Lavengro

shoulders; she sat down, and I poured out the beverage, handing her a cup. “Have you made a long journey tonight?” said I. “A very long one,” replied Belle. “I have come nearly twenty miles since six o’clock.” “I believe I heard you coming in my sleep,” said I; “did the dogs above bark at you?” “Yes,” said Isopel, “very violently; did you think of me in your sleep?” “No,” said I; “I was thinking of Ursula and something she had told me.” “When and where was that?” said Isopel. “Yesterday evening,” said I, “beneath the dingle hedge.” “Then you were talking with her beneath the hedge?” “I was,” said I, “but only upon gypsy matters. Do you know, Belle, that she has just been married to Sylvester, so that you need not think that she and I⁠—” “She and you are quite at liberty to sit where you please,” said Isopel. “However, young man,” she continued, dropping her tone, which she had slightly raised, “I believe what you said, that you were merely talking about gypsy matters, and also what you were going to say, if it was, as I suppose, that she and you had no particular acquaintance.” Isopel was now silent for some time. “What are you thinking of?” said I. “I was thinking,” said Belle, “how exceedingly kind it was of you to get everything in readiness for me, though you did not know that I should come.” “I had a presentiment that you would come,” said I; “but you forget that I have prepared the kettle for you before, though it was true I was then certain that you would come.” “I had not forgotten your doing so, young man,” said Belle; “but I was beginning to think that you were utterly selfish, caring for nothing but the gratification of your own selfish whims.” “I am very fond of having my own way,” said I, “but utterly selfish I am not, as I dare say I shall frequently prove to you. You will often find the kettle boiling when you come home.” “Not heated by you,” said Isopel, with a sigh. “By whom else?” said I; “surely you are not thinking of driving me away?” “You have as much right here as myself,” said Isopel, “as I have told you before; but I must be going myself.” “Well,” said I, “we can go together; to tell you the truth, I am rather tired of this place.” “Our paths must be separate,” said Belle. “Separate,” said I; “what do you mean? I shan’t let you go alone, I shall go with you; and you know the road is as free to me as to you; besides, you can’t think of parting company with me, considering how much you would lose by doing so; remember that you know scarcely anything of the Armenian language; now, to learn Armenian from me would take you twenty years.”

Belle faintly smiled. “Come,” said I, “take another cup of tea.” Belle took another cup of tea, and yet another; we had some indifferent conversation, after which I arose and gave her donkey a considerable feed of corn. Belle thanked me, shook me by the hand, and then went to her own tabernacle, and I returned to mine.

XIII

On the following morning, after breakfasting with Belle, who was silent and melancholy, I left her in the dingle, and took a stroll amongst the neighbouring lanes. After some time I thought I would pay a visit to the landlord of the public-house, whom I had not seen since the day when he communicated to me his intention of changing his religion. I therefore directed my steps to the house, and on entering it found the landlord standing in the kitchen. Just then two mean-looking fellows, who had been drinking at one of the tables, and who appeared to be the only customers in the house, got up, brushed past the landlord, and saying in a surly tone, we shall pay you some time or other, took their departure. “That’s the way they serve me now,” said the landlord with a sigh. “Do you know those fellows,” I demanded, “since you let them go away in your debt?” “I know nothing about them,” said the landlord, “save that they are a couple of scamps.” “Then why did you let them go away without paying you?” said I. “I had not the heart to stop them,” said the landlord; “and to tell you the truth, everybody serves me so now, and I suppose they are right, for a child could flog me.” “Nonsense,” said I; “behave more like a man, and with respect to those two fellows run after them, I will go with you, and if they refuse to pay the reckoning I will help you to shake some money out of their clothes.” “Thank you,” said the landlord; “but as they are gone, let them go on. What they have drank is not of much consequence.” “What is the matter with you?” said I, staring at the landlord, who appeared strangely altered; his features were wild and haggard, his formerly bluff cheeks were considerably sunken in, and his figure had lost much of its plumpness. “Have you changed your religion already, and has the fellow in black commanded you to fast?” “I have not changed my religion yet,” said the landlord with a kind of shudder; “I am to change it publicly this day fortnight, and the idea of doing so⁠—I do not mind telling you⁠—preys much upon my mind; moreover, the noise of the thing has got abroad, and everybody is laughing at me, and what’s more, coming and drinking my beer, and going away without paying for it, whilst I feel myself like one bewitched, wishing but not daring to take my own part. Confound the fellow in black, I wish I had never seen him! yet what can I do without him? The brewer swears that unless