CHAPTER XLVI

AMONG GIPSY WOMEN

I cannot say how long it was after my senses had gone when I began to

grope for them on the warmest of heaving soft pillows, and lost the

slight hold I had on them with the effort. Then came a series of

climbings and fallings, risings to the surface and sinkings fathoms

below. Any attempt to speculate pitched me back into darkness. Gifted

with a pair of enormous eyes, which threw surrounding objects to a

distance of a mile away, I could not induce the diminutive things to

approach; and shutting eyes led to such a rolling of mountains in my

brain, that, terrified by the gigantic revolution, I lay determinedly

staring; clothed, it seemed positive, in a tight-fitting suit of

sheet-lead; but why? I wondered why, and immediately received an

extinguishing blow. My pillow was heavenly; I was constantly being cooled

on it, and grew used to hear a croon no more musical than the unstopped

reed above my head; a sound as of a breeze about a cavern's mouth, more

soothing than a melody. Conjecture of my state, after hovering timidly in

dread of relapses, settled and assured me I was lying baked, half-buried

in an old river-bed; moss at my cheek, my body inextricable; water now

and then feebly striving to float me out, with horrid pain, with infinite

refreshingness. A shady light, like the light through leafage, I could

see; the water I felt. Why did it keep trying to move me? I questioned

and sank to the depths again.

The excruciated patient was having his wet bandages folded across his

bruises, and could not bear a motion of the mind.

The mind's total apathy was the sign of recovering health. Kind nature

put that district to sleep while she operated on the disquieted lower

functions. I looked on my later self as one observes the mossy bearded

substances travelling blind along the undercurrent of the stream,

clinging to this and that, twirling absurdly.

Where was I? Not in a house. But for my condition of absolute calm, owing

to skilful treatment, open air, and physical robustness, the scene would

have been of a kind to scatter the busy little workmen setting up the

fabric of my wits. A lighted oil-cup stood on a tripod in the middle of a

tent-roof, and over it the creased neck and chin of a tall old woman,

splendid in age, reddened vividly; her black eyes and grey brows, and

greyishblack hair fell away in a dusk of their own. I thought her

marvellous. Something she held in her hands that sent a thin steam

between her and the light. Outside, in the A cutting of the tent's

threshold, a heavy-coloured sunset hung upon dark land. My pillow

meantime lifted me gently at a regular measure, and it was with

untroubled wonder that I came to the knowledge of a human heart beating

within it. So soft could only be feminine; so firm still young. The bosom

was Kiomi's. A girl sidled at the opening of the tent, peeping in, and

from a mufed rattle of subpectoral thunder discharged at her in quick

heated snaps, I knew Kiomi's voice. After an altercation of their

monotonous gipsy undertones, the girl dropped and crouched outside.

It was morning when I woke next, stronger, and aching worse. I was lying

in the air, and she who served for nurse, pillow, parasol, and bank of

herbage, had her arms round beneath mine cherishingly, all the fingers

outspread and flat on me, just as they had been when I went to sleep.

'Kiomi!'

'Now, you be quiet.'

'Can I stand up a minute or two?'

'No, and you won't talk.'

I submitted. This was our duel all day: she slipped from me only twice,

and when she did the girl took her place.

I began to think of Bulsted and Riversley.

'Kiomi, how long have I been here?'

'You 'll be twice as long as you've been.'

'A couple of days?'

'More like a dozen.'

'Just tell me what happened.'

'Ghm-m-m,' she growled admonishingly.

Reflecting on it, I felt sure there must have been searching parties over

the heath.

'Kiomi, I say, how was it they missed me?'

She struck at once on my thought.

'They're fools.'

'How did you cheat them?'

'I didn't tie a handkercher across their eyes.'

'You half smothered me once, in the combe.'

'You go to sleep.'

'Have you been doctor?'

The growling tigerish 'Ghm-m-m' constrained me to take it for a lullaby.

'Kiomi, why the deuce did your people attack me?' She repeated the sound

resembling that which sometimes issues from the vent of a mine; but I

insisted upon her answering.

'I 'll put you down and be off,' she threatened.

'Brute of a girl! I hate you!'

'Hate away.'

'Tell me who found me.'

'I shan't. You shut your peepers.'

The other and younger girl sung out: 'I found you.'

Kiomi sent a volley at her.

'I did,' said the girl; 'yes, and I nursed you first, I did; and mother

doctored you. Kiomi hasn't been here a day.'

The old mother came out of the tent. She felt my pulse, and forthwith

squatted in front of me. 'You're hard to kill, and oily as a bean,' said

she. 'You've only to lie quiet in the sun like a handsome gentleman; I'm

sure you couldn't wish for more. Air and water's the doctor for such as

you. You've got the bound in you to jump the ditch: don't you fret at it,

or you'll lose your spring, my good gentleman.'

'Leave off talking to me as a stranger,' I bawled. 'Out with it; why have

you kept me here? Why did your men pitch into me?'

'OUR men, my good gentleman!' the old woman ejaculated. There was

innocence indeed! sufficient to pass the whole tribe before a bench of

magistrates. She wheedled: 'What have they against a handsome gentleman

like you? They'd run for you fifty mile a day, and show you all their

tricks and secrets for nothing.'

My despot Kiomi fired invectives at her mother. The old mother retorted;

the girl joined in. All three were scowling, flashing, showing teeth,

driving the wordy javelin upon one another, indiscriminately, or two to

one, without a pause; all to a sound like the slack silver string of the

fiddle.

I sang out truce to them; they racked me with laughter; and such

laughter!--the shaking of husks in a half-empty sack.

Ultimately, on a sudden cessation of the storm of tongues, they agreed

that I must have my broth.

Sheer weariness, seasoned with some hope that the broth would give me

strength to mount on my legs and walk, persuaded me to drink it. Still

the old mother declared that none of her men would ever have laid hands

on me. Why should they? she asked. What had I done to them? Was it their

way?

Kiomi's arms tightened over my breast. The involuntary pressure was like

an illumination to me.

No longer asking for the grounds of the attack on a mistaken person, and

bowing to the fiction that none of the tribe had been among my

assailants, I obtained information. The girl Eveleen had spied me

entering Durstan. Quite by chance, she was concealed near Bulsted Park

gates when the groom arrived and told the lodge-keeper that Mr. Harry

Richmond was coming up over the heath, and might have lost his way.

'Richmond!' the girl threw a world of meaning into the unexpected name.

Kiomi clutched me to her bosom, but no one breathed the name we had in

our thoughts.

Eveleen and the old mother had searched for me upon the heath, and having

haled me head and foot to their tent, despatched a message to bring Kiomi

down from London to aid them in their desperate shift. They knew Squire

Beltham's temper. He would have scattered the tribe to the shores of the

kingdom at a rumour of foul play to his grandson. Kiomi came in time to

smuggle me through an inspection of the tent and cross-examination of its

ostensible denizens by Captain Bulsted, who had no suspicions, though he

was in a state of wonderment. Hearing all this, I was the first to say it

would be better I should get out of the neighbourhood as soon as my legs

should support me. The grin that goes for a laugh among gipsies followed

my question of how Kiomi had managed to smuggle me. Eveleen was my

informant when the dreaded Kiomi happened to be off duty for a minute. By

a hasty transformation, due to a nightcap on the bandages about the head,

and an old petticoat over my feet, Captain William's insensible friend

was introduced to him as the sore sick great-grandmother of the tribe,

mother of Kiomi's mother, aged ninety-one. The captain paid like a man

for doctor and burial fees; he undertook also to send the old lady a

pound of snuff to assist her to a last sneeze or two on the right side of

the grave, and he kept his word; for, deeming it necessary to paint her

in a characteristic, these prodigious serpents told him gravely that she

delighted in snuff; it was almost the only thing that kept her alive,

barring a sip of broth. Captain William's comment on the interesting

piece of longevity whose well-covered length and framework lay exposed to

his respectful contemplation, was, that she must have been a devilish

fine old lady in her day. 'Six foot' was given as her measurement.

One pound of snuff, a bottle of rum, and five sovereigns were the fruits

of the captain's sensibility. I shattered my ribs with laughter over the

story. Eveleen dwelt on the triumph, twinkling. Kiomi despised laughter

or triumph resulting from the natural exercise of craft in an emergency.

'But my handsome gentleman he won't tell on us, will he, when we've

nursed him and doctored him, and made him one of us, and as good a stick

o' timber as grows in the forest?' whined the old mother. I had to swear

I would not.

'He!' cried Kiomi.

'He may forget us when he's gone,' the mother said. She would have liked

me to kiss a book to seal the oath. Anxiety about the safety of their

'homes,' that is, the assurance of an untroubled reception upon their

customary camping-ground, is a peculiarity of the gipsies, distinguishing

them, equally with their cleanliness and thriftiness, from mumpers and

the common wanderers.

It is their tribute to civilization, which generally keeps them within

the laws.

Who that does not know them will believe that under their domestic system

I had the best broth and the best tea I have ever tasted! They are very

cunning brewers and sagacious buyers too; their maxims show them to

direct all their acuteness upon obtaining quality for their money. A

compliment not backed by silver is hardly intelligible to the pretty

ones: money is a really credible thing to them; and when they have it,

they know how to use it. Apparently because they know so well, so

perfectly appreciating it, they have only vague ideas of a corresponding

sentiment on the opposite side to the bargain, and imagine that they fool

people much more often than they succeed in doing. Once duped themselves,

they are the wariest of the dog-burnt; the place is notched where it

occurred, and for ever avoided. On the other hand, they repose implicit

faith in a reputation vouched for by their experience. I was amused by

the girl Eveleen's dotting of houses over the breadth of five counties,

where for this and that article of apparel she designed to expend

portions of a golden guinea, confident that she would get the very best,

and a shilling besides. The unwonted coin gave her the joy of supposing

she cheated the Mint of that sum. This guinea was a present to the girl

(to whom I owed my thrashing, by the way) that excused itself under cover

of being a bribe for sight of a mirror interdicted by the implacable

Kiomi. I wanted to have a look at my face. Now that the familiar scenes

were beginning to wear their original features to me, my dread of

personal hideousness was distressing, though Eveleen declared the bad

blood in my cheeks and eyes 'had been sucked by pounds of red meat.' I

wondered, whether if I stood up and walked to either one of the three

great halls lying in an obtuse triangle within view, I should easily be

recognized. When I did see myself, I groaned verily. With the silence of

profound resignation, I handed back to Eveleen the curious fragment of

her boudoir, which would have grimaced at Helen of Troy.

'You're feeling your nose--you've been looking at a glass!' Kiomi said,

with supernatural swiftness of deduction on her return.

She added for my comfort that nothing was broken, but confessed me to be

still 'a sight'; and thereupon drove knotty language at Eveleen. The girl

retorted, and though these two would never acknowledge to me that any of

their men had been in this neighbourhood recently, the fact was treated

as a matter of course in their spiteful altercation, and each saddled the

other with the mistake they had committed. Eveleen snatched the last

word. What she said I did not comprehend, she must have hit hard. Kiomi's

eyes lightened, and her lips twitched; she coloured like the roofing

smoke of the tent fire; twice she showed her teeth, as in a spasm, struck

to the heart, unable to speak, breathing in and out of a bitterly

disjoined mouth. Eveleen ran. I guessed at the ill-word spoken. Kiomi sat

eyeing the wood-ashes, a devouring gaze that shot straight and read but

one thing. They who have seen wild creatures die will have her before

them, saving the fiery eyes. She became an ashen-colour, I took her

little hand. Unconscious of me, her brown fingers clutching at mine, she

flung up her nostrils, craving air.

This was the picture of the woman who could not weep in her misery.

'Kiomi, old friend!' I called to her. I could have cursed that other

friend, the son of mischief; for she, I could have sworn, had been

fiercely and wantonly hunted. Chastity of nature, intense personal pride,

were as proper to her as the free winds are to the heaths: they were as

visible to dull divination as the milky blue about the iris of her

eyeballs. She had actually no animal vileness, animal though she might be

termed, and would have appeared if compared with Heriot's admirable

Cissies and Gwennies, and other ladies of the Graces that run to fall,

and spend their pains more in kindling the scent of the huntsman than in

effectively flying.

There was no consolation for her.

The girl Eveleen came in sight, loitering and looking, kicking her idle

heels.

Kiomi turned sharp round to me.

'I'm going. Your father's here, up at Bulsted. I'll see him. He won't

tell. He'll come soon. You'll be fit to walk in a day. You're sound as a

nail. Goodbye--I shan't say good-bye twice,' she answered my attempt to

keep her, and passed into the tent, out of which she brought a small

bundle tied in a yellow handkerchief, and walked away, without nodding or

speaking.

'What was that you said to Kiomi?' I questioned Eveleen, who was quickly

beside me.

She replied, accurately or not: 'I told her our men'd give her as good as

she gave me, let her wait and see.'

Therewith she pouted; or, to sketch her with precision, 'snouted' would

better convey the vivacity of her ugly flash of features. It was an error

in me to think her heartless. She talked of her aunt Kiomi

affectionately, for a gipsy girl, whose modulated tones are all addressed

to the soft public. Eveleen spoke with the pride of bated breath of the

ferocious unforgivingness of their men. Perhaps if she had known that I

traced the good repute of the tribes for purity to the sweeter instincts

of the women, she would have eulogized her sex to amuse me. Gipsy girls,

like other people, are fond of showing off; but it would have been a

victory of education to have helped her to feel the distinction of the

feminine sense of shame half as awfully and warmly as she did the

inscrutable iron despotism of the males. She hinted that the mistake of

which I had been the victim would be rectified.

'Tell your men I'll hunt them down like rats if I hear of it,' said I.

While we were conversing my father arrived. Eveleen, not knowing him,

would have had me accept the friendly covering of a mat.

'Here 's a big one! he's a clergyman,' she muttered to herself, and ran

to him and set up a gipsy whine, fronting me up to the last step while

she advanced; she only yielded ground to my outcry.

My father bent over me. Kiomi had prepared him for what he saw. I quieted

his alarm by talking currently and easily. Julia Bulsted had despatched a

messenger to inform him of my mysterious disappearance; but he, as his

way was, revelling in large conjectures, had half imagined me seized by a

gust of passion, and bound for Germany. 'Without my luggage?' I laughed.

'Ay, without your luggage, Richie,' he answered seriously. His conceit of

a better knowledge of me than others possessed, had buoyed him up. 'For I

knew,' he said, 'we two do nothing like the herd of men. I thought you

were off to her, my boy. Now!' he looked at me, and this look of dismay

was a perfect mirror. I was not a presentable object.

He stretched his limbs on the heather and kept hold of my hand, looking

and talking watchfully, doctor-like, doubting me to be as sound in body

as I assured him I was, despite aches and pains. Eveleen hung near.

'These people have been kind to you?' he said.

'No, the biggest brutes on the earth,' said I.

'Oh! you say that, when I spotted you out in the dark where you might

have lied to be eaten, and carried you and washed your bloody face, and

watched you, and never slept, I didn't, to mother you and wet your head!'

cried the girl.

My father beckoned to her and thanked her appreciably in the yellow

tongue.

'So these scoundrels of the high road fell upon you and robbed you,

Richie?'

I nodded.

'You let him think they robbed you, and you had your purse to give me a

gold guinea out of it!' Eveleen cried, and finding herself in the wrong

track, volubly resumed: 'That they didn't, for they hadn't time, whether

they meant to, and the night black as a coal, whoever they were.'

The mystery of my not having sent word to Bulsted or to Riversley

perplexed my father.

'Comfortable here!' he echoed me, disconsolately, and glanced at the

heath, the tent, the black circle of the broth-pot, and the wild girl.