“But pleasures are like poppies spread,You seize the flower, its bloom is shed!Or like the snowfall in the river,A moment white—then melts for ever;Or like the borealis race,That flit ere you can point their place.”
“But pleasures are like poppies spread,You seize the flower, its bloom is shed!Or like the snowfall in the river,A moment white—then melts for ever;Or like the borealis race,That flit ere you can point their place.”
“But pleasures are like poppies spread,You seize the flower, its bloom is shed!Or like the snowfall in the river,A moment white—then melts for ever;Or like the borealis race,That flit ere you can point their place.”
The time is up; the end has come; the curtain drops and the band plays “God Save the King!”
“WHAT I says is this, my dear,” said old Molly to Peggy McQueen, when she found her up and dressed next morning at a little past six, “it ain’t nateral, and if you take old Molly’s advice you’ll go back to bed again, as fast as you likes.”
“But you are up yourself, Molly!”
“I be’s an old crittur, Miss Peggy, and old critturs doesn’t get so much sleep as the young. ’Sides, Miss Peggy, they doesn’t need it.”
“But I’m going to the rocks, Molly, to fish. Don’t tell Johnnie, because I want to be first to-day.”
Old Molly laughed.
“Oh, indeed, my dear; Johnnie’s been up this hour and more forbye.”
The tide was far back this morning, and there was not a breath of air to stir the surface of the sleeping sea. It was one vast sheet of leaden gray, with a haze on the horizon, through which a ship or two waslooming. Long strips of blackest rock, shaped like needles, jutted out seawards, and on their extreme points the waves broke lazily. Great stretches of yellow sand lay between. At the very end of one of these rocky capes a figure no larger a pigeon could be seen moving about, very actively indeed.
“Yonder’s Johnnie,” said Molly.
“I’m going to him, Molly. Come, Ralph.”
The dog bayed, and went bounding round his little mistress. Even Johnnie on the rock point could hear that deep-mouthed sound and knew that his cousin Peggy was coming, and next minute both she and the hound were seen feathering across the sands in his direction. The boy’s handsome face brightened when he saw his child companion.
“I somehow knew you would come this morning, Peggy.”
“Yes?” said the girl, inquiringly.
“Yes, I knew you wouldn’t go to the forest again to-day, after yesterday.”
“Oh, but I might!” she answered, mischievously. “You know I’m always going to take Ralph with me now.”
“Well, you’d better—or—I could come.”
“A dog,” said Peggy, sententiously, “is often better than a boy. A dog is quieter, and a dog can bite.”
“Come, and we’ll fish some more, Peggy, and look at things among the pools of the rock.”
Peggy sat down and extended her bare legs in front of her.
“Take my sandals off.”
Johnnie did as he was told, and slung them over his shoulder.
Then hand in hand away they went sight-seeing over the rocks and across the pools. Ralph was in the water, splashing about and having great fun with the jelly-fishes. Sometimes he took a big mouthful of water and seemed to wonder it was so salt. Had it been fresh, he would have swallowed some; as it was, he only let it run out of his red jowls again.
But what a world of marine life was to be found among the weeds and in the little, sandy-bottomed pools! Shell-fish of every shape and colour, crimson medusa, and wee, wicked-looking crabs, like big spiders that walked sideways and had their eyes on stalks handy for looking round corners; brown crabs, blue crabs, gray and yellow crabs.
The seaweeds themselves were most beautiful to behold, specially the tiny, fern-like ones, that floated pink and sienna in the clear pools. Sometimes, when Peggy put her foot on one of the bladders which float the very large algæ, it gave a crack like a small pistol, and quite startled her.
They spent quite an hour at the seaside; but Peggy couldn’t find a mermaid, though she felt sure there were little fairy ones, and that they dwelt deep down in just such pools as these, and didn’t wear much clothes, except bits of fringy seaweed around their waists to hide their fishy tails.
“Oh!” cried Peggy, suddenly. She was some yards away from her companion.
“Now you’ve done it,” said the boy. “You want to be a mermaid yourself, Peggy, I think.”
But he fished her out of the pond at once, and tried to wring her frock.
“No good,” sighed Peggy. “I must take it off and spread it in the sun to dry.”
Johnnie helped her, and then made a tippet for her of his own merino muffler to cover her bare shoulders.
“Oh, if you are going to dress me,” saidPeggy, pouting, “I must have something more than your merino wrap, though that does feel soft and warm.”
She ran away a little distance shorewards to a spot where the rocks were higher, only stopping just for a moment to wave her hand back to him.
“Go on shrimping, Jack. I’m going to the green-room to dress.”
When Peggy called Johnnie “Jack,” then Johnnie knew that Peggy meant business.
But as she stood there for a moment on the top of a boulder, with bare brown limbs and laughing face, Johnnie had to allow that she looked a very pretty and a very provoking picture. Then she dropped down behind the great boulder, and he saw her no more for a time.
“When I am a man,” said Johnnie to himself, “and have a house or a great caravan, or a ship or something of my own, I shouldn’t wonder if I married Peggy.”
He proceeded to seek for more shrimps and dabs, or whatever he could find. He had a long trident, such as Neptune, the sea-god, is supposed to carry. He lowered this almost to the bottom of a pool, and whenever he noticed the sand stir, down went the three-pronged spear and up camea flat fish. He got several thus, and one wriggley-waggley conger eel.
When he looked up, lo! there was Peggy, standing on her boulder again, but how changed! She was Peggy still in face—she could be nothing sweeter—but her whole body down to the knees, with the exception of her shapely arms, was covered with a garment of seaweeds; strings of shells were around her neck, her arms, and ankles, and her hair was adorned with sea-mosses which matched its auburn beauty. Peggy possessed the gift of “getting up,” but never before had she done anything so perfect as this.
Johnnie wasn’t often taken back, but he was now; he merely opened his eyes and said, “Oh, Peggy!”
The little minx tripped lightly down and took his trident from the boy’s hands, then, holding it with the spear-points upwards, she stood on a rock in the sunlight and began to sing.
If there were any fairy mermaids in those pools, I am sure they looked and listened too.
“Do you like my new dress, Johnnie, boy?”
“Yes; and oh, Peggy, you must sing init to-night. You look a perfect little nymph of the wave. And now we are going to breakfast, dear cousin.”
“What! In this dress of weeds?”
“Yes, and that trident and all. You won’t catch cold, will you?”
“No, silly; this dress is ever so cool and nice.”
The dog went bounding on in front, barking and baying; the children followed, hand in hand as usual, and, as usual, singing.
They weresohappy. Oh, would that happiness would ever last!
When Johnnie led his cousin into the breakfast tent, Father Fitzroy jumped up.
“By Jupiter, Peggy McQueen!” he cried, “you’re a genius. You look somewhat damp, else, ’pon my honour, I’d take you in my arms and kiss you. But, Johnnie, you may do so.”
But the saucy little sea-goddess wheeled round, lowered her trident to the defensive, and repeated some lines from one of her favourite dramas.
“Come not near me, sirrah. Advance but one step and you have looked your last on yonder sun. Seek to molest me, thoucraven coward, and thy life-blood dyes the heather!”
“Sit down, my dearie, sit down,” said Molly; “are ye sure ye won’t catch cold in them cloes?”
“I’m going off to write a song. Now, at once.” This from Fitzroy. “The music and words are ringing in my head even now—‘The Seaweed Queen'—and you shall sing it to-night, my damp little darling. Molly, keep my coffee hot.”
This evening was Peggy’s benefit, and the “house” was even more crowded than ever. The same performance was gone through, and ‘The Seaweed Queen’ was voted the greatest success of the season.
* * * * *
On the morning after Peggy’s benefit the camp was struck.
Striking camp seems an easy matter, does it not? But, having travelled in caravans with tents for many a long year, I can assure my gentle and my simple reader, that it is not half so easy to get clear away out of one’s pitch as it may seem.
All hands had to be called very early to-day. It is no hardship, however, for caravan people to rise betimes. They liveconstantly in the open air, and are wont to consider morning the sweetest time of all the day.
In the case of the Wandering Minstrels the trouble of striking camp was minimised, because everyone had his own duties to perform, and all obeyed the orders of Father Fitzroy, while he himself worked as hard as anyone.
At four o’clock that morning Willie the dwarf shook himself clear of his sack, and with his little bugle to his lips sounded the reveille. The notes of his horn were very beautiful, as they rose and fell on the still air of what was a blue-skied and heavenly morning. They went swelling over the woods and startled the wild-birds; forest rangers still abed heard them and wondered what they were, and fishermen out at sea yonder, who had been toiling all night at their silver harvest, turned their weary eyes shorewards and wondered.
Still with the bugle over his shoulder, Willie, without waiting to note the effects of the blast he had blown, hurried away now and neatly folded up his sack, and stuck it in its place beneath the two-horse caravan. Then he took his bundle of straw away tosome distance on the lee-side of the camp, and coming back, proceeded to hang up all the buckets and the field-lamp, and the oil-cans, the vegetable-baskets, and other odds and ends daintily and neatly on their hooks below the vans. He had, moreover, to see that nothing was left lying about the field. In ten minutes’ time the camp-fire was lit and the kettle was filled and hung over it.
Molly was soon busy bustling about to prepare the six o’clock breakfast. Meanwhile, all the theatrical properties were loaded on the cart, which Willie himself was permitted to drive, for dwarfs are strong for their size. By the time this cart was loaded and the quiet horse harnessed, the breakfast was ready in the tent. Though a little sorry to leave so sweet a camping-ground, everyone was more or less excited with the thought of starting off once more and through the woods in search of further adventures.
It is needless to say that the breakfast was a hearty one. If there is one thing in this world that gipsy people can do better than another, it is making a good show at table. Even Willie the tiny did ample justice to the good things Providence had placed before him. As for the giant—
“Well, my children,” he said, “I must confess I like a square meal. Given a good breakfast, a jolly dinner, and a hearty supper, no one need go hungry if he can only work in a few pints of good fruit between whiles, and maybe a few cocoa-nuts.”
Then Molly cleared away and washed up. She stowed plates and dishes in the rack of the big caravan, so neatly that they never even rattled during the journey. The mugs that did duty as cups and saucers were hung in the after-cabin, and knick-knacks placed in cupboards.
“Now, then, Molly, bear a hand,” cried the giant.
“I’se ready, Gourmie, my dear, and bless the Lord, lovie, that we’ve got a fine day and a dry tent to pack. To pack up a wet tent is——”
Gourmand seized the big pole.
“Gee-ho-up!” he shouted; “stand clear, all hands that don’t want to be smothered.”
Down came the tent!
“Honolulu!” he cried, a moment afterwards. “Where on earth is old Molly?”
And a faint voice answered him from under the canvas—a skinny leg with a boot on its foot was protruding from under it!
“I be’s a-scrambling in here, Gourmie. You’ve been and gone and lowered the tent right atop of your poor Molly. Oh, my poor old bones!”
But Gourmand soon had her clear. Then she helped him to get out the pegs and to smooth and fold the canvas, till it was all small enough to put into the sack—pegs, mallet, divided pole and all. The bag was hoisted on to the cart.
Then the harnessing of the horses began. Two horses to the great caravan, one to Peggy’s bonnie wee one, and one to Willie’s cart. While this was being done, the dwarf boy was as busy as a rag-picker. Every morsel of paper or string or stick or straw was collected and placed on the “burning-heap.”[A]
[A]A hole dug in the ground in which gipsies burn rubbish.
[A]A hole dug in the ground in which gipsies burn rubbish.
“Fire!” cried Fitzroy, as if he stood on a battle-deck.
Willie scratched a match, and lit his pile, after scattering oil over it, and in five minutes more it was quite consumed.
“All ready?”
“Ay, ay, sir.”
“Off!”
Crack went the whips; round went thewheels, and away rolled the show, leaving the beautiful sea, with its grays and greens and stretches of sand, and its wild, weedy rocks behind it.
“Good-bye!” cried Peggy, waving her little white handkerchief in the breeze; “good-bye, dear old ocean; we will meet again another day.”
Then the silent woods swallowed them up, and the rooks and starlings alone were left on the old camp pitch.
PEGGY’S caravan was a very pretty, though small, house upon wheels. It was her bed and dressing-room, her study and her boudoir all in one.
Peggy swung here in a dear little hammock at night. The little hair-mattress and the bed-clothes were folded and put away in a locker as soon as she got up, but the hammock was left out. It came in handy at the mid-day halt for dinner, to swing beneath the trees. To lie thus, with the blue of the sky above and the warm sunlight flittering through the greenery of branches, with a book in one’s hand, is indeed to enjoydolce far niente, and as delightful an experience as any traveller can enjoy.
Old Molly was Peggy’s coachman; she slept on the floor of the same caravan with Ralph the blood-hound.
If you have never seen the inside of a caravan like Peggy’s you scarce could believe what a charming room it makes. Itwas all mirrors, brackets, lounges, tiny pictures, photos, and flowers, and at night the swing-lamp was lit, and the fairy lights shimmered through the foliage and petals of bright bouquets; it looked like the palace of an elfin princess, and pretty Peggy was its presiding genius.
She had always Kammie, when Kammie was awake and not stalking flies, and she had always Ralph, and to these she used to play and sing. But sometimes of an afternoon a gentle knock would be heard at the door, and lo! there was little Willie with his little violin.
“May I come in, Miss Peggy?”
“Oh, yes, Willie.”
Then out came the mandoline. Willie put on the mute, so that the notes of the violin might be softer, sweeter, and more thrilling. Perhaps Johnnie would now enter with his clarionet, and throw in a bar here and there when it would be most effective. I do believe our little people enjoyed these chance concerts, as Willie called them, better than anything else in their wandering lives.
The great saloon of the large caravan, with its after-cabin, was simply a villa upon wheels. This was the chief abode of Fitzroy and his son Johnnie, who took turn about in driving.But Johnnie also acted as courier, and as the show took up much time on the road, one of this sturdy lad’s principal duties was to ride far ahead, towards evening, to find a suitable field for the camp or settlement. The horses were all fed on good oats, and slumbered at night in an extempore stable composed of bamboo poles and canvas.
The caravans on that morning, after leaving their pitch and entering the forest, passed many a rustic cottage, and so early was it that the pretty rural children rushed to the door just as they had jumped out of bed, not taking time to dress.
“Hooray! Hoo-ooo-ray!” they shouted, waving brown, fat arms in the air. “Hooray, the big, big caravans.”
“Oh, look at the pretty little one!”
“And the fairy lady at the window!”
“Oh, listen to the lion a-roaring for his bekfust.”
“Oh, Maggie, Betsy, Mary, Doddie, come here! Come quick and see the giant and the dwarf!”
The giant, who was lolling on Willie’s cart, made ogre mouths at them, and the dwarf shrieked shrilly, and squeaked and squalled like Punch at the fair.
It was good fun!
But how delightful for the youngsters of a village they soon came to, when the whole show was stopped for twenty minutes in the principal street, that the horses might get water, and the giant stretch his legs!
The giant was the hero then, and the boys vied with each other as to who should get nearest to the giant. The lad who was brave enough to rub his shoulder against Gourmand’s jacket skirts was considered a hero. To rub against a real giant, was among those simple village lads deemed a feat to be remembered for ever and a day.
* * * * *
There would be no play to-night, for Father Reginald Fitzroy knew his people needed rest after the fatigues of that campaign by the sea. The boys and girls who would have fain crowded into the field and broken up the peace of the encampment were warned that it might be dangerous to come near, as the wild chameleon was very restless this evening, and if he escaped there was no saying what might happen. One lad, however, ventured to inquire what sort of an animal a “chameeling” was.
“Something like the awful crocodile of theNile,” replied Johnnie; “only, instead of seizing his prey with his jaws, he darts forth a terrible tongue, which is nearly as long as his body, and draws the victim in.”
“Swallers ’em alive, sir?”
“Yes, swallows him alive, and he is slowly tortured to death in his dark inside.”
At that moment the deep-mouthed bloodhound began to bay and roar, and all the crowd backed away from the gate in some confusion.
Only one brave English boy stopped.
“I say, gipsy!”
“Well?” replied Johnnie.
“I’d like to come inside and foight thee for a farthin’ stick o’ toffy.”
“No, I won’t fight,” said Johnnie; “but I’ll wrestle you, and if I don’t hold you down half a minute, then throw you over this five-barred gate, I will give you sixpence.”
“Done wi’ thee,” cried the boy, and he stripped to the waist in an instant, and confidently leapt over into the field.
The juvenile crowd gathered round to see their champion win. They felt certain of his success. But when they saw Johnnie stripped, and noticed his bulging biceps, and the fleshlumped upon his chest and forearms, they began to have their doubts.
Now Johnnie was a strong lad, but not a freak. There was no unshapeliness about his muscular formation. And he had that staying power and nerve which are better even than extra strength. Two villagers (men) volunteered to see fair play, and after shaking hands the lads got into grips.
They both kept their wits about them, and showed considerable skill, but in less than two minutes, Jack—we must call Johnnie “Jack” on this occasion—cross-buttocked his opponent, and next moment he was on his back. And Jack held him down for fully a minute, while wild cheers rent the air. The boy owned up like a man to being beaten.
“Shall I throw you over the gate now?” said Jack.
“N—o, thank you,” was the reply. “I know when I has enough. But shake hands again. You’re the first chap as has ever ‘downed’ Charlie Crockett. Shake again.”
They shook.
“Now,” said Charlie, “I’ll keep away the crowd, as ye says you’re tired and needs peace. But——”
“Well, Charlie?”
“Well, Jack, as they calls you, couldn’t we just see the beautiful young lady once?”
“I’m sure you may,” said Johnnie. (He is Johnnie now, you see.) “Wait!”
And off he ran to camp and saw Peggy. He told her all.
“Couldn’t you sing just one song at the gate?”
Peggy could and would, and Willie the dwarf took his fiddle to accompany her. Standing on a barrow by the gate, the good-natured girl, who was charmingly dressed, sang not one song but two.
When the cheering had about finished, the strong boy, whom Jack had beaten, jumped into the field and popped a bag into her hand.
“What’s this?” said Peggy, simply.
“Them’s lollipops, Miss,” he answered, shyly, “with my love, Miss.”
Then he ran right away to hide his blushes before the cool and collected little lady had time to thank him for his lollipops and love.
They all slept very soundly that night, specially Peggy, until the early birds singing and pattering on the caravan roof awoke them to the joys of gipsy life.
AH, but a gipsy’s life is not all joys by any manner of means, although to those so young as Peggy and Johnnie, it is quite the life idyllic.
Fitzroy, the captain of the show, had often enough, like most of us who are not born with silver spoons in our mouths, to scratch the elbow of troublesome care. He had to make his caravan tours pay, and the public is a most insatiable monster. The public, in fact, is the same with its amusements as it is with its food, the public want to get the biggest chunk of enjoyment, as well as the biggest hunk of cheese it can possibly get for its penny, and it likes variety too.
Therefore Captain Fitzroy had to be for ever on thequi vive, and looking far ahead of him; and no sooner was one little play put upon the boards for probably a month’s run, than he had to be thinking and planning what he should start next. Some startling innovation, some play with a daring plot,wild music, scenic effect and plenty of go and change, with a glorious finale. “That was the thing to draw ’em,” as Giant Gourmand used to remark.
It was the immortal Dickens who said that giants were all a trifle weak about the knees. Whether that be so or not we will not pause to consider, but one thing is certain—Gourmand was not weak about the head. He was possessed of gigantic intellect, and he generally carried it about with him.
Fitzroy and he used to have many and many a consultation as to ways and means.
“What we want, cap’n,” said the giant, “is to keep the pot a-boiling.”
This wise remark was made in the evening of the day after Johnnie had the grand wrestling match with Charlie Crockett.
“Pot a-boiling, Mr. Gourmand? Yes, and twenty pots, to say nothing of nosebags. And they must all be filled at the expense of the public, of course.”
“Well, sir, we give them the worth of their money. We give the beggars value.”
“That we do, and that we must, else the beggars will soon growl and may scatter the show.”
“And hitherto,” he added, “we have never known what hunger is. Look how well filled out our horses are, and how contented, and how their shins glitter like the back of a boatman beetle. See how contented our dogs all are and how happy Ralph is. But, Gourmand, my boy, the day might come when things wouldn’t be so comfy with us all. We might be reduced to starvation and have to kill and eat our horses.”
Gourmand laughed his gruff “Ho! ho! ho!” and added his half-comical “Ha! ha! ha.” “Not,” he said, “cap’n, whilst you have that nut on you. ’Xcuse me for calling it a nut, sir, won’t you?”
Captain Fitzroy sighed a three-to-the-pound sigh and shook his head.
“The nut is maybe all right, friend, but it strikes me we need a change of——”
“A change of programme, cap’n?”
“No, that isn’t quite what I meant, but a change of audience, a change of public. This part of England seems getting played out as regards the—ahem!—legitimate drama, Mr. Gourmand.”
“Too near London, eh?”
“That’s it, I think, and London is ajolly sight too near Paris. Ever been to Yorkshire?”
“They are rare fine animals up there, sir. But why shouldn’t we make a proper exodus when we’re about it. For I know that an exodus is in your noddle, and you’ll ’xcuse me for calling it a noddle, sir, won’t you?”
“Noddle or nut, Gourmand, it’s all the same to me. But what, my friend, would you think would be the best place to emigrate to?”
“Why not to Scotland, cap’n? It is the land of chivalry and romance, you know.
“Land of green heath and shaggy wood,Land of the mountain and the flood.”
“Land of green heath and shaggy wood,Land of the mountain and the flood.”
“Land of green heath and shaggy wood,Land of the mountain and the flood.”
“Land of fiddlesticks, Gourmie! Do you think it would pay?”
“Pay? Ay, all to pieces. Ours is just the sort of entertainment, cap’n, to draw bumper houses on the outskirts of Glasgow to begin with, and so on to Paisley and Greenock. The Scotch are naturally musical, and they adore a good play. Needn’t be so much blood and thunder in it either as for England here.”
“We’d have to throw in the kilts though, wouldn’t we, and make our company learn Scotch.”
“Nonsense, sir. We’d make fools of ourselves if we did. Believe me, captain, Scotch spoken by English lips never ends but in one thing.”
“And that is?”
“Ridicule. But the Scotch will hold out the right hand of friendship and hospitality to their English brothers if we go as English, and nothing assume. Brave young Johnnie with his Saxon strength will be a favourite first night. Wee Willie too, with his fiddle, and—well, and the rest of us.”
“Including Peggy, Gourmand?”
“Ah, there, sir. Peggy’s young English beauty, her sweet voice and winning ways, will completely take the Scottish heart by storm. There will be a furore, sir; she’ll win the day for the lot of us.”
There was positively a tear of pride in the honest giant’s eye as he spoke.
Captain Fitzroy held out his hand.
“Gourmand, we’ll go,” he said, “we’ll start to-morrow morning right away for Southampton, ship the whole show there tobe next heard of in the second city of the Empire.”
* * * * *
They had been bearing up for the Midland counties, but now the course was altered, and the bows of the first great caravan were headed away for the west, or, as a sailor would say, west with a little bit of south in it.
“Wherever be we off to now, lovie?” said Molly Muldoon, when she met the giant next morning early. He looked full of business, his great shoulders well square back and strong enough apparently to have lifted Peggy’s caravan, wheels and all, hands a little begrimed, no hat, hair like heather, but a good-natured smile all over his broad and energetic face.
“Where be we off to? Eh? Why, my dear little roly-poly Molly, we’re going by sea to bonnie Scotland.”
“Lauk-a-mussy-me!” cried Molly. “Preserve us all from ’arm. To Scotland, where they all runs wild in short kilts, with red heads and red, bare legs. To Scotland, where they kills and eats babies, and serves old folks up in a stoo, where——”
“Ah, Molly, they’ll find you and mepretty tough eating, I’m thinking, even if they do try us in a stoo.”
“But, lovie, dear, my pet Gourmie, try to perswade Mr. Fitzroy not to throw his life away, and the life of hall of us. Mussy-me, lovie, it’s terrible.”
But terrible or not terrible, that very day they had put five-and-twenty miles of east behind them, and pitched at night in a sweet green field not far from Midhurst.
There was no entertainment that night. But they did lots of billing, and, early next morning it was evident from the interest the rustics were showing round the gate and the fences that a bumper house might be counted upon.
Nor were they disappointed. “The Forest Maiden” was new to them here, and so successful was the entertainment, that, when, on the morning after, the rustics saw the tents being struck, they were very much disappointed indeed. Just as they were starting, a busy little clergyman bustled up, and saluting Fitzroy, told him the show was just the sort of thing he would like to see encouraged, as it kept the people away from the public houses, and he would like him to promise that if ever he was anywhere inthe neighbourhood again it would not be one night nor even one week he would stay, to give his (the parson’s) parishioners pleasure, but a month at the very least.
Fitzroy smiled and replied that he would certainly consider the matter.
* * * * *
It was getting on towards the end of leafy May, May with its glorious blue spring skies, its green fields and waving woods, its wealth of wild flowers in meadow-land, and on wayside sward; May with its music of wild birds, days of dreamy sunshine, and nights of stars. And Peggy sighed a little, as she looked her last on the rolling trees of England south, some miles before they rolled into busy bustling, Southampton.
Peggy little knew what was before her.
ACHANGE, 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 atthe 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 ofmal-de-meror 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.
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.
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 Germanpolony 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 roseen masseand 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—