"And no one stirring in the house or in the park?" demanded Pharold.
"In the park all was dark and solitary," she replied: "I saw nothing but some fine fat deer, and an owl that came skimming along before us in the long walk; and on the outside of the house all was quiet enough too: but there were two rooms above where there were lights; and I waited awhile to see if they would be put out: but they were so long, that I made up my mind, as all the rest was still, to creep on; and I got close under the boy's window and called his name, and he told me that the lights were in the room where the man is dying."
Pharold mused again; but the man whom we have heard called by the name of Brown, a powerful gipsy of about forty years of age, took a step forward, and laid his hand kindly upon Pharold's arm. "I will tell you what, Pharold," he said, "this seems to me a doubtful sort of business. I do not think the boy would do any thing willingly to trap one of us: but he may have been taken in somehow; and it does seem as if there was something strange about it; so I'll tell you what, I'll go, and the old woman shall show me the way."
"No, Brown, no," said Pharold; "I would put upon no man what I was afraid to do myself,--if I could be afraid to do any thing. If there be no treachery, there is nothing to fear: and if there be treachery, I should be base, indeed, if I let any of my people fall into what was meant for myself. No, no, I will go: no man can avoid his hour, Brown. We all know that when fate has fixed what is to happen, we may turn which way we will, but we shall not escape it. I will go; and if there be treachery, let it light upon the heads of those that devised it. It is my fate--I will go."
"No, no, Pharold," said the other; "let me go. To me they can do nothing. Me they cannot charge with any crime, even unjustly; for I was not in the park at all when the man was shot. You and all the others were, though you went there to prevent it; and so, if they catch you, they may send you to prison: but if they catch me, they can do nothing with me. They can but say I came to speak with the poor boy through the bars."
Pharold, however, persisted. It had ever been his habit among his fellows to take upon himself the execution of any thing difficult or dangerous, and he regarded it almost as a privilege, which he clung to the more, in the present instance, from a superstitious conviction that fate was leading him on, and that it was useless to struggle against its influence. "There yet remains the whole day before us," he said, when he had silenced opposition, "and but little remains to be done. Call all the people round me, Brown, for I am going to speak with them,--perhaps it may be for the last time."
The gipsies who already surrounded him saw well that a presentiment of approaching death weighed upon the mind of him who had been so long their leader, and it is but doing them justice to acknowledge, that most of them grieved sincerely to observe that such was the case. None, however, offered comfort or consolation; for their belief in their own superstitious traditions was far too strong for any one to dream even that such a presentiment might prove fallacious. The rest of the tribe were soon called together; and, stretching themselves out in various groups around, with the clear forest stream bubbling and murmuring through the midst, and the bright sun streaming through the oaks and beeches upon the bank on which they lay, they waited in silence for what Pharold had to say. The tone he assumed was simple and calm, perhaps less marked and emphatic than that which he generally affected. "My friends," he began, "I am going this night upon a matter more dangerous than any that I have ever yet attempted,--at least so, for many reasons, I am led to think; in it I may probably be taken by men who hate and persecute us; and if I be so taken, do not deceive yourselves--I shall never return among you alive. I feel it, I know it; and, therefore, if by the first light of to-morrow's sun I have not returned, look upon me as among the dead, take up your tents, and go as far as you may. When you are so far from this place that they cannot follow you to persecute you, seek out what has become of the clay that I leave behind. Lay me in the earth, in some green wood, but where the summer sun may shine upon me, and the winter snow may fall: turn my face to the eastward, and put one hand upon my heart, and let not the earth that covers me be more than four palms deep.[[7]] When you have done all this, forget me; but forget not what I am going to say. Remember, ever before all things, that you are a nation apart, and mingle not with the strangers among whom you dwell. Let them follow their way, and you follow your way. Give obedience to their laws, but maintain your own liberties: bend to their power, but preserve the customs of your fathers. Shut, them out, too, as far as may be, from among you: let them not learn either your history, or your language, or your knowledge; for if they do they will make these the means of softening and enslaving, under the pretence of civilizing and improving you. Forget not that you have been, and that you shall yet be, a great people; nor ever think that there are too few of you left for the time of your greatness to come. Look at this acorn: it fell from a great tree, that has been cut down; and though now it be smaller than the egg of a wren, it shall be as great as the mightiest of the forest. So is it, and so shall it be, with you. None of you can ever gain so much as I could have gained by abandoning my people; but I would not do it. I refused wealth, and ease, and honour, and I chose poverty, and wandering, and persecution, because I was born of the gipsy race, and would not belie the blood of my fathers, by mingling with the persecutors of our people--because I would not be chosen from among them for a plaything and an experiment. I learned their knowledge, though they learned not ours, and I returned to mine own as true in heart as when I left them. Thus let it be with you all; and if, after I am gone, the name of Pharold is ever mentioned, let it be as an example of how true our people should be to the ways of their fathers."
He paused, and there followed among those who surrounded him the low murmur of people who draw their breath deep after a long and eager attention, but no one spoke; and in a few minutes Pharold proceeded:--"If I return no more, there will be some one wanting to lead and direct you all aright. My choice falls upon you, Brown, as the calmest, and the wisest, and the bravest, with years sufficient to ensure experience, and yet with vigour unimpaired by age. Do you consent, my brothers, that he shall be your Ria?"
The choice was one which all anticipated, and with which all were pleased, except, perhaps, two or three, who, feeling that they ought to be satisfied though they were not, and that they must submit whether they liked it or not, yielded with the rest, or, perhaps, gave more clamorous approval. "I have now," continued Pharold, turning towards Lena, who, since the people had been called round him, had remained near in silent tears while he had been speaking,--"I have now spoken to you of all things save one. I leave among you my wife, then a widow; and as Heaven knows I have dealt justly with you all, so, I beseech you, deal justly and kindly by her. Be unto her as brethren and sisters. I supplied unto her the place of parents that are dead; you supply unto her, I beseech you, my place when I am dead also. Let her share with the rest in what you gain, until she shall choose out some one to be to her a support and a husband. Let her choice depend upon herself, but oh, let her choice be good; let it not fix upon a fair form or a smooth tongue, but upon a strong mind and a noble heart."
He spoke firmly, but, perhaps, somewhat bitterly; and Lena, though she raised her eyes for a moment with a look of imploring deprecation, said nothing, but wept on in silence. "And now," continued Pharold, "I will have done, my friends, with but one more injunction, which is, keep together. Let not the people of the land separate you, but be ye true among yourselves."