But at that instant the conversation, whatever it was, which had been carrying on near this fire, was resumed, and the tones of the voice that spoke—she could not distinguish words—sounded as familiar to her as her own.
She turned, and looked back. The person had been seated before, but was now in a standing posture, and leaning forward upon a stick on which he rested both hands. The attitude was no less familiar to her than the tone of voice had been. It was her grandfather.
Her first impulse was to call to him; her next to wonder who his associates could be, and for what purpose they were together. Some vague apprehension succeeded, and, yielding to the strong inclination it awakened, she drew nearer to the place; not advancing across the open field, however, but creeping towards it by the hedge.
In this way she advanced within a few feet of the fire, and standing among a few young trees, could both see and hear, without much danger of being observed.
There were no women or children, as she had seen in other gipsy camps they had passed in their wayfaring, and but one gipsy—a tall athletic man, who stood with his arms folded, leaning against a tree at a little distance off, looking now at the fire, and now, under his black eyelashes, at three other men who were there, with a watchful but half-concealed interest in their conversation. Of these her grandfather was one; the others she recognised as the first card-players at the public-house on the eventful night of the storm—the man whom they had called Isaac List, and his gruff companion. One of the low, arched gipsy-tents, common to that people, was pitched hard by, but it either was, or appeared to be, empty.
“Well, are you going?” said the stout man, looking up from the ground where he was lying at his ease, into her grandfather’s face. “You were in a mighty hurry a minute ago. Go, if you like. You’re your own master, I hope?”
“Don’t vex him,” returned Isaac List, who was squatting like a frog on the other side of the fire, and had so screwed himself up that he seemed to be squinting all over; “he didn’t mean any offence.”
“You keep me poor and plunder me, and make a sport and jest of me besides,” said the old man, turning from one to the other. “Ye’ll drive me mad among ye.”
The utter irresolution and feebleness of the grey-haired child, contrasted with the keen and cunning looks of those in whose hands he was, smote upon the little listener’s heart. But she constrained herself to attend to all that passed, and to note each look and word.
“Confound you, what do you mean?” said the stout man rising a little, and supporting himself upon his elbow. “Keep you poor! You’d keep us poor if you could, wouldn’t you? That’s the way with you whining, puny, pitiful players. When you lose, you’re martyrs; but I don’t find that when you win, you look upon the other losers in that light. As to plunder!” cried the fellow, raising his voice—“Damme, what do you mean by such ungentlemanly language as plunder, eh?”
The speaker laid himself down again at full length, and gave one or two short, angry kicks, as if in further expression of his unbounded indignation. It was quite plain that he acted the bully and his friend the peacemaker, for some particular purpose; or rather it would have been to anyone but the weak old man; for they exchanged glances quite openly, both with each other and with the gipsy, who grinned his approval of the jest until his white teeth shone again.
The old man stood helplessly among them for a little time, and then said, turning to his assailant:
“You yourself were speaking of plunder just now, you know. Don’t be so violent with me. You were, were you not?”
“Not of plundering among present company! Honour among—among gentlemen, sir,” returned the other, who seemed to have been very near giving an awkward termination to the sentence.
“Don’t be hard upon him, Jowl,” said Isaac List. “He’s very sorry for giving offence. There—go on with what you were saying—go on.”
“I’m a jolly old tenderhearted lamb, I am,” cried Mr. Jowl, “to be sitting here at my time of life giving advice, when I know it won’t be taken, and that I shall get nothing but abuse for my pains. But that’s the way I’ve gone through life. Experience has never put a chill upon my warmheartedness.”
“I tell you he’s very sorry, don’t I?” remonstrated Isaac List, “and that he wishes you’d go on.”
“Does he wish it?” said the other.
“Ay,” groaned the old man sitting down, and rocking himself to and fro. “Go on, go on. It’s in vain to fight with it; I can’t do it; go on.”
“I go on then,” said Jowl, “where I left off, when you got up so quick. If you’re persuaded that it’s time for luck to turn, as it certainly is, and find that you haven’t means enough to try it, (and that’s where it is, for you know yourself that you never have the funds to keep on long enough at a sitting,) help yourself to what seems put in your way on purpose. Borrow it, I say, and when you’re able, pay it back again.”
“Certainly,” Isaac List struck in, “if this good lady as keeps the waxworks has money, and does keep it in a tin box when she goes to bed, and doesn’t lock her door for fear of fire, it seems a easy thing; quite a Providence, I should call it, but then I’ve been religiously brought up.”
“You see, Isaac,” said his friend, growing more eager, and drawing himself closer to the old man, while he signed to the gipsy not to come between them; “you see, Isaac, strangers are going in and out every hour of the day; nothing would be more likely than for one of
