Just as he was abreast of the lads, one whispered something to the other, but what it was Vane could not understand, for it sounded mere gibberish.
Then the other replied, without moving his head, and Vane passed on.
“I don’t believe it’s a regular language they talk,” he said to himself. “Only a lot of slang words they’ve made up. What do they call it? Rum—Rum—Romany, that is it. Well, it doesn’t sound Roman-like to me.”
About a hundred yards on he looked back, to see that the two gipsy lads were in eager converse, and one was gesticulating so fiercely, that it looked like quarrelling.
But Vane had something else to think about, and he went on, holding the tools inside his pockets, to keep them from clicking together as he turned up toward the rectory, just catching sight of the gipsy lads again, now out in the road and slouching along toward the town.
“Wonder whether Mr Symes is at home again,” thought Vane, but he did not expect that he would be, as it was his hour for being from the rectory, perhaps having a drive, so that he felt pretty easy about him. But he kept a sharp look-out for Gilmore and the others.
“Hardly likely for them to be in,” he thought; and then he felt annoyed with himself because his visit seemed furtive and deceptive.
As a rule, he walked up to the front of the house, feeling quite at home, and as if he were one of its inmates, whereas now there was the feeling upon him that he had no business to go upon his present mission, and that the first person he met would ask him what right he had to come sneaking up there with tools in his pockets.
For a moment he thought he would go back, but he mastered that, and went on, only to hesitate once more, feeling sure that he had heard faintly the rector’s peculiar clearing of his voice—“Hah-errum!”
His active brain immediately raised up the portly figure of his tutor before him, raising his eyebrows, and questioning him about why he was there; but these thoughts were chased away directly after, as he came to an opening in the trees, through which he could look right away to where the river went winding along through the meadows, edged with pollard willows, and there, quite half-a-mile away, he could see a solitary figure standing close to the stream.