“Ay, now, you will be telling me next that the pale face is the fault of this place.”
“It certainly is,” said Fleming. “That child was chubby enough when he came.”
“Pho, pho! a puny little wretch as ever I saw—puny from its birth, I have no doubt of it. And who is the other—a gypsy?”
“He looks like it,” replied Fleming. On being questioned, Moss told that the boy lived near, and he had often played with him lately. Yes, he lived near, just beyond those trees; not in a house, only a sort of house the people had made for themselves. Mr. Nelson liked to lecture vagrants, even more than other people; so Moss was required to show the way, and his dark-skinned playfellow was not allowed to skulk behind.
Moss led his party on, over the tufty hay-colored grass, skipping from bunch to bunch of rushes, round the osier-beds, and at last straight through a clump of elders, behind whose screen now appeared the house, as Moss had called it, which the gypsies had made for themselves. It was the tilt of a wagon, serving as a tent. Nobody was visible but a woman, crouching under the shadow of the tent, to screen from the sun that which was lying across her lap.
“What is that that she’s nursing? Lord bless me! Can that be a child?” exclaimed Mr. Nelson.
“A child in the fever,” replied Fleming.
“Lord bless me!—to see legs and arms hang down like that!” exclaimed the gentleman; and he forthwith gave the woman a lecture on her method of nursing—scolded her for letting the child get a fever—for not putting it to bed—for not getting a doctor to it—for being a gypsy, and living under an alder clump. He then proceeded to inquire whether she had anybody else in the tent, where her husband was, whether he lived by thieving, how they would all like being transported, whether she did not think her children would all be hanged, and so on. At first, the woman tried a facetious and wheedling tone, then a whimpering one, and, finally, a scolding one. The last answered well. Mr. Nelson found that a man, to say nothing of a gentleman, has no chance with a woman with a sore heart in her breast, and a sick child in her lap, when once he has driven her to her weapon of the tongue. He said afterwards, that he had once gone to Billingsgate, on purpose to set two fisherwomen quarrelling, that he might see what it was like. The scene had fulfilled all his expectations; but he now declared that it could not compare with this exhibition behind the alders. He stood a long while, first trying to overpower the woman’s voice; and, when that seemed hopeless, poking about among the rushes with his stick, and finally, staring in the woman’s face, in a mood between consternation and amusement;—thus he stood, waiting till the torrent should intermit; but there was no sign of intermission; and when the sick child began to move and rouse itself, and look at the strangers, as if braced by the vigor of its mother’s tongue, the prospect of an end seemed farther off than ever. Mr. Nelson shrugged his shoulders, signed to his companions, and walked away through the alders. The woman was not silent because they were out of sight. Her voice waxed shriller as it followed them, and died away only in the distance. Moss was grasping Fleming’s hand with all his might when Mr. Nelson spoke to him, and shook his stick at him, asking him how he came to play with such people, and saying that if ever he heard him learning to scold like that woman, he would beat him with that stick; so Moss vowed he never would.
When the train was in sight by which Mr. Nelson was to depart, he turned to Fleming, with the most careless air imaginable, saying, “Have you any medicine in your house?—any bark?”
“Not any. But I will send for some.”