The Gipsy: A Tale (Vols I & II). G. P. R. James
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 anticipated 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 élève 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 anticipated, as soon as her back was turned.
"Good-morning, Colonel Manners," she said, as they walked towards the breakfast-room; "you find me with a curious little companion: but the fact is, that, while you were all out walking yesterday, a poor gipsy woman accidentally fell down from the high bank close by the house, and was brought in here, completely stunned. The village apothecary was away; and, as I endeavour to enact my Lady Bountiful, I did what I could for the poor creature, who soon recovered. We had half a dozen of her tribe in the servant's hall, however; and, much to the butler's and Peter's surprise--and, I must confess, to my own also--when they went away, nothing was missing. According to a promise made by one of them, they have sent me down that little boy this morning to tell me that the poor woman is now quite well. I wished to have despatched the apothecary to her, and offered to do so as soon as he returned; but they seemed to have an invincible repugnance to all the professors of the healing art."
"All people, I believe, who enjoy very good health," replied Colonel Manners, "feel the same towards the learned doctors--the very sight of one reminds us of losing one of the best blessings of Heaven. However, the meeting with that little gipsy gentleman here explains something which I might have made a mystery of, had I not heard your account of your yesterday's interview; for this morning I had a long conversation with a gipsy on the hill--a very singular person--who addressed me at once by name, and seemed perfectly well acquainted with my being at your house."
"Oh, your servant was present yesterday," replied Mrs. Falkland, "and, with all the dexterity of an old soldier, gave us very great assistance in bringing the poor woman to herself. I remarked, too, that her gipsy companions did but little, and contented themselves with standing round, asking irrelevant questions of the servants, which, of course, in that temple of tittle-tattle, a servant's hall, they found somebody willing to answer; so that I dare say there was nothing supernatural in your name being known on the hill. But how came you, Colonel Manners," she added, with a smile, "how came you in such deep consultation with a gipsy at this hour of the morning? You surely have not been having your fortune told?"
"I must plead guilty, I am afraid," replied Colonel Manners; "but if the fault be a very grievous one, I must lay the blame upon Miss Falkland, as it was under her special injunctions that I went."
"Indeed!" said Mrs. Falkland; "and to answer what object?"
"Oh, if you mean Miss Falkland's object, I really cannot tell," he replied; "and my object was certainly a very foolish one, but one that leads many a man to do a still more foolish thing: I mean, it was to prove that I was not afraid."
"And pray, what was the result?" demanded Mrs. Falkland; but by this time they were at the breakfast-room door, and Colonel Manners declared that he would not communicate his fate to any one before he revealed it to Miss Falkland in general consistory. This he had soon an opportunity of doing: and the whole business was laughed at gayly enough. It is wonderful how light a little merriment soon makes every thing appear; and this is the reason why, in moments of mirth and cheerfulness, so many secrets are revealed that one would often give worlds to shut up again in the casket of one's own breast. Let wise diplomatists keep far from merriment; for a light laugh or a gay witticism, whose idle wings seemed hardly strong enough to flutter it across the table, has often taken a weighty secret on its back, and flown away with it, never to return. Now, the letter that the gipsy had given Colonel Manners for his friend he had believed might be of some importance, as long as he was alone; but every gay word that was spoken on the subject of gipsies and fortune-telling took away something from its weight in his estimation; and had he been only restrained by a sense of its importance, he might have delivered the letter before breakfast was over, and made a jest of it. It has never been said that Colonel Manners was perfect; and though his mind was strong, it certainly was not without a full share of human weaknesses. Colonel Manners, however, was restrained by something besides a sense of the letter's importance--he had given his word to deliver it in a particular manner; and, whatever else he might do in the way of frailties, he never forgot a promise, though, in the present instance, it was long ere he found an opportunity of fulfilling the one he had made the gipsy on the hill.
Any one who has tried to speak with another for five minutes in private, without the pomp and circumstance of demanding an interview, will know that