The Gipsy Part 27

"Well, William," demanded Manners, "have you been successful?"

"Yes, sir," replied the man; "I believe I have seen the scoundrels housed, and have left those to watch them who will not watch them in vain."

A glow of vengeful pleasure pa.s.sed over the countenance of the peer, and nodding his approbation, he leaned his head oh his hand, listening attentively, while Manners proceeded. "Give us the particulars, William," he said. "How did you first discover the gipsies?"

"Why, first, sir, I went back to the sandpit," replied the man, "and then I followed the tracks of wheels down to the bottom of the hill, by the road that leads to Newtown. At the bottom I found traces up the green lane, and I went on there for a mile, till I came to what they call Newtown Lone; but since I was there last, some one has built a cottage there; and I asked the woman in the cottage if she had seen any gipsies, and which way they had gone. She said yes, she had seen them that morning, just after daybreak; but that when they had found a cottage there, they had turned down by the other side of the lone, through the lane that leads but again upon the high-road beyond Newtown. So I followed them down there, and I tracked their carts across the high-road, up the other lane, till I came to where it splits in two, the one going down to the water-side, and the other sloping up the hill to the common at the back of Dimden Park. Here there were wheels and footmarks both ways; and, after puzzling a little, I took the way down by the water, thinking they might have gone to lie among the banks there, as they used to do when I was a young boy in that neighbourhood. But after looking about for an hour, I could find nothing of them."

"Then where did you find them at last?" demanded the peer, growing somewhat tired of the servant's prolixity: to which, however, Manners, who knew how important every little particular is in obscure circ.u.mstances, had listened with patience and attention.

"Why, my lord," replied the man, "I went back directly to the parting of the roads, and then took the one towards the common, above Dimden, which I had not chosen before; and there I rode on as hard as I could, with the cart ruts and footmarks before me, till I came within about twenty yards of the common. Thereabout, there is a bit of low coppice, with some tall trees in the hedgerow; and my horse picked up a stone, so I got off to clear his hoof; and as I was just going to mount again, I heard some one call in a low voice, 'William! William Butler!' so I looked round, but could see no one, and I said, 'Well, what do you want? come out of the coppice, if you want me.' So, then, from behind one of the tall trees, where he had planted himself on the lookout, comes d.i.c.k Harvey, your lords.h.i.+p's head park-keeper at Dimden; and he began asking after my health, and all I had seen in foreign parts. So I told him I would answer him another time: but I took leave to ask him in return what he was after, bush-ranging in that way; and he answered, 'Oh, nothing; he was only seeing that all was right.' So, then, I asked him again if he had seen e'er a set of gipsies in that direction; upon which he asked why, and I told him outright. 'Don't go any farther, then,' answered he, 'for the blood-thirsty rascals are lying down there, between the park wall and the common; and it is them that I am watching.' And he told me that he had discovered they were to steal the deer in the park that very night, and had laid a trap for them. However, I did not choose to come away without seeing them myself. So, asking d.i.c.k when they had come there, I told him he must get me a sight of them. He said that they had not been there much above an hour; and he took me into the coppice to where he had been standing himself. There I could see the whole party of them well enough, lying about three hundred yards farther down the park wall, some of them still putting out their tents, some of them sitting on the wall and looking over into the park."

"Was the park-keeper alone?" asked Manners, as the servant paused.

"He was alone just at that minute, sir," replied the man; "but he told me that he had five others within whistle, and that he had sent away the man who had been mounting guard where he then was to bring more.

By this time, however, the sun was getting low; and d.i.c.k said he was sure enough the gipsies would not budge till they had tried for some of his deer. I told him not to let them go even if they had a mind; and he said to make my mind easy, for that before one o'clock in the morning, he would answer for having the whole party of them in what used to be called the strong-room at Dimden House. I thought, therefore, sir, that I could not leave the matter in better hands than his; and I came away here to report myself: but as the horse was very tired I thought it best to take my time."

"You have done well, William," said Lord Dewry. "Now go down and get some refreshment.--It seems to me, Colonel Manners," he added, as the servant retired, a gleam of triumph lighting up his dark countenance--"it seems to me that these men are in our power--that they cannot escape us now. It may be unnecessary, therefore, to send the letters which I have written."

"I think not," replied Manners. "If you will consider a moment, you will see that, although some of the gipsies have been seen in the neighbourhood of your park at Dimden, yet we have no reason to be sure that the very man we seek is with them. Indeed, from the resemblance of the person I saw in the wood to this Pharold, we have some cause to imagine that even if he have joined his companions since, he was not with them in the morning."

"You are right, you are right," said the peer. "In such a business as this no precautions can, indeed, be superfluous, and I will send off the letters at once."

The bell was accordingly rung, and the epistles despatched by mounted servants, who each had orders to spare no speed, but to ride all night rather than suffer the communication to be delayed; nor should we be unwilling to show how these directions were obeyed, and what sort of speed is commonly practised by persons on such errands,--how they all and several stopped to drink here, and to gossip there, and to feed at another place,--but that the regular matter of our history is now of some importance.

As soon as the servants had been despatched, Lord Dewry bethought him that Colonel Manners might himself require some refreshment, and apologized for his previous forgetfulness. Manners, however, was fatigued, but not hungry, and he preferred some strong green tea--though not very soldier-like fare--to any thing else that the peer's house could afford. This was soon obtained, and by the time it had been brought and taken away, the clock struck ten.

Manners then rose. "If your lords.h.i.+p does not expect news from Dimden to-night," he said, "I will now take my leave; but should anything occur in which I can be of the slightest a.s.sistance, if you will send a servant, you will find me at the little town of Barholm, where I have ordered rooms to be prepared for me at the inn."

No two men that ever lived were more different in mind, in character, in tastes, and feelings, than Colonel Charles Manners and Lord Dewry; yet, strange to say, the peer did not like the idea of Manners's quitting him. Their views were as distinct as light and darkness; and, though for a moment they were pursuing the same object, could the hearts of both have been seen, how different would have been the spectacle presented--how different from those in the bosom of the other would have been all the springs, and motives, and designs, which actuated and guided each! And yet Lord Dewry felt uneasy when Manners proposed to go. A part of his uneasiness might arise in his dislike to be left alone, in the long, long hours of expectation which were to intervene ere he could hear of the first step, in all his dark and complicated designs, having been safely taken; but there was something more in it too. Manners had a.s.sisted him with zeal, and talent, and energy, in the very pursuit which he was following: by an extraordinary concatenation of circ.u.mstances, he, unbribed, unbiased, independent, upright, and n.o.ble, had been led to give his whole support to the very first object which the peer had in view; and for which he had already been obliged to hire and to intrigue with the low, and the mercenary, and the vile; and Lord Dewry felt a support and an encouragement in the presence and a.s.sistance of Colonel Manners which a thousand Sir Roger Millingtons could not have afforded. Had he had to explain his views and wishes to Colonel Manners as he had done to Sir Roger Millington, he would have shrunk from the task in shame and fear; but when Manners came willingly forward to aid him voluntarily, even for a few steps on the way he was pursuing, it seemed as if his actions were vouched and justified by the concurrence of so honourable a man.

"I believe, Colonel Manners," said the peer in reply--"I believe that I am about to make a very extraordinary request; but I really cannot allow you to leave me: a room shall be prepared for you here immediately, and it will be a real consolation to me if you will stay I shall myself sit up till I hear from Dimden," he added, in a tone of hesitation, as if he would fain have asked Manners to do the same, had it been courteous; "but I am afraid that news cannot arrive till between one and two o'clock, and as you must be fatigued, I cannot ask you to be the partner of my watch."

"I will be so most willingly, my lord," replied Manners; "for though I certainly am fatigued, still I am not sleepy, and I shall be anxious, too, to hear the news as soon as possible."

They waited, however, longer than they expected: three, four o'clock came, and no tidings arrived. The moments, notwithstanding expectation, flew more calmly than might have been imagined. Lord Dewry, although he knew that there were few subjects on which he could speak with Colonel Manners without meeting feelings and opinions different from any that he now dared to entertain, knew also that there was one topic, and that one very near to his heart at the moment, on which he might discourse at ease. That topic was his son; and on that--with all his feelings softened, with every asperity done away, and with the pure natural welling forth of parental affection and grief over his deep loss--on that he conversed during the greater part of the night, effacing from the memory of his companion the rude and disagreeable impression which their first interviews had caused, and leaving little but grief, and sympathy, and regret.

CHAPTER II.

From sunset till about nine o'clock there had been a light refres.h.i.+ng rain--not one of those cold autumnal pours which leave the whole world dark, and drenched, and dreary, but the soft falling of light pellucid drops, that scarcely bent the blades of gra.s.s on which they rested, and through which, ever and anon, the purple of the evening sky, and--as that faded away--the bright glance of a brilliant star, might be seen amid the broken clouds. Towards nine, however, the vapours that rested upon the eastern uplands became tinged with light; and, as if gifted with the power of scattering darkness from her presence, forth came the resplendent moon, while the dim clouds grew pale and white as she advanced, and, rolling away over the hills, left the sky all clear. It required scarcely a fanciful mind to suppose that--in the brilliant s.h.i.+ning of the millions of drops which hung on every leaf and rested on every bough--in the glistening ripple of the river that rolled in waves of silver through the plain--in the checkered dancing of the light and shadow through the trees, and in the sudden brightening up of every object throughout the scene which could reflect her beams--it required scarcely a fanciful mind to suppose that the whole world was rejoicing in the soft splendour of that gentle watcher of the night, and gratulating her triumph over the darkness and the clouds.

It was a beautiful sight on that night, as, indeed, it ever is, to see the planet thus change the aspect of all things in the sky and on the earth; but, perhaps, the sight was more beautiful in Dimden Park than anywhere around. The gentleman's park is likewise one of those things peculiarly English, which are to be seen nowhere else upon the earth; at least, we venture to say that there is nothing at all like it in three out of the four quarters of this our globe: the wide gra.s.sy slopes, the groups of majestic trees, the dim flankings of forest-ground, broken with savannas and crossed by many a path and many a walk, the occasional rivulet or piece of water, the resting-place, the alcove, the ruin of the old mansion where our fathers dwelt, now lapsed into the domain of Time, but carefully guarded from any hands but his, with here and there some slope of the ground or some turn of the path bringing us suddenly upon a bright and unexpected prospect of distant landscapes far beyond--"all nature and all art!" There is nothing like it on the earth, and few things half so beautiful; for it is tranquil without being dull, and calm without being cheerless: but of all times, when one would enjoy the stillness and the serenity at its highest pitch, go forth into a fine old park by moonlight.

The moon, then, on the night of which we have lately been speaking, within half an hour after her rise, shone full into the park, and poured her flood of splendour over the wide slopes, glittering with the late rain, along the winding paths and gravel-walks, and through between the broad trunks of the oaks and beeches. The autumn had not yet so far advanced as to make any very remarkable difference in the thickness of the foliage: but still, some leaves had fallen from the younger and tenderer plants, so that the moonbeams played more at liberty upon the ground beneath, and the trees themselves had been carefully kept so far apart that any one standing under their shadow--except, indeed, in the thickets reserved as coverts for the deer--had a view far over the open parts of the park; and, if the eye took such a direction, could descry the great house itself on one hand, or, on the other side, the park-keeper's cottage, situated on a slight slope that concealed it from the windows of the mansion. At the same time, though any one thus placed beneath the old trees--either the clumps which studded the open ground, or the deeper woods at the extremes--could see for a considerable distance around, yet it would have been scarcely possible for anybody standing in the broad moonlight to distinguish other persons under the shadow of the branches, unless, indeed, they came to the very verge of the wooded ground. This became more particularly the case as the moon rose higher, and the crossing and interlacing of the shadows in the woodland was rendered more intricate and perplexed, while the lawns and savannas only received the brighter light.

At a little before eleven o'clock, then, by which time the moon had risen high in the heaven, a rustling and sc.r.a.ping sound might have been heard by any one standing near that wall of the park which separated it from the neighbouring common, and in a moment, after, the head and shoulders of a man appeared above the parapet. He gave a momentary glance into the walk which was immediately contiguous, and then swinging himself over, dropped at once to the ground. Pausing again, he looked round him more carefully; and then gave a low whistle. No one followed, however; and the intruder, who was apparently a lad of eighteen or nineteen, advanced cautiously across the walk, and was soon placed beneath the shadow of the tall elms.

Every two or three minutes the lad paused to look around him; but as his eyes were more frequently bent upon the ground than raised, it appeared that he rather feared losing his way than apprehended the appearance of any other person in the place to which he had somewhat furtively introduced himself. Humming a tune as he advanced, he approached that part of the park from which, as we have before said, a view could be obtained both of the mansion and the park-keeper's house; and here, fixing his eyes upon the latter, he seated himself at the foot of a st.u.r.dy chestnut-tree at a little distance within the extreme edge of the wood.

There was a wreath of white smoke still curling up from the chimney of the peaceful-looking dwelling of the park-keeper; and through two of the cottage cas.e.m.e.nts a full yellow light was streaming, so that it was evident enough that some of the inmates were up and awake. For about half an hour the young man kept his post with perseverance and tranquillity, ceasing to hum the air with which he had amused himself as he came along, and apparently regarding nothing but the cottage of the park-keeper.

At the end of that time, however, he rose, muttering, "I'll stay here no longer. I might as well have been with Lena all this while. If d.i.c.k would but wait till one o'clock, they would be all abed to a certainty;" and he walked two or three steps resolutely away. Ere he was out of sight, he, nevertheless, turned to look once more. The light was still burning; but as he was in the very act of resuming his retreat, it was totally extinguished, and nothing was to be seen but the dark outline of the cottage in the clear moonlight. He now paused again for a moment or two, to be sure of the facts; and then retracing his way as fast as possible to the particular part of the wall over which he had obtained ingress, he stopped, and whistled louder than before. For some minutes there was no reply, and he then whistled again, which instantly produced a corresponding signal from without, and a voice demanded, "Is all right?"

"Ay, ay, d.i.c.k," replied the lad, carelessly; "all's right--come along." The moment after, another head and shoulders appeared above the wall; and the gipsy whom we have seen with the old woman called Mother Gray, scheming the destruction of the deer belonging to some of the neighbouring gentry, swung himself up to the top of the wall, and gazed round with a more anxious and careful face than that displayed by his younger comrade.

"When he had satisfied himself by examination, he handed over two guns to his companion, who was within the park; and then, dropping down again on the inside, gazed round him with more trepidation than his bold and confident language would have led one to antic.i.p.ate. He was not alone, however; for no sooner had he effected his descent than three others, each also armed with an old rude fowling-piece, followed from without; and a whispered consultation took place in regard to their further proceedings.

"Where did you see the deer herding to-night, Will?" demanded their leader; "I mean at sunset."

"Oh, those I saw were down at the far end of the park," replied the boy, "a mile off and more; up this wall will lead us."

"The farther off the better," replied d.i.c.kon; "are all your guns loaded?"

An answer was given in the affirmative; and, led by d.i.c.kon and the lad William, the party of gipsies crept stealthily along the walk that proceeded under the wall to the far extremity of the park. Once or twice the leader stopped and listened, and once he asked, in a low tone, "Did you not hear a noise? there to the left!" No sound, however, was heard by his companions, who paused as he paused, and gave breathless attention with bended head and listening ear. A light breeze stirred the tree tops, and a leaf would now and then fall through the branches, but nothing else was to be distinguished; and as they pa.s.sed the end of many a vista and moonlight alley, and looked cautiously out, nothing which could excite the least apprehension was perceivable, and they walked on, gaining greater courage as every step familiarized them more to their undertaking. By the time they had reached the end of the park wall, they ventured to carry on their consultation in a louder tone; and they also turned more into the heart of the wood, following paths with which none of them seemed very thoroughly acquainted, and the perplexity of which often caused them to halt or to turn back, in order to reach the spot which they had fixed upon for the commencement of their exploits among the deer.

The lad Will, however, who had apparently reconnoitred the park by daylight, at length led them right; and taking a small footway towards the east, they found themselves suddenly upon the edge of an opening in the wood, through the midst of which ran a stream of clear water. A s.p.a.ce of about five acres was here left without a tree; but on every side were deep groves of old chestnuts, and to the east some thick coverts of brushwood. It became necessary now to ascertain the direction of the wind, lest the deer should scent their pursuers, and take another road; and for this purpose, wetting his finger in the water, d.i.c.kon held it up high, till he discovered by the coldness that ensued which side it was that the wind struck. As soon as this important point was known, he disposed his companions in separate stations, but each by one of the old chestnuts, in such a manner and at such distances as would render it impossible for the deer to cross the open s.p.a.ce before them without receiving one or more shots from some of his party. The sort of sport in which he was now employed seemed not altogether unfamiliar to the gipsy d.i.c.kon, whose instructions, if oral rather than practical, must have been very accurate and minute, as he wanted none of the skill or knowledge of an old sportsman.

As soon as his men were all properly disposed, and he had likewise taken up his own position in the most favourable spot that the place afforded, he sought out upon the ground a beech-leaf, and having found one with some difficulty, bent it in the middle and applied it to his lips. A quick percussion of the breath upon the bent leaf instantly produced a sound exactly resembling the cry of a young doe. After calling thus once or twice, he ceased, and all was attention; but no noise followed to indicate that any of the horned dwellers in the wood had heard or gave attention to the sound. d.i.c.kon again made the experiment, and again waited in breathless expectation, but without avail. After a lapse of some minutes the beech-leaf was once more employed, and the next instant a slight rustling sound was heard among the bushes beyond. The poacher repeated his cry, and there was then evidently a rush through the brushwood; but the moment after all was again still, and he began to think that the buck had scented them and taken fright.

In a minute more, however, not from the bushes, but from the opposite chestnut-trees, which the low wood joined, trotted forth, at an easy pace, a tall splendid deer, bearing his antlered head near the ground, as if trying to scent out the path of his mate, whose voice he had heard. The moment he came into the full moonlight, however, he stood at gaze, as it is called, raising his proud head and looking steadfastly before him. Then, turning to the right and to the left, he seemed striving to see the object that he had not been able to discover by the smell; but, as he was still too far distant for any thing like a certain shot, d.i.c.kon once more ventured a low solitary call upon the beach-leaf. Had it been loud, or repeated more than once, the poor animal was near enough to have detected the cheat; but as it was, he was deceived, and trotting on for fifty yards more, again stood at gaze, with his head turned towards the trees under which the poacher was standing. d.i.c.kon quietly raised his gun, aimed deliberately, and fired just as the buck was again moving forward. The ball struck the deer directly below the horns, and, bounding up full four feet from the ground, he fell dead upon the spot where he had been standing.

All the gipsies were now rus.h.i.+ng forward to see their prize, but d.i.c.kon called them back; and keeping still under the shade of the trees, he made his way round to them severally, saying, "We must have another yet. Let him lie there! let him lie! That one shot has not been loud enough to scare the rest, and I am sure there is a herd there down at the end of the copse: so we must have another at all events; and if we go making a noise about that one, we shall frighten them. You, Bill, go round under those trees for five or six hundred yards, and then come into the thicket, and beat it up this way."

Bill did not undertake the task without grumbling and remonstrance; a.s.serting that everything that was tiresome was put upon him, while d.i.c.kon and the rest had the sport. A little persuasion, however, overcame his resistance, and he set off accordingly to perform the part a.s.signed to him. The others, in the meantime, resumed their places, and now had to wait a longer time than at first; for the youth, not very well inclined to the task, was anything but quick in his motions. At the end of a quarter of an hour, however, a rustle and then a rush was heard in the bushes; and then the bounding sound of deer in quick flight, and, in a moment after, the whole herd sprang into the moonlight, and crossed the open ground at the full canter.

They came fairly within shot of two of the gipsies in their pa.s.sage, and two guns were instantly discharged. Both took effect; but one of the deer was only wounded, and was struggling up again, when the whole body of poachers rushed forward and ended its sufferings with the knife.

"Now, now!" cried d.i.c.kon, hastily recharging his gun, "we have got enough for once, I think; let us be off as soon as we can. We can hitch the venison over that nearest wall," and he turned to point in the direction to which he referred; but the sight that met his eyes at that moment almost made the powder-flask, with which he was in the act of priming, fall from his hands. Advancing from the chestnut-trees under which he himself had just been standing, was a party consisting of at least twelve strong men, apparently well armed, and he at once saw that all chance of escape for himself and his comrades, without a struggle, was over, as the keepers were coming up between them and the common, while on the other side lay the thick bushes from which the deer had issued, and in which his party must be entangled and taken if they attempted to fly in that direction, and to the westward, beyond the chestnut-trees, were the river and the park-keeper's house. Now, however, that the matter was inevitable, d.i.c.kon showed more resolution than he had hitherto done. "Stand to it, my men!" he cried: "they have nosed us, by----! there's no running now; we must make our way to that corner, or we're done."

His companions instantly turned at his exclamation; and whatever might be their internal feelings, they showed nothing but a dogged determination to resist to the last. The man who had fired the last shot instantly thrust a bullet into his gun, which he had already charged with powder; and, giving up their slain game for lost, the poachers advanced towards the angle of the wood nearest to the park-wall, keeping in a compact body, and crossing the front of the other party in an oblique line. The keepers, however, hastened to interpose, and came up just in time to prevent their opponents from reaching the trees. Thus, then, at the moment that they mutually faced round upon each other, the left of the gipsies and the right of their adversaries touched the wood, but the odds were fearfully in favour of the gamekeepers.

"Come, come, my masters, down with your arms!" cried Harvey, the head keeper; "it's no use resisting: do you not see we are better than two to one?"

The first reply was the levelling of the gipsies' fowling pieces; and notwithstanding the superiority of numbers and the antic.i.p.ation of resistance, the keepers drew a step or two back; for under such circ.u.mstances no one can tell whose the chance may be, and the thought of unpleasant death will have its weight till the blood is warm.

"Stand off!" cried d.i.c.kon, boldly: "master keeper, let us go free, or take the worst of it. We leave you your venison, and a good half-ounce bullet in each buck to pay for our pastime; but be you sure that the guns which sent those bullets can send others as true, and will send them very speedily, if you try to stop us."

"A bold fellow, upon my honour!" cried Sir Roger Millington, advancing, and standing calmly before the very muzzles of the gipsies'

guns. "But hark ye, my good man, you came to get the venison; we came to get you; and, as we are rather more in number than you, it is not probable we shall let you escape. However, I will tell you what--to spare bloodshed, we will come to a compromise with you."

"You are the spy of a fellow, are you not," cried d.i.c.kon, "who came this evening asking for Pharold? Well, my knowing cove, be you sure the first shot fired you shall have one."

"But he speaks of a compromise, d.i.c.kon," cried one of his companions, lowering the gun a little from his shoulder; "better hear what he has to say."

"Don't you believe a word," cried d.i.c.kon; "he's a cheat, and will only humbug you if you listen to him. We can bring four of them down, at all events, and then must take our chance with the but-ends of our pieces."

"Yes, yes, listen to him," cried another of the gipsies. "What have you to say about a compromise?"