The Disowned | Page 8

immediately after I have a
second time tasted of your hospitable fare."
"If it must be so," answered the gypsy, "I will see you, at least, a mile
or two on your road." The youth thanked him for a promise which his
curiosity made acceptable, and they turned once more to the caravan.

The meal, however obtained, met with as much honour as it could
possibly have received from the farmer from whom its materials were
borrowed.
It was not without complacency that the worthy pair beheld the notice
their guest lavished upon a fair, curly-headed boy of about three years
old, the sole child and idol of the gypsy potentates. But they did not
perceive, when the youth rose to depart, that he slipped into the folds of
the child's dress a ring of some value, the only one he possessed.
"And now," said he, after having thanked his entertainers for their
hospitality, "I must say good-by to your flock, and set out upon my
day's journey."
Lucy, despite her bashfulness, shook hands with her handsome guest;
and the latter, accompanied by the gypsy chief, strolled down to the
encampments.
Open and free was his parting farewell to the inmates of the two tents,
and liberal was the hand which showered upon all--especially on the
damsel who had been his Thais of the evening feast--the silver coins
which made no inconsiderable portion of his present property.
It was amidst the oracular wishes and favourable predictions of the
whole crew that he recommenced his journey with the gypsy chief.
When the tents were fairly out of sight, and not till then, King Cole
broke the silence which had as yet subsisted between them.
"I suppose, my young gentleman, that you expect to meet some of your
friends or relations at W----? I know not what they will say when they
hear where you have spent the night."
"Indeed!" said the youth; "whoever hears my adventures, relation or not,
will be delighted with my description; but in sober earnest, I expect to
find no one at W---- more my friend than a surly innkeeper, unless it be
his dog."

"Why, they surely do not suffer a stripling of your youth and evident
quality to wander alone!" cried King Cole, in undisguised surprise.
The young traveller made no prompt answer, but bent down as if to
pluck a wild-flower which grew by the road-side: after a pause, he
said,--
"Nay, Master Cole, you must not set me the example of playing the
inquisitor, or you cannot guess how troublesome I shall be. To tell you
the truth, I am dying with curiosity to know something more about you
than you may be disposed to tell me: you have already confessed that,
however boon companions your gypsies may be, it is not among
gypsies that you were born and bred."
King Cole laughed: perhaps he was not ill pleased by the curiosity of
his guest, nor by the opportunity it afforded him of being his own hero.
"My story, sir," said he, "would be soon told, if you thought it worth
the hearing, nor does it contain anything which should prevent my
telling it."
"If so," quoth the youth, "I shall conceive your satisfying my request a
still greater favour than those you have already bestowed upon me."
The gypsy relaxed his pace into an indolent saunter, as he
commenced:--
"The first scene that I remember was similar to that which you
witnessed last night. The savage tent, and the green moor; the fagot
blaze; the eternal pot, with its hissing note of preparation; the old dame
who tended it, and the ragged urchins who learned from its contents the
first reward of theft and the earliest temptation to it, --all these are
blended into agreeable confusion as the primal impressions of my
childhood. The woman who nurtured me as my mother was rather
capricious than kind, and my infancy passed away, like that of more
favoured scions of fortune, in alternate chastisement and caresses. In
good truth, Kinching Meg had the shrillest voice and the heaviest hand
of the whole crew; and I cannot complain of injustice, since she treated

me no worse than the rest. Notwithstanding the irregularity of my
education, I grew up strong and healthy, and my reputed mother had
taught me so much fear for herself that she left me none for anything
else; accordingly, I became bold, reckless, and adventurous, and at the
age of thirteen was as thorough a reprobate as the tribe could desire. At
that time a singular change befell me: we (that is, my mother and
myself) were begging not many miles hence at the door of a rich man's
house in which the mistress lay on her death- bed. That mistress was
my real mother,