The windfairies, and other tales

by Mary De Morgan

Meantime the gipsy boy had hidden in a hay-stack quite close to the cottage, from where he could see the roadways all round, and he looked to right and left for who should pass, for he was still half afraid that his father might come and search for him, and take him away by force. As he lay and watched he saw a man coming over the hill, who looked spent and tired, as if he had walked far. He seemed to know the path well, and he came straight to the cottage, but he did not come in, but waited near as if he wanted to see who was there. Then the gipsy boy said to himself—

“Perhaps this is the potter himself, whom she has been looking for all this time.” So he slid down and ran to the man and began to pretend to beg.

The man looked at him and said—

“You are a gipsy’s child. Where do you come from? Are you living under a hedge, or do you come from a gipsy’s camp near?”

“It is true I am a gipsy’s child,” answered the boy, “but I am living under no hedge, but in that little cottage, for the woman who lives there keeps me for love of my mother, who helped her when she was in trouble.”

“And what did your mother do for the woman?” asked the man, who was no other than the potter. “It must have been a great service, that she should be willing to take you and keep you.”

“She saved her from an evil charm that had been cast upon her,” answered the boy, “and taught her to love her husband again, and she waits his return now and longs for him to come. Therefore she promised to keep me with her, but now I dare not go into the cottage, because my father, who is a gipsy, is there, and I am afraid lest he may take me away with him.”

When the potter heard that the gipsy man was there he would have run straight into the cottage, but the boy implored him to listen first and hear what he was saying. So they crept round to the side of the cottage, and they heard the gipsy man growing angry, and threatening the potter’s wife, that if she did not tell him where his boy had gone he would seize her by the hair and wring her throat, in spite of her being so fair a woman. At this the potter waited no longer, but burst into the cottage, and seized the gipsy and hurled him out of the house with all his might; but he and his wife never looked to see if he was hurt or no, for they looked at nothing but each other and the little child that the potter’s wife held by the hand. And the gipsy man went away, and they never heard of him again.

Then the potter’s wife showed her husband the gipsy boy, and told him of her promise to his mother, and of all he had done for her, and begged him that he would let her keep him with them. And the potter promised that she should, and said that when he grew up to be a man he would teach him his trade, and make him a potter like himself. So they all lived happily together, and the gipsy boy learned to make cups and bowls, and was very clever at doing them, but they were cups and bowls that carried no charms with them, and so could do no one any harm that drank from them.