The Gypsy Queen's Vow. May Agnes Fleming
Harkins, it’s very kind of you to give me permission, and I am very much obliged to you,” said Mr. Toosypegs, looking severely at a small boy who had a hold of his coat-tails behind. “But I hadn’t the remotest idea of saying anything, whatever, against it. I’m sure it’s perfectly right and proper Mary Ann should have the influenza, if she wants to.”
“Ah! I didn’t know but what you might think she ’adn’t,” said Mr. Harkins blandly. “There wasn’t hany tellin’, you know, but what you might say a Hinglishman’s ’ouse wasn’t his castle, and he couldn’t ’ave whatever he likes there. Well, the baby, he got the crook, which ’ad the meloncholic heffec’ hof turning ’im perfectly black in the face.”
Mr. Toosypegs, though inwardly surmising Mr. Harkins meant the croup, thought it a very likely effect to be brought about by either.
“Then Sary Jane took the brown skeeters, hand I ’ad the lum-beggar hin my hown back, but on the whole we were all pretty well, thanky!”
“I am real glad to hear it,” said Mr. Toosypegs, with friendly warmth. “I’ve been pretty well myself since, too. I’m very much obliged to you.”
“Let’s see, it’s near a month, hain’t it, since the night I took you to London?” said Mr. Harkins.
“Three weeks and five days exactly,” said Mr. Toosypegs, briskly.
“I suppose you don’t disremember the hold gipsy has we took him that night – do you? ‘I was a stranger hand you took me him.’ That’s in the Bible, Mr. Toosypegs,” said Mr. Harkins, drawing down the corners of his mouth, and looking pious, and giving Mr. Toosypegs a dig in the ribs, to mark the beauty of the quotation.
“Yes, Mr. Harkins, but not so hard, if you please – it hurts,” said Mr. Toosypegs, with tears in his eyes, as he rubbed the place.
“What does? that there piece hout the Bible?” said Mr. Harkins, with one of his sudden bursts of fierceness.
“Oh, Lor’, no!” said the deeply-scandalized Mr. Toosypegs, surprised into profanity by the enormity of the charge. “It’s your elbow, Mr. Harkins, it hurts,” said Mr. Toosypegs, with a subdued sniffle.
“Humph!” grunted Mr. Harkins; “well hit’s hof no squenceyance, but you don’t disremember the hold gipsy-woman we took in, do you?”
“The one with the black eyes and short frock? Oh, I remember her!” said Mr. Toosypegs. “I’ve never seen her since.”
“No, I shouldn’t s’pose you ’ad,” said Mr. Harkins, gruffly, “seein’ she’s as mad as a March ’are, down there with her tribe. Mysterious are the ways of Providence. You blamed little rascal! hif you do that again, I’ll chuck you inter the Serpentine! blessed hif I don’t.”
His last sentence, which began with a pious upturning of the whites, or rather the yellows, of Mr. Harkins’ eyes, was abruptly cut short by a depraved youth, who, turning a course of summersaults for the benefit of his constitution, rolled suddenly against Mr. Harkins’ shins, and the next instant found himself whimpering and rubbing a portion of his person, where Mr. Harkins had planted a well-applied kick.
“The way the principuls of perliteness is neglected to be hinstilled hinto the minds of youths now-a-days, is distressin’ to behold,” said Mr. Harkins, with a grimace of pain; “but has I was sayin’ habout the hold gipsy queen, she’s gone crazy, hand” – (here Mr. Harkins lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper) – “she’s went hand got a baby.”
“Do tell!” ejaculated Mr. Toosypegs, who saw it was expected of him to be surprised, and who consequently was, though he could not see any earthly reason for it.
“A baby,” went on Mr. Harkins, who would have emphasized his words by another dig in the ribs, but that Mr. Toosypegs dodged back in alarm; “a real baby, alive and kickin’!”
“Pshaw! it ain’t possible!” said Mr Toosypegs, in a voice betraying not the slightest particle of emotion.
“It is – hincredulous as it may sound, it’s true,” said Mr. Harkins, solemnly. “The way I found hit hout was this: I was comin’ halong ’ome, one night hafter bringing hoff a cove w’at got waylaid to Lunnon, a-singin’ to myself that there song, the ‘Roast Beef hof Hold Hingland,’ hand a-thinkin’ no more ’arm, Mr. Toosypegs, nor a lot hof young pigses goin’ to market,” said Mr. Harkins, giving his stick a grand flourish to mark this bold figure of speech. “It wasn’t a dark night, Mr. Toosypegs, nor yet a light one; the starses was a-shinin’ like heverything, when, hall hof a suddint, a ’and was laid hon the reins, hand a voice, so deep and orful-like hit made me fairly jump, said:
“‘Will you let me ride hin your vagging has far has you’re going?’
“I looked round, Mr. Toosypegs,” continued Mr. Harkins, in a husky whisper, “and there I see’d that there gipsy queen, lookin’ so dark, hand fierce, and wild-like, I nearly jumped clean hout the wagging. Blessed! if I wasn’t skeert! Just then I heerd a cry from a bundle she’d got in her arms, hand what do you think I saw, Mr. Toosypegs?”
The startling energy with which Mr. Harkins, carried away by the excitement of his story, asked this question, so discomposed the mild young man with the freckles, that he gave a sudden jump back, and glanced in terror at the narrator’s elbow.
“Really, Mr. Harkins, I don’t know, I’m sure,” said Mr. Toosypegs, grasping his carpet-bag, nervously.
“A baby!” said Mr. Harkins, in the same mysterious, husky whisper; “a baby, Mr. Toosypegs! Now, the question his, where did that there baby come from?”
Mr. Harkins gave his hat a slap on the crown, for emphasis, and, resting both hands on the top of his stick, came to a sudden halt, and looked Mr. Toosypegs severely in the face.
“A – really, Mr. Harkins – I – a – I hadn’t the remotest idea,” said Mr. Toosypegs, blushing to the very roots of his hair, “I hope you don’t suspect me – ”
“Bah!” interrupted Mr. Harkins, with a look of disgust; “nobody never said nothin’ about you! Well, Mr. Toosypegs, I took her hin, has she hasked, and brought her along has far has my ’ouse, where Missus ’Arkins gave her something to eat for the little ’un, which was has fine a little fellow has you’d wish to see. Then she went hoff, and the next week we heard she’d gone and went crazy.”
“Poor thing. Why, I’m real sorry, Mr. Harkins. I dare say she was a real nice old lady, if she’d been let alone,” said Mr. Toosypegs, in a tone of commiseration.
“Why, who tetched her?” said Mr. Harkins, testily.
“Well, they went and transported her son, and I’m sure it wasn’t right at all, when he did not want to go. She looked real put out about it that night, herself, too.”
“S’pose you heerd her son was drown-ded?”
“Yes; I saw it in the papers, and I was real sorry – I really was. Mr. Harkins, I dare say you was, too?”
Mr. Harkins grunted.
“All hands was lost, wasn’t they?” said Mr. Harkins, after a short pause.
“Yes; all hands and feet,” said Mr. Toosypegs, venturing on a weak joke; but, catching the stern look of Mr. Harkins, at this improper levity, he instantly grew serious again; “the ship struck against something – ”
“A mermaid,” suggested Mr. Harkins.
“Mr. Harkins, I’m very much obliged to you, but it wasn’t a mermaid, it was a coral reef – that’s the name – and went to the bottom with all hands and the cook.”
“Which is a melancholic picture hof the treacherousness hof the hocean,” said Mr. Harkins, in a moralizing tone, “hand should be a severe warning to hall, when they steal, not to let themselves get tooken hup, lest they be tooken down a peg or two, hafter.”
“But you know, Mr. Harkins, it’s been found out since he wasn’t the one who stole the plate, at all. That man