The man obeyed and retired, and De Vaux proceeded to put down some notes in regard to what he was to demand of the gipsy, and what was to be the exact course he was to pursue, in order--without admitting any fact till it was proved, or committing himself in any way--to arrive both at the most accurate knowledge of his real situation, and the most incontestable proofs of whatever was affirmed by the man he went to visit.
When he had done this, he thought of going to bed; but his head ached a good deal, with all the agitation he had gone through during the day, crowned by the conversation of Lady Barbara Simpson during dinner, and the tedium of Mr. Simpson after it; and approaching one of the windows, he drew the curtain, opened the shutters, and looked out. It was still moonlight, as when he had handed her ladyship to her carriage; and throwing up the heavy sash, he leaned out, enjoying the cool air. The moon was just at her highest noon, and the sky was beautifully clear, except inasmuch as, every now and then, there floated across a light white cloud, which the wind seemed playfully to cast round the planet, like a veil, as she walked on in soft and modest splendour, among the bright eyes of all the crowd of stars. The river, gleaming like melted silver, appeared at the extremity of the park, with the line of its banks, broken here and there by majestic elms; and even beyond the grounds, glimpses of its windings might be caught among the distant fields and plantations. The little wooded promontory that flanked the park, with the higher hill, starting up from the isthmus over which the road passed, rose grandly up, like two towering steps, towards the glittering heavens; and beyond the sloping fields and their hedgerow elms, with many an undulating line, lay soft and obscure, in the sheeny moonlight, as far as a spot where, half-way up the higher hill in front, the extreme horizontal line of the distant country cut upon the sky. Scarce a sound was to be heard as De Vaux gazed forth, but the whispering of the light breeze among the tree tops, and the sweet plaintive belling of the deer in the park below.
"If I had known that these people would have gone so soon," he thought, "I would have made my visit to the gipsies' encampment to-night instead of to-morrow. The gipsies sit up, carousing by their fires, I believe, for full one-half of the night; and I might have set my mind at rest about this business without waiting so long."
The thought of going even then now struck him; and he paused for a few minutes to consider whether he ought to do so or not. "I shall not sleep, even if I go to bed," he thought. "With all these things weighing on my mind, slumber is not very likely to visit me. A couple of hours will be enough to obtain all the information that I want; and returning home, I may sleep in certainty to-night, and to-morrow have to tell Marian that my apprehensions were groundless, or that our lot, as far as station and fortune go, must be lower than we at one time expected. I shall then have time, too, to sleep over my information, and to lay out my plan of action for to-morrow deliberately. I wonder if any of the servants are up yet?"
The fears that Marian had expressed for his safety crossed his mind for a moment; but they crossed it merely as apprehensions, which might have given her some pain, if she knew that he was venturing to the gipsies' encampment at midnight. No doubt of his own security ever entered his thoughts; for, although De Vaux's imagination was a very active one, it was not fertile in images of personal danger. In short, he was constitutionally brave; and, like his father, did not know what corporal fear is. "I shall only have to tell Marian," he again thought, "that I have been, and that all she was alarmed about is over."
He gave one more look to the moonlight and then closed his window. His boots were speedily drawn on; his dressing-gown exchanged for a military coat; his sword buckled to his side; and, in conformity with his promise to Marian, a brace of loaded pistols placed in his bosom. Thus equipped, he opened his door and descended the staircase. All was quiet; the lamp in the hall was still glimmering, though somewhat faintly; the servants were all evidently in bed; and turning the key in the glass door at the end of the lobby, De Vaux opened it cautiously, and stepped out upon the lawn.
[CHAPTER XI.]
The moon was shining bright and clear upon Morley Down, covering every rise on which its beams fell with soft and silvery light, and casting every dell and opposite slope into dark broad shadow. From that height a slight degree of mistiness appeared, hanging over the scene in the valley; but above, all was clear; and the satellite of the earth was so bountiful of her reflected rays, that our fellow-stars could scarcely be seen in the sky, twinkling faintly, half eclipsed by her excess of splendour. The scattered bushes and stunted hawthorns, and the tumulus, with its clump of towering beeches, caught the rays; but, with the peculiar effect of trees by moonlight, the latter seemed more to absorb than to reflect the light, while their long deep shadows cast upon the neighbouring ground, showed, at least, that they served to intercept the beams. In many of the little pits and hollows of the ground small pools of water had been formed; and so often did these appear, glistening in the moonshine, in situations otherwise dark, that it seemed as if the light sought out purposely the objects best calculated to reflect it, and, like active benevolence in search of humble merit, followed them into the dim and lowly abodes where they had made their dwelling.
From these pools, however, the sand-pit in which the gipsies had pitched their tents was free; and the only water it contained was afforded by a small clear spring, which the labourers had cut through in digging for the produce of the pit; and, which, welling from the bank, fell into a clear small basin of yellow sand that would, in all probability, have absorbed it speedily, had it not found a sudden channel among some smooth stones and gravel, and thence wound away, forced into a thousand meanders by the irregularity of the ground, till, issuing forth upon the common, it pursued its course down the hill, and, joined by several other brooks, poured no inconsiderable addition into the river in the valley below. It, too, caught the moonbeams and glanced brightly in them; but that was not the only light that shone upon it, as it trickled down the bank, and rested in its little basin below. A redder and less pure gleam was reflected from its waters, for at about twenty yards from the source, close under shelter of the high bank and overhanging bushes, the gipsies had pitched their tents; and now, though the hour was nearly midnight, they were just in the midst of those revels that often rise up from many a moor and many a planting throughout old England, while the rest of her denizens are fast asleep. The evening was as warm as if it had been far earlier in the year; and although the wind was high it whistled sheer over the pit, without visiting with its rude search the corner thereof in which the race of wanderers had nested their encampment. The very sound, however, and the freshness of the night air, rendered the idea of a fire any thing but unpleasant; and in three different spots of the gipsy encampment the blaze rose up and the sticks crackled, while the pots, now withdrawn from the flame, the bottles of various shapes that lay round, and the cups, some of tin, some of horn, some of silver,[[3]] that circulated somewhat rapidly, told that the last and merriest meal of the day had commenced.
Three several groups had assembled round the three fires, and each had its peculiar character. At that which burned in the middle of the scene appeared Pharold, leaning upon the ground, with his elbow supported by a projection of the bank, with a middle-aged woman on one side, and the beautiful girl we have before mentioned on the other. Two or three stout men, of from forty to fifty years, surrounded him; and though joining boldly and freely in all that passed, it was evident that they listened to him when he spoke with the respect due to experience and command, and without any of that sullenness which we have noticed in some of the younger members of the tribe who were with him in the forest. Some more women completed that group; and, though merry enough, it was evident, by their demeanour, that there sat the eiders of the tribe. The next fire, at the door of a tent farther up the pit, was surrounded by a different assemblage, though it was in some degree mixed. At the entrance of the little hut itself appeared the beldam whom we have seen acting as cook in the forest, and who on that occasion, had shown some inclination towards a resistance of Pharold's authority. Round about her were five or six sturdy young men, from five-and-twenty to thirty, and five or six women; two of whom did not appear to be more than eighteen or nineteen years of age, while the rest were fine buxom brown dames of thirty-five or six. The worthy lady of the hut, however, seemed now to have lost her acerbity; and in a gay and jovial mood, with many a quip and many a jest, kept all her younger auditors in a roar; though every now and then, with a curl of the lip and a winking eye, she glanced towards the party at the other fire, as if their graver conversation was the subject of her merry sarcasm.