THE GIPSIES.
“Do tell us, mama, whether gipsies really steal children?” said Edwin, on his return from his morning’s walk with his nurse and sister. “There is a camp to-day in the green lane, and nurse would not let us stir a step from her side. I thought that the stories about them were only silly fables like those of witches and fairies.”
“Most of those you meet with are no doubt inventions, but I believe there have been some actual instances of these wandering tribes carrying off children, either for the purpose of swelling their numbers, or of exciting compassion when they beg. I remember one story which professes to be true, and which at any rate may interest you and Emily. Shall I tell it to you?”
“O pray, pray let us hear it!” cried Emily and Edwin at once. So here it is.
THE STOLEN CHILD.
“I think you had best not bring Miss Julia in, for I fear my children are sickening with the measles, and I should be sorry the pretty soul ran the risk of taking them,” said a fisherman’s wife to Julia Aubrey’s nurse, who had been desired in the course of their stroll on the beach to call and give directions concerning some fruit-nets on which the poor woman was employed. The nurse looked perplexed; she had many directions to give, and this was an office of which she was particularly fond.
“‘O do trust me, nurse, while you go in,’ said Julia eagerly; ‘the beach is very wide here, and I promise I will not go near the edge; I will only keep close to the rocks to look for the little shells which are always left by the tide sticking in the clefts. You will find me just round that corner.’ The nurse still hesitated. ‘Do, dear nurse,’ said Julia coaxingly, ‘do trust me; you know that the birds are eating all the fruit, and that the gardener has told you all about the sizes the nets should be. He can’t come here with his broken leg himself, and every one else but you would blunder about it.’
“This last argument, though not intentional artifice on Julia’s part, was certain to carry her point. Julia’s nurse contented herself with reminding her of her promise to keep away from the waves, and to be sure not to go beyond the ‘black rock just round the corner.’ Away tripped Julia, and proud of being trusted out of sight, never stopped till she had attained the utmost limit of her furlough. The corner of the cliff once turned, she placed her little basket on the shingle, and stooping down, began busily to pick up the shells and sea weeds, which, still wet and shining, glittered most temptingly in the sun. Her own intentness on her employment, and the deafening murmur of the waves, chafed as they were at that point by the broken rocks that fretted their course, prevented Julia from hearing an approaching step, and the terrified child all at once found her bonnet roughly snatched off, and her whole head tightly muffled in a woollen cloak. To scream was impossible, for besides the folds of the cloak, the unhappy child felt a hard bony hand clapped over them on her mouth. In this way she was carried rapidly along some distance, when the person who bore her suddenly stopped. ‘What have you got there?’ asked a harsh voice.
“‘Why, I hardly know, and I hardly know why I took her,’ was the reply, and the old gipsy (for such she was) shook Julia roughly off her shoulders. ‘I had been prowling about,’ continued she, ‘since cock-crow, and had knapped nothing; so, as I found this chick without a hen to watch it, I took it, rather not to come back without booty, than for any good it is like to do us.’
“‘Good!’ exclaimed the first voice; ‘I think it’s like to do us a great deal of ill! They’ll rid the country of us if they catch us, and I think the sooner we rid it of ourselves the better. We had best take to the boat again directly. Our old comrade, Dick the smuggler, is now below just ready to push off, and as his boat brought us at sunrise, so it had better take us back at sunset, for aught I can see.’