"I thought I would bring you out of your burrow," said Baltic, grimly, as he strode towards her; "in with you again, old Witch of Endor, and let me follow."
"Hindity-Mush!"[C] growled one or two, but the appearance of Mother Jael, and a few words from her, sent the whole gang back to their idling and working; while Baltic, quite undisturbed, dropped on all fours and crawled into the black tent, at the tail of the hag. She croaked out a welcome to her visitor, and squatting on a tumbled mattress, leered at him like a foul old toad. Baltic sat down near the opening of the tent, so as to get as much fresh air as possible, and also to watch Mother Jael"s face by the glimmer of light which crept in. Spreading his handsome handkerchief on his knee, according to custom, and placing his hat thereon, he looked straightly at the old hag, and spoke slowly.
[C] Hindity-Mush: a dirty creature.
"Do you know why I am here, old woman?" he demanded.
"Yes, dearie, yes! Ain"t it yer forting as y" wan"s tole? Oh, my pretty one, you asks ole mother for a fair future! I knows! I knows!"
"You know wrong then!" retorted Baltic, coolly. "I am one who has no dealings with witches and familiar spirits. I ask you to tell me, not my fortune--which lies in the hand of the Almighty--but the name of the man who murdered the creature Jentham."
Mother Jael made an odd whistling sound, and her cunning old face became as expressionless as a mask. In a second, save for her wicked black eyes, which smouldered like two sparks of fire under her drooping lids, she became a picture of stupidity and senility. "Bless "ee, my pretty master, I knows nought; all I knows I told the Gentiles yonder," and the hag pointed a crooked finger in the direction of Beorminster.
"Mother of the witches, you lie!" cried Baltic, in very good Romany.
The eyes of Mother Jael blazed up like torches at the sound of the familiar tongue, and she eyed the weather-beaten face of Baltic with an amazement too genuine to be feigned. "Duvel!" said she, in a high key of astonishment, "who is this Gorgio who patters with the gab of a gentle Romany?"
"I am a brother of the tribe, my sister."
"No gipsy, though," said the hag, in the black language. "You have not the glossy eye of the true Roman."
"No Roman am I, my sister, save by adoption. As a lad I left the Gentiles" roof for the merry tent of Egypt, and for many years I called Lovels and Stanleys my blood-brothers."
"Then why come you with a double face, little child?" croaked the beldam, who knew that Baltic was speaking the truth from his knowledge of the gipsy tongue. "As a Gentile I would speak no word, but my brother you are, and as my brother you shall know."
"Know who killed Jentham!" said Baltic, hastily.
"Of a truth, brother. But call him not Jentham, for he was of Pharaoh"s blood."
"A gipsy, mother, or only a Romany rye?"
"Of the old blood, of the true blood, of our religion verily, my brother. One of the Lovels he was, who left our merry life to eat with Gorgios and fiddle gold out of their pockets."
"He called himself Amaru then, did he not?" said Baltic, who had heard this much from Cargrim, to whom it had filtered from Miss Which.e.l.lo through Tinkler.
"It is so, brother. Amaru he called himself, and Jentham and Creagth, and a dozen other names when cheating and choring the Gentiles. But a Bosvile he was born, and a Bosvile he died."
"That is just it!" said Baltic, in English, for he grew weary of using the gipsy language, in which, from disuse, he was no great proficient.
"How did he die?"
"He was shot, lovey," replied Mother Jael, relapsing also into the vulgar tongue; "shot, dearie, on this blessed common."
"Who shot him?"
"Job! my n.o.ble rye, I can"t say. Jentham, he come "ere to patter the calo jib and drink with us. He said as he had to see some Gentile on that night! La! la! la!" she piped thinly, "an evil night for him!"
"On Sunday night--the night he was killed?"
"Yes, pretty one. The Gorgio was to give him money for somethin" he knowed."
"Who was the Gorgio?"
"I don" know, lovey! I don" know!"
"What was the secret, then?" asked Baltic, casting round for information.
"Bless "ee, my tiny! Jentham nivir tole me. An" I was curis to know, my dove, so when he walks away half-seas over I goes too. I follows, lovey, I follow, but I nivir did cotch him up, fur rain and storm comed mos"
dreful."
"Did you not see him on that night, then?"
"Sight of my eyes, I sawr "im dead. I "eard a shot, and I run, and run, dearie, fur I know"d as "e "ad no pistol; but I los" m"way, my royal rye, and it was ony when th" storm rolled off as I foun" "im. He was lyin" in a ditch. Such was his grave," continued Mother Jael, speaking in her own tongue, "water and gra.s.s and storm-clouds above, brother. I was afraid to touch him, afraid to wait, as these Gentiles might think I had slain the man. I got back into the road, I did, and there I picked up this, which I brought to the camp with me. But I never showed it to the police, brother, for I feared the Gentile jails."
This proved to be a neat little silver-mounted pistol which Mother Jael fished out from the interior of the mattress. Baltic balanced it in his hand, and believing, as was surely natural, that Jentham had been killed with this weapon, he examined it carefully.
"G. P.," said he, reading the initials graven on the silver shield of the b.u.t.t.
"Ah!" chuckled Mother Jael, hugging herself. "George Pendle that is, lovey. But which of "em, my tender dove--the father or the son?"
"Humph!" remarked Baltic, meditatively, "they are both called George."
"But they ain"t both called murderer, my brother. George Pendle shot that Bosvile sure enough, an" ef y"arsk me, dearie, it was the son--the captain--the sodger. Ah, that it was!"
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE RETURN OF GABRIEL
"My dear Daisy, I am sorry you are going away, as it has been a great pleasure for me to have you in my house. I hope you will visit me again next year, and then you may be more fortunate."
Mrs Pansey made this amiable little speech--which nevertheless, like a scorpion, had a sting in its tail--to Miss Norsham on the platform of the Beorminster railway station. After a stay of two months, the town mouse was departing as she had come--a single young woman; and Mrs Pansey"s last word was meant to remind her of failure. Daisy was quick enough to guess this, but, displeased at the taunt, chose to understand it in another and more gracious sense, so as to disconcert her spiteful friend.
"Fortunate! Oh, dear Mrs Pansey, I have been very fortunate this time.
Really, you have been most kind; you have given me everything I wanted."
"Excepting a husband, my dear," rejoined the archdeacon"s widow, determined that there should be no misunderstanding this time.
"Ah! it was out of your power to give me a husband," murmured Daisy, wincing.
"Quite true, my dear; just as it was out of your power to gain one for yourself. Still, I am sorry that Dr Alder did not propose."
"Indeed!" Daisy tossed her head. "I should certainly have refused him had he done so. A woman may not marry her grandfather."
"A woman may not, but a woman would, rather than remain single," snapped Mrs Pansey, with considerable spite.
Miss Norsham carefully inserted a corner of a foolish little handkerchief into one eye. "Oh, dear, I do call it nasty of you to speak to me so," said she, tearfully. "You needn"t think, like all men do, that every woman wants to be married. I"m sure I don"t."