The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 20 February 1919, Page 3

The Storyteller

THE WILD BIRDS OF KILLBEVY Rosa Mulholland. (By arrangement with Messrs. Burns and Dales, London.) CHAPTER IX.—FAN AMONG THE GIPSIES. ' On the outskirts of an English village, under trees just fringed with autumnal gold, the gipsies were encamped, and in a recess of the tents Fanchea was being dressed for a performance. Naomi, the sad-faced gipsy, plaited her long hair, laced her scarlet bodice, and arranged her tinsel skirts. A necklace of gaudy beads glittered on her neck; round her* waist was clasped a belt of imitation jewels, and tawdry ornament was heaped on her till she looked like some bird of strangely brilliant plumage from which no song could be expected. Outside, in the sunshine, a crowd was expecting the appearance of a little dancing and singing girl, the greatest attraction of the show, and among the villagers and country people stood a group of ladies and gentlemen who had ridden from a neighboring watering-place, and passing the encampment had dismounted from curiosity to see what was going on. Fanchea bounded out of the tent into the sunny open, and, rattling her castanets, had already begun her dance. At first the little figure dazzled the eyes with its glowing colors, flying draperies, and glittering tinsels, but soon the graceful motion of the slim, brown limbs became noticeable, and gave an artistic value to sandals and bangles, to streaming scarves of scarlet, and purple and gold. Thistleton Honey wood, on© of the riders who had dismounted to look on, was captivated by the brilliant little apparition even before the beauty of the child’s countenance was discerned by him. J

"It is the poetry of dancing," he said, "as only a child can render it. Exuberant life and joy in every movement, unconscious grace in every attitude !" He pressed through the crowd, and drew nearer to the dancer. Fanchea's little oval face, glowing like a pomegranate, was turned towards him. The dark eyes burned with excitement; lips and cheeks were rippled over with a smile of glee. She looked at no one, but seemed laughing at the moving clouds above the heads of the people as if she descried her own fitting counterparts among their bright and fantastic She looked the very ideal of picturesque joy and mirth: and her looks carried no deceit. Marks of blows lay under her garments, for little Fan had had a beating since she left Killeevy Mountain, yet her delight in her dancing was as real as her life. The free movements in the open air gave her liberty for the moment, the clashing of bizarre music exhilarated, the breezy scudding of the autumnal clouds overhead inspirited her. Her dance under the sky was the shortlived rapture of a too-often miserable day. The dance came suddenly to an end, and Mr. Honeywood was startled to see how quickly the look of joy vanished from her face, the buoyant expression of the limbs disappeared, and as the little dancer fell into an artless, childlike attitude of waiting, he noticed how heavily the mouth and eyelids drooped. "Poor little thing!" mused he, "her face is too good for her fortunes. Only a child could endure such a life, and in a year or two more she will be too old for it. What is this She is going to sing A gipsy had brought her a guitar, and she was all animation once more. Seating herself on the grass against a background of waving, sombre-hued trees, this bird of glowing plumage began to pour out a song' that startled the hearts of her hearers. It was a wild, stirring gipsy ditty, full of "dramatic surprises and strange refrains, mirthful and impassioned by turns: and the

little songstress sent it forth with head well thrown back (as of old she had held herself vieing with the - thrush), eyebrows elevated in drollery or disdain, foot < and shoulders helping to give fierceness to the wrath, or - humor to the gaiety of the theme. Mr. Honey wood listened attentively, with his face leaned forward, a keen light in his eye, and an unusual color in his cheek. ;v ■- - “Brava! bravia ! ” he murmured quickly under his breath. . “Poor little thing he said, pityingly, as his eyes rested on her where she sat drooping as before with the guitar on her knees. “Ask her to sing again,” he called to the gipsy near him, holding up a piece of gold as he spoke, and observing with interest how quickly energy waked up again in the sorrowful face. Fanchea considered for a moment, and then there rose suddenly from her lips a sacred strain, curiously in contrast with her former song, sweet, solemn, and thrilling, a hymn that alternated between triumph and supplication. It was the hymn to the Virgin Triumphant, sung in every cabin on Killeevy Mountain ; the words were in Irish and incomprehensible to her listeners. - “The music is as delightful as the voice,” said | Honeywood, when she had finished. “Of what language are the words of the song ?” he asked of the gipsy. ‘•‘Romany; our own language,” said the gipsy. “A lie,” said Honeywood to himself, and then glancing at Fanchea again he was struck by the paleness that had crept over her face. She sat with her small hands clasped on her knee, white and weary, and looking lonely and forlorn in the crowd. Her eyes were looking at Killeevy Mountain, and it taxed all her young strength toehold back the tears which were threatening to fall. “Where did you get your little girl ?” asked Honeywood, of the gipsy mother who was now hovering about him and noting all his movements. “She does not appear to be one of you.” “She is a gipsy. That is her mother who is taking her into the tent.” “Falsehood number two,” said Honeywood aside. “She has a very remarkable voice.” “It goes in the blood. Her mother had the same voice,” said the gipsy. “My dear fellow,” said a friend, “my" wife sent \ me a quarter of an hour ago to hurry you away: If we do not come we shall hear of it.” Thistleton Honeywood turned on his heel and accompanied his friend, mentally resolving to return to the spot next morning and make such discoveries as He could concerning the charming little creature that had interested him so much, and the party remounted and rode home. The performance over, Fan was despoiled of her finery, and, habited in an old woollen garment, was soon busy among the gipsy children. It was her duty to and amuse all the infants of the camp, by turn or in flocks, being well watched herself the while by many a vigilant eye. As evening advanced the little swarthy babies were, one after another, sung by her to sleep, outside the tents, away from the clatter of their scolding mothers’ tongues. Even here she was closely watched, and yet she did not want to run away. She had tried it once, indeed ; but now she would wait patiently for Kevin to come for her. All the children were asleep except one, who persisted in keeping his black eyes open till the trees hid iheir gold under mists of grey, and finally became a solemn dark mass against the sky. The high road glimmered in the distance, and Fan watched it while she sang Mminin nr- /Mi{- 1, K i, *„ , 1 , , , . r v/unug wuu xra. uiccti u in a monotonous cnanL unar. served for a lullaby, while the Irish words betrayed none of her secrets, no more to the men and women who passed her to and fro than to the child into the wrinkles of whose chubby neck she shed her secret tears between the stanzas. Her broken and fitful song, half complaint, half lullaby, ran something' like this:

; ‘‘Are- you coining along the road, Kevin?' The world is bigger than we thought it was, : and I am always afraid you will pass us by in the dark.' But P they are lighting the great fire now outside the tent, and you will see it as we saw it at Killeevy. . Hush, baby, sleep. Avourneen, avourneen ! : ‘ “Kevin, don’t think I am dead. I wakened in a vessel, and -we were far away at sea. The sea was beautiful, but I cried th© whole day. And they did not 'put me in a lighthouse I The . trees here are lovely, and the fields are sweet, and if I were walking by your hand we would be glad to see the world. Sleep acushla, sleep! “Sometimes I am happy when we are travelling through the trees, and sometimes I am merry when I am dancing in the wind. But when I stop quite still, oh, then lam so lonely! Once I ran away and they gave me a beating; not Naomi at all, but the big cruel gipsy herself. I can’t bear it again, and so I will stay with them, and be good till you come. “Aroon, come quickly, for they quarrel, and I am frightened. Hush, little darling ! Sleep ! “I try to see Killeevy Mountain, but the gipsies’ faces get between. Sometimes I am afraid there is no Killeevy any more. Has the sea washed it out, and is there now only England ? Oh, Kevin, are you there, are you anywhere ?. Is there Killeevy, is there Kevin any more?” Ending thus in a burst of grief, Fan buried her face in the baby's fat shoulder. “Don’t you see the child is asleep?” said its mother, shaking her. Fan delivered up her charge, and being called to eat her supper, joined the gipsy circle round the fire. She sat full in the light of the blaze, thinking “Kevin will be able to see me if he comes by.’’ After supper she lay on the grass, half hidden in Naomi’s gown, trying with all her might to “see Killeevy.” But it was not to be seen. The firelight flashing over swarthy faces, and backed by the inky masses of’ the trees, extinguished the mellow landscape that she struggled to ' descry. Neither could her fancy catch murmurs from her home because of noisy oaths and shouts of laughter. Her last thought was a fear that the fire was getting low, and that Kevin might pass by in the dark without seeing them. And then she fell asleep. Out of her sleep she was roused by the order to march. The camp was on the move.. The gipsy mother had no desire to be questioned next morning by the gentleman who had taken an interest in her little singing girl. Her shrewdness suspected that he would return to have his curiosity gratified. So the tents were folded and the horses were yoked, and after much noise and clamor the caravan moved away into the stillness of the night. During the early night hours Fan was kept under cover for the sake of her voice, but by daybreak she was released from her moving prison and allowed to trudge along the road by Naomi’s side. How sweet to see the grey mists part on the brow of the hill, disclosing the brown fallow, the dim hedges dashed with red, the russet grove, and the empurpled dale! Autumn was far advanced a faint, sweet smell that hinted of decay hung with the mists upon the morning air; the throstle sang his last song upon a branch bare, but for a few gay tassels of foliage that, even as he piped, kept fluttering one by one to the earth. Fan was glad and hopeful moving through the invigorating air, and her heart beat high with expectation as she . pressed forward between the berried hedgerows. CHAPTER X.-SHE RUNS AWAY. But Kevin never appeared upon the road, and Fanchea’s heart began to fail. Could it be possible that he thought she was dead, and would never come to look for her at all? If this were so, how unhappy he must be, and how dreadful for her to live for. ever with the gipsies! But a bright idea came to her. Why could she hot write him a letter She wondered she had not thought of it before.

It seemed impossible to carry out such a scheme. Materials were beyond her reach and she had no means of communicating with the post; yet Fanchea kept' her purpose in mind. It chanced one day that some school children visited the gipsies, and Fan made overtures of friendship to a bright-eyed boy. "Oh, but it's nice to be a gipsy!" said the boy, gazing admiringly at Fan. '"Your frock is splendid. Tell me what they have in their cooking pot." In an instant Fan saw her way. "Everything good," she said, smacking her lips. "Would you like to have a taste?"

"Aye!" said the little gourmand, with sparkling eyes.

"Well, then," said Fan, "will you bring me a clean piece of paper and a pencil to-morrow, and I will keep you a share of my dinner ? But you must not be seen giving it to me, nor taking anything from me, because—because "

"Why?" asked the boy, lowering his voice as Fan's eyes grew wide and mysterious. "The gipsies might burn your father's house." This was a daring stroke on Fan's part, but having been beaten herself, she thought the gipsies capable of almost any vengeance. "Laws said the boy, "we must mind what we are about;" but he did not think of relinquishing the enterprise.

Fan got what she wanted, and the lad was rewarded with the succulent and savoury leg of a fowl that had probably come out of his father's farmyard. "Now," said Fan, "you shall have more to-morrow if you will bring me an envelope and a postage stamp." "I'll do it," said the young glutton and was as good as his word. Fan's letter was scrawled in trepidation and secrecy. "Dear Kevin, — am not, dead. I know you will be looking for me as if I was the princess. I am not in a lighthouse. I am in England. The gipsies took me and we are always going about. Jf you keep walking on the road you will be sure to meet us. Fan." The envelope being addressed as well as she was able to do it, the letter was delivered with great care to her friend; and Fan returned to her dancing with glee. The sequel of her little adventure was unknown to her. As the boy gnawed his bone under a hedge in the fields on his way home he was overtaken and interrupted by a gipsy who took possession of the letter. The child fled home, crying that his father's house would be burned. The father, hearing that such a threat had been uttered by a girl among the gipsies immediately communicated with the police. But when the police arrived the next morning on the spot, the common was deserted, the gipsies were gone. After this Fan's hopes ran high; but as weeks passed on and the berries vanished from the hedges, the pleasant excitement began to ebb away. Even perpetual wandering and movement could no longer amuse her into forgetfulness; jand the poor little heart grew chill as the wintry wind grew keen. The novelty of the life was gone, the weather was getting severe," the frost gave pain to limbs that were accustomed to protection of walls by night. Every morning found her eyes heavier and more hopeless, gazing along the road by which Kevin never came. A bitter foreboding that she was hopelessly lost in the wide world began to prey on her, and all the bright efforts of her adventurous temperament could not entirely shake it off. Stifled by patience on one side, the spirit of adventure began "to work within her towards another outlet. The fear of a second beating quitted her gradually, and the thought of running away w .'■'. «™«gmi ui i mining ctWdy from her companions became daily and vividly present to her mind. Yet she behaved with prudence. Nothing is more catching for a child than distrust, and though candid by nature, Fan was in a fair way to pick up the cleverness of cunning - J] As the days grew shorter the quarrelling of the gipsy women. increased. Even the slight confinement

between canvas boundaries 1 made necessary by the fours ' of darkness disagreed with their liberty-loving tempers, and loud, voices rang fiercely from tent to tent from twilight until far in the night. : Wild scenes sometimes took place around the fire in the open air, and on these occasions Fan was almost driven out of her senses with fright.. ’ 'They were now encamped near a thick wood, and even the presence of this wood was a trouble to Fan. It surrounded them on every side but one, and it loomed upon them in the darkness after nightfall, making a fitting background for unholy firelit warfare. Fan’s fairy lore supplied her imagination with troops of wolves that had their lairs among those dense and threatening trees, making horrible the starry silence which else would have been soothing after clamorous and terrifying hours. Naomi’s occasional words of kindness could no longer tranquillise her excited nerves. On wet days the tents were intolerable ; children cried and mothers scolded. Dancing in open air was impossible ; there were no spectators to be amused; and Fan’s brilliant rags were huddled into a corner out of sight. The last vestige of poetry was gone from her life, and her- frightened face provoked many a rough word, with an occasional' blow. She choked over her songs, and her mournful Irish appeals to Kevin, if they rose from her heart, were silenced in her throat. She was turning into a pale, scared, quiet little ghost of herself, when suddenly out of her despair arose her deliverance. ~ One evening, after the contents of the caldron had been consumed, and while the gipsies lay about around the fire, a quarrel of extraordinary fierceness broke out among them. Oaths and yells of fury filled the air with confusion ; blows were given ; the firelight flared over figures whose frantic movements gave them the appearance of imps, and faces whose swarthy lineaments were made hideous by ungoverned rage. Fan retreated to a distance, and the horror of the scene painted as it was on that background of inky forest overwhelmed her imagination and almost took away her breath. She lay quite still, crouched upon the earth ; and when all was over she crept as usual to her sleeping place in the tent. But as she lay and tried in vain to sleep, a reckless desperation came over her. “If they catch me I can only be killed,” she kept thinking. “And I would rather be killed, I would rather be killed!” The gipsies were sleeping soundly after their more than usual exertions. Fan edged herself gradually towards a division in the canvas wall of the-tent, and slid her slender body through the narrow opening then making for the high road, sped like a deer across the common. Lone, bare, and dark it lay, under a sky without a star, and she could only make out the track she ought to follow by keeping her course away from the blackness of the forest. Once upon the high road, she stopped to take breath, and then fled on for a mile without any pause. After that she sat down for a few minutes on a stone and looked around her. The intense darkness of the night had passed away a little, though it yet wanted some hours of the dawn. A few stars had crept out, and her eyes had grown used to the obscurity. She was in an open country, behind which the woods lay now like an inky fringea country seamed with roads and paths, and faintly dotted with scattered homesteads. On before her the road seemed to grow dark again, overhung with trees. She shuddered a little at this, though she knew the shadows were her safety ; but having regained her breath and her courage, she plunged once more into the dreaded darkness, darting along almost blindly, seeing no further than a yard before lier feet/. J xwov.

Once, when she heard the voices of men coming to meet her, she crouched* behind . the trunk of a tree till they went past; and when a cart came rumbling by she lay close against the bank till the danger was. over. Not that she imagined the people would harm her, but she was determined they should not be able to tell the next morning that they had met a little runaway girl on the road.

Altogether Fan's fleet limbs and hardy rearing did her. a good service on that never-forgotten night. They carried her mile after mile with unflagging energy, and when the gipsies wakened and missed her she was a long way ahead of their pursuit. The dawn broke at last and discovered a pale, scared little face and panting figure ; flying and halting, looking back and darting forward again; then slackening speed and limping; a dejected, terrified, pathetic expression hanging about the creature from the crown of her little head with its dew-damp locks to the soles of her weary feet.

For some time she was the only living thing discovered by the dawn about the neighborhood, but at last another figure turned out of a by-path, and proceeded in advance of her on the road.

Fan stopped short and scrutinised this apparition. It was the figure of a woman, comfortably dressed and walking at a good smart pace. She did not think she need be afraid of this person, seeing that they were going in the same direction ; unless, indeed, the stranger should prove to be a gipsy in disguise. Deciding on what was the safest course, Fan summoned all her remaining strength and ■ shot past the woman, who noticed and wondered at her headlong speed; but when the child had skimmed over about a hundred yards in advance of the other traveller, a stone "suddenly pierced her ill-shod foot and obliged her to lean against the bank.

The woman came up with her, and was struck by her forlorn and exhausted look, and the gesture of outstretched hands by which Fan silently appealed to her. "Serve you right, you little goose ! Nobody but a bird has any business to fly over the country at such a rate as you've been doing." Fan opened her lips to speak, but closed them again and looked up and down the road. "What are you afraid of?" asked the woman. "You aint a coward; leastwise you don't look like one."

Fan's large eyes were gazing at her wistfully but bravely from under a cloud of dark ruffled hair, and out of a face which, though pinched and pale, was full of energy and determination. "Are you a gipsy?" asked the child in a voice of desperation. "Laws! no, dear. Whatever put such a fancy in your head "I am running away from the gipsies," said Fan, re-assured. "I don't belong to them, though they said I did. I want to get away where they will never find me." "I'm sure I hope you may, poor thing, though it's hard to know what's to become of you. There, I'll miss my train, gossiping on the road. If I wasn't in such a hurry, little girl, I'd try and do something for you." She walked on, driven by the thought of her train and her business waiting for her at home ; but she felt ascertain satisfaction in observing that the little girl was following pretty closely on her heels. '_ After walking another half-mile they reached a railway station. An early train was about to start, and the woman got her. ticket and took her seat. To her surprise Fan followed her into the carriage and seated herself on the bench by her side. , The woman said nothing, but watched her with some wonder and amusement.

"Tickets, please!" said the ticket collector, looking in at the carriage door. "I haven't got anything. What is a ticket?" said Fan, opening her empty hands as the man addressed he*.

"Here's a go!" said the official. "Come out of t-xis, young 'uu, and run home and ask your mother what a ticket is!" • "Oh, let me stay!" cried Fan, imploringly, holding by the seat; "I want to get away from the gipsies. - "Poor thing! that's her cry," said the woman.

“There’s something, I’ll be bound. Couldn’t you let her go, mister?” . -V----“Couldn’t be done said the official, decidedly. “Don’t be afraid, my girl; we’ll stow you away somewhere. Time’s up; look sharp, and come out.” But Fan stood firm, with her hands locked in entreaty. “Let me go!” she said, “and indeed I’ll pay you back. I can sing and earn money—l can.” “Here, let her go, and I’ll pay for her,” said the woman, suddenly, opening her purse; though I’m sure I don’t know what’s come on me to be so soft like.” The carriage door banged, the whistle sounded, and the train was off for London. (To be continued.)