The Gypsy Queen's Vow

“I thank you and accept your offer, and more for their sake, however, than my own” – pointing to the children. “I could make my way through the world easily enough, but they are young and tender, and need care. I will go with you.”

She turned away as she ceased, as if there was no more to be said on the subject, and again looked fixedly down into the wide waste of waters.

“It’s real good of you to say so, Mrs. Ketura, and I’m very much obliged to you,” said Mr. Toosypegs with a brightening up of his pallid features. “We will land at New York, and after that, go to Dismal Hollow via Baltimore, which means, Mrs. Ketura,” said Mr. Toosypegs, interrupting himself, to throw in a word of explanation, “‘by way of’ It’s Latin, or Greek, I guess, though I never learned either. Ugh! ain’t Latin nice, though!” added the owner of the sickly complexion, with a grimace of intensest disgust. “I tried it for six weeks one time, with an apothecary; and then, as it began to throw me into a decline, I gave it up. Not any more. I’m very much obliged to you.”

Three days after that the vessel touched the wharf at New York. And after two days’ delay, which Mr. Toosypegs required to get his “land legs” on, they set off for Baltimore.

In due course of time that goodly city was reached, and one week after, the whole party arrived at Judestown – a thriving country town on the sea-coast, called then after the first settler, but known by another name, now.

Driving through the town, they reached the suburbs, and entered a more thinly-settled part of the country. Gleaming here and there through the trees, they could catch occasional glimpses of the bright waters of the Chesapeake, and hear the booming of the waves on the low shore.

Turning an abrupt angle in the road, they drove down a long, steep, craggy path, toward a gloomy mountain gorge, at sight of which Mr. Toosypegs so far forgot himself as to take off his hat and wave it over his head, with a feeble “Hooray for Dismal Hollow!” which so scandalized that strict Christian, his aunt, that she gave him a look beneath which he wilted down, and was heard no more.

“What an ugly old place! I won’t go there!” exclaimed little Raymond, with a strong expression of contempt.

And truly it did not look very inviting. The mountain, which, by some convulsion of nature, seemed to have been violently rent in twain, was only passable by a narrow, dangerous bridle-path. Down in the very bottom of this deep, gloomy gorge, stood an old, time-worn building of what had once been red brick, with dismal, black, broken window shutters, that at some far-distant time might have been green. A range of dilapidated barns and outhouses spread away behind, and in front, some hundred yards distant, ran a slender rivulet, which every spring became swollen into a foaming torrent.

Here the sun never penetrated; no living creature was to be seen, and a more gloomy and dismal spot could hardly have been found in the wide world. Even the gipsy queen looked round with a sort of still amaze that any one could be found to live here, while Miss Priscilla elevated both hands in horror, and in the dismay of the moment was surprised into the profanity of exclaiming: “Great Jemimi!”

“It’s the ugliest old place ever was, and I won’t go there!” reiterated Master Raymond, kicking viciously at Mr. Toosypegs, to whom, with an inward presentiment, he felt he owed his coming.

“It is rather dull-looking, now,” said Mr. Toosypegs, apologetically; “but wait till we get it fixed up a little, after a spell. The niggers have let things go to waste since I went away.”

“Humph! Should think they had!” said Miss Priscilla, with a disdainful sniff. “Nothing but treeses, and rockses, and mountainses split him two; hand what your blessed father, which lies now a hangel in some nasty, swampy graveyard, could have been thinking habout, with that ’orrid little river hafore the door, to build a ’ouse in sich a spot, which must hoverflow hevery time hit rains, his more than I can tell – drowning us hin hour beds, as it will be sure to do some fine morning or hother. Wah! wah!” And with this final expression of disgust, given in a tone of scorn no words can express, the ancient virgin suffered herself to be handed from the wagon by her dutiful nephew and deposited in a mud-puddle before the door to the great benefit of her stockings and temper.

The noise of wheels, a very unusual noise there – brought some half-score of lean, hungry-looking curs from some unseen region, who instantly began a furious yelping and barking. Miss Priscilla set up a series of short, sharp little screams, and jumped up on a rock in mortal terror; little Erminie, terrified by the noise, began to cry; Master Raymond yelled to the dogs at the top of his lungs, and plunged headforemost in among them; Mr. Toosypegs went through all the phases of the potential mood – “exorting, entreating, commanding,” – and a general uproar ensued that would have shamed Babel.

The hubbub and din roused the inmates, at last, as it might very easily have done the Seven Sleepers themselves.

A shuffling tread of feet was heard within, and then a trembling voice demanded:

“Who dar?”

“It’s me. Open the door, for goodness’ sake!” exclaimed Mr. Toosypegs, in an agony of supplication.

“We’s got yarms, and dar ain’t notting in de house for you to rob, so you’d better go ’way,” said a quavering voice, that evidently strove in vain to be courageous.

“Will you open the door? I tell you it’s only me!” shouted the deeply-exasperated Mr. Toosypegs, seizing the handle of the door and giving it a furious shake.

Cautiously the door was partly opened, a terrified voice was heard to whisper: “You hit dem wid de poker arter I fire,” and then the frowning muzzles of two huge horse-pistols met their dismayed eyes.

“Don’t shoot – it’s me!” yelled the terror-stricken Mr. Toosypegs; but his words were lost in the bang! bang! of the pistols as they went off.

“Oh, Lord, have mercy on me! I’m shot!” shrieked the unhappy Mr. Toosypegs, as he dropped like a stone in the mud, and lay motionless.

“Hand me de brunderingbuss – quick, Pomp! Dar’s more o’ dem,” again whispered the chattering voice; and once more the warlike individual within blazed away, while Miss Priscilla lay kicking in the strongest hysterics, and Mr. Toosypegs, flat on his face in the mud, lay as rigid and still as a melancholy corpse.

So completely amazed was the gipsy queen by all this, that she stood motionless, with Erminie in her arms. Now the door was slowly opened, and a negro’s face, gray with terror, was protruded. His round, goggle eyes, starting from his head with fear, fell on the prostrate forms of Miss Priscilla and her unfortunate nephew.

“Two ob dem gone, bress de Lord!” piously ejaculated Cuffee. “It takes me for to do de bisiness. Well, bress Mars’r! if I ain’t had a fight for’t.” Then catching sight of the gipsy, he paused suddenly, and jumped back, and raised the discharged blunderbuss, but no effort could make it go off a second time.

“Are you mad, fellow?” exclaimed the deep, commanding voice of Ketura. “Would you murder your master?”

“Young mars’r hab gone; an’ef you don’t cl’ar right out dar’ll be more blood shed!” exclaimed the negro, still keeping his formidable weapon cocked.

“I tell you this is your master!” impatiently exclaimed Ketura. “He arrived to-day; and now you have shot him.”

Slowly the blunderbuss was lowered, as if the conviction that she might be speaking the truth was slowly coming home to the mind of her hearer. Cautiously he left his post of danger and approached his prostrate foe. Gathering courage from his apparent lifelessness, he at last ventured to turn him over, and all smeared and clotted with mud, the pallid features of Mr. Toosypegs were upturned to the light. His arms were stretched stiffly out by his side, as much like a corpse as possible; his eyes were tightly closed; ditto his lips, all covered with soft mud.

There was no mistaking that face. With a loud howl of distress, the negro threw himself upon the lifeless form of poor Mr. Toosypegs.

“Ah! You’ve got your elbow in the pit of my stomach!” exclaimed the corpse, with a sharp yell of pain. “Can’t you get out of that, and let me die in peace?”

For the first time in two years the gipsy, Ketura, laughed. In fact, they would have been more than mortal who could have beheld that unspeakably-ludicrous scene without doing so.

Miss Priscilla stopped her hysterical kicking and plunging, and raised herself on her elbow to look.

The negro, with a whoop of joy that might have startled a Shawnee Indian, seized Mr. Toosypegs, who had shut his eyes and composed himself for death again, save an occasional splutter as the mud went down his throat, and swinging him over his shoulder as if he had been a limp towel, rushed with him in triumph into the house.

“He warn’t dead, then, hafter hall?” said Miss Priscilla, sharply, in a voice that seemed made of steel-springs. “Well, I never! Going hand fright’ning respectable parties hout their wits with ’orrid black niggers, firing hoff of pistols hand cannons; lying there in the mud making believe dead; hand shooting me somewhere – for I can feel the balls hinside hof me; spoiling a good new suit hof clothes, rolling there like a pig, and not dead, hafter hall; hand that there nigger shooting away like mad hall the time, which his a mercy to be thankful for! Wah! wah!”

And, with her usual look of sour disgust immeasurably heightened, Miss Priscilla gathered up her own muddy skirts and marched, like a loaded rifle all ready to go off, into a long, black, chill, littered hall.

Half a dozen frightened darkies were crouching in the further corner, and on these Miss Priscilla turned the muzzle of the rifle, and a sharp volley of oddly-jumbled up sentences went off in tones of keenest irony.

“Yes; you may stand there, you hugly black leeches, hafter shooting us hevery one – though looks ain’t hof no consequence in this horrid place; hand hif you don’t get ’ung for it some day, my name hain’t Priscilla Dorothea Toosypegs! Perhaps you’ll show me where my nevvy his, which you’ve shot so nicely, hand make a fire, hafter keeping hus rolling hin the mud, getting our death hof cold in this ’orrid cold ’ouse, which, being a respectable female, hand not a pig, I hain’t used to; hand Hamerica mud hain’t the nicest thing I ever saw for to eat; so maybe you’ll get hus some dinner, hand show me to where my nevvy his, hif you please,” concluded Miss Priscilla, in tones of most cutting irony.

The terrified servants understood enough of this singular address to know Miss Toosypegs wished for a fire, her dinner, and her nephew. An old woman, therefore, in a gaudy Madras turban, advanced, and led the way up a rickety flight of stairs into a comfortless-looking room, with a damp, unaired odor, where, on a bed, lay the mortal remains of O. C. Toosypegs, with the darkey – whose name I may as well say at once was Cupid – giving him a most vigorous rubbing, which extorted from the dead man sundry groans and grimaces and encouraged Cupid to still further exertions.

The loaded rifle advanced to the bedside, and a second volley went off.

“Come, Horlander Toosypegs, get hup hout o’ that, lying there in this musty hold room, face and hall plastered hover with mud, which his enough to give you the rheumatism the longest day you live, without the first spark hof a fire – so it is!”

“I’m dying, Aunt Priscilla; stay with me to the last!” in the faintest whisper, responded Mr. Toosypegs, languidly opening his eyes, and then shutting them again.

“Dying? Wah, wah!” grunted Miss Priscilla, catching him by the shoulder and shaking him with no gentle hand. “Pretty corpse you’ll make, hall hover with mud, hand looks has much like dying has I do.”

“De brunderingbuss an’ de pissels war only loaded wid powder – no shot in ’em at all. ’Deed, old missus, he ain’t hurted the fustest mite, only he t’inks so.”

“Hold!” shrieked Miss Priscilla, turning fiercely upon Cupid. “You impident black nigger, you! to call me hold! Leave the room this very minute, hand never let me see your hugly, black face hagain!”

“Come – you are not hurt – get up!” said Ketura, going over to the bedside, as poor Cupid, crestfallen, slunk away. “There is not a hair of your head injured. Up with you!”

“Am I not shot?” demanded Mr. Toosypegs, bewildered. “Did the bullet not enter my brain?”

“You never had any for it to enter,” said the gipsy, encouragingly. “Look yourself; there is neither wound nor blood.”

“No; but it’s bleeding inwardly,” said Mr. Toosypegs, with a hollow groan. “Oh, I know I’m a dead man!”

“Chut! I have no patience with you! Get up, man! you are as well as ever!” impatiently exclaimed Ketura.

Slowly Mr. Toosypegs, who had immense faith in Ketura, lifted first one arm and then another to see if either were powerless. Satisfied on this point, he next lifted each leg; and finding, to his great astonishment, that his limbs were all sound, he carefully began to raise himself up in bed. No torrent of blood followed this desperate attempt, as he expected there would be; and the next minute, Mr. Orlando Toosypegs stood, safe and sound, on the floor, looking about as sheepish a young gentleman as you would find from Maine to Florida.

“You thought you was gone – didn’t you?” said the little witch, Raymond, with a malicious chuckle of delight, as he watched the chopfallen hero of the pallid features.

Miss Toosypegs merely contented herself with a look of lofty contempt more withering than words, and then rustled out to rouse up the “hugly black leeches” on the subject of dinners and fires.

Having succeeded in both objects especially in the dinner department, which Aunt Bob, the presiding deity of the kitchen, had got up in sublime style, Miss Priscilla was in somewhat better humor; and having announced her intention of beginning a thorough reformation both out doors and in, turned briskly to her nephew, who sat in a very dejected state of mind, without so much as a word to say for himself, and exclaimed:

“Now, Horlander, the best thing you can do is, to go immediately hand see habout getting a ’ouse for Mrs. Ketura hand the children, which would never survive a day in this damp hold barn; besides, being to do some time or hother, it mayhas well be did first has last, hand save the ’spense hof a doctor’s bill, which his the hunpleasantest thing hever was stuck hin hanybody’s face.”

Mr. Toosypegs, who felt he would never more dare to call his soul his own, meekly put on his hat, and said he would go and see about a cottage he knew of which would suit Mrs. Ketura to a T. The fact was, he was glad to escape from his aunt; and that good lady, who had classed Mrs. Ketura and the children under the somewhat indefinite title of “riff-raff” from the first, was equally anxious to be rid of them.

Late that evening, Mr. Toosypegs returned, with the satisfactory news that he had obtained the cottage, which belonged, he informed them, to a certain Admiral Havenful, who, not having any particular use for it himself, said they might have it rent free. The cottage was furnished; just as it had been let by its last tenant; and Mrs. Ketura might pitch her tent there, with a safe conscience, as fast as she liked.

“You had better take one of the servants with you, too,” said Mr. Toosypegs, good-naturedly; “we have more than we want, and you will require one to mind the baby, and fetch water, and do chores. I think Lucy will do as well as any.”

Miss Toosypegs frowned at first; but remembering, upon second thoughts, that there was already a tribe of useless negroes and dogs, eating them out of house and home, she gave a sharp assent, at last, to her nephew’s arrangement.

Early the next morning, Mr. Toosypegs, Ketura, Raymond, Erminie, and the negress, Lucy, entered the wagon, and turned their backs upon Dismal Hollow.

Half an hour’s drive through a forest-road, all aglow with the leafy splendor of early July, brought them to the seashore. Far removed from any other habitation, stood a pretty little whitewashed cottage, a little fairy-bandbox of a place, on a bank above the sea, nestling like a pearl set in emeralds as it gleamed through a wilderness of vines and shrubs. A wide, dry, arid expanse, overrun with blueberry and cranberry vines, spread before the door toward the north, as far as the eye could reach. Far in the distance, they could see a huge house, of a dazzling whiteness, unshaded by tree or vine, as it stood in the full glare of the hot sun, dazzling the eye of the gazer. This, Mr. Toosypegs gave them to understand, was the “White Squall,” the residence of Admiral Havenful; and the dry plains spreading into the distance were very appropriately known as the “Barrens.” South and east, a dense forest shut in the view, and to the west spread out the boundless sea.

“Now, Mrs. Ketura,” said Mr. Toosypegs, in a mysterious whisper, “you can’t live upon green vines and blueberries, nor yet you can’t stay in this cottage from morning till night, you know, though I dare say Aunt Priscilla thinks you can. Therefore you must take this purse – half of which the admiral gave me for you last night, and the other half – well, no matter. Then, as you’ll want to go to Judestown to market, and to church, sometimes, I’ll send over the pony and the old buggy; but don’t you say a word about it to Aunt Priscilla – women don’t need to know anything, you know, as they don’t always view things in their proper light; and Aunt Priscilla’s queer any way. If there’s anything else you want, just you send Lucy for it to Dismal Hollow, and you shall have it, Mrs. Ketura, for I like you real well.”

“You are very kind,” said the gipsy, again touched by his good-nature; “and I hope you will always regard yourself as one of the family.”

“Hark you, Mrs. Ketura,” said Mr. Toosypegs, in a tone of delight. “I certainly will, since you wish it. I’ll drop in very often. I’m very much obliged to you.”

And, waving his hand briskly, Mr. Toosypegs resumed his seat in the wagon, and drove off again to Dismal Hollow.

CHAPTER XV.

AFTER MANY DAYS

“I will paint her as I see her.Ten times have the lilies blownSince she looked upon the sun.”– Browning.

And ten years passed away.

It was a jocund morning in early spring. From the pine woods came the soft twittering of innumerable birds, filling the air with melody; while the soft, fragrant odor of the tall swinging pines came floating on every passing breeze. The sun rose in unclouded splendor above the dark tree-tops, and the bright waves of the Chesapeake danced and flashed in the golden rays. No sound broke the deep, profound stillness of the wide, dry moor; no living thing, save now and then some solitary bird that skimmed along over the fern, was to be seen. Far away in every direction nothing met the eye but the blue, unclouded sky above, and the bleak, arid barrens below, that lay hot and dry in the glare of the morning sunshine.

Suddenly the sylvan silence of the spot was broken by the clear, sweet notes of a hunting-horn, that startled the echoes far and near, and the next moment the forms of a horse and rider came dashing over the moor.

The horse was a splendid animal, a small, jet-black Arabian, with graceful, tapering limbs, arching neck, flowing mane, and small, erect head, and bright, fiery eyes. His rider was a young girl of some twelve years, who sat her horse like an Arab hunter, and whose dark, unique style of beauty merits a wider description.

She was very slight and rather tall for her age; but with a finely proportioned figure, displayed now to the best advantage by her well-fitting riding-habit – which consisted of a skirt of dark-green cloth, a tight basque of black velvet. Her face was thin and dark and somewhat elfish, but the olive skin was smooth as satin, and deepening with deepest crimson in the thin cheeks and lips. Her forehead was low broad, and polished; her saucy little nose decidedly retrousse; her teeth like pearls, and her hands and feet perfect. And then her eyes – such great, black, lustrous, glorious eyes, through which at times a red light shone – such splendid eyes, vailed by long, jetty, silken lashes, and arched by glossy black eyebrows, smooth and shining as water-leeches – eyes full of fun, frolic, freedom, and dauntless daring – eyes that would haunt the memory of the beholder for many a day. Her hair, “woman’s crowning glory,” was of intensest blackness, and clustered in short, dancing curls round her dark, bright, sparkling face. In the shade those curls were of midnight darkness, but in sunshine, red rings of fire shone through like tiny circlets of flame. She wore a small, black velvet hat, whose long sable plume just touched her warm, crimson cheek.

Such was the huntress, who with a pistol stuck in her belt, a little rifle swung across her shoulder, dashed along over the moor, holding the bridle lightly in one hand, and swinging jauntily, a silver-mounted riding-whip in the other.

As she reached the center of the moor, she reined in her horse so suddenly that he nearly reared upright, and then, lifting her little silver bugle again to her lips, she blew a blast that echoed in notes of clearest melody far over the heath.

This time her signal was answered – a loud shout from a spirited voice met her ear, and in another instant another actor appeared upon the scene.

He, too, was mounted, and rode his horse well. He was a tall, slender stripling of about fifteen, and in some ways not unlike the girl. He had the same dark complexion, the same fiery black eyes and hair; but there all resemblance ceased. The look of saucy drollery on her face was replaced on his by a certain fierce pride – an expression at once haughty and daring. He was handsome, exceedingly, with regular, classical features, a perfect form, and had that mark of high birth, the small and exquisitely-shaped ear, and thin curving nostril. Erect he sat in his saddle, like a young prince of the blood.

“Bon matin, Monsieur Raymond!” shouted the girl, as he gallantly raised his cap and let the morning breeze lift his dark locks. “I thought the sun would not find you in bed the first morning after your return home. How does your serene highness find yourself?”

“In excellent health and spirits. I’m very much obliged to you – as our friend Mr. Toosypegs would say,” answered Master Raymond, for he it is, as he laughingly rode up beside her. “Where’s Ranty?”

“In bed. That fellow’s as lazy as sin, and would rather lie there, sleeping like some old grampus, than enjoy a ride over the hills the finest morning that ever was.”

“How do you know grampuses are fond of sleeping?” said Raymond.

“How do I know?” said the girl, in a high key, getting somewhat indignant. “I know very well they are? Doesn’t Miss Toosypegs, when she’s talking about Orlando sleeping in the morning, always say he’s ‘snoring like a grampus’? and if Miss Priscilla doesn’t know, that’s been to England, and every place else, I would like to know who does!”

“Well, I’ve been to England, too,” said Raymond.

“Yes, and a great deal of good it’s done you!” said the young lady, contemptuously. “But that’s the way always. Ever since Ranty and you went to college, you’ve got so stuck up, and full of Latin and Greek, and stuff, there’s no standing either of you. Last night, Ranty had to go and ask aunt Deb for the bootjack in Latin, and when she couldn’t understand him, he went round kicking the cat and my nine beautiful kittens, in the most awful manner that ever was; and swearing at her in Greek – the hateful wretch!”

And Miss Petronilla Lawless scowled at Raymond, who laughed outright.

“Oh! come now, Pet, don’t be angry!” he said. “Where’s the use of quarreling the very first morning we meet.”

“Quarreling!” repeated Miss Pet, shortly: “I’m sure I don’t want to quarrel; but you’re so aggravating. Boys always are just the hatefulest things – ”

“Most hateful, Miss Lawless,” amended Raymond, gravely. “There’s a great deal of good sense but bad grammar in that sentence. I don’t like boys myself half so well as I do girls – for instance, you’re worth a dozen of Ranty.”

“Yes; you say so now, when Ranty ain’t listening; but if you wanted to go off on some mischief or other, I guess you wouldn’t think of me. But that’s the way I’m always treated, pitched round like an old shoe, without even daring to say a word for myself.”