A Pair of Clogs | Page 7

"We shall hear of hen-roosts robbed to-morrow," continued Austin,
pursuing his own train of thought.
"I feel perfectly convinced," said his wife leaning over the gate to look
after the gypsies, "that that little girl is not theirs--she's as different as
possible from the other children. How I should like to see her again!"
"Well, my dear," said Austin, "for my part I decidedly hope you won't.

The sooner that fellow is several miles away from here, the better I
shall be pleased."
"She was a lovely little thing," repeated Mrs Vallance with a sigh.
"Well, well," said her husband; "I daresay. But here's something quite
as lovely. Just look at this Captain Christie. It's the best rose I've seen
yet. I don't believe Chelwood has a finer."
"Not one of the little Chelwoods was ever a quarter as pretty as that
gypsy child, even when they were babies," continued his wife gazing
absently at the rose, "and now they're getting quite plain."
She could not forget the beautiful child all that evening, though she did
not receive the least encouragement to talk of her from her husband. Mr
Vallance was not so fond of children as his wife, and did not altogether
regret that he had none of his own. His experience of them, drawn from
Squire Chelwood's family who lived a little further up the valley, did
not lead him to think that they added to the comfort of a household.
When they came to spend the day at the vicarage he usually shut
himself into his study, and issuing forth after they were gone, his soul
was vexed to find footmarks on his borders, his finest fruit picked, and
fragments of a meal left about on his smooth lawn. But Mrs Vallance
grudged them nothing, and if she could have found it in her heart to
envy anyone, it would have been Mrs Chelwood at the White House,
who had a nursery and school-room full of children.
On the morning after the gypsies had passed, the Reverend Austin
Vallance was out even earlier than usual in his garden. He was always
an early riser, for he liked time for a stroll before taking the service in
his little church. Just now his roses were in full perfection, and the
weather was remarkably fine, so that it was scarcely six o'clock before
he was out of doors. It was certainly a beautiful morning. By and by it
would be hot and sultry, only fit for a sensible man to sit quietly in his
study and doze a little, and make extracts for his next sermon. Now, it
was deliciously cool and fresh. The roses were magnificent! What a
pity that the blaze of the sun would soon dim their glorious colours and
scorch their dewy fragrance. It would be a good plan to cut a few at

once before they were spoilt by the heat. He took his knife out of his
pocket and hesitated where to begin, for he never liked to cut his roses;
but, remembering that Priscilla would insist on having some indoors, he
set to work on the tree nearest him, and tenderly detached a full-blown
Baroness Rothschild. He stood and looked at it complacently.
"I don't believe," he said to himself, "that Chelwood, with all his
gardeners, will ever come up to my roses. There's nothing like personal
attention. Roses are like children--they want individual, personal
attention. And they pay for it. Children don't always do that."
At this very moment, and just as he was turning to another tree, a little
chuckling laugh fell on his ear. It was such a strange sound in the
stillness of the garden, and it seemed so close to him, that he started
violently and dropped his knife. Where did it come from? He looked
vaguely up in the sky, and down on the earth--there was nothing living
to be seen, not even a bird. "I must have been mistaken," he thought,
"but it's very odd; I never heard anything more clearly in my life." He
picked up his knife, and moved further along the turf walk, a good deal
disturbed and rather nervous. At the end of it there was a rustic sort of
shed, which had once been an arbour, but was now only used for
gardening tools, baskets, and rubbish: over the entrance hung a mass of
white climbing roses. Walking slowly towards this, and cutting a rose
or two on his way, Mr Vallance was soon again alarmed by the same
noise--a low laugh of satisfaction; this time it came so distinctly from
within the shed, that he quickened his pace at once and, holding back
the dangling branches, looked in with a half feeling of dread. What he
saw there so astonished him