The Slowcoach Part 25

"It must be her baby," said Janet, holding the bundle up; but the woman did not see it, and Janet told Jack to run on quickly and meet her, and tell her that they had the baby and it was not hurt.

Jack did so, and the woman left the horse to be cared for by the man and boy who walked behind, and ran to Janet, and seized the bundle from her, and hugged it so tightly that the baby, for the first time, uttered a little cry.

"Where did you find it?" the gipsy woman asked; and Janet told her the story.

"It must have rolled out of the van while I was in front with the horse," said the gipsy. "We didn't miss it. We've had to come back three miles at least."

By this time the two caravans had met, and the man was brought up by the woman and told the story, and they all expressed their grat.i.tude to Janet for nursing the child so kindly.

"Bless your pretty heart!" the gipsy woman said again and again, while her husband asked if there was anything that they could do for her and her party.

"I don't think so," said Janet. "We liked to take care of it, of course."

The gipsy man asked a number of questions about the Slowcoach, and then suggested that he should show them a good place to camp, and make their fire for them, and he added: "I'll tell you what--you all come and have supper with us. I'll bet you've talked about playing at gipsies often enough; well, we'll get a real gipsy supper--a slap-up one. What's the time?"

He looked at the sun. "Nearly five. Well, we'll have supper at half-past seven, and we'll do you proud. Will you come?"

Janet considered.

"Of course, Janet," said Robert.

"Why don't you say yes?" said Gregory.

Hester shrank a little towards the Slowcoach, and Janet went to talk to Kink.

She came back and thanked the gipsy, but said that they would not all come, but the boys would gladly do so.

"I'm sorry you won't be there," said the man. "But we'll give the young gents a square meal--and tasty, too! Something to relis.h.!.+ What do you say, now," he asked Gregory, "to a hedgehog? I don't expect you've ever eaten that."

"Hedgehog!" said Gregory. "No, but I've always wanted to." And, in fact, he had been thinking of nothing else for the last five minutes.

"You shall have it," said the man. "Baked or stewed?"

"Which is best?" Gregory asked.

"Stewed," said the man. "But if you'd like it baked--Or, I'll tell you.

We'll have one of each. We got two to-day. This shall be a banquet."

The gipsies really were very grateful folk. The boy got wood for them; the man made their fire--much better than it had ever been made before--and lit it without any paper, and with only one match.

It was at last arranged that they should all share the same supper, although the woman should sit with the girls and the boys with the man.

And so they did; and they found the hedgehog very good, especially the baked one, which had been enclosed in a mould of clay and pushed right into the middle of the fire. It tasted a little like pork, only more delicate.

"When you invited us to come to supper," Robert said, "you asked what the time was, and then looked at the sun and said it was nearly five.

And it was--almost exactly. How do you do that?"

"Ah," said the gipsy, "I can't explain. There it is. I know by the sun, but I can't teach you, because you must live out of doors and never have a clock, or it's no good."

"And can you tell it when there's no sun?" Robert asked.

"Pretty well," said the man.

"How lucky you are!" said Horace.

"Well, I don't know," said the man. "What about rain? When it's raining hard, and we're huddling in the van and can't get any dry sticks for the fire, and our feet are soaked, what are you doing? Why, you're all snug in your houses, with a real roof over you."

"I'd much rather live in a caravan than a house," said Horace.

The man laughed. "You're a young gent out for a spree," he said. "You don't count. You wonder at me," he continued, "being able to tell the time by the skies. But I dare say there's one, at any rate, of you who can find a train in that thing they call Bradshaw, isn't there?"

"I can," said Robert.

"Well, there you are," said the gipsy. "What's luck? Nothing.

Everyone's got a little. No one's got much."

"Oh, but the millionaires?" said Horace.

"Millionaires!" said the gipsy. "Why, you don't think they're lucky, do you?"

"I always have done so," said Horace.

"Go on!" said the gipsy. "Why, we're luckier than what they are. We've got enough to eat and drink,--and no one wants more,--and along with it no rent and taxes, no servants, no tall hats, no offices, no motor-cars, no fear of thieves. Millionaires have no rest at all. No sitting under a tree by the fire smoking a pipe."

"And no hedgehogs," said Gregory.

"No--no hedgehogs. Nothing but butcher's meat that costs its weight in gold. Take my advice, young gents," said the gipsy, "and never envy anybody."

Meanwhile the others were very happy by the Slowcoach fire. The gipsy woman, hugging her baby, kept as close to Janet as if she were a spaniel. Their name was Lee, she said, and they made baskets. They lived at Reading in the winter and were on the road all the rest of the year. The young boy was her brother. His name was Keziah. Her husband's name was Jasper. The baby's was Rhoda.

Hester was very anxious to ask questions about kidnapping, but she did not quite like to, and was, in fact, silent.

The gipsy woman noticed it after a while, and remarked upon it. "That little dark one there," she said; "why doesn't she speak?"

Janet said something about Hester being naturally quiet and thoughtful.

"Oh, no," said the woman, "I know what it is: she's frightened of me.

She's heard stories about the gipsies stealing children and staining their faces with walnut juice; haven't you, dearie?"

Hester admitted it.

"There," said the woman, laughing triumphantly. "But don't be frightened, dearie," she added. "That's only stories. And even if it ever did happen, it couldn't again, what with railway trains and telegraphs and telephones and motor-cars and newspapers. How could we help being found out? Why," she continued, "so far from stealing children, there was a boy running away from school once who offered us a pound to let him join our caravan and stain his face and go with us to Bristol, where he could get on to a s.h.i.+p as a stowaway, as he called it; but Jasper wouldn't let him. I wanted to; but Jasper was dead against it. 'No,' he said, 'gipsies have a bad enough time as it is, without getting into trouble helping boys to run away from school.'

That shows what we are, dearie," she added to Hester, with a smile.

"And don't you ever tell fortunes?" Hester asked.

"I won't say I've never done that," the gypsy said.

"Won't you tell mine?" Hester asked. "I've got a sixpence."