The Gipsy Part 9

"I was so," replied Manners, still gazing with some interest upon the old sand-pit and its picturesque tenants, with their blazing fire of sticks, and its white smoke curling through the broken ground and amid the scattered bushes.

"And what did you want with us, then?" asked Pharold, somewhat impatiently; "you wanted something, or you would not have come here."

"I wish to have my fortune told," replied Manners with a smile, excited equally by the impatience of the gipsy's tone, and by the nature of his own errand.

The gipsy looked at him steadily, and then shook his head. "No, no, no," said he; "you did not come for that. Never tell me, that you would get out of your bed by daybreak, and climb a high hill, and seek a bare common, at this hour, to have your fortune told--never tell me that, Colonel Manners."

Manners started at hearing his own name p.r.o.nounced familiarly by the gipsy, though he knew the world, and all the tricks that accident and confederacy can put upon us, too well to suppose that he who is emphatically termed in Scripture "the prince of the power of the air"

had taken the trouble to send an account of his name and quality to a gipsy on a common. Still, as it was unexpected, he was surprised, and expressed it; but not in such a way as to make the gipsy believe more fully than he had done at first, that he really gave credit to the supernatural pretensions of his nation, and came there for the purpose of consulting them upon his destiny.

"Pray how did you become acquainted with my name?" demanded Colonel Manners, calmly. "I do not know that I ever saw you before?"

"Perhaps not," replied the gipsy; "but if you believe that I can tell you what you will become hereafter, why should you be surprised that I know what you are now?"

"I never said that I would believe what you told me," answered Manners; "but I know that, as I have been scarcely two days in this country, you must have been very expeditious in gaining my name.

However, it is a matter of small consequence: I came, as I said, to have my fortune told according to your method. Will you do it?"

"It shall be done," said the gipsy, still gazing at him inquiringly.

"It shall de done, if you really desire it; but I know you men of the world, and I cannot help thinking you came not on that errand alone. I should think that Lord Dewry had sent you, did I not know that he went away yesterday morning to Dimden, and then before midday back to the hall."

"You are a very singular person," said Colonel Manners, with a smile, "not only because you know every thing that is going on in the place, as well as a village gossip, but because you will not believe the truth when it is told you. Once more, then, my good friend, let me a.s.sure you, that n.o.body sent me; and that my sole purpose is to have my fortune told: nor should I stay here any longer, even for that purpose, had I not promised another person to submit to the infliction.

"So, so," said the gipsy; "so the fair lady you were walking with yesterday in Morley Wood is more wise, or, as you would call it, more credulous than you are. But do not look angry, gentleman. I will tell you your fortune presently, and will tell it truly, if you will do me a piece of service, of which I stand in need too--something that I have promised to do, though not for a lady with dark eyes; and you seem sent here on purpose to aid in it."

Now Manners was half amused and half angry; but it is probable the anger would have got the better of the other feeling, had not his curiosity been excited also by the language, the manners, and the request of the gipsy, whose whole demeanour was something quite new to him. He replied, however, "I never undertake to do any thing without knowing the precise nature thereof; but if you will tell me what you desire, and I find it reasonable, I will not, of course, refuse."

"Yes, yes! you shall hear what it is," answered the gipsy; "nor will you find the request unreasonable. But come hither a little away from the people, for they need not know it." Thus speaking, he led the way towards the mound from which Manners had made his reconnoissance of the common; and, as he went, he kept his right hand in his bosom, but spoke not a word. At length, when they were fully out of earshot, Manners himself stopped, thinking that he had humoured his companion's caprices far enough.

"Now, my good fellow," he said, "n.o.body can either see or hear, unless they follow for the purpose. Pray what is it you wish me to do for you?"

"You are a friend of Mr. De Vaux, are you not?" said the gipsy abruptly, stopping and turning round as Manners spoke.

"As far as esteeming him highly, and desiring to serve him with all my heart, can make me so," answered Manners, now more particularly surprised, "I believe I may call myself his dear friend: but what if I be so?"

"If you be really a friend of Mr. Edward de Vaux," said the gipsy, "you will not object to take a letter to him."

"Why," answered Manners, "although I am not exactly either a private courier or a postman, yet if your request stops there, I can have no objection to do as you desire; reserving to myself, of course, the right of telling him where I got the letter, and the circ.u.mstances that attended my receiving it."

"That you will do, if you please," replied the gipsy; "but the request does not stop there. There are conditions in regard to the delivery of the letter which you must observe, and that punctually."

Manners smiled. "This is all very extraordinary," he said; "you speak in somewhat of a dictatorial tone, my good friend; and it is not easy for me to comprehend what business one of your cla.s.s and nation can have with my friend De Vaux, so soon after his return from other lands."

"Trouble not yourself with that, Colonel Manners," answered the gipsy; and then added, seeing that something like a cloud was gathering on his auditor's brow, "if I have offended you, sir, I am sorry: such was not my purpose; and, believe me, I may know what is due both to you and myself better than you think. You are the commander of one of the King of England's regiments, and I am a poor gipsy; but you come to make a request to me, for granting which--as every thing is barter or robbery in this world--for granting which I require something of you.

So far we are as much equals as in the enjoyment of the free air, and yonder bright suns.h.i.+ne, and this piece of common ground. Whether there be any other difference between us, in point of higher or lower, G.o.d knows, and he alone. Thus, then, hear me patiently, while I tell you the conditions of my bargain; and afterward I will do your bidding concerning your future fortunes--whether you esteem my skill or not, being your business, and not mine, as you seek it without my offering it."

"I believe you are right," replied Colonel Manners, beginning more fully to appreciate the character of him with whom he spoke; "go on, and let me hear your conditions in regard to the delivery of this letter, which is, I suppose, the object that you hold in your bosom."

"It is not a pistol," said the gipsy, producing the letter.

"I did not suppose that it was," replied Colonel Manners; "and had it been so, it would have been a matter of much indifference to me: but now for your conditions."

"They are few and simple," answered the gipsy; "I require, or request, you to give this into Mr. De Vaux's own hand, and to choose a moment when he is not only alone, but when he is likely to have an opportunity of reading it in private; and though you may tell him when and how you received it, and add what comments you like, you must not indulge in the same tattle to other people; but must keep silence on all concerning it."

"Your conditions are not very difficult," replied Colonel Manners; "I will undertake them. Give me the letter. Upon my honour," he added, seeing that Pharold hesitated, "I will do exactly as you have desired."

The man gave him the letter, which was cleaner, neater, and, as far as the address went, better written than the hands from which it came would have led one to antic.i.p.ate. The moment he had done so, Pharold uttered a long, loud whistle, which brought a little yellow urchin of ten years old to their side, as fast as a pair of bare feet could carry him. "Thou mayst go," said the gipsy; "and make haste." The boy set off like lightning on the road which led to the river, and the gipsy again turned to Colonel Manners. "Give me your hand, sir," he said.

Colonel Manners did as he desired, smiling while he did so at a certain lurking feeling of the ridicule of his situation, which he could not repress. "If any of my old fellow-soldiers were to see me here," he thought, "taking counsel with a gipsy upon my future fate and prospects, they would certainly think Charles Manners mad." The gipsy, however, gazed seriously upon his hand, and then raised his eyes to the other's face, without the slightest expression in his own countenance which could raise a suspicion that he was seeking to play upon credulity.

"Colonel Manners," said Pharold, "before I tell you what I read here, listen to me for one moment. Most people who come to us on such an errand smile as they give us their hand; some because they believe us thoroughly, and affect by a laugh to show they do not believe at all; while some, who really do not believe, smile out of vain conceit in their own superior strength of mind: but do you remember that this that we practise is, when properly practised, a science in which we have ourselves the most confident faith. We never inquire afterward whether what we have predicted has proved true or not, for we are always sure that it must do so: but, at all events, such confidence in our own knowledge cannot spring from nothing."

Manners could have easily found a reply in favour of his own side of the question, but he did not think it worth while to argue logically upon chiromancy with a gipsy, although that gipsy might be somewhat superior to others of his tribe; and, therefore, without answering the arguments of Pharold, he remained in silence, while the other again turned a very steadfast glance upon his extended hand.

"Colonel Manners," said the gipsy at length, "if I read right, you have been a fortunate man."

"And, in some respects, an unfortunate one," rejoined his auditor, "though, in truth, I have no great reason to complain."

"Far more fortunate than unfortunate," answered the gipsy. "Here are but three crosses in all your life as yet; two so near the beginning, that you could not have felt them; and one--a deep one--much more lately."

Colonel Manners smiled. "In the past you are certainly not far wrong: but it is the future I wish to hear: what of it?"

"You mock us, sir," said the gipsy, eying him. "However, you shall hear your fate as it is. You shall be fortunate and unfortunate."

"That is the common lot of human nature," rejoined Colonel Manners.

"But herein does your fate differ from the common lot of human nature," replied the gipsy: "you shall be no longer fortunate in those things wherein you have hitherto found success; for you shall do all that you think you will not do; and prosper where you neither hope nor strive."

"That is certainly a strange fate," answered Manners; "for I have ever found that success is a coy G.o.ddess, who needs all our efforts to obtain her smiles, and even then gives them but sparingly."

"It _is_ a strange fate, and yet, in some sense, it is not," answered the gipsy; "your painters rightly represent Fortune as a woman, though they might as well have left her eyes unbandaged; for it is neither new nor marvellous to see woman fly from those that pursue her, and cast herself into the arms of those who care not for her smiles. And yet the fate written on that hand is strange, too; for it speaks of fortunes as fair without effort, for the future, as those of the past have been rendered by toil and exertion. It is a strange fate; but, nevertheless it shall be yours: and now, forget not my words, but, when you find them verified, remember him that spoke them."

"But are you going to tell me no more?" demanded Colonel Manners: "I would fain have you come a little more to particulars, my good friend.

One can make but little of these broad generalities."

"One can make nothing to laugh at," answered the gipsy, "and therefore I shall keep to them, though, perhaps, I could tell you more. Remember them, however, and, as you will soon find them true, lay them to your heart, sir, and let them teach you to believe, that a thing is not false because you do not understand it; that there may be truths without the range either of your knowledge or of your faculties--some that you cannot comprehend, because they have not been explained to you; and some that, if they were explained to you a thousand times, your mind is too narrow to conceive--and yet they are."

"I wish, my good friend, that I could send you to converse with Voltaire," said Colonel Manners. "Who is he?" demanded Pharold; "I do not know him."

"No," replied Manners; "I dare say not: but he is a famous wit, who dabbles in philosophy, and seems inclined to teach the world, by his example, if not by his precepts, that man should credit nothing that he cannot understand."

"And what should I do with him'?" demanded the gipsy, frowning: "I think you are mocking me--is it not so?"

"No, on my honour," replied Colonel Manners; "I am not mocking you. On the contrary, I think you a very extraordinary person, and fitted for a different station from that in which I find you. Whether you yourself believe that which you have told me concerning my future fortune, or not, I thank you for having gratified me; and, at all events, I have derived from your conversation more that I shall remember long, than I antic.i.p.ated when I came here. Will you accept of that?"

Colonel Manners offered him one of those beautiful golden pieces which are now, I fear me, lost to the world for ever, and which were then called guineas. But the gipsy put it away. "No," he said; "you have undertaken to fulfil my request, and I have complied with yours. We owe each other nothing, then. Farewell!" and, turning on his heel, he left Colonel Manners to descend the hill, thinking him more extraordinary than ever, from the last very ungipsy-like act, by which he had terminated their conversation.

The sun was now much higher than when Manners had trod that path before; for, according to his usual custom, the gracious luminary seemed to have run more quickly at his first rising than he does after having climbed the steep hill of heaven; and the wayfarer began to think that he might be late at Mrs. Falkland's breakfast-table, where cold eggs and lukewarm coffee were the just punishments of those who linger long abed. As he had closed the park gate, however, and had not the key, he was obliged to go round and enter by the other side of the house; but this proceeding, at all events, tended to solve one mystery connected with his late interview. In the hall the first object he beheld was the little gipsy boy whom he had seen with Pharold on the hill; and he now found him in conversation with Mrs. Falkland herself, who appeared to be asking after some of the Egyptian fraternity who were ill. Old Peter stood behind, keeping a wary eye upon the boy, whom he justly considered a very promising eleve in no inferior school of petty larceny; and as Colonel Manners approached, Mrs. Falkland terminated her inquiries, and made over her little companion to the care of the footman, with orders to give him something and send him away; an order, the latter part of which was complied with in a more summary manner than she antic.i.p.ated, as soon as her back was turned.