Fin Cooper's tall form, growing on her, as it were, in the twilight, was already at her side, his voice whispering in her ear—"I've watched for you, Thyra," said he, "since long before noon. The camp seems lonely and empty when you leave it for a day; and I often wonder now how we could do without you so many years! But what has been our sister's good luck? Has she returned with pockets full of gold? Has she deceived and fleeced the Gorgio, and stolen the very heart out of his breast?"
Waif smiled a bitter smile. "The Gorgio turns the tables sometimes, Fin," she answered. "When you deal out the cards to play, how can you tell who is to rise up winner?"
He looked sharply in her face. "You're tired," said he; "you that never used to be tired, no more than the wild deer in the forest, the wild bird in the air. Thyra! Thyra!" he added, and his voice came low and husky, as if an enemy's hand gripped his throat, "there's something dark come between you and me! Something that dims the light in your eye, and takes the colour out of your face. What is it? Speak, girl, and tell the truth. There's times when I could put my knife into you, and make an end of it once for all. I'll do it some day, I know; I feel like it now!"
In her exceeding misery, but for the last sentence she might have told him her secret then and there; but to threaten Waif was to throw stones into the air that would fall back perpendicularly on a man's head. The gipsy girl recovered her strength and courage in the drawing of a breath. "That's a game for two players!" she answered fiercely. "I've worn a knife, too, Fin, as long as I can remember, and I keep it sharper than yours, I daresay. But what's the use of you and me wrangling? I'm not bound to tell you where I've been—when I go out—and when I come in. You're not my master, brother; not yet!"
She was sufficiently a woman to put just such an emphasis on the last word as changed his mood like magic. In a moment he was her slave again, ready to do her bidding, obey her lightest wish, no less eagerly than when he went bird's-nesting for her in his boyhood, long years ago.
"But you'll tell me some day," he pleaded, bending his tall form to look in the girl's face. "You'll keep nothing from Fin, when we hang the kettle at our own tent-door in the camp of the Vardo-mescros, and my brothers troop in by scores to have a look at Fin Cooper's beautiful wife; you'll tell me all your secrets then, Thyra, won't you?
"Perhaps!" answered Waif. "In the meantime, will you tell me what makes this stir and noise amongst our people? They are swarming down yonder like bees about a hive."
"Duke Michael came in at noon," answered Fin, "and the kettles have been singing in the smoke ever since. He brought the cart and the donkey and both his wives from the cudgel-players' country" (Cornwall), "and never halted but once to do a bit of tinkering on a moorland farm, till he turned the head of the coombe here in our very midst. The women were so tired, that Lura would have fallen flat to the ground if I hadn't caught her in my arms, and lifted her out of the cart. Old Maggie was little better, though she boasts that the Bosvilles of the Border want neither food nor rest if they can get enough to drink; but the Duke tossed off a coro of brandy, pitched his tent, lit his fire, swung his kettle, and went into business at once, as if he were thirty years old, instead of getting on for ninety! There's been eating and drinking in plenty ever since. Not a Romany will lie down sober to-night, Thyra, but me, and I've you to thank for it!" He spoke in the plaintive tone of one who has sustained injury from a beloved hand, but relents and forgives.
A fresh burst of laughter, with the chorus of a song, led by stentorian lungs, reached them where they stood. On Waif's strung nerves and weary frame it jarred acutely; but Fin turned his head to listen with obvious approval. "That's the Gorgio!" he exclaimed; "the mellowest voice and the best man of his weight, this side Barnstaple, be the other who he may! If we'd known more about him, we'd never played him such a trick to bring him here!"
"What Gorgio?" asked the girl, for whom there was but one in the world, her foolish heart beating fast, with a wild hope that in some impossible manner John Garnet might even now be a visitor to the gipsies' camp.