13

II.

MATT SCARGIL paused, fell silent, and stared with unseeing eyes in a brown study, as in his tale he came again to that gypsy fire. He shifted uneasily in his ingle-chair: "I don't know why I'm telling ye," he muttered. "It's a thing as I've kept 'nation quiet for many's the good long year. It's nowt, lad. It were all ower i' three days-it's nowt to brag on." Then he cursed the rheumatiz, and said it was time his old bones were a-bed.

The fire," he murmured musingly. "The fire!" and fell silent again: his mind was rapt into the past; in memory he was young and strong again, upon a wild adventure bent; it was a sign and symbol, that gypsy fire.

Sign and symbol of the shifting tent, the fresh morning journey into the blue unknown, the free wild wandering, the heath with the breeze brisk upon it, whispering boughs, bramble-berried hedgerows, dapple of shadowy leaves on the floor of the silent lane; partridge-eggs in the furze-clump beside the by-way; the snare, the stealthy shot, the bivouac ; fiddle, dance, and song. Alack! that the blood should chill, the sap run down, the flame flicker low; alack!

that the rain should hiss on the embers of life's gypsy fire.

With a sigh old Scargil turned to his listener, and with a sigh went on.

"I handed and toed it all down that dall'd owd Jacob's-ladder, and rare-and-mad with myself I was for the doing it, I can tell 'ee. For one thing 'twas a hurt to my pride, as a respectable landed dalesman, that rascally Rommanies should count on me, confident, and wait for me coming, cocksure. And another thing angered me, too; I could tell by my nose, half-way down the ladder, that the scamps had suppered on grouse-young grouse, out o' season -and rageous I was at that, for His Grace's sake and the preserves. All the same, I was politic and cautious, and covered my wrath, and went forward brisk from the ladder-foot, and spoke 'em friendly and familiar, just as if I was no yeoman owning six hunderd acres, though much of it poor.

Sarshan, yer Rommany chals!' says I in their own lingo, just as if I were nowt but a poaching, horsechanting, prize-fighting, mumping thief of a gypsy myself. 'Sarshan, yer Rommany chals!' says I, expecting a pack of 'em-men, women, and bairns; but 'twas only one, a 'nation great slammocking lump of a fellow, what was squat by the side of the fire.

Sarshan yerself, bor,' says he, in a greasy, gruff kind of a voice what was rare-and-unpleasant to listen

to. 'Yer late, duveleste! Stash yer blood, yer late. Yer've kep' me waitin' a' hour.'

"'Late, be I?' says I, getting angry again at the sound of him. 'A fat lot I care if I am! It's a wonder I'm come at all. It's a 'nation great wonder I'm come at all!'

"Yer couldn't help it,' says he.

"'D'yer mean to say yer expected me?' says I. "In coorse, in coorse,' he says with a sleer. 'Yer'd got to; we put the dukkerin on yer, ecod! I know'd yer'd come at the shine o' the mune. Yer couldn't help it, bor!' and he started off laughing again. He'd a cackling, sneaking kind o' laugh of his own, mighty unpleasant and aggravating to hear, and for two pins I'd have give him the go-by straight off.

"But he spied me getting angry, and 'Yer cold and dry, bor,' says he; 'sit an' drink, bor. A fire's a friend, the kekauby's bubblin', an' this here's uncommon good gin. Sit an' drink,' and he spreads his great arms to cuddle me, Rommany fashion.

"But not me; I moves aside out of his reach. 'Lookee here,' I says; 'I didn't come for no squatting and drinking. I wants the sign-I wants the sign first, my chal. Out with the sign or I'm off,' says I, for I didn't like the look of him a little bit. A regular lump of a fellow, he was, tall eneugh to outtop me, and me rising six foot in my boots as I did, those days; and he looking so 'nation sturdy I'd have shunned to wrestle him cold blood; though the weight

of a four-bushel sack o' good corn was what I used to ride them days. I kept away from him, careful. 'The sign, man,' says I again.

"

'It seemed as if he didn't want to give the sign; it appeared as someway he didn't relish his errand. 'The sign, my gorgio,—the sign, is it?' he says. 'Split me, but he wants the sign!' and the sleering fellow mocked me and cackled that angering laugh of his till I felt like throttling it in his wizand, though I didn't.

mebbe?' says he, 'Blue's her eye, an' A waist to clip, hey,

"The sign's a fino rawny, with a nasty look on his phiz. yaller-brown curl-hair, ecod? an' cheeks as red as apples for a Rom to bussmebbe that's the sign? D'ye think her's meat for a gorgio? D'ye think her'll ever leave her handsome Rom?'

"The fellow sniggered and sneered at me, open; he swayed his great body with a swagger, and knocked his big silver-banded whip on his boot-top as fine as owt, kind o' monkeying the fashionable airs of a buck from Town.

'Dall it the sign, man!' I grunted, with a bite in my voice; for this banging big offal fellow, this brazzen Jemmy Jessamy of a gypsy, with his neck all mythered-up in a frill, and his greasy black hair sticking out under his round hat, and his hulking great body crammed tight into a buff-coloured coat, a gay green velvet waistcoat, and a pair of tight cord

breeches; him with his ugly brown face all pockmarked and his prize-fighter's nose-why, he wasn't 3 a penny to the taste of a plain, slow, respectable yeoman like me. I'd heard of his kidney before; Rommanies but not tent-dwellers, flash gypsy horsebreakers, bruisers, coiners, highwaymen by times, and aught else as were foul and low-living; I'd heard o' the like o' him afore, the ill-favoured great banger! 'By the blest!' says I with my fist ready, 'yer'd madden a sheep, bor! Where's the sign?'

"The fellow could see I was angered. 'Duveleste, God bless yer,' he says, in a salving-me-over kind of a way, with his hat off. 'Is it to Squire Matthey Scargil as I'm honoured to speak?'

"Yeoman Matthew Scargil,' says I, correcting him straight, for presuming a higher station in life than what I'm entitled were never a failing o' mine. 'Matthew Scargil's my name: what o' that?'

"Bueno, bon!' he says, swaggering again, as who should say: 'Hark to the fine foreign lingo I can talk so 'nation grand, you country jollocks!' 'Bueno, bon!' he says, and I liked him the less for that.

"I looked at him steady, and his eyes dropped, as I've noticed eyes of your bully or cheat always do. 'Out with it, man!' I says, thorough gruff. 'Where's that sign?'

"Mebbe the sign's a tawnie crux, bor?' he says, and he pulls out a little box.