Stage gipsys, like our clever Louisa Pyne, are charming and poetical. Real gipsys are a wild and elfish set. sometimes think,-it is a fancy of mine,-being a story-teller, I have a right to fancies,-that a thorough-going antiquary and philologist might trace a relation between them and the oriental Yezidis or Satan-worshipers. They are uncanny and thrive upon abominations. Mother earth cleaves to their faces. They hanker after forbidden fruits. Nothing comes amiss to them. Pigs and pocket-books disappear when they are in the neighborhood with the same facility. They are equally fond of the clothes upon the garden line and the peaches upon the garden wall. They lime the brooks for trout, and spoil, for one mess, the angler's prospects for a year to follow. So I say, may the mild wrath of good Isaak Walton follow them wheresoever they go. They "drow" you upon occasion: that is, being interpreted, they put poison into your meal chest, or else George Borrow romances. But their especial hankering is after secrets, which they keep, and will sell, unless revenge is in the way, but then they take your gold and put you off with some shrewd plausibility. The young gipsy is a cunning fellow. He knows how many chickens there are in farmer Hodge's yard better than the good man does himself; and where the great turkey gobbler roosts, that he sees right well. He divines that he shall have, too, more than a bone of that turkey for his pains one of these fine nights. There are mongrels among them not bound by the pure customs of the tribe. Of this sort was she who stole Rosa Devereux to gratify her wild revenge. Peter Styles came upon a tent of these mongrels on his way to Coddlington Green. Styles was a famous bone-setter. This bone-setting faculty is not the least among the curious hereditaments that go from generation to generation. Peter had no medical skill and was a poor day laborer, but, upon occasion, he could set a broken limb as well as any Bumblefuz of them all. Ask the robin how he sings? He could no more explain to you his gift of melody than Peter Styles could describe his art of bone-setting. But he did it. Peter was a good fellow, tender-hearted, which every professional bone-setter, I am sorry to say, is not. So, hearing an outlandish uproar in which was the shrill cry of a child, he ran into the gipsy tent, where he found a little fellow with his leg broken and badly fractured, none the less. This was Peter's especial delight. Whenever he could set a bone he was in his element. He pounced upon the victim like a Newfoundland dog upon a drowning baby, and his hands grew strangely subtle for the time. Soon the brown urchin was all right, the fracture reduced, the limb splintered and bandaged, the elf upon his back, all doing well. This was a poor woman's only son, and she of the half-breed caste. A gipsy always has hoarded somewhere a coin or two of gold. These came forth now. Gratitude found them, though sharp hunger might have searched in vain. "Noa doan't" said Peter, "I wont ha'e 'em. I takes no gold for kindness." Little Ishmael was dying of thirst in a wilderness, and poor mother Hagar, she too with this hot, impulsive blood in her veins had no water to give him. Dying he lay upon her lap, the heavy death throe knotting up his limbs, when the angel came. Now Peter Styles was this outlandish woman's angel. He saved her boy. The baleful glare, the basilisk glance were softened from her eyes, and tears stood there as if two fountains had broken through the sand plain of Sahara's waste. Then Peter bade her good-bye, and journeyed upon his way to Coddlington Green. Our work-seeker dined that day on Swedish turnips, supped on the same, trudged on beneath the light of the moon half-way to his destination, slept that night in an oat-rick, breakfasted on rutabagas left in the fields as fodder for sheep, and, with a brave heart in his bosom and a stout oaken cudgel in his hand, arrived the next morning at Coddington Green, a thriving market-town, where also king Rameses has a Temple. Here he sought work. He was a willing drudge, who could thrash oats or other grains upon occasion, was a good ditcher, and knew something of carpentry as well. Squire Bloomfield of Wingate Hall happened that way and took Peter, first upon the recommendation of his own honest face, and, second, upon the warrant of his character from another of the Grand High Shovelers with whom he had occasion to deal. So let King Rameses have due glory once again. Peter, that night, having dined with duke Humphrey, supped royally on bacon and old October in the servants' room at Wingate. Your old families are to be found among the squirearchy. The Bloomfields had possessed their homestead since the conquest, when old Roger De Bluymfeelde, the first of the family, had struck a manly blow at Hastings and won this feoff at the hands of Black William. Many storms had gathered over old England since then, but the Bloomfields had possessed the earth from generation to generation, and their days were long in the land. To-morrow came and Styles obtained favor in the eyes of the good dame. Trust these women for being judges of character, except sometimes when they are in love. But in nine cases out of ten a woman's eye reads a man right at starting. Behold then Peter mounted on the taxed cart, driving back to Richmanstown with good tidings for his patient wife. He is on trial for a month as man of all work, and she is to have a cottage on the estate if he should suit. And Peter's wife, she hangs upon his neck and weeps for very joy. She is a good wife and Peter is all the world to her. Love is a queer bird. Now Lady Arabella Silverdown has a perfumed cage for him in her boudoir, but she left the door open one day and the funny fellow hopped from his perch, flew through the conservatory window and was off in a trice to Peter Styles' poor cottage. What though the rafters are low and the floor rough deal, though the plates upon the dresser are of the commonest delf, and instead of the costly library there are but two books there, Peter Styles' grandfather's old Bible, containing on the fly leaf the genealogy of the Styles for generations, and his wife's hymn book;-of the Wesleyan Connection is Mrs. Styles? Brave Book of Martyrs, Pilgrims Progress of stout old Bunyan, I did not see you when I penned this paragraph. What better library needs a plain man? Let the Wesleys and Stennet and Toplady and Watts and Cowper sing to me, as they do from that rude hymn book, and my soul drinks refreshment, as from that brook, Siloa called of old, which "flowed fast by the oracles of God." These are thy best poets Old England; best because their muse sings of the victories of patient virtue; of the Jacob's ladder that rises from every grave in the humble church-yard where the ashes of the faithful sleep; of the mountain higher than Olympus where the blood-bought ones of all time walk in shining raiment with palms in their hands. Methinks, were I a poet, I would rather write one hymn like some of these, to cheer the lowly in the great battle that all must fight, rich and poor as well, than have the fame of all your Manfreds, all your Lalla Rookhs. And Peter Styles' wife sang. Το her it was no chance that led the steps of her husband |