A little gipsy lass

by Gordon Stables

Antony was a hopeful young fellow, however; and though a month in his snow-prison might not have hurt, he thought that in three months things would become a trifle monotonous, especially as they were a long journey from the camp of Biffins Lee. He need not have feared starvation, however, nor loneliness either, for when the sun began to shine once more he had many visitors who had made long pilgrimages to see the snow-bound camp and caravans. There were small lochs about moreover; and to one of these, in spite of the heavy walking, Antony and his little companion made frequent journeys. Both had skates and both knew well how to use them. Antony, however, had made one mistake: he had imagined he could show the northerners a thing or two, as he slanged it. It was quite the other way, for the northerners have practice almost all the winter through, and are therefore very expert at skating.

But on the ice, whether curling or skating, Antony could not help making acquaintance with some very nice people; and though at heart neither a hermit nor recluse—because, as he explained only to his sister Aggie, society bored him—he was not proof against some of the many kind invitations he received from really good families. The roads now were passable in most parts to light dogcarts and to sleighs, although the 'Gipsy Queen' dared not attempt them. He tried to stave off some of these invitations by saying that he could not leave his housekeeper and Lotty in the evening. But there was an easy answer to this objection.

'Let your big, beautiful dog stay with the caravan, and also your groom. These can protect your housekeeper, and you bring the child with you.'

Well, there was moonlight at present, and really—under a clear, star-studded sky, with hard snow under the runners and jingling bells at the horse's neck—sleighing, well wrapped up in warm furs, is a very delightful sensation, and Lotty enjoyed it immensely. Perhaps she enjoyed quite as much a ride in a swift motor-car, and some families had these, and they seemed to run along where the roads were open at about a hundred miles an hour, although they might have been doing barely forty. And wherever she went Lotty took her violin with her, so that it is no wonder this infant prodigy was an immense favourite. The verdict on her was very much the same wherever she went: 'So gentle and well-behaved, so lady-like, and so unlike all one's conceived ideas of a show-child.' For, of course, Antony had thought proper not to conceal what Lotty really was—just a little gipsy lass.

But there was one thing which probably accounted in some measure for Lotty's nice manners. Biffins Lee had not neglected her education; and this not out of any real kindness to the child, we may well believe, but because his desire was to have her an infant prodigy in every way possible. At places where a sojourn was determined upon, if of only a few weeks' duration, Biffins had seen to it that she had the best of teaching from the best of teachers in every branch of education that would tend to bring out her brightest qualities. Little wanderer though she was, Lotty loved knowledge, and learning was a delight to her. Everything taught her fell upon the best soil and took root, therefore rendering her mind not the barren and inhospitable desert we too often find it in children, who seem to regard teaching and education of all kinds as penal, as a kind of punishment from which they long to emerge and speedily forget.

Lotty knew English well, and so she read the best of English authors old and new, and her knowledge of French was the key that opened to her the doors of a great library which was stored with marvels.

And whenever Biffins had the chance he was fond of drawing Lotty out before people to show how much his child—he always put great emphasis on the possessive pronoun—knew.

With music it was the same. But, after all, her accomplishments were all meant to bring grist to his own mill and make Lotty more valuable as a property.

At one house a children's party was got up all for Lotty's own sake, and the little ones who met her were kept laughing at all her marvellous tricks till long past their usual bedtime.

So, upon the whole, being snow-bound in a caravan in the dead of winter Antony found was not such a terrible experience after all. He kept in touch with Biffins Lee, but only by telegrams, and these were just as brief as he could make them, and few and far between. One ran thus: 'Storm-stayed;' another, 'Snow-bound;' a third, 'Still snow-bound,' and so on and so forth. He took the trouble to prepay these, and the replies were always consoling enough: 'Don't hurry—all right in camp;' or 'Keep my properties as long as you have a mind.'