"we are all creatures of habit." so my learned uncle, draen y coed, who was a welsh hedgehog, used to say. "which was why an ancestor of my own, who acted as turnspit in the kitchen of a farmhouse in yorkshire, quite abandoned the family custom of walking out in the cool of the evening, and declared that he couldn't take two steps in comfort except in a circle, and in front of a kitchen-fire at roasting heat."
uncle draen y coed was right, and i must add that i doubt if, in all his experience, or among the strange traditions of his most eccentric ancestors, he could find an instance of change of habits so unexpected, so complete, i may say so headlong, as when very quiet people, with an almost surly attachment to home, break the bounds of the domestic circle, and take to gadding, gossiping, and excitement.
perhaps it is because they find that their fellow-creatures are nicer than they have been wont to allow them to be, and that other people's affairs are quite as interesting as their own.
perhaps—but what is the good of trying to explain infatuations?
why do we all love valerian? i can only record that, having set up every prickle on our backs against intruders into our wood, we now dreaded nothing more than that our neighbours should forsake us, and wished for nothing better than for fresh arrivals.
in old days, when my excellent partner and i used to take our evening stroll up the field, we were wont to regard it quite as a grievance if a cousin, who lived at the far end of the hedge, came out and caught us and detained us for a gossip. but now i could hardly settle to my midday nap for thinking of the tinker-mother; and as to mrs. hedgehog, she almost annoyed me by her anxiety to see christian. however, curiosity is the foible of her sex, and i accompanied her daily to the encampment without a murmur.
the seven urchins we sent down to the burdocks to pick snails.
it was not many days after that on which we heard the old tinker-mother relate christian's history, that we were stopped on our way to the corner where we usually concealed ourselves, by hearing strange voices from the winding pathway above us.
"it's a young man," said i.
"it's christian!" cried mrs. hedgehog.
"i feel sure that it is not," said i; "but if you will keep quiet, i will creep a little forward and see."
i am always in the right, as i make a point of reminding mrs. hedgehog whenever we dispute; and i was right on this occasion.
the lad who spoke was a young gentleman of about seventeen, and no more like a gipsy than i am. his fair hair was closely cropped, his eyes were quick and bright, his manner was alert and almost anxious, and though he was very slight as well as very young, he carried himself with dignity and some little importance. a lady, much older than himself, was with him, whom he was helping down the path.
"take care, gertrude, take care. there is no hurry, and i believe there's no one in the wood but ourselves."
"the people at the inn told us that there were gipsies in the neighbourhood," said the lady; "and oh, ted! this is exactly the wood i dreamt of, except the purple and white—"
"gertrude! what on earth are you after?"
"the flowers, ted, the flowers in my dream! there they are, a perfect carpet of them. white—oh, how lovely!—and there, on the other side, are the purple ones. what are they, dear? i know you are a good botanist. he always raved about your collection."
"nonsense, i'm not a botanist. several other fellows went in for it when the prize was offered, and all that my collection was good for was his doing. i never did see any one arrange flowers as he did, i must say. every specimen was pressed so as somehow to keep its own way of growing. and when i did them, a columbine looked as stiff as a dog-daisy. i never could keep any character in them. watson—the fellow who drew so well—made vignettes on the blank pages to lots of the specimens—'likely habitats' we called them. he used to sit with his paint-box in my window, and christian used to sit outside the window, on the edge, dangling his legs, and describing scenes out of his head for watson to draw. watson used to say, 'i wish i could paint with my brush as that fellow paints with his tongue'—and when the vignettes were admired, i've heard him say, in his dry way, 'i copied them from christian's paintings;' and the fellows used to stare, for you know he couldn't draw a line. and when—but i say, gertrude, for heaven's sake, don't devour everything i say with those great pitiful eyes of yours. i am a regular brute to talk about him."
"no, ted, no. it makes me so happy to hear you, and to know that you know how good he really was, and how much he must have been aggravated before—"
"for goodness' sake, don't cry. christian was a very good fellow, a capital fellow. i never thought i could have got on so well with any one who was—i mean who wasn't—well, of course i mean who was really a gipsy. i don't blame him a bit for resenting being bullied about his parents. i only blame myself for not looking better after him. but you know that well enough—you know it's because i never can forgive myself for having managed so badly when you put him in my care, that i am backing you through this mad expedition, though i don't approve of it one bit, and though i know john will blame me awfully."
("it's the clergywoman," whispered mrs. hedgehog excitedly, "and i must and will see her."
when it comes to this with mrs. hedgehog's sex, there is nothing for it but to let the dear creatures have their own way, and take the consequences. she pushed her nose straight through the lower branches of an arbutus in which we were concealed, and i myself managed to get a nearer sight of our new neighbours.
as we crept forward, the clergywoman got up from where she was kneeling amongst the flowers, and laid her hand on the young gentleman's arm. i noticed it because i had never seen such a white hand before; sybil's paws were nearly as dark as my own.)
"john will blame no one if we find christian," she said. "you are very, very good, cousin ted, to come with me and help me when you do not believe in my dream. but you must say it is odd about the flowers. and you haven't told me yet what they are."
"it is the bulbous-rooted fumitory," said the young man, pulling a piece at random in the reckless way in which men do disfigure forest flower-beds. "it isn't strictly indigenous, but it is naturalized in many places, and you must have seen it before, though you fancy you haven't."
"i have seen it once before," she said earnestly—"all in delicate glaucous-green masses, studded with purple and white, like these; but it was in my dream. i never saw it otherwise, though i know you don't believe me."
"dear gertrude, i'll believe anything you like to tell me, if you'll come home. i'm sure i have done very wrong. you know i'm always hard up, but i declare i'd give a hundred pounds if you'd come home with me at once. i don't believe there's a gipsy within—"
"good-day, my pretty young gentleman. let the poor gipsy girl tell you your fortune."
he turned round and saw sybil standing at his elbow, her eyes flashing and her white teeth gleaming in a broad smile. he stood speechless in sudden surprise; but the clergywoman, who was not surprised, came forward with her white hands stretched so expressively towards sybil's brown ones, that the gipsy girl all but took them in her own.
"please kindly tell me—do you know anything of a young gipsy, named christian?"
the clergywoman spoke with such vehemence that sybil answered directly, "i know his grandmother"—and then suddenly stopped herself.
but as she spoke, she had turned her head with an expressive gesture in the direction of the encampment, and without waiting for more, the clergywoman ran down the path, calling on her cousin to follow her.
