Chapter III: In Gipsy Camp and Caravan

Brighter and brighter shone the moon, yet it was dark in that great wood, into which the light could hardly penetrate. Solemn as a cathedral, too, with far above them the black roof of interlacing pine-trees.

Only here and there the chequered moonlight streamed downwards on the soft carpet of needled foliage that lay beneath.

Pathway it could scarce have been called, save for the blazed trees, for the boy Chops had done his work well, albeit he had wasted the properties. There were places where the gloom was so complete that Frank Antony had to feel for Lotty to make sure she was still by his side. And neither seemed inclined to break the stillness just then.

The owls and other birds of prey were in evidence here, and once when a pigeon was scared, and flew flapping upwards from its flat nest of heather-stalks or its perch among the pines, some night-bird struck it speedily down. No, not an owl; for owls do feed on mice and rats.

Then they came to a glade, and once more the moon shone merrily above them, and the black shadows of Antony and his companion pointed northwards and west.

'More than half-way home,' said Lotty.

'A strangely impressive scene,' said Antony.

'Are you very heavy, sir?'

'For my inches I scale a good deal, Lotty.'

'Well, you must walk round by the white stones yonder. All the centre is a moving bog, you know. It bears my weight and Wallace's easily, and we like to swing up and down on the turf. You'll see me swing in a minute. But you might go through, then you would sink down and down and down among the black slime, and not be seen again, never, never, _never_!'

'A very pretty prospect indeed, Lotty; but I think I'll go round by the stones. I have rather an interest in myself.'

Lotty had her swing on the green, moving turf that covered the awful abyss, and appeared to enjoy it very much; but presently they met again on the other side. Antony paused for a moment to gaze into the star-depths.

'How beautiful!' he murmured.

'Are you very hungry, sir?' asked matter-of-fact Lotty.

'I could do with a bit of supper, I believe.'

'Because,' said Lotty, 'the light you see up yonder comes from Crona's cottage. Crona is a witch; but she loves me, and often, when I am hungry, she gives me milk to drink and sometimes an egg.'

'Well, by all means let us see this witch-friend of yours. Is she very terrible, Lotty?'

'She has such kindly eyes!' Lotty answered. Then she guided Antony up to the long, low hut on the cliff.

The girl simply lifted the latch and entered without ceremony. A peat-fire was burning on a rude stone hearth, and near it sat Crona, warming her skinny hands. A tame fox by her side yapped and howled, and a huge cat put up her back. Crona closed the big Bible she had been reading, and laid it reverently on the window-sill, with her spectacles above it.

'Oh, come your ways in, my bonny Lotty. But wha have you wi' ye? In sooth, a bonny callant. And, oh me, Lotty, there is something tells your old mammy this night o' nights that this callant, this bonny English callant, will'----

She stopped suddenly.

'Forgive an old woman, sir,' she said to Antony, 'who is well-nigh in her dotage.'

She hastily dusted a chair with her apron, and signed to Antony to sit down.

The fire threw out a cheerful blaze, quite dimming the light of the wee oil lamp that hung against the whitewashed wall.

Not very many miles from this same pine-wood is the 'blasted heath' of Shakespeare; and this old woman, Crona, but for the look of kindness in her eyes, might well have represented one of the witches in _Macbeth_. A witch? Nay; but despite her high cheek-bones and wrinkled face, despite the gray and elfin locks that escaped from beneath her white 'mutch' or cap, let us rather call her 'wise woman,' for witches--if there be any such creatures--never read the Book of Books.

Any age 'twixt seventy and ninety Crona might have been, or even more than that; but Antony could not help noticing that she herself and all her surroundings were wonderfully clean, the fireside tidy, and the delf that stood on shelves or in cupboards shining and spotless. Her clothing, moreover, was immaculate; and Antony, though a mere man, saw that some of her garments were silk and almost new, so that they could not have been cast-offs or misfits from the gentry in the neighbourhood. Indeed, old though she was, she looked aristocratic enough to have repelled any well-meant offers of charity.

But humble though the abode, there were several strange, richly inlaid chests in it, and a cupboard or two in the antique that certainly would have been valuable to the connoisseur.

Antony loved nature, but he also loved a mystery, and here surely there was one.

The mystery was deepened when a remark that the young man made, or a phrase used, in good French led the conversation into that language. But when Antony made a somewhat awkward attempt to learn something of the old lady's history she adroitly turned the conversation.

Crona's creamy milk, those new-laid eggs, and the real Scottish scones with freshest of butter, made a supper that a prince would have enjoyed.

Crona now heaped more logs and peats on the hearth, for in these far northern regions the early autumn evenings are apt to be chill.

The peats blazed merrily but quietly, the logs flamed and fizzed and crackled, the jets of blazing gas therefrom lighting up every corner and cranny of the old-fashioned hut. Fir-logs were they, that had lain buried in moss or morass for thousands of years--had fallen, in fact, before the wintry blast ages before painted and club-armed men roamed the forests all around, fighting single-handed the boars and even bears in which these woods abounded.

Frank Antony really felt very happy to-night. The scene was quite to his taste, for he was a somewhat romantic youth, and everything strange and poetic appealed to him. With Lotty, beaming-eyed and rosy with the fire, sitting by Crona's knee listening to old-world tales and the crooning of old ballads, the fox and the cat curled up together in a corner, the curling smoke and cheerful fire, the young man was fascinated. Had London, he wondered, with its so-called life and society, anything to beat this?

'Some one's knocking at the door,' said Lotty, whose hearing was more acute than Crona's.

'It must be Joe,' said Crona. 'Poor Joe, he has been away in the woods all the evening, and must be damp and cauld!'

Lotty hastened to admit a splendid specimen of the raven--or he would have been splendid had not his wings and thigh-feathers been so draggled with dew. He advanced along the floor with a noisy flutter.

'Joe's cold, and Joe's cross,' croaked the bird, giving one impudent glance upwards at Antony, as much as to say, 'Who on earth are you next?' He was evidently in a temper. 'Joe's cold, and Joe's cross--cross--cross!' he shrieked.

Then he vented his passion on the hind-foot of the poor fox, which was thrust well out from his body. Reynard quietly drew in that leg and showed his teeth in an angry snarl. But the raven only held his head back, and laughed an eldritch laugh that rang through the rafters. His next move was to dislodge the cat and take her place on the top of Tod Lowrie, as the red fox was called. Joe felt warm there, so he fluffed out his feathers and went quietly to sleep.

When presently 'a wee tim'rous beastie' in the shape of a black mouse, with wondering dark eyes nearly as large as boot-buttons, crept from a corner and sat quietly down with its front to the fire and commenced to wash its little mite of a face, Frank Antony thought he must be dreaming. The cat took no notice of Tim (the mouse), and when Lotty bent down and stroked tiny Tim with the nail of her little finger he really seemed to enjoy it. Antony was prepared for anything that might happen after this.

When they were out again in the open moonlight, Antony said, 'Do you often go to Crona's cottage, Lotty?'

'Oh yes, when I can spare time. Crona is a granny to me, and I love her and Tim and Joe, Pussy, Tod Lowrie, and all.'

'A very happy little natural family.'

They were high on a hill by this time, and far beneath them, near the sea, its long lines of breakers silvered by the moonbeams, white canvas tents could be seen, and many moving lights.

'That is our pitch,' said Lotty. 'The big caravan is yours, sir; the little one not very far off is mine. That long, black, wooden building in the centre is the theatre and barracks.'

'How droll to have a theatre and barracks in a gipsy camp! I think I've come to a strange country, Lotty.'

'Oh, you won't be sorry, I'm sure. Father can't thrash you, and Wallace and myself will look well after you.'

'Thank you, Lotty.'

'I wonder who on earth Wallace is?' he thought.

He did not have long to wonder.

'I'm going to signal for Wallace,' said Lotty.

She stood on the very edge of a rocky precipice that went sheer down to the green sea-links below, full three hundred feet and over. Close by was the mark of a former fire.

'I always signal from here,' she said, 'and Wallace always comes. He is never happy when I am far away, and keeps watching for me.'

It didn't take the little gipsy lass long to scrape dry grass and twigs together. A leathern pouch hung from her girdle, and from this she produced a flint and steel, with some touch-paper, and in less than half a minute the signal-fire was alit.

A most romantic figure the girl presented as she stood there on the cliff, looking straight out seawards, one hand above her brow to screen her eyes from the red glare of the flames, her sweet, sad face a picture, with the night wind blowing back her wealth of soft fair hair and the silken frock from off her shapely limbs.

It was not the beauty but the sadness of Lotty's face that appealed to Antony most.

Why sad? That was the mystifying question.

He had taken a strange and indefinable interest in this twelve-year-old gipsy child. He had come down here to take away the caravan for which he was to pay a solid five hundred guineas, and had made up his mind to stay only a few days; but now on the cliff-top here he suddenly resolved that, if he could be amused, he would remain at the camp for as many weeks. He had no intention of travelling in the caravan during the wintry months. He would take the great carriage south by rail, and, starting from Brighton, do a record journey right away through England and Scotland from sea to sea, starting when the first green buds were on the trees and the larks carolling over the rolling downs of Sussex. So now he lay on the grass, waiting, and wondering who Wallace would be.

Hallo! Lotty has gone bounding past Antony to meet some one, her face transformed. No sadness now; only daft mirth and merriment, her arms extended, her curls anyhow all over her face and neck. A scream of delight, and next moment two very young and beautiful persons are rolling together on the half-withered grass.

One is Lotty, the other is Wallace her Newfoundland. Jet black is he all over, like the wings of Crona's raven--jet black, save for the glitter of his bonny eyes, the pink of his tongue, and alabaster flash of his marvellous teeth.

* * * * *

'See your room first, Mr Blake, and then come in to supper?'

The speaker was Nat Biffins Lee, master and proprietor of what he was wont to call 'THE QUEEREST SHOW ON EARTH,' a broad, square, round-faced, somewhat burly man, with even teeth and a put-on smile that was seldom unshipped. Dressed in a loose velveteen jacket, with white waistcoat (diamond-mounted buttons), with an enormous spread of neck and upper chest. His loose cravat of green silk was tied in a sailor-knot so far beneath his fat chin that it seemed to belong more to the vest than to the loose shirt-collar.

'Here, hurry up, you kinchin, Lot!--Down, Wallace; kennel, sir.' Biffins cracked a short whip, and Lotty flew to obey.

The look of sadness had returned to her face. Her father's manner seemed to frighten her. But she tripped like a fairy up the back steps of the 'Gipsy Queen,' and stood waiting him while he entered.

Antony stood for a few moments on the stairtop. He was dazzled, bewildered. He had never seen so large a caravan, never could have believed that the interior of a caravan could lend itself to such art-decorations and beauty. This was no ordinary gipsy wagon, but a splendid and luxurious home-upon-wheels. The curtains, the hangings, mirrors, brackets, bookcase with pigmy editions of poetry and romance, the velvet lounge, the art chairs, the soft carpets, the crimson-shaded electric bulbs and the fairy lights gleaming up through beds of choice flowers above the china-cupboard in a recess, all spoke of and breathed refinement.

But no sign of a bedroom, till smiling Lotty stepped forward and touched a spring; then china-cupboard, with fairy lights and flowers and all, slowly revolved and disappeared, and, in its place, gauzy silken hangers scarce concealed the entrance to a pretty cabin bedroom, with curtained window and white-draped couch which seemed to invite repose. A cosy wee grate in a brass-protected corner, in which a cosy wee fire was burning, a small mirrored overmantel--making the room look double the size--table, looking-glass, books, pipe-rack, wine-cupboard, and a little lamp on gimbals that was swinging even now, for the wind had commenced to blow along the links, and the great caravan rocked and swayed like a ship in a seaway.

There were wild-flowers in vases even here, and a blithe little rose-linnet in a golden cage; but everything was so arranged that nothing could fall, rocked and swayed she ever so much.

Frank Antony was more than pleased; he was astonished and delighted. But who was, or had been, the presiding genius of all this artful beauty and elegance? Ah! there she stands demurely now, by the saloon cabin, herself so artless--a baby-woman. He drew her nearer to him to thank her. He kissed her shapely brown fingers, and he kissed her on the hair.

'Good-night, Lotty. Oh, by the way, Lotty, tell Mr Biffins--tell your father, I mean--that I am going to bed, too tired to take supper. Good-night, child.'

Five minutes after, the little brass knocker rattled, and Lotty peeped in again to say, 'All right about father, sir; and Chops will call for your boots in the morning.'

Frank Antony switched off the saloon light, and, retiring to his small cabin, helped himself to a glass of port and a biscuit, and then sat down by the fire to read.

As he smoked his modest pipe, which soothed his nerves after his long journey of over seven hundred miles, he felt glad he had not gone in to supper.

Whether or not love at first sight be possible I cannot say--cannot be sure; but no doubt we meet people in this world whom, from the very first, we feel we cannot like. Nat Biffins Lee seemed to be one of these to Frank Antony, at all events. There was that in his manner which was repellent, positively or rather negatively repellent. The man was evidently on the best of terms with himself, but his manners were too much of the circus-master to please Antony. And the young man was discontented with himself for feeling as he did.

Yet how could a man like this Biffins possess so gentle and sweet a child as Lotty for a daughter? It was puzzling. But then, Mrs Biffins Lee, the girl's mother--well, Lotty might have taken after her.

Perhaps Antony's thoughts were running riot to-night; one's thoughts, when very tired, are very apt to. He had read a whole page of the little volume he held in his hand without knowing in the very least what he had been reading. He shut his eyes now very hard as if to squeeze away drowsiness, then opened them wide to read the passage over again. It was a translation from the writings of some ancient Celtic bard which he had got hold of, strangely wild, almost uncouth, but still it seemed to accord with the situation, with the boom of the breaking waves and soft rocking of his home-upon-wheels. It was the lament of Malvina, the daughter of Toscar, for the death of her lover Oscar:

'It was the voice of my love! Seldom art thou in the dreams of Malvina! Open your aerie halls, O father of Toscar of Shields! Unfold the gates of your clouds; the steps of Malvina are near. I have heard a voice in my dream. I feel the fluttering of my soul. Why didst thou come, O blast, from the dark rolling face of the lake? Thy rustling wing was in the tree; the dream of Malvina fled. But she has beheld her love when his robe of mist flew on the wind. A sunbeam was on his skirts; they glittered like the gold of a stranger. It was the voice of my love! Seldom comes he to my dreams.

'But thou dwellest in the soul of Malvina, son of mighty Ossian! My sighs arise with the beam of the east, my tears descend with the drops of night. I was a lovely tree in thy presence, Oscar, with all my branches round me; but thy death came like a blast from the desert, and laid my green head low. The spring returned with its showers; no leaf of mine arose. The virgins saw me silent in the hall; they touched the harp of joy. The tear was on the cheek of Malvina; the virgins beheld me in my grief. "Why art thou sad," they said, "thou first of the maids of Lutha? Was he lovely as the beam of the morning, and stately in thy sight?"'

* * * * *

The 'Gipsy Queen' lay somewhat nearer to the cliffs than the barracks and the other caravans and tents. She had been placed here probably that Antony might have quietness.

Tall, rocky cliffs they were that frowned darkling over the northern ocean--rocks that for thousands of years had borne the brunt of the battle and the breeze, summer's sun and winter's storm. Hard as adamant were they, imperishable, for ne'er a stone had they parted with, and the grass grew up to the very foot.

The 'Gipsy Queen' was anchored fast to the greensward where the sea-pinks grew, and many a rare little wild-flower. And this sward was hard and firm, so that though gales might sweep along the links and level the tents it could only rock and sway the 'Gipsy Queen.'

Silence gradually fell over the encampment. Guys had been slackened round the tents, for the dews of night and the sea's salt spray would tauten the canvas long ere morning. The shouting of orders ceased and gave place to the twanging of harp-strings, the sweet strains of violin music, and voices raised in song. But these also ceased at last, and after this nothing could be heard save the occasional sonorous baying of some great hound on watch and the drowsy roar of the outgoing tide. But soon

The tide
Would sigh farther off,
As human sorrow sighs in sleep.

It occurred to Antony to look out just once before retiring for the night. So he passed through the saloon and gently opened the door. The white tents moving in the moonlight, the big black barn of a theatre, the gray, uncertain sea touched here and there with the sheen of moon and silver stars. Was that all? No; for not far from his own great caravan was a cosy, broad-wheeled gipsy-cart, from the wee curtained window of which a crimson light streamed over the yellow sand.

It must be Lotty's and Wallace's he believed. And there was a sense of companionship in the very thought that they were so near to him. So Antony locked his door and retired.

* * * * *

Rat-tat-tat. Rat-tat-tat. Rat-tat-tat.
It is next morning now.
Rat-tat.

'Hallo! hallo!' roared Antony. 'What on earth'----

Then, remembering where he was, he jumped out of bed, flew through the saloon, and opened the back-door.

A great, fat young face beamed up at him from the foot of the steps like a setting sun.

'It's only me, sir. It's only Chops, come for your boots, sir.'

'Here you are, Chops lad. But mind you don't black these; they're patent leather.'

'Lo'd love ye, sir, I knows to a nicety. I never does black patenters. Only just spits on 'em, sir. Back presently, sir, wi' your cup o' tea.'

The figure retreated, taking the fat face and the patent leather boots with it, and Frank Antony Blake yawned a bit and then proceeded to dress, wondering to himself what pleasure, if any, the coming day might bring him.