While the black trees shuddered outside in the tempest, Ladin next told a story I shall never forget.
“When my uncle, Alfred Herren, and his wife Becky was a-travelling in Shropshire, they draw’d their wagon one night into a by-lane—so they thought—just outside the village, but daylight show’d ’em it were a gentleman’s drive leading up to a red mansion among the trees. Did my uncle pull out when he found he’d made a mistake? No, for a wery good reason he stopped where he was. His missis had been took ill in the night, and a little gell were born. The doctor gave no hopes at all for the wife, and just when things looked blackest, a groom on horseback came up from the mansion, and, slamming on the wagon-side with his whipstock, shouted—
“‘Clear out of here, you rascally Gypsies, afore my master sees you.’
“Uncle Alfred put his head outen the door, and said—
“‘Stop it, my man. There’s a woman a-dying in here. I’d take it kind of you to go to the big house yonder and ask the good lady to come and pray by a dying Gypsy.’
“Off goes the groom with the message, and soon the squire’s lady come along carrying a basket of good things, and did all she could for Becky, but the poor thing died. After that the parson came to christen the baby.
“‘What name?’ he asks.
“‘Flower o’ May,’ says my uncle. The wagon stood under a may-tree, and the flowers were dropping on the grass like snow. Now, the squire and his lady come along. Says he—
“‘The Almighty has never given us the blessing of a child, so we would like to adopt this little girl of yours and bring her up as our own. Here’ (holding up a bag) ‘are one hundred sovereigns. Take them, my good man, and let us have the baby.’
“‘Nay,’ says my uncle, ‘you may keep your bag of gold. I can’t never part wi’ my little gell.’