“‘Do you grumble at what I have done?’ said the old woman in a voice of rage and authority: ‘A’n’t I the mother and the ruler of your tribe, eh? However, the counsel itself,’ added she less harshly, ‘is good, and the sooner we are off, I believe, the better.’
“Dick the smuggler, who had lately exchanged for that, his former profession of gipsy, readily consented to convey the party to some unfrequented part of the coast, and as soon as the boat was fairly at sea, Julia’s head was unmuffled, and she was at least allowed to cry for a few moments at her ease.
“I will not attempt to describe her feelings; indeed, she was too young to allow of their taking a connected turn. My little readers can easily guess what it would be to be torn away from their own sweet home, and all the dear accustomed faces and soft familiar voices attendant on it, and to find themselves rocking in a rude boat on the rough sea, surrounded by strange figures, haggard and horrible, and voices rough or shrill, sometimes uttering unintelligible gibberish, and sometimes harshly scolding her for being ‘such a simpleton as to cry when nobody was hurting her;’ adding a threat, that if she did ‘not stop her whimpering, they would give her something to cry for in good earnest.’ The evening of the next day found the gipsy party safely landed, and encamping for the night at the edge of the New Forest. The old gipsy heaped some cloaks on the ground, and pointing them out to Julia, told her to ‘go to rest, for that was her bed.’ The poor child stopped her sobbing, and instinctively dropped on her knees, as if she had been in her own quiet nursery, and clasping her little hands, began her evening prayer. ‘O Lord, thou art a God of great power and mercy, thou seest me by night as well as by day;’ when she was stopped by a blow across the shoulders from the old gipsy, accompanied by an angry order to ‘lie down; for,’ added she, muttering, ‘who that sees her do that, will think she belongs to us?’
“But there was one of the horde on whom Julia’s action and half-finished prayer had made a far different impression. There was among the gipsies an orphan girl, named Keziah: her father and mother had died in her infancy, and her grandmother (the same old woman who had stolen Julia) had brought her up with more of tenderness than might appear to have belonged to her nature. She was delicate in health, and timid in disposition; so that, not being thought fit to share in their predatory excursions, it was generally her office to remain with their tent, to watch their fires, or to dress the provisions they brought. Solitude had given a thoughtful cast to her young mind, and many were the vague notions of better things that wavered across it during her hours of lonely watching in the dark hollows of the woods, or the quiet nooks of the green lanes in which their tent was commonly pitched. She had, too, occasionally heard the sabbath bells, and she had seen from the hills the villagers flocking to their parish churches; and well she knew they went there to worship some Being of whom she had been taught nothing; and when the last lingerers had quitted their leaning postures by the rails and grave-stones in the sunny churchyard, and the sound of the closing of the doors reached her ears, followed by the burst of solemn melody as the congregation, with one heart and one voice, sent up the sacrifice of their morning hymn, Keziah would throw herself on the green sward, and folding her arms passionately across her breast, sob out, ‘O that I could hear the words that flow from those happy, happy lips, that I might join them too!’ But any questions which she ventured on the subject of the unknown Being whom she panted to worship, were received with ridicule by the younger gipsies, and with anger by her grandmother. The beginning of Julia’s simple prayer—‘O Lord, thou art a God of power and great mercy, thou seest me by night as well as by day,’ gave the poor ignorant Keziah more knowledge of her Creator than she had ever before had an opportunity of possessing. ‘She shall teach me,’ thought the young gipsy to herself; and when she laid herself down to rest that night, she drew her heap of straw close to Julia’s bed, and clasping her own hands beneath her cloak, she repeated in her heart the words she had just heard uttered.
“The terror and fatigue of the preceding day, and a night passed in the open air, had their natural effect on poor Julia. The next morning she was ill.
“‘What shall we do?’ said the old gipsy; ‘it would bode us no good that she should die here. Keziah,’ added she, ‘thou art fonder of nursing sick bantlings than the rest of us, I give this one to your charge. If she gets well, thou canst make her pick sticks for thee to feed the fires, and she will be some company for thee, and may be, hinder thee from getting so mopish as thou hast done of late, by being left so much alone.’
“Keziah received her charge most gladly, and from that hour Julia was carried on the young gipsy’s back by day, and folded in her arms, with her cloak wrapped closely round her, by night. To guard her little charge from fresh cold, Keziah spread a tent each night, under which they slept. She purposely placed it a few yards distant from the rest of the party, and before they composed themselves to sleep, she said softly to Julia, ‘Now you may safely kneel down and say what my grandmother hindered you from saying the first night you were with us, but not too loud, and you shall teach it to me too in a whisper.’
“‘O, may I?’ said Julia. ‘I shall not be so very unhappy now, for that will make me fancy myself at my home before I go to sleep, and then perhaps God will comfort me by letting me dream of my own dear papa and mama; and I will teach you my morning prayer also, and my catechism that I used to read every morning in my bed. It is about ‘the great God who made heaven and earth,’ and about his Son Jesus Christ’s coming down from the sky to die for us, that God might forgive us our sins, and about our going to live with God in heaven after we die if we are good, and going to everlasting fire if we are wicked. O, I will tell you all mama has taught me, for you are very kind to me, though you do live with that cruel old woman.’
“‘Hush!’ said Keziah, ‘she is my mother’s mother, and she is kind to me; but I wonder she could find in her heart to bring you away; but I will do all I can to comfort you, if I cannot make you happy;’—and the young gipsy kept her word.
“From this time Keziah and her little charge were inseparable. During the absence of the rest of the party on their foraging excursions, Keziah and Julia were left for hours together alone. These hours were sometimes passed by Keziah in eagerly listening to all that her little companion could tell her of her God and her religion; sometimes, to amuse the poor child, the gipsy girl would sing to her the wild ballads of her tribe; sometimes she would teach her to detect the scarlet strawberry from beneath its dark green leaf, or the dormouse’s moss-covered hoard. She would tell her the names and notes of the woodland birds, and point out to her the crested wren’s nest swinging from the branches of the oak, or the oval one of the blue titmouse, wove of many-coloured lichens, and filled so full of tiny eggs with the yoke blushing through their transparent shell. At other times they would watch together the parent squirrels climbing over their nest, followed by their young ones, to be carefully practised in balancing their feeble limbs on the waving branches of the firs, and, their daily exercise over, to be led back to rest and shelter; often too the young gipsy would teach her little favourite to plat baskets of rushes and variously tinted mosses. At these times, Keziah’s promise was more than kept: Julia was ‘comforted,’ and not unhappy; but then came the old gipsy’s return, and her detested sight brought back all Julia’s terror and heart-breaking pinings for her home.