“Ay, think upon the cause—Forget it not. When you lie down to rest,Let it be black among your dreams; and whenThe morn returns, so let it stand betweenThe sun and you, as an ill-omened cloudUpon a summer-day of festival.”—Byron.
A month passed. Night and day the search had been carried on; enormous rewards were offered; detectives were sent in every direction; but all in vain. No trace of the lost child was to be found.
Lady Maude had awoke from that deadly swoon, only to fall into another, and another, until her friends grew seriously alarmed for her life. From this, she sunk into a sort of low stupor; and for weeks, she lay still and motionless, unconscious of everything passing around her. White, frail, and shadowy, she lay, a breathing corpse, dead to the world and all it contained. She scarcely realized her loss, she felt like one who has received a heavy blow, stunning her for a time, and rendering her unable to comprehend the full extent of her loss. She received what they gave her in a passive sort of way, heard without understanding what they said, and watched them moving about from under her heavy eyelids without recognizing them. She did not even know her husband, who, the very shadow of his former self, gave up everything to remain by her bedside, night and day. They began to be alarmed for her reason, at last; but her physician said there was no danger—she would arouse from thisdull, death-like lethargy, at last: they must only let nature have her way.
Earl De Courcy never left his room now. Feeling as if in some sort he was the cause of this awful calamity, he remained, day and night, in his chamber, a miserable, heart-broken, wretched old man.
Late one evening, early in May, as he sat bowed and collapsed in his chair, a servant entered to announce a stranger below, who earnestly desired to see his lordship.
“Is it a woman?” asked the earl, turning ghastly.
“No, my lord, a man, I think, wrapped in a long cloak, and with a hat slouched down over his face. He said he had something of the utmost importance to reveal to your lordship.”
“Show him up,” said the earl eagerly: while his heart gave a sudden bound, as he thought it might be some one with news of Erminie.
The next moment the door was thrown open, and a tall, dark figure, muffled in a cloak reaching to the ground, and with a hat pulled far over the face, entered, and stood silently confronting the earl.
“Well? Do you bring news of my son’s child? Speak quickly, for God’s sake, if you do!” said the earl, half rising in his eagerness.
Two fierce, black eyes, like living coals, glared at him from under the hat; but the tall stranger spoke not a word.
A deadly fear, like an iron hand, clutched the heart of the earl. That tall, motionless form; those glaring eyes; that ominous silence, made his very blood curdle. White and trembling, he fell back in his seat, for all his undaunted strength was gone now.
“Leave the room,” said the stranger, in a deep, stern voice, turning to the servant, who stood gazing from one to the other.
The man vanished—the door closed. And Earl De Courcy was alone with his mysterious visitor, who still stood erect, towering and silent, before him.
“Man or devil, speak! With what evil purpose have you sought me to-night?” said the earl, at last finding voice.
Silently the stranger lifted his hat, and cast it on the floor. A mass of thick, streaming, black hair, on which, one wildMarch night, the pitiless rain had beat, fell over her shoulders. The long cloak was dropped off, and, stern, dark and menacing, he saw the lofty, commanding form, the fierce, black eyes, and dark, lowering brow of the wronged gipsy queen, Ketura, his relentless, implacable foe.
The last hue of life faded from the white face of the earl at the terrible sight; a horror unspeakable thrilled through his very soul. Twice he essayed to speak; his lips moved, but no sound came forth.
Silent, still, she stood before him, as rigid as a figure in bronze, her arms folded over her breast, her lips tightly compressed, every feature in perfect repose. You might have thought her some dark statue, but that life—burning life—was concentrated in those wild, dark eyes, that never for a single instant removed their uncompromising glare from his face.
So they stood for nearly five minutes, and then words came, at last, to the trembling lips of the earl.
“Dark, dreadful woman! what new crime have you come to perpetrate this night?”
“No crime, lord earl. I come to answer the questions you asked as I entered.”
“Of the child? You have stolen it?” he wildly demanded.
Her malignant eyes were on him still; her arms were still folded over her breast; no feature had moved; but now a strange, inexplicable smile flickered round her thin lips, as she quickly answered:
“I have!”
“And, woman!—demon in woman’s form! what wrong had that helpless babe done you?” he cried out, in passionate grief.
No change came over the set, dark face, as from the lips, still wreathed with that dreadful, ominous smile, slowly dropped the words:
“‘The sins of the father shall be visited upon the children’s children, even to the third and fourth generation. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a life for a life, saith the Lord of Hosts!’”
“Devil incarnate! blaspheme not! Oh, Heaven of heavens! how had you the heart to murder that child?”
“You had the heart, lord earl, to murder mine.”
“I believed him guilty. You know I did! And she was an innocent babe, as pure from all guile as an angel from heaven.”
“So was he, my lord. He was as free from that crime as that babe; and yet for it you took his life.”
It was awful to hear her speak in that low, even voice, so unnaturally deep and calm. No pitch of passion could be half so terrific as that unearthly quiet.
“Devil!—fiend! you shall die for this!” he cried, madly springing up. “What ho! without there! Secure this hag of perdition before—”
A low, strangled gurgle finished the sentence; for, with the bound of a pythoness, she had sprung forward and grasped him by the throat. She had the strength of a giant. He was a weak, broken-down old man, as powerless in her strong, horny fingers as an infant.
He grew black in the face, his eyeballs projected, and he struggled, blindly and helplessly, to extricate himself. She laughed a low, jeering laugh at his ineffectual efforts, and said, insultingly, as she released him:
“Softly, softly, lord earl! such violent straining of your lungs is not good for your constitution. You are quite helpless in my hands, you perceive; and if you attempt to raise your voice in that unpleasant manner again, I shall be forced to give you a still more loving clutch next time. Your best policy is, to keep as quiet as possible just now.”
He ground his teeth in impotent fury, as he gasped for breath.
“Besides, you take things for granted too easily, my lord. What proof have you that I am a murderess? You are, and in the sight of God; but that is not saying I am!”
“Oh, woman! guilty, blood-stained fiendess! your own words confirm it!” he passionately cried out.
“Gently, my lord, gently! Have you heard me say I murdered her?”
“You did not deny it.”
“That is negative proof, very unsubstantial, as you evidently know, although you found it sufficient to condemn my son!”
“You are too much of a demon to spare her innocent lifeone moment when in your power. Oh, I know—I know she is dead! Dear little angel! Sweet, helpless little Erminie!”
He almost lost his dread of her in his passion of grief. His chest heaved as he buried his face in his hands, and something like a convulsive sob shook his frame. “Talk not of grief till thou hast seen the tears of stern-browed men.”
But the woman felt no remorse. No; an exultant sense of triumph—a fiendish joy filled her heart, at the proof of what she had made him suffer. She had still a fiercer pang in store for him; and waiting till he had lifted his pale face again, she began, in a low, mocking voice:
“And thinkest thou, oh, Lord De Courcy, there is no darker doom than death? Do you think vengeance such as mine is to be sated by such paltry revenge as that? Pshaw, man! You are only a novice in the art of torture, I see; though you commenced a dangerous game when you practiced first on me. Why, if I had slain her, that would have been momentary revenge, and fifty thousand lives such as hers could not sate mine. Other children might be born, years would pass, and she, in course of time, would be almost forgotten. No, my lord; such vengeance as that would never satisfy the gipsy Ketura!”
“Saints in heaven! Am I sane or mad? Oh, woman, woman! speak, and tell me truly. Does the child yet live?”
“It does!”
“Thank God! Oh, bless God for that!” he cried, passionately, while tears of joy fell fast from his eyes.
The same evil, sinister smile curled the lips of the gipsy.
“What a fool the man is!” she said, bitterly, “thanking God that her life is spared, when she will yet live to curse the hour she was born. Oh, man! can you comprehend the depths of a gipsy’s hate—you, with your cold, sluggish Northern blood? Yes; she shall live; but it will be for a doom so dark that even the fiends themselves will shudder to hear it; she will live to invoke death as a blessing, and yet will not dare to die! And then I will return your Erminie to her doting grandsire, a thing so foul and polluted that thevery earth will refuse her a grave. Then, Lord De Courcy, my revenge will be complete!”
His hands dropped from his face as if he had been stricken with sudden death; the sight seemed leaving his eyes; the very life seemed palsied in his heart. He was conscious, for one dizzy moment, of nothing but of the blasting sight of that terrific woman, who, with her flaming eyes piercing him like two drawn stilettoes, towered there above him, like a vision from the infernal regions.
She was calm still; that terrible, exultant smile had not left her lips; but he would sooner have seen her foaming with passion than as she looked at that moment, standing there.
“This is our second interview, lord earl,” she said, while he sat speechless. “The first time I pleaded on my knees to you, and you spurned me from you as if I had been a dog. This time it should be your turn to plead; for you have almost as much at stake as I had then. If you do not choose to do so, that is your affair, not mine. The third time—when it comes—you will have realized what a gipsy’s revenge is like.”
“Oh, woman! if there be one spark of human nature in your savage breast, for God’s sake, spare that child!” cried the earl, wrought up to a perfect agony by her words.
She stepped back a pace, and looked at him for an instant in silence. At last:
“I pleaded to you on my knees,” she said, with an icy smile.
Her words gave him hope. The proud man fell on his knees before her, and held up his clasped hands in supplication. The high born Earl De Courcy knelt in wildest agony at the feet of the outcast gipsy!
Her hour of triumph had come. Folding her arms over her breast, she looked down upon him as he knelt there, with a look no words can ever describe.
“Spare her—spare her! For God’s sake, spare that child!”
There was no reply. Erect, rigid and moveless as a figure in stone, she stood, looking down upon him with her blazing eyes.
“Slay her, if you will; let her go to heaven guileless andunstained—anything rather than the doom you have destined for her!”
Still no reply. With that triumphant smile—a smile such as Satan himself might have worn—she looked steadily and quietly down at the man at her feet.
“Besides, you dare not keep her!” he said, gathering courage from her silence; fancying, perhaps, it was a sign of relenting. “The officers of the law would find you out; and a worse fate than your son’s would be yours.”
It was an unfortunate allusion. Her brow grew black as a thunder-cloud; but she only laughed scornfully.
“Find me?” she repeated. “Yes, if they can find last year’s snow, last year’s partridges, or last summer’s rain. Let them find me. Why, if it came to that, I could dash its brains out in one instant, before its very mother’s eyes.”
“Oh, worst of fiends! does there linger a human heart in your body?”
“No; it turned to stone the night I groveled in vain at your feet.”
“Take any other revenge you like; haunt me, pursue me, as you will, but restore that child! She never injured you; if there is guilt anywhere, it rests on my head. Let me, therefore, suffer, and give back the child.”
She smiled in silence.
“You will relent; you are a woman, and not a devil. Consent to what I ask, and if wealth be any object, you shall have the half—the whole of my fortune. Tell me you consent, and all I have in the world, together with my everlasting gratitude, will be yours.”
“You should have thought of this the night you refused to grant my prayer, my lord. Will your wealth and ‘every-lasting gratitude’ restore my son from the dead?”
“God knows, were it in my power, I would willingly give my life to restore him and cancel the past. All that remains for me to do I will do, if you restore the child.”
“Lord earl, when I knelt to you, you commanded me to get up. It is my turn now. You have been sufficiently humiliated, even to satisfy me. Rise!”
He rose, and stood before her, so faint with many emotions that he was obliged to grasp the chair for support.
“You will restore her?” he breathlessly asked.
“Never, so help me God; till my vow is fulfilled! Palsied be my heart, if it ever relents! Withered be my hand, if it ever confers a boon on you or one of your house! Blighted be my tongue, if it ever heap but curses on you! Doomed be my soul, if it ever forgives you for what you have done! Once again, lord earl, we are to meet, and then, beware!”
The last words were uttered with a maniac shriek, as she turned and fled from the room. There was a heavy fall; and the servants, rushing in in terror, found Earl De Courcy lying on the floor, with a dark stream of blood flowing from his mouth. They raised him up, but they were too late. He had ruptured an artery of the heart; and with the clotted gore still foaming around his lips, he lay there before them, stark and dead!
“Yellow sheaves from rich Ceres the cottage had crowned,Green rushes were strewed on the floor;The casements sweet woodbine crept wantonly round,And decked the sod-seats at the door.”—Cunningham.
With that last terrible denunciation on her lips, Ketura had fled from the room, from the house, out into the night.
Half delirious with mingled triumph, fiendish joy, and the pitch of passion into which she had wrought herself, she walked with rapid, excited strides along, heedless of whither she went, until she suddenly ran with stunning force against another pedestrian who was coming toward her.
The force of the concussion sent the unfortunate individual sprawling, with rather unpleasant suddenness, on his back; while the gipsy herself, somewhat cooled by the shock, paused for a moment and grasped a lamp-post to steady herself.
“Good gracious!” gasped a deeply aggrieved voice from the pavement, “if this ain’t too bad! To be run into thisway and pitched heels over head on the broad of one’s back without a minute’s warning! Why, it’s a shame!” reiterated the voice, in a still more aggrieved cadence, as its owner, a pale young man with a carpet-bag, slowly began to pick himself up.
The gipsy, having recovered from the sudden collision, was about to hurry on without paying the slightest attention to the injured owner of the carpet-bag, when that individual, catching a full view of her face, burst out in amazement:
“Why, if it ain’t Mrs. Ketura! Well, if this isn’t real surprising! Howdoyou do? Iamglad to see you, I’m sure; and I dare say it was all an accident. I hope you have been quite well since I saw you last, ma’am,” said the pale young man, politely; “I’ve beenverywell myself, I’m obliged to you.”
“Who are you?” said the gipsy, impatiently, scanning his mild, freckled frontispiece with her stiletto-like eyes.
“Why, you haven’t forgotten me, have you?” said the young man, straightening out his beaver, which had got stove in during the late catastrophe; “why, I’m O. C. Toosypegs! I dare say you didn’t expect to see me here, but we haven’t left England yet, you know. We’re going the day after to-morrow, aunt Prisciller and me; and I’m glad of it, too, for this here London ain’t what it’s cracked up to be. I had my pocket picked at least twenty times since I came here. They took my watch, my pocketbook, and my jack-knife, and didn’t even leave me so much as a pocket-handkerchief to wipe my nose.” And Mr. Toosypegs, who evidently considered this the climax of human depravity, gave his hat a fierce thump, that sent that astonished head-piece away down over his eyes with rather alarming suddenness.
“I don’t know you—let me pass,” said the gipsy, harshly, trying to walk away from him; but Mr. Toosypegs quickened his pace likewise, and kept up with her.
“Why, youdoknow me, Mrs. Ketura, and I hope you haven’t went and forgotten me so soon,” said Mr. Toosypegs, in a deeply-injured tone. “Don’t you recollect that nasty wet night, a little over two years ago, when you was walking along the north road, and I made Mr. Harkins, who is a real nice man, only a little hasty at times, take you inand drive you to town? You didn’t seem in very good spirits that night, and I was real sorry for your trouble—I really was, Mrs. Ketura.”
The gipsy made no reply. Bitterly her thoughts went back to that night—that long, desolate, sorrowful night—when she had bidden her son a last farewell. She had had her revenge; she had wrenched cries of anguish from those who had tortured her; but oh! what revenge could remove the gnawing at her heart? what vengeance could restore her her son? With one of those hollow groans that seem rending the heart they burst from, her head dropped on her bosom. There was a world of anguish and despair in the sound, and it went right to the simple heart of the really kind Mr. Toosypegs.
“There, now,don’ttake on so about it,” he began, piteously; “it’s real distressing to listen to such groans as that. Everything happens for the best, you know; and though, as I remarked at the time to my friend Mr. Harkins, it was real disagreeable of them to take and send your son away, when he didn’t want to go, still it can’t be helped now, and there’s no use whatever in making a fuss about it. As my uncle, who hadn’t the pleasure of your acquaintance, has left me two thousand pounds, I should be real glad to aid you as far as money will go, and you needn’t mind about giving me your note for it either. I ain’t particular about getting it back again, I’m very much obliged to you.”
During this well-meant attempt at consolation, not one word of which the gipsy had heard, Mr. Toosypegs had been fumbling uneasily in his pockets, and shifting his carpet-bag in a fidgety manner from one hand to the other. Having managed at last to extract a plump pocketbook from some mysterious recess inside of his coat, he held it out to his companion; but she, with her eyes gloomily fixed on the ground, seemed so totally oblivious of both himself and it, that, with a comical expression of distress, he was forced to replace it again where it came from.
“Now Iwouldn’tmind it so much if I was you, you know,” he resumed, in a confidential tone. “Where’s the good of making a time when things can’t be helped? I’m going to to sail for America the day after to-morrow, in a great, nasty, tarry ship, and Iwouldlike to see you in good spirits beforeI go. It would make it a great deal nicer if I thought you weren’t taking on.”
The last words caught her ear. She lifted her haggard face and fixed her piercing eyes so suddenly full upon him, that, with an alarmed “Lord bless me,” he sprung back and gazed upon her in evident terror.
“Going to America, are you?—to-morrow?” she asked, rapidly.
“Why—a—no, sir—that is, yes, ma’am,” stammered Mr. Toosypegs, his self-possession considerably shaken by those needle-like glances.
With lightning-like rapidity there flashed through the gipsy’s mind a scheme. London was no longer a safe place for her; she was liable to be arrested, now, at any moment, and with her half-completed revenge this was not to be thought of. She felt her best course would be, to leave England altogether for some years; and she determined to avail herself of the present opportunity.
“If I go with you to America, will you pay my passage?” she abruptly asked, transfixing Mr. Toosypegs with her lightning eyes.
“Why, of course, with a great deal of pleasure,” responded the young man, with alacrity; “it will make it real pleasant to have you with us during the passage, I’m sure,” said Mr. Toosypegs, who felt politeness required of him to say as much, though his conscience gave him a severe twinge for telling such a fib. “Perhaps, as we start the day after to-morrow, you wouldn’t mind coming and stopping with us until then, so’s to have things handy. Aunt Prisciller will be delighted to make your acquaintance, I know,” concluded Mr. Toosypegs, whose conscience, at this announcement, gave him another rebuking pinch.
“There will be two children to bring,” said the gipsy, hurriedly: “I must go for them.”
“Half price,” muttered Mr. Toosypegs,sotto voce; “whatwillaunt Prisciller say?”
“I will meet you here by daybreak the day after to-morrow,” said the gipsy, stopping suddenly. “Will you come?”
“Why, certainly,” responded Mr. Toosypegs, who was too much in awe of her to refuse her anything she mightask; “I’ll be in this precise spot by daybreak the day after to-morrow, though I don’t approve of early rising as a general thing; it ain’t nice at all.”
“Very well, I will be here—you need come with me no further,” said Ketura, dismissing him with a wave of her hand; and ere he could expostulate at this summary dismissal, she turned a corner and disappeared.
That night a trusty messenger was dispatched by Ketura to the gipsy camp for little Raymond, who arrived the following night. His free, gipsy life seemed to agree wonderfully well with that young gentleman, who appeared in the highest possible health and spirits; his rosy cheeks and sparkling black eyes all aglow from the woodland breezes. Five years old now, he was tall and well-grown for his age, could climb the highest trees like a squirrel, set bird-traps and rabbit-snares, and was as lithe, supple, and active as a young deer. The eyes of Ketura lit up with pride as she gazed upon him; and for the first time the idea occurred to her that he might live to avenge his father’s wrongs when she was dead. She would bring him up to hate all of the house of De Courcy; that hate should grow with his growth until it should become the one ruling passion and aim of his life, swamping, by its very intensity, every other feeling.
Master Raymond, who seemed quite as chary of caresses as his grandmother herself, met her with a good deal of indifference; but no sooner did he see little Erminie, than a rash and violent attachment was the result. Accustomed to the dirty, dusky gipsy babies, who rolled all day unheeded in the grass, this little snowy-skinned, golden-haired, blue-eyed infant seemed so wondrously lovely that he had to give her sundry pokes with his finger to convince himself she was real, and not an illusion. Miss Erminie did not seem at all displeased by these attentions, but favored him with a coquettish smile, and with her finger in her rosy mouth, gave him every encouragement he could reasonably expect on so short an acquaintance. Being left alone together, Master Raymond, who did not altogether approve of her wasting her time, lying blinking at him in her cradle, began to think it was only a common act of politeness she owed him to get up, and seeing no symptoms of any such intention on the young lady’s part, he resolved to give her a hint to thateffect. Catching her, therefore, by one little plump leg and arm, he gave her a jerk that swung her completely out, and then grasping her by the waist, he dumped her down on the floor beside him, upon which she immediately clapped another finger in her mouth; and there they sat, silently staring at each other, until both were dispatched to bed.
Early in the morning Master Raymond and Miss Erminie found themselves awakened from an exceedingly sound slumber, and undergoing the unpleasant operation of dressing. The young gentleman kicked and plunged manfully for a while, but finding it all of no use, he gave up the struggle and yielded to fate in a second nap. Erminie, after crying a little, followed his example; and the gipsy, taking her in her arms, and followed by one of the tribe bearing the sleeping Raymond, hurried to the trysting-place.
There they found Mr. Toosypegs, looking green and sea-sick already, from anticipation. In a few words the gipsy gave him to understand that she wished to go on board immediately—a proposition which rather pleased Mr. Toosypegs, who was inwardly afraid she might desire to be brought to his house, where she would be confronted by Miss Toosypegs, of whom he stood in wholesome awe.
Half an hour brought them to the pier where the vessel lay, and consigning little Raymond to the care of one of the female passengers, she sought her berth with Erminie. Until England was out of sight she still dreaded detection; and, therefore, she sat with feverish impatience, longing to catch the last glimpse of the land wherein she was born. She watched every passing face with suspicion, and in every out-stretched hand she saw some one about to snatch her prize from her; and involuntarily her teeth set, and she held the sleeping child in a fiercer clasp.
Once she caught a passing glimpse of Mr. Toosypegs, a victim to “green and yellow melancholy” in its most aggravated form, as he walked toward his berth in an exceedingly limp state of mind and shirt-collar. Mr. Toosypegs knew what sea-sickness was from experience; he had a distinct and sad recollection of what he endured the last time he crossed the Atlantic; and with many an ominous foreboding, he ensconced himself in an arm-chair in the cabin, whilethe vessel rose and fell as she danced over the waves. Silently he sat, as men sit who await the heaviest blow Fate has in store for them. Suddenly a stentorian voice from the deck rose high above the creaking and straining of ropes and trampling of feet, with the words, “Heave ahead.” Mr. Toosypegs gave a convulsive start, an expression of intensest anguish passed over his face, and suddenly clapping his handkerchief to his mouth, he fled into the silent depths of the state-room, where, hidden from human view, what passed was never known.
“Well, I never!” ejaculated a tall, thin, sharp female, with a sour face, and a cantankerous expression of countenance generally, who sat with her hands folded over a shiny-brown Holland gown, as upright as a church-steeple and about as grim. “Well, I never! going hand being sea-sick hafore he’s ten minutes hon board, which his something none of the family hever ’ad before, hand I’ve been hover to Hireland without hever thinking of such a thing; lying there on the broad hof his back, leaving me a poor, lone woman, and groanin’ hevery time this dratted hold ship gives a plunge, which is something that’s not pleasant for a hun-protected female to be, having a lot hof disagreeable sailors, smefling of oakum and tar and sich, has hif he couldn’t wait to be sea-sick hafter we’d land. Ugh!” And Miss Priscilla Dorothea Toosypegs—for she it was—knit up her face in a bristle of the sourest kinks, and punctuated her rather rambling speech by sundry frowns of the most intensely acid character.
To describe that voyage is not my intention; suffice it to say, that it was an unusually speedy one. On the following morning, the gipsy had appeared on deck with little Erminie, whose gentle beauty attracted universal attention, as her nurse’s dark, stern, moody face did fear and dread. Many hands were held out for her, and Ketura willingly gave her up, and consented to the request of a pleasant-faced young girl who offered to take charge of her until they should land. Master Raymond had already become prime favorite with all on board, more particularly with the sailors; and could soon run like a monkey up the shrouds into the rigging. At first he condescended to patronize Erminie occasionally; but on discovering she could not climb—in fact, could noteven stand on her feet properly—he began to look down on her with a sort of lofty contempt. On the fifth day, Mr. Toosypegs made his appearance on deck, a walking skeleton. Everybody laughed at his wobegone looks; and so deeply disgusted was Miss Priscilla by his sea-green visage, that it seemed doubtful whether she would ever acknowledge the relationship again.
As every one but Miss Priscilla laughed at him, and she scolded him unmercifully, the unhappy young man was forced to fly for relief to Ketura, whose silent grimness was quite delightful compared with either of the others. Feeling that she owed him something for his kindness, she listened in silence to all his doleful complaints; and this so won upon the susceptible heart of that unfortunate youth, that he contracted quite an affection for her—just as a lap-dog has been known to make friends with a tiger before now.
“What do you intend to do when you get to America, Mrs. Ketura?” he asked one day as they sat together on the deck.
“I have not thought about it,” she answered indifferently.
“You’ll have to do something, you know,” insinuated Mr. Toosypegs. “People always do something in America. They’re real smart people there.I’man American, Mrs. Ketura,” added Mr. Toosypegs, complacently.
A grim sort of smile, haft contempt, half pity, passed over the face of the gipsy.
“Telling fortunes pays pretty well, I guess, but then it isn’t a nice way to make a living; and besides that little baby would be real inconvenient to lug round with you, not to speak of that dreadful little boy who climbs up that main-topgallant bowsprit—or whatever the nasty steep thing’s name is. No; I don’t think telling fortunes would be exactly the thing.”
“I shall manage some way; don’t bother me about it,” said gipsy, impatiently.
“What do you say to coming with us to Dismal Hollow? There’s plenty of room around there for you; and I should be real glad to have you near, so that I could drop in to see you now and then.”
Mr. Toosypegs was sincere in saying he would like it this time; for her stern, fierce character had a strange sortof fascination for him, and he really was beginning to feel a strong attachment to her.
The real kindliness of his tone, his simple generosity, touched even the granite heart of the hard gipsy queen. Lifting her eyes, that all this time had been moodily gazing into the dashing, foam-crested waves, she said, in a softer voice than he ever expected to hear from her lips:
“I thank you and accept your offer, and more fortheirsake, however, than my own”—pointing to the children. “I could make my way through the world easily enough, but they are young and tender, and need care. I will go with you.”
She turned away as she ceased, as if there was no more to be said on the subject, and again looked fixedly down into the wide waste of waters.
“It’s real good of you to say so, Mrs. Ketura, and I’m very much obliged to you,” said Mr. Toosypegs with a brightening up of his pallid features. “We will land at New York, and after that, go to Dismal HollowviaBaltimore, which means, Mrs. Ketura,” said Mr. Toosypegs, interrupting himself, to throw in a word of explanation, “‘by way of’ It’s Latin, or Greek, I guess, though I never learned either. Ugh! ain’t Latin nice, though!” added the owner of the sickly complexion, with a grimace of intensest disgust. “I tried it for six weeks one time, with an apothecary; and then, as it began to throw me into a decline, I gave it up. Not any more. I’m very much obliged to you.”
Three days after that the vessel touched the wharf at New York. And after two days’ delay, which Mr. Toosypegs required to get his “land legs” on, they set off for Baltimore.
In due course of time that goodly city was reached, and one week after, the whole party arrived at Judestown—a thriving country town on the sea-coast, called then after the first settler, but known by another name, now.
Driving through the town, they reached the suburbs, and entered a more thinly-settled part of the country. Gleaming here and there through the trees, they could catch occasional glimpses of the bright waters of the Chesapeake, and hear the booming of the waves on the low shore.
Turning an abrupt angle in the road, they drove down a long, steep, craggy path, toward a gloomy mountain gorge, atsight of which Mr. Toosypegs so far forgot himself as to take off his hat and wave it over his head, with a feeble “Hooray for Dismal Hollow!” which so scandalized that strict Christian, his aunt, that she gave him a look beneath which he wilted down, and was heard no more.
“What an ugly old place! I won’t go there!” exclaimed little Raymond, with a strong expression of contempt.
And truly it did not look very inviting. The mountain, which, by some convulsion of nature, seemed to have been violently rent in twain, was only passable by a narrow, dangerous bridle-path. Down in the very bottom of this deep, gloomy gorge, stood an old, time-worn building of what had once been red brick, with dismal, black, broken window shutters, that at some far-distant time might have been green. A range of dilapidated barns and outhouses spread away behind, and in front, some hundred yards distant, ran a slender rivulet, which every spring became swollen into a foaming torrent.
Here the sun never penetrated; no living creature was to be seen, and a more gloomy and dismal spot could hardly have been found in the wide world. Even the gipsy queen looked round with a sort of still amaze that any one could be found to live here, while Miss Priscilla elevated both hands in horror, and in the dismay of the moment was surprised into the profanity of exclaiming: “Great Jemimi!”
“It’s the ugliest old place ever was, and I won’t go there!” reiterated Master Raymond, kicking viciously at Mr. Toosypegs, to whom, with an inward presentiment, he felt he owed his coming.
“Itisrather dull-looking, now,” said Mr. Toosypegs, apologetically; “but wait till we get it fixed up a little, after a spell. The niggers have let things go to waste since I went away.”
“Humph! Should think they had!” said Miss Priscilla, with a disdainful sniff. “Nothing but treeses, and rockses, and mountainses split him two; hand what your blessed father, which lies now a hangel in some nasty, swampy graveyard, could have been thinking habout, with that ’orrid little river hafore the door, to build a ’ouse in sich a spot, which must hoverflow hevery time hit rains, his more than I can tell—drowning us hin hour beds, as it will be sure to dosome fine morning or hother. Wah! wah!” And with this final expression of disgust, given in a tone of scorn no words can express, the ancient virgin suffered herself to be handed from the wagon by her dutiful nephew and deposited in a mud-puddle before the door to the great benefit of her stockings and temper.
The noise of wheels, a very unusual noise there—brought some half-score of lean, hungry-looking curs from some unseen region, who instantly began a furious yelping and barking. Miss Priscilla set up a series of short, sharp little screams, and jumped up on a rock in mortal terror; little Erminie, terrified by the noise, began to cry; Master Raymond yelled to the dogs at the top of his lungs, and plunged headforemost in among them; Mr. Toosypegs went through all the phases of the potential mood—“exorting, entreating, commanding,”—and a general uproar ensued that would have shamed Babel.
The hubbub and din roused the inmates, at last, as it might very easily have done the Seven Sleepers themselves.
A shuffling tread of feet was heard within, and then a trembling voice demanded:
“Who dar?”
“It’s me. Open the door, for goodness’ sake!” exclaimed Mr. Toosypegs, in an agony of supplication.
“We’s got yarms, and dar ain’t notting in de house for you to rob, so you’d better go ’way,” said a quavering voice, that evidently strove in vain to be courageous.
“Willyou open the door? I tell you it’s onlyme!” shouted the deeply-exasperated Mr. Toosypegs, seizing the handle of the door and giving it a furious shake.
Cautiously the door was partly opened, a terrified voice was heard to whisper: “You hit dem wid de poker arter I fire,” and then the frowning muzzles of two huge horse-pistols met their dismayed eyes.
“Don’t shoot—it’sme!” yelled the terror-stricken Mr. Toosypegs; but his words were lost in the bang! bang! of the pistols as they went off.
“Oh, Lord, have mercy on me! I’m shot!” shrieked the unhappy Mr. Toosypegs, as he dropped like a stone in the mud, and lay motionless.
“Hand me de brunderingbuss—quick, Pomp! Dar’smore o’ dem,” again whispered the chattering voice; and once more the warlike individual within blazed away, while Miss Priscilla lay kicking in the strongest hysterics, and Mr. Toosypegs, flat on his face in the mud, lay as rigid and still as a melancholy corpse.
So completely amazed was the gipsy queen by all this, that she stood motionless, with Erminie in her arms. Now the door was slowly opened, and a negro’s face, gray with terror, was protruded. His round, goggle eyes, starting from his head with fear, fell on the prostrate forms of Miss Priscilla and her unfortunate nephew.
“Two ob dem gone, bress de Lord!” piously ejaculated Cuffee. “It takes me for to do de bisiness. Well, bress Mars’r! if I ain’t had a fight for’t.” Then catching sight of the gipsy, he paused suddenly, and jumped back, and raised the discharged blunderbuss, but no effort could make it go off a second time.
“Are you mad, fellow?” exclaimed the deep, commanding voice of Ketura. “Would you murder your master?”
“Young mars’r hab gone; an’ef you don’t cl’ar right out dar’ll be more blood shed!” exclaimed the negro, still keeping his formidable weapon cocked.
“I tell you this is your master!” impatiently exclaimed Ketura. “He arrived to-day; and now you have shot him.”
Slowly the blunderbuss was lowered, as if the conviction that she might be speaking the truth was slowly coming home to the mind of her hearer. Cautiously he left his post of danger and approached his prostrate foe. Gathering courage from his apparent lifelessness, he at last ventured to turn him over, and all smeared and clotted with mud, the pallid features of Mr. Toosypegs were upturned to the light. His arms were stretched stiffly out by his side, as much like a corpse as possible; his eyes were tightly closed; ditto his lips, all covered with soft mud.
There was no mistaking that face. With a loud howl of distress, the negro threw himself upon the lifeless form of poor Mr. Toosypegs.
“Ah! You’ve got your elbow in the pit of my stomach!” exclaimed the corpse, with a sharp yell of pain. “Can’t you get out of that, and let me die in peace?”
For the first time in two years the gipsy, Ketura, laughed. In fact, they would have been more than mortal who could have beheld that unspeakably-ludicrous scene without doing so.
Miss Priscilla stopped her hysterical kicking and plunging, and raised herself on her elbow to look.
The negro, with a whoop of joy that might have startled a Shawnee Indian, seized Mr. Toosypegs, who had shut his eyes and composed himself for death again, save an occasional splutter as the mud went down his throat, and swinging him over his shoulder as if he had been a limp towel, rushed with him in triumph into the house.
“He warn’t dead, then, hafter hall?” said Miss Priscilla, sharply, in a voice that seemed made of steel-springs. “Well, I never! Going hand fright’ning respectable parties hout their wits with ’orrid black niggers, firing hoff of pistols hand cannons; lying there in the mud making believe dead; hand shooting me somewhere—for I can feel the balls hinside hof me; spoiling a good new suit hof clothes, rolling there like a pig, and not dead, hafter hall; hand that there nigger shooting away like mad hall the time, which his a mercy to be thankful for! Wah! wah!”
And, with her usual look of sour disgust immeasurably heightened, Miss Priscilla gathered up her own muddy skirts and marched, like a loaded rifle all ready to go off, into a long, black, chill, littered hall.
Half a dozen frightened darkies were crouching in the further corner, and on these Miss Priscilla turned the muzzle of the rifle, and a sharp volley of oddly-jumbled up sentences went off in tones of keenest irony.
“Yes; you may stand there, you hugly black leeches, hafter shooting us hevery one—though looks ain’t hof no consequence in this horrid place; hand hif you don’t get ’ung for it some day, my name hain’t Priscilla Dorothea Toosypegs! Perhaps you’ll show me where my nevvy his, which you’ve shot so nicely, hand make a fire, hafter keeping hus rolling hin the mud, getting our death hof cold in this ’orrid cold ’ouse, which, being a respectable female, hand not a pig, I hain’t used to; hand Hamerica mud hain’t the nicest thing I ever saw for to eat; so maybe you’ll get hus some dinner, hand show me to where my nevvy his, hifyou please,” concluded Miss Priscilla, in tones of most cutting irony.
The terrified servants understood enough of this singular address to know Miss Toosypegs wished for a fire, her dinner, and her nephew. An old woman, therefore, in a gaudy Madras turban, advanced, and led the way up a rickety flight of stairs into a comfortless-looking room, with a damp, unaired odor, where, on a bed, lay the mortal remains of O. C. Toosypegs, with the darkey—whose name I may as well say at once was Cupid—giving him a most vigorous rubbing, which extorted from the dead man sundry groans and grimaces and encouraged Cupid to still further exertions.
The loaded rifle advanced to the bedside, and a second volley went off.
“Come, Horlander Toosypegs, get hup hout o’ that, lying there in this musty hold room, face and hall plastered hover with mud, which his enough to give you the rheumatism the longest day you live, without the first spark hof a fire—so it is!”
“I’m dying, Aunt Priscilla; stay with me to the last!” in the faintest whisper, responded Mr. Toosypegs, languidly opening his eyes, and then shutting them again.
“Dying? Wah, wah!” grunted Miss Priscilla, catching him by the shoulder and shaking him with no gentle hand. “Pretty corpse you’ll make, hall hover with mud, hand looks has much like dying has I do.”
“De brunderingbuss an’ de pissels war only loaded wid powder—no shot in ’em at all. ’Deed, old missus, he ain’t hurted the fustest mite, only he t’inks so.”
“Hold!” shrieked Miss Priscilla, turning fiercely upon Cupid. “You impident black nigger, you! to call me hold! Leave the room this very minute, hand never let me see your hugly, black face hagain!”
“Come—you are not hurt—get up!” said Ketura, going over to the bedside, as poor Cupid, crestfallen, slunk away. “There is not a hair of your head injured. Up with you!”
“Am I not shot?” demanded Mr. Toosypegs, bewildered. “Did the bullet not enter my brain?”
“You never had any for it to enter,” said the gipsy, encouragingly. “Look yourself; there is neither wound nor blood.”
“No; but it’s bleeding inwardly,” said Mr. Toosypegs, with a hollow groan. “Oh, I know I’m a dead man!”
“Chut! I have no patience with you! Get up, man! you are as well as ever!” impatiently exclaimed Ketura.
Slowly Mr. Toosypegs, who had immense faith in Ketura, lifted first one arm and then another to see if either were powerless. Satisfied on this point, he next lifted each leg; and finding, to his great astonishment, that his limbs were all sound, he carefully began to raise himself up in bed. No torrent of blood followed this desperate attempt, as he expected there would be; and the next minute, Mr. Orlando Toosypegs stood, safe and sound, on the floor, looking about as sheepish a young gentleman as you would find from Maine to Florida.
“You thought you was gone—didn’t you?” said the little witch, Raymond, with a malicious chuckle of delight, as he watched the chopfallen hero of the pallid features.
Miss Toosypegs merely contented herself with a look of lofty contempt more withering than words, and then rustled out to rouse up the “hugly black leeches” on the subject of dinners and fires.
Having succeeded in both objects especially in the dinner department, which Aunt Bob, the presiding deity of the kitchen, had got up in sublime style, Miss Priscilla was in somewhat better humor; and having announced her intention of beginning a thorough reformation both out doors and in, turned briskly to her nephew, who sat in a very dejected state of mind, without so much as a word to say for himself, and exclaimed:
“Now, Horlander, the best thing you can do is, to go immediately hand see habout getting a ’ouse for Mrs. Ketura hand the children, which would never survive a day in this damp hold barn; besides, being to do some time or hother, it mayhas well be did first has last, hand save the ’spense hof a doctor’s bill, which his the hunpleasantest thing hever was stuck hin hanybody’s face.”
Mr. Toosypegs, who felt he would never more dare to call his soul his own, meekly put on his hat, and said he would go and see about a cottage he knew of which wouldsuit Mrs. Ketura to a T. The fact was, he was glad to escape from his aunt; and that good lady, who had classed Mrs. Ketura and the children under the somewhat indefinite title of “riff-raff” from the first, was equally anxious to be rid of them.
Late that evening, Mr. Toosypegs returned, with the satisfactory news that he had obtained the cottage, which belonged, he informed them, to a certain Admiral Havenful, who, not having any particular use for it himself, said they might have it rent free. The cottage was furnished; just as it had been let by its last tenant; and Mrs. Ketura might pitch her tent there, with a safe conscience, as fast as she liked.
“You had better take one of the servants with you, too,” said Mr. Toosypegs, good-naturedly; “we have more than we want, and you will require one to mind the baby, and fetch water, and do chores. I think Lucy will do as well as any.”
Miss Toosypegs frowned at first; but remembering, upon second thoughts, that there was already a tribe of useless negroes and dogs, eating them out of house and home, she gave a sharp assent, at last, to her nephew’s arrangement.
Early the next morning, Mr. Toosypegs, Ketura, Raymond, Erminie, and the negress, Lucy, entered the wagon, and turned their backs upon Dismal Hollow.
Half an hour’s drive through a forest-road, all aglow with the leafy splendor of early July, brought them to the seashore. Far removed from any other habitation, stood a pretty little whitewashed cottage, a little fairy-bandbox of a place, on a bank above the sea, nestling like a pearl set in emeralds as it gleamed through a wilderness of vines and shrubs. A wide, dry, arid expanse, overrun with blueberry and cranberry vines, spread before the door toward the north, as far as the eye could reach. Far in the distance, they could see a huge house, of a dazzling whiteness, unshaded by tree or vine, as it stood in the full glare of the hot sun, dazzling the eye of the gazer. This, Mr. Toosypegs gave them to understand, was the “White Squall,” the residence of Admiral Havenful; and the dry plains spreading into the distance were very appropriately known as the “Barrens.” South and east, a dense forest shut in the view, and to the west spread out the boundless sea.
“Now, Mrs. Ketura,” said Mr. Toosypegs, in a mysterious whisper, “you can’t live upon green vines and blueberries, nor yet you can’t stay in this cottage from morning till night, you know, though I dare say Aunt Priscilla thinks you can. Therefore you must take this purse—half of which the admiral gave me for you last night, and the other half—well, no matter. Then, as you’ll want to go to Judestown to market, and to church, sometimes, I’ll send over the pony and the old buggy; but don’t you say a word about it to Aunt Priscilla—women don’t need to know anything, you know, as they don’t always view things in their proper light; and Aunt Priscilla’s queer any way. If there’s anything else you want, just you send Lucy for it to Dismal Hollow, and you shall have it, Mrs. Ketura, for I like you real well.”
“You are very kind,” said the gipsy, again touched by his good-nature; “and I hope you will always regard yourself as one of the family.”
“Hark you, Mrs. Ketura,” said Mr. Toosypegs, in a tone of delight. “I certainly will, since you wish it. I’ll drop in very often. I’m very much obliged to you.”
And, waving his hand briskly, Mr. Toosypegs resumed his seat in the wagon, and drove off again to Dismal Hollow.