Chapter VIII: “Dark like a Winter’s Eve.”

A change, and what a change!

Faces and footsteps and all things strange! From the very minute the caravans struck the suburbs of great Southampton all the glamour of gipsy life faded and fled.

There were snug villas and well-kept gardens, it is true, and tidily cropped hedges with here and there a leafy elm, though its stem looked dark and sooty. But the gardens were far too snug and trim, with their tiled walks and edgings of box, to suit Peggy’s tastes or Johnnie’s, and on the hedges of privet or hawthorn a wild rose, beautiful beyond compare though it be, would scarce have dared to bloom. Then there were gravelled pavements, with lamp-posts, and, more dreadful than anything else, tram-lines, with rattling bell-ringing cars, and shouts of unromantic conductors.

This was civilisation, and the well-dressed clerks or bagmen who went hurrying along the streets were too busy even to glance at the prettily-curtained windows of the lofty caravans, though one or two did cast an admiring glance at the young and beautiful girl with sweet, laughing eyes, and wealth of bonnie hair that leaned over the half door of her little home on wheels and the noble hound that lay on guard beside her.

Street after street, noise and bustle, stir and din, how these children of the wilds hated it all, but worse was to come! They passed through unsavoury slums, where every fourth house was either a public or a pawnbroker’s; where sluts--half dressed sluts with arms akimbo--lolled at the openings of yawning courts; where ragged children played bare-headed, bare-legged, in gutters, and idle, unkempt youths smoked at filthy corners.

Peggy kept indoors now, ay, and took noble Ralph in beside her also, the dog was too good for such grim civilisation as this. And she sighed as she thought of the greenery of the woods and fields she had left behind her. And so, on and on till they reached their pitch at last. It was--somewhere, and that is all the girl knew or cared. On a piece of waste land in a neighbourhood that was mean, and all about the show--which did not open to-night--unwholesome children yelled and howled till far into the night.

Molly Muldoon came into Peggy’s caravan to comfort her, and so did wee Willie. But they only just sat and talked, for no music could be thought of to-night. This would but encourage these youthful imps, those civilised savages, to stay still longer.

“It be only for one night, lovie,” said Molly, to comfort her, “bless your sweet face, my dearie, you’ll forget all this in after days.”

But it took two whole days to load up the show for the far-northern Clyde, days of wretchedness and misery, little food by day and little sleep at night, and there was neither peace nor pleasure until the big steamer got out and away on the blue of the Channel.

The weather was fine, the sea smooth, and the vessel made excellent progress. It was the sweet time of the year, not only on the land they had left, but on the ocean too. Just a day of _mal-de-mer_ or hardly even that, and then the young people settled down to enjoy themselves. Everything was so new and delightful to them, and the great steamer--a merchantman she was, and rarely carried passengers--seemed bent on showing herself off to the very greatest advantage. Clean and tidy she was, her flush decks ivory white both fore and aft; her dark funnel dandified with two stripes of vermilion, and she bobbed and bowed to every advancing wave as if she and they were on terms of the utmost intimacy, which was quite true, or as if she and they had never fallen out, which was not correct, only whenever they had quarrelled it had been owing to the interference of a third party--the surly wind.

The caravans had been taken off their wheels and lay--the largest amidships, with one astern of it, and one--Peggy’s--forward. All day these gipsy folks passed in and out of their caravans as if they had been on shore, but at night they were all snugly cabined or berthed below.

Had a real gale of wind arisen, I fear that the show would have been reduced to matchwood, and perhaps the horses killed. But then a gale of wind did not arise, and, besides, Fitzroy was well insured, and therefore easy in his mind.

They were four days and four nights getting up and into the rolling Firth of Clyde, for they had to go all the way round and south of the Scillies.

Jolly evenings they did spend to be sure. All for love a concert was given every night, and wee Willie, the dwarf, with his friend, Gourmand, the giant, performed feats that quite astonished the honest sailors.

It is needless to say that Peggy became a very great favourite before she had been four-and-twenty hours on board, and so did Ralph the hound.

Johnnie sang “Maggie by my Side” with such charming effect that the tears rolled down the cheeks of Charlie Chat, the skipper’s cabin boy.

Here let my home be,
Upon the waters wide,
I roam with a proud heart,
Peggy’s by my side.
(_Chorus_) My own love Peggy dear, etc.

And Charlie that same evening told Chipps, the carpenter, that if he, Charlie Chat, had Peggy by his side, he would “sail the seas o’er, and never think of returning to the dull shore, not nevermore.” Which was poetic if not quite grammatical.

But everything has an end--a German polony has two by the way--and the saucy Sea-Witch arrived alongside the Broomielaw at last, and when the caravans were landed, when the horses were put to, and they rolled away, Peggy waving her white handkerchief from her little stern window back towards the ship, Charlie turned tearfully round to Chipps and said--

“She is faded and gone, Chipps. My love has obliterated, my life’s dream is a thing of the grizzly past.”

“Don’t be a bally hass,” said Chipps.

These show folks were not long in finding out that the working people of Glasgow among whom they pitched on a beautiful green, dearly loved a good play and a pretty song, and it was just as Gourmand had predicted, they--especially Peggy--carried everything before them and the money kept rolling in for weeks on end.

Wee Willie, the sad-eyed dwarf, took every heart by storm, for he was neither mis-shapen nor deformed, and the music that seemed to float out of his fiddle was inexpressibly tender and sweet.

Not only was Willie called out before the footlights every evening, but he had to be handed round.

“Hand roon’ the wee yin,” the audience would cry, and Gourmie had to obey. Wee Willie was passed around both boxes and pit, and if he received caresses from the ladies he amply repaid them, for he made them laugh till the very rafters rang. But he himself didn’t laugh in the very least. Oh, no, as serious as a Madonna was he.

I think that though they admired her, the gallants of Glasgow were a little afraid of Peggy. She was so ethereal, such an ideally lovely child, that she looked to them more like a being from another world than anything else.

Molly Muldoon was a bit of timber of quite another grain. She acted a witch to perfection, but when she was called before the curtain, never the much of a witch was about Molly. She gave a wild Irish whoop, the band struck up a jig, and no Paddy ever danced more merrily than she did then. When she was summoned a second time, she placed upon the stage two brooms crossed like swords, kilted her “coaties,” and danced Ghillie Callum to perfection.

There was no doubt about it, Fitzroy’s company not only deserved success but commanded it.

After nearly a month the show journeyed north, but not until Peggy and Willie, the two favourites, had bumper-house benefits, and at the finish the house rose _en masse_ and sung that beautiful song that so appeals to every truly Scottish heart--“Bonnie Charlie’s noo awa’.”

Fitzroy and his people would long remember the sweet ringing chorus--

Will ye no come back again?
Will ye no come back again?
Better loo’d ye canna be,
Will ye no come back again?

* * * * *

The success of the “Forest Maiden Company” was secured, and their fame had gone abroad, so that the very first night, and indeed during all the week they appeared in Paisley they received splendid ovations.

Of course they were but a poor little bit of a show, compared with other great ones that had visited the “City of Thread,” but of their kind they were first-class. Anyhow, they pleased the people, and what more can any of us do?

On to Stirling by easy stages, staying for a night and sometimes three at most villages and towns, and so through Perth, and north and west by the great Highland road that leads to Dunkeld and Pitlochry, across the Grampian Range to Inverness itself.

But they were destined never to reach the capital of the Scottish Highlands, something occurring that completely disorganised the show, and put acting entirely out of Fitzroy’s head for weeks and weeks to come.

They had passed over the highest point of the range, through Dalwhinnie, surrounded by its mountains patched with summer snows, with lofty Ben Alder frowning darkly over the leaden lake, and had reached one of the sweetest little towns that nestle here in the Scottish Alps. They had given their first performance, which was so successful that they determined to stay for a week.

Their pitch was both romantic and beautiful, with wilder scenery around them than ever before their eyes had looked upon.

On the very second morning Johnnie and Peggy went off through woods and wilds under the guidance of a ghillie to a lonely little mountain loch or tarn to fish. Quite surrounded by rocks and birch-clad braes is Loch Bran, and unknown to the Saxon tourist. The glad fish leaped up in the sunshine as if wanting to be landed, and though by no means adepts at the fisherman’s craft, it was not many hours before the little creels they carried were nearly full, so they left off to dine in a brown pine wood.

It was very solemn and still here, not a sound to be heard save the low murmur of a little silvery cascade that came tumbling down through gray boulders and brackens green to seek the rest and silence of the lake.

After dinner Peggy sat quietly reading, but Johnnie lay on his back gazing dreamily up at the dark pine branches through the shimmering green of which he caught sight of the blue of the sunlit sky.

He was very happy and contented, and so too was Peggy, for she presently threw down her book to talk, and both of them began to build many a beautiful castle in the air.

“My idea of happiness,” the boy concluded, “would be to build a house in such a fairy glade as this, and you could come if you liked, Peggy, but every day I would sally forth with my merry, merry men to fish in the lake, and awake the echoes of the forest with my hunting horn, but return at night to dine and to sleep under the greenwood tree.”

Peggy shook her wise wee head.

“Wouldn’t it be just a trifle uncomfortable when the snow fell, Johnnie?”

“Ah! but then we should have music and mirth in the great halls and drink horns of wassail by the roaring log-fires! I know I should be happy.”

By the time the sun was sinking low towards the horizon they were back again in camp.

But the next day and the day after that found them back again at that lonesome tarn which somehow seemed to have a great charm for both of them. And it was on this particular day that the adventure I am about to relate befell the romantic twain.

They had lingered longer by the loch side than usual, for not the breath of a breeze ruffled its surface, and the trout seemed to slumber below.

But they made small baskets at last, and taking their rods to pieces gave them to the ghillie to carry, and set forth now for the forest.

So intent were both on the discussion of the meal they had brought with them and the trout, roasted gipsy fashion over a fire of wood, that they noticed not the rising clouds and gathering gloom, until suddenly a flash of lightning seemed to extinguish the flames and rolling thunder reverberated through the woods, re-echoed back from hill and rock. Flash after flash, peal after peal, and then fell a darkness like a winter’s eve.

But when great drops of rain began to fall, they were glad to be told by the ghillie that there was the Kelpie’s can not far off, and so thither they followed the lad, and glad was Peggy when she found herself sheltered from the pitiless storm.

Fitzroy and Gourmand felt very anxious indeed when evening deepened into darkness about ten that night, and still the children did not come.

Seek them they must, and so they rolled themselves in Highland plaids, and accompanied by two sturdy ghillies as guides, set off to find the lake, accompanied by Ralph.

About half way to the glen they met little Stuart, the children’s ghillie. He was dragging himself along, and was covered with blood and mud.

He was dazed, too; but at last, sentence by sentence, they managed to get all the story out of him, and a sad and melancholy one it was.