,' said the man, saluting.

'Your name is Tom, then?'

'No, sir—George,' he smiled. 'But any name does; and as for the station, weel, it's good enough{2} in its way. We only tak' up or pit doon by signal. But you'll be English, sir?'

'That's it, George; that's just it. I'm only English. But, so far, I am in luck; because I understand your talk, and I thought everybody here ran about raw, with kilts on and speaking in Scotch.'

'So they do, sir, mostly; but I've been far south myself. No, sir, no left-luggage room here; but if you're going to the inn I'll carry your portmanteau, though ye'll no' find much accommodation there for a gentleman like yourself. Besides, it's the nicht of the fair, and they'll be dancin' and singin' in the road till midnicht.'

'But,' said the stranger, 'I'm bound for Loggiemouth, if I can only find the way. I'm going to a gipsy encampment there—Nat Lee's or Biffins'. You know Nat Lee?'

'Well, and curly-headed Lotty too. But, man, you'll have ill findin' your road over the moor the nicht. It's three good Scotch miles, and your portmanteau's no' a small weight—a hundred and twenty pounds if an ounce.'

This young man, with the sunny hair, square shoulders, and bravely chiselled English face, seized the bag with his left hand and held it high above his head, much to the admiration of the honest porter.

'You're a fine lad, sir,' said the latter. 'An English athlete, no doubt. Weel, we all love{3} strength hereabouts, and Loggiemouth itself can boast of bonny men.'

'Here!' cried the stranger abruptly, as he looked to the west and the sun that was sinking like a great blood-orange in the purple mist of the woodlands, 'take that portmanteau, George, in your own charge. I suppose you live somewhere?'

'I'll lock it up in the lamp-room, sir. It'll be safe enough there.'

'Well, thanks; and to-morrow I'll either stride over for it myself or send some one. Now, you'll direct me to the camp, won't you?'

'Ay, ay, sir, and you've a good stick and a stout heart, so nothing can come o'er ye. But what way did nobody meet you, sir?'

'Nat Lee said he would send some one, but—hallo! who is this?'

She ran along the platform hurriedly but smiling—a little nervously perhaps, blinking somewhat moreover, for the sun's last beams lit up her face and eke her yellow hair. Her colour seemed to rise as she advanced. Blushing? No. Lotty Lee was barely twelve.

'Oh, please, sir, are you Mr Blake?'

'I am. And you?'

'Me? I'm only Lotty Lee, and that's nobody. But father sent me to meet you, and lead you home to our pitch across the Whinny Moor. You couldn't find the way by yourself, never, never, never!'{4}

'Good-night, sir.—Good-night, Miss Lotty,' cried the porter, throwing the portmanteau on his shoulder and marching off with it.

'Well,' said the young fellow, 'I have a sweet little guide anyhow; but are you sure that even you can find the way yourself, Lotty?'

'Oh yes, Mr Blake, please.'

Hers was a light, musical, almost bird-like laugh.

She tossed back her head a little, and all those impossible little crumply curls caught by the evening breeze went dancing round her brow and ears.

'If you have any—any big thing, I will carry it for you, sir.'

It was his turn to laugh now. 'Why, Lotty,' he said, 'I shouldn't wonder if I had to carry you before we get to camp.'

'Come,' she answered, with an uneasy glance at the west. She took his hand as if he'd been a blind man. 'Father said I was to lead you, sir.'

'But I don't think he meant it in so literal a sense, Lotty. I think I can see for quite half an hour yet.'

He kept that warm hand in his, nevertheless. So on they went, chatting together gaily enough now, for she did not seem a bit afraid of her tall companion.

'I would have been here much sooner, you know, but Wallace followed me. Wallace is a very{5} naughty boy sometimes, and father doesn't like him to be out of camp at nights.'

'And where is the young gentleman now?'

'Oh, I had to take him back, and that is what kept me.'

It was getting early dark to-night, and one great star was already out in the east. Whinny Moor was beginning to look eerisome enough. The patches of furze that everywhere hugged the ground were like moving shapes of strange and uncanny antediluvian monsters, and here and there stood up the dark spectre of a stunted hawthorn-tree waving black arms in the wind as if to forbid their approach.

Sometimes they had to creep quite sideways through the bushes of sturdy whins and bramble; sometimes the moor was more open, and here and there were little lakes or sedgy ponds of silver sheen, where black things swam or glided in and out among the rustling rushes. Flitter-mice darted over their heads or even between them, and from the forest now and then came the doleful cry of the great barn-owl.

'On the whole,' said young Blake, 'I'm glad you came, Lotty. I doubt if ever I could have made my way across this moor.'

'Nor through the forest yonder. Ah! the forest is much worse, Mr Blake.'

'Dark and dismal, I suppose?'

'It is dark; I don't know about dismal, Mr{6} Blake. But I know all the road through this moor; because when things come to the station father often sends me for them.'

'At night?'

'Oh yes, often at night. Only, there is a little winding path through among the pine-trees, and one day Chops went in daylight and marked all the trees in white paint for me. But father thrashed him for it, because white paint is one of the show properties, and we mustn't waste the properties. But I cried for Chops.'

'And who is Chops, Lotty?'

'Oh, Chops is the fat boy; he is a property himself, but nobody could waste him.'

'No?'

'No; and Chops is fifteen, you know, and so good and so fond of me; but he is so fat that he can't look at you, only just blinks over his cheeks. But Chops is so kind to me—quite loves me. And so does Wallace. But I love Wallace better than anybody else, and everybody else loves Wallace.'

'And Wallace and everybody love Lotty, I'm sure of that.'

'Oh, Wallace loves me, and would die for me any day. But, of course, everybody doesn't. I'm only just a property, you know.'

'But your father and mother?'

Frank Antony Blake felt the small, soft hand tremble in his.{7}

'There is no mother, sir. Never was a mother in my time. But father'——

The child was crying—yes, and sobbing—as if her heart would break.

Then, though Frank Antony was tall and strong for his eighteen years, he didn't really know what to do with a girl who burst into tears at night on a lonesome moor. He could remember no precedent. It mightn't be correct, he thought, to take her in his arms and kiss her and try to soothe her, so he merely said, 'Never mind, Lotty; never mind. It is sure to come all right somehow.'

For the life of him, however, he couldn't have told you what was wrong or what there was to come right. In the fast-waning light Lotty looked up at him ever so sadly, and he could not help noticing now what he had not noticed before—Lotty was really a beautiful child.

'You talked to me so kindly like,' she said, 'and hardly anybody does that, and—and that was it. Don't talk to me kindly again, sir, ever, ever, ever!'

He patted her hand.

'That's worse,' said Lotty, feeling she wanted to cry again, and she drew the hand away. 'You'll have me crying again. Speak gruff to me, as others do, and call me "Lot!"'

But at that moment Antony had a happy inspiration. He remembered that in his big coat-pocket he had a large box of assorted chocolates,{8} and here close by on a bare part of the moor was a big white stone.

'Come,' he cried, 'there is no great hurry, and I'm going to have some chocolates. Won't you, Lot?'

Down he sat on the big white stone, and Lotty stood timidly in front of him. But Antony would not have this arrangement, so he lifted her bodily up—'how strong he is!' she thought—and seated her beside him, then threw a big handful of the delicious sweets into her lap.

She was smiling now. She was happy again. It was not the chocolates that worked the change; but the chance companionship of this youth of gentle blood, so high above her, seemed to have wakened a chord long, long untouched in that little harp of a heart of hers.

Was it but a dream, or had there been once a time, long—ever so long—ago, when voices quite as pleasant and musical and refined as Antony's were not strange to her? And had she not, when young—she was twelve now, and that is so old—lived in a real house, with bright cushions on real sofas, and lamps and mirrors and flowers everywhere? No, that must have been a dream; but it was one she often dreamt while she swung by night in her cot, as the winds rocked the caravan and lulled her to sleep.

The autumn evening was very beautiful now; bright stars were shining so closely overhead that{9} it seemed as if one could almost touch them with a fishing-rod. Besides, a big, nearly round moon had managed to scramble up behind the bank of blue clouds in the east—a big, fat face of a moon that appeared to be bursting with half-concealed merriment as it blinked across the moor.

It wasn't the lollies that had enabled Lotty to regain her good spirits; but she felt quietly happy sitting here on the stone beside this newly found friend. Oh yes, he was going to be a friend; she felt certain of that already. Young though Lottie was, she had a woman's instinct. Perhaps she possessed a woman's pride as well, though only in embryo; for she felt half-ashamed of her awkward, bare brown legs that ended not in shoes but rough sandals, and of the pretty necklace of crimson hips and haws that she had strung for herself only yesterday.

They had been sitting in silence for some time, both thinking, I suppose, when Lotty's keen ear caught the weary call of some benighted plover.

'They'll soon be away now!' she sighed, more to herself than to her companion.

'What will soon be away, Lotty?'

'Oh, the plovers and the swallows and the greenfinches, and nearly all my pretty pets of springtime, and we'll have only just the rooks and the gulls left.'

Antony laid his hand on hers.

'Lotty loves the wild birds, then?'{10}

'I—I suppose so. Doesn't everybody? I wish I could go south with the birds in autumn, to lands where the flowers are always blooming.'

'Who knows what is before you, child!'

The child interested him.

'Look, Lotty, look!' cried Antony next moment; 'what on earth can that be?'

He was genuinely startled. About two hundred yards from the place where they sat a great ball of crimson-yellow fire, as big as a gipsy pot, rose slowly, waveringly, into the air. It was followed by five others, each one smaller than the one above it. They switched themselves towards the forest, and one by one they went out.

'It is only will-o'-the-wisps,' said Lotty, 'and they always bring good luck. Aren't you glad?'

'Very,' said Antony.

Then, hand in hand, as if very old acquaintances indeed, they resumed their journey. And, as they got nearer and nearer to the forest, the tall pine-trees, with brown, pillar-like limbs, grew higher and higher, and finally swallowed them up.{11}

CHAPTER II. HOW ANTONY HAPPENED TO BE THERE.

ANTONY BLAKE—or Frank Antony Blake, to give him the benefit of his full tally—was the only son and heir-apparent of Squire Blake of Manby Hall, a fine old mansion away down in Devonshire; thousands of acres of land—no one seemed to know how many—rolling fields of meadow-lands divided by hedgerows and waving grain, woods and wolds, lakes and streams, and an upland of heath and fern that lost itself far away on the nor'-western horizon.

The mansion itself, situated on a green eminence in the midst of the well-treed old park, was one of the stately homes of England; and though antique enough to be almost grim—as if holding in its dark interior the secrets of a gloomy or mayhap tragic past—it was cheerful enough in summer or winter; and from its big lodge-gates, all along its gravelled avenues, the wheel-marks bore evidence that Manby Hall was by no means deserted nor the squire very much of a recluse.

The gardens of this mansion were large enough to lose one's self in, silent save for the song of birds, with broad green walks, with bush and tree and flower, and fountains playing in the centre{12} of ponds only and solely for the sake of the waterfowl or the gold and silver fish that hid themselves from the sunshine beneath the green, shimmering leaves of lordly floating lilies, orange and white.

A rural paradise was Manby Hall. Acres of glass too, a regiment of semi-silent gardeners, and a mileage of strong old walls around that were gay in springtime and summer with creeping, climbing, trailing flowers of every shape and shade.

If there was a single grim room in all this abode it was the library, where from tawny, leather-bound shelves the mighty tomes of authors long dead and gone frowned down on one, as one entered through the heavily draped doorways.

Whisper it! But Antony was really irreverent enough to say one day to a friend of his that this solemn and classic library was a jolly good billiard-room spoiled.

Anyhow, it was in this room that Frank Antony found himself one morning. He had been summoned hither by his father.

The squire was verging on fifty, healthy and hard in face, handsome rather, with hair fast ripening into gray.

'Ha, Frank, my boy! come forward. You may be seated.'

'Rather stand, dad. Guess it's nothing too pleasant.'{13}

'Well, I sent for you, Frank'——

'And I'm here, dad.'

'Let me see now. You're eighteen, aren't you?'

'I suppose so, sir; but—you ought to know,' replied Antony archly.

'I? What on earth have I to do with it? At least, I am too busy a man to remember the ages of all my children. Your mother, now, might; but then your mother is a woman—a woman, Frank.'

'I could have guessed as much, dad. But as for "all" your children, father, why, there are only Aggie and I. That comprises the whole lot of us; not very tiresome to count, I reckon.'

'There! don't be quizzical, boy. I sent for you—er—I sent for you to—to'——

'Yes, father, sent for me to—to'——

'I wish you to choose a career, you young dog. Don't stand there and to—to at me, else I'll—I don't know what I mightn't do. But stand down, sir—I mean, sit down—and you won't look so precious like a poacher.'

Antony obeyed.

'You see, lad, I have your interest at my heart. It is all very well being an athlete. You're a handsome young fellow too—just like me when I was a young fellow. Might marry into any county family. But cricket and football and rowing stroke aren't everything, Frank, and it is high time you were looking ahead—choosing{14} your career. Well, well,' continued the squire impatiently, 'have you nothing to say?'

'Oh yes,' cried Frank Antony, beaming now. 'I put that filly at a fence to-day, father, and'——

'Hang the filly! I want you to choose a career; do you hear?'

'Yes, father.'

'Well, I'm here to help you all I can. Let us see! You're well educated; too much so for the Church, perhaps.'

'Not good enough anyhow, dad, to wear a hassock. Whew! I mean a cassock.'

'Well, there are the civil and the diplomatic services.'

Antony shook an impatient head.

'And you're too old for the army. But—now listen, Frank. I expect your eyes to gleam, lad, when I mention the term: a parliamentary career! Think of it, lad; think of it. Just think of the long vista of splendid possibilities that these two words can conjure up before a young man with the blood of a Blake in his veins.'

Frank Antony did not seem at all impressed; not even a little bit.

'I'm afraid, father, I'm a lazy rascal,' he said, almost pitying the enthusiasm which he himself could not appreciate. 'I'm not so clever as my dear old dad, and I fear the House would bore me. Never could make a speech either, so'——

'Speech!' roared the squire, 'why, you'll never{15} be asked to. They wouldn't let you. They'd cough you down, groan you down, laugh you down. Besides, clever men don't make speeches nowadays—only the fools.'

Young Antony suppressed a yawn.

'Very good, my boy, very good!'—his dad was shaking hands with him—'and I honour you for your choice. And I'm of precisely the same opinion. There's nothing like a seat in the House.'

'Rather have one on the hillside though, daddy, all among the grouse.'

His father didn't hear him.

'And now, Frank, I'm not an ordinary father, you know; and, before entering the House, I don't see in the least why you shouldn't have your fling for a year or two. I maintain that all young fellows should have their fling. A hundred years or so agone I had my fling. Look at me now. Am I any the worse? Well, I've just put a bit in the bank for you, lad, so go and do your best.'

Frank was laughing merrily.

He put his hand in what he called his rabbit-pocket and handed out a book: The Gamekeeper at Home. 'That is my lay, dad,' he said. 'I only want to potter around and fish and shoot, or hunt in season. Don't like London. Hate Paris. Not at home in so-called society. I'll just have my fling in my own humdrum fashion, daddy,{16} thank you all the same. I'll have my fling, depend upon it.'

The young man was smiling to himself at some recollection.

'What is it, Frank?'

'Only this, dad. The black keeper—Tim, you know—weighs two hundred and twenty pounds. The other day he was stronger than I. I threw him last eve—Cumberland. This morning I lifted him with my left and landed him on the west side of the picket-fence. How's that for a fling, daddy?'

'Go on, you young rogue. Listen, I hear Aggie calling you!'

'Oh, but you listen to me, father. I really don't see enough life down here.'

'Well, there's London, my lad. London for life!'

'No, no! For the next few months, with your permission, I'm going to live a life as free as a swallow's. I'm going on the road in my own house-upon-wheels. I'll see and mingle with all sorts of society, high and low, rich and poor. I'll be happy in spirit, healthy in body, and by the time I come back my mind will be quite a storehouse of knowledge that will better fit me for Parliament than all the lore in this great library, father.'

'You're going to take up with gipsies, Frank?'

'Be a sort of gip myself, daddy.'

'Bother me, boy, if there isn't something really{17} good in the idea. But how are you going to set about it? Build a caravan for yourself?'

'Not build one, father. Nat Biffins Lee—a scion of the old, old gipsy Lee, you know—owns a real white elephant'——

'Bless my soul! is the lad going mad? You don't mean seriously to travel the country with a real white elephant, eh?'

'You don't understand, daddy. This Nat Lee has a splendid house-upon-wheels which belonged to the Duchess of X—— She went abroad, and Lee has bought it. But as it needs three powerful horses to rattle it along, it is quite a white elephant to Nat. So I'm going up north to Loggiemouth in Nairnshire, and if I like it I'll buy it. Is it all right?'

'Right as rain in March, boy. Go when you like.'

'Coming, Aggie; coming.'

. . . . . . .