AT this point a peculiar fragrance was borne to them upon the light wind, the far-blowing smell of a wood-fire, together with the odour of boiling and fragrant stew—a compound and delicious wild-wood scent, which almost created the taste by which it was to be enjoyed, as they say all good literature must. There was also another smell, less idyllic but equally characteristic—the odour of drying paint. All these came from the camp of the gipsies set up on the corner of the common lands of Windy Standard.
The gipsies' wood was a barren acre of tall, ill-nurtured Scotch firs, with nothing to break their sturdy monotony of trunk right up to the spreading crown of twisted red branches and dark green spines. Beneath, the earth was covered with a carpet of dry and brown pine-needles, several inches thick, soft and silent under the feet as velvet pile. Ditches wet and dry closed in the place of sanctuary for the wandering tribes of Egypt on all sides, save only towards the high road, where a joggly, much-rutted cart track led deviously in between high banks, through which the protruding roots of the Scotch firs, knotted and scarred, were seen twisting and grappling each other like a nest of snakes. Suddenly, between the ridges of pine-trees, the pair came in sight of the camp.
"I declare," cried Hugh John, "they are painting the waggons. I wish they would let me help. I can slick it on like a daisy. Now I'm telling you. Andrew Penman at the coach-works in Church Street showed me how. He says I can 'line' as well as any workman in the place. I'm going to be a coach-painter. They get bully wages, I tell you."
"I thought you were going to be a soldier," commented Cissy, with the cool and inviting criticism of the model domestic lady, who is always on hand with a bucket of cold water for the enthusiasms of her men-folk.
Hugh John remembered, saw his mistake, and shifted his ground all in the twinkling of an eye; for of course a man of spirit ought never to own himself in the wrong—at least to a girl. It is a bad precedent, occasionally even fatal.
"Oh yes, of course I am going to be a soldier," he said with the hesitation of one who stops to think what he is going to say; "but I'm to be a coach-painter in my odd time and on holidays. Besides, officers get so little pay now-a-days, it's shameful—I heard my father say. So one must do something."
"Oh, here's the terrier—pretty thing, I declare he quite knows me—see, Hugh John," cried Cissy, kneeling with delight in her eye, and taking hold of the little dog, which came bounding forward to meet her—stopping midway, however, to paw at its neck, to which the Chianti wicker-work still clung tightly round the edge of the bandage.
Billy Blythe came towards them, touching his cap as he did so in a half-military manner; for had he not a brother in the county militia, who was the best fighter (with his fists) in the regiment, the pest of his colonel, but in private the particular pet of all the other officers, who were always ready to put their money on Gipsy Blythe to any amount.
"Yes, miss," he said; "I done it. He's better a'ready, and as lively as a green grass-chirper. Never seed the like o' that ointment. 'Tis worth its weight in gold when ye have dogs."
A tall girl came up at this moment, dusky and lithe, her face and neck tanned to a fine healthy brown almost as dark as saddle-leather, but with a rolling black eye so full and piercing that even her complexion seemed light by comparison. She carried a back load of tinware of all sorts, and by her wearied air appeared to be returning to the encampment after a day's tramp.