The person against whom so many subtle contrivances were directed, on leaving Colonel Manners, as we have described in a foregoing chapter, turned his steps towards the wood in which his own companions had sought refuge after the unfortunate events of the preceding night. If the reader will cast his eye upon the county map, he will see that, avoiding Morley Down, he skirted along the hill, the summit of which it crowned; and then, after following for a little way that part of the high-road which traversed the little isthmus, in the neighbourhood of which he had saved the life of Isadore Falkland, he struck soon after into the forest on the right. As he came not from the same side on which his comrades had entered the wood, his search for them was not without difficulty; but it is wonderful with what keen tact persons accustomed to such scenes and circumstances take advantage of slight and apparently insignificant indications to guide them on their way. A branch brushed aside, a trodden-down flower, the sight, or even the smell of smoke, the least sound of the human voice, will each aid them in their search; and by means of this kind Pharold, ere long, discovered the little glen in which his whole party had found an asylum.

At the moment he approached, had his keen mind not been engaged with many another thought, he might have remarked that there was some degree of bustle and consultation among the gipsies, which ceased as he came up. All, however, appeared glad to see him safe; and all crowded round to express the anxiety they had felt during his absence, and to question him as to the events which had befallen him. Lena hung upon his arm with evident pleasure at his return; but the fondness she displayed was more like that of a child towards a parent than that of a wife for a husband.

In answer to the inquiries of the whole party, Pharold--after having seated himself in the midst, and demanded some refreshment, which was speedily procured--related, briefly, all that had occurred as far as his own perils went. Of Colonel Manners he spoke as of a stranger, and neither noticed their encounter nor his promise of again meeting him, though he told the group around that ere an hour was over he must again set forth on matters of import not to be delayed.

"Well, I hope, at all events, that you are going to get poor Will out," said the old woman we have so often mentioned. "Poor boy! he has a hard fate."

"I hope," said Lena, seeing that Pharold made no answer--"I hope--" but then she stopped, as if afraid of offending him.

"And what do you hope, Lena?" said Pharold, gravely, but not so sternly as was often his wont.

"I hope," she said, more boldly, but with the colour coming up in her brown cheek--"I hope that some means will be found to set the poor boy free, for I am sure he was not the guilty person."

As she spoke Pharold gazed on her with such grave earnestness that her latter words faltered; and even after she had concluded he still kept his eyes fixed upon her in silence, till one of the men, who had accompanied Dickon on the deer-stealing expedition, joined into corroborate her words.

"No, no," said the man, "he was not so guilty as any of us. Dickon persuaded the rest of us, and we persuaded him; but it was a hard matter to do so; and then, after all, he never fired a gun."

"Well," said Pharold, "I have done my utmost to free him: but he is in the hands of our enemies, who are keen, and vigilant, and many; and I see no way of delivering him from them but by force, which I will not employ, first, because it would fail; and next, because it would be sacrificing many of the innocent to deliver one who, though less guilty than others, is still culpable. I see no other way."

"Ay, but there is another way, Pharold," said the old woman: "they say that he is confined in what they call the strong room."

"They say!" exclaimed Pharold, hastily--"they say! Some one has been with you: speak, who has been here? or has any one gone forth when I forbade it?"

The old woman only grinned at having betrayed herself, as Pharold looked sternly round upon the circle; but Lena cast herself upon his bosom, saying, "Tell him the truth! Oh, tell him the truth! It is always better to tell him the truth! Well, if no one else will, I will. Some one has been here, Pharold--some one who has seen the poor boy in prison; and he told us all how wretched he is, and also he said that William himself had sent him to us to say, that if any one would come down to-night or to-morrow night to the window of the room where he is lying, they could easily wrench off the iron bars that kept him in, and set him free at once."

"And who was the person that he sent?" demanded Pharold, sternly.

"Why, it was just Harry Saxon, the game-sneaker," answered the old woman; "who else should it be?"

"A dastardly villain!" said Pharold, hastily; "fit to betray us all: speak no more of it. I know that man of old, and would not trust him with the life of a child, if he could gain by its destruction."

"He seemed honest enough in this business," said the man called Brown; "for he told us all how he had got in to see the lad, and how he had traced us hither. He took some blame to himself, too, in the business of the deer-stealing, for he was to have bought the venison from Dickon; and that was the reason why he went to see poor Will in prison, and was willing to do what he could to get him out. Now I would not promise to go till I knew what you thought of it, Pharold; but if you like, I will go down to-night, for, as to the man betraying us, you see I have no fear, because, if he had liked, he could have brought people to nab us all here. So I will go and try what I can do."

"But did not Will say particularly," cried the shrill tones of the old woman, "that it must be some one who knew the place well, or they would get into a mess? If you go, Brown, you'll only get caught yourself, and spoil a hopeful plan for setting poor William free. There is no one that knows the place well but Pharold and I, because we know it of old; and as Pharold is afraid to go any more, I would go with all my heart, if I were strong enough to get the bars off: I could have done it once, as well as the best man among you; but I am an old woman now. As for that, Pharold knows the place better than I do a great deal, for he lived in that very house for many a month, and--"

"Hold your peace, hold your peace, woman," interrupted Pharold. "The boy said to-night or to-morrow, did he not?"

"Yes, to-night or to-morrow," answered Brown; "but to-night were best, for who knows what may happen before to-morrow?"

"To-night I cannot go," answered Pharold, "for I have pledged my word to be elsewhere, and I do not break my word: but to-morrow I will go; and I think that, perhaps, after all, I may be able to set him free. In the meantime, however, you, Mother Gray, shall go down this very night, to reward you for all the share you have had in the matter. You know the strong room window, just in the angle, by the great hall. Get ye down thither at midnight; and tell the boy that I will come to-morrow night: bid him keep a good watch; and if he sees any one lurking about, as if watching, let him sing some of the songs that he sings so well, to warn me. You look out well, too, and mark everything about you, to tell me when I come back. You were never the wisest or the best, but I do not think you such a devil as to betray one wilfully."

He looked sternly and keenly at her, but the beldam only answered in a jeering tone, "No, no, Pharold, though I love you as much as a young sparrow loves a cuckoo poult, I'll not betray you, man."

"Go, then," said Pharold, "as soon as it is midnight: examine everything well; and tell the boy, through the bars of the window, that, although he deserves to suffer the consequences of his fault, yet we will do our best to rescue him for his youth's sake."

It is always some consolation to those who lie under the command of a superior mind to be permitted to sneer at what they dare not disobey; and the old woman, while she listened, gave way to all those grins, and winks, and nods, the boldness of which she fancied might counterbalance, in the opinion of those around, her degradation in submitting quietly to the orders of one who treated her with such unceremonious censure. She was secured, however, by Pharold's scorn, against any notice of her malice, as far as he himself was concerned; and without seeming to observe the affectation of contempt with which she heard him, he turned to the rest, and gave directions for immediately removing their encampment to another spot.

"Quarter of a mile farther," he said, "you will come to a clear stream, broad but not deep, flowing from the heart of the wood, over a bed of sand and small clear stones. You can drive the carts up through the water till you reach a place where the banks are flat; and there, under the oaks and among the hazel-bushes, you will find plenty of room and shelter. You, Brown, take every precaution you can to prevent the slightest trace being left of the course you have followed; make the people wade along the water--it is not deep enough to cover their ankles; send them, too, by different parties and in different ways; for remember that, because one of our number has killed two deer, the whole world, that hated us before, will now think themselves justified to hunt us down like foxes.--I can stay with you no longer, for the hour I named is near at hand--I am wearied and sad, and I feel as if the end were coming; but still I must keep my word, and do as I have done to the last."

Some tears, from mixed emotions that would have defied analysis, had filled the eyes of the beautiful girl that reclined by his side; and as Pharold rose to depart, he saw them still glistening there. Taking her hand, he beckoned her with him, saying, "Come with me for a moment, Lena: I would speak with you."

She followed, and for about a hundred yards he led her on in silence; and then, turning round, he pressed a kiss upon her lips:--"Remember me, Lena," he said, "when I am dead. Ever, at this hour, whatever may happen to you, whatever changes may befall, think of Pharold for a few short minutes; and mark what I tell you, each time you think of him--whatever you may feel now;--you shall regret him more, till, on your dying day, you shall love Pharold as Pharold now loves you. Remember, Lena, remember, remember!" and, turning away, he left her with her bright eyes dropping fast unwonted tears.

Alas, alas! the constancy and resolution of youth, what frail things they are! and how fast the ephemeral feelings and purposes of the hour give place to others as frail and vain! When Lena turned away from Pharold, she had believed that for no boon on earth would she do aught that could offend him; but ere many minutes were over, she was listening to the persuasions of the old woman, that had led all those wrong who had confided in her, and was combating faintly and more faintly the arguments which age and cunning used to induce her to visit that night the place where her unhappy lover was confined. Lena listened and resisted, till she listened and yielded; and midnight found her standing with the old woman under the window of the strong room in Dimden Park.

In the mean while Pharold pursued his way to rejoin Colonel Manners; but there seemed to be some bitter feeling sitting heavy at his heart. The light and agile step had become slow; the quick, keen eyes were bent thoughtfully upon the ground; more than one sad sigh burst from his bosom; and the spirit and the heart seemed to mourn. It might be that Pharold perceived that he was not loved; it might be that he felt he had set the whole fortunes of his being upon a hazardous chance; but as we have not paused to trace his love, we shall not dwell long upon his disappointment. Other feelings, too, such as, more or less modified by circumstances, will cross the mind of every imaginative and sensitive man, now rushed upon him, rendered tenfold more strong in his case than in that of others, by the prejudices of his people, and the wild and varying habits of his race. Feelings of superstition, and vague, rambling, fanciful speculations upon all those indications of human destiny, gathered from external objects, in which his tribe believe, now mingled themselves with jealous doubts and apprehensions, and appealed to his own heart for belief or rejection in his own individual instance.

"I am coming to the crosses," he murmured, as he walked along--"I am coming to the crosses of life; and the end is not far off! I have seen those who obeyed me once, rise up against my will. I have been persecuted and hunted for faults not my own: I have been overcome by a creature like myself, with no odds against me; and I have learned to doubt those I love. Ah! and that she, too, should think of another! Woman, woman! Care, instruction, and kind reproof but offend thee! love and tenderness but spoil thee! Affection, and worth, and honour are to thee but as nothing! In danger thou clingest to us! In peace and security thou leavest us! The things which attract thee are the lightest of qualities and the vainest of transitory things; and with what cords shall we bind thee, even when once thou art caught? Vain, vain, empty butterfly! indifference and reckless carelessness are the things which win thee the most surely, and which most truly thou meritest."

Such were the first outpourings of a heart jealous of affection; but as Pharold walked on, the belief that Lena's love might be given to another was softened by reflection, and he began to think he had done her wrong. He remembered the tears he had seen in her eyes; he thought of many a testimony of girlish regard which she had displayed towards him: he called to mind many of the finer traits of her heart and mind which had first attracted him, and which he had striven to cultivate; and he again began to trust that she would not suffer one thought to stray from him who had become her husband. The feeling of that vast disparity of age which existed between them did, indeed, ever mingle with such hopes, and, as it had often done before, disturbed his peace of mind by apprehension and doubt. "She will be the sooner free," he thought bitterly: "she will be the sooner free! God only knows how soon! for I feel a weight upon me, and a gloom, as if fate were coming near to me, and its shadow rested dark upon my thoughts. She will be free, and wed another, and be happy, and forget me, till pain, and sorrow, and anxiety come, till she wants the hand that used to protect her, till she requires the mind that used to guide her, and then she may think of Pharold, and grieve to think that he is lying beneath the cold and crumbling mould of earth, whence neither prayers nor wishes shall bring him back to her side again. Then she may remember, and perhaps weep for him who is lost to her for ever."

With such sad and gloomy reflections Pharold amused the way, as, retreading the steps he had lately taken, he proceeded to fulfil his appointment with Colonel Manners. He was a man who gave, perhaps, as few thoughts to self and selfish considerations as most men. He was one of those who, in other circumstances and in other ages, would have as willingly devoted himself a sacrifice for his friend, or for his country, as any Greek or Roman that ever lived. But he was a gipsy, and born in an age when patriotism and friendship were equally considered as mercantile commodities; when men, having cast behind them the heroism of ancient Greece and Rome, and the chivalry of ancient France and England, were just beginning to dip themselves in a spirit of cold and selfish calculation, which, like the waters of the Carian fountain, emasculates all that is noble and energetic in human nature; and it is not possible to live among such times without feeling their chilling influence. Their influence, however, upon him was different from that which it had upon others; for his race, and state, and habits, all placed him without the circle of ordinary thoughts and sensations common to the rest of men. That he was moving among cold and selfish beings, he felt; that he was acting upon principles different from theirs, he could not but know; and he despised them because he did know it, hating them the more because he was one of a scorned and injured race, to which he clung with the greater tenacity because it was scorned and injured. But when he met with a spirit congenial to his own, when he found that he could love and could trust, all the deep, the noble, the generous feelings of his original nature burst through every band of times, and circumstances, and nation, and habit; and he was no longer the gipsy, the sullen hater of every race except his own, but a creature endowed with noble powers of mind, and gifted above all with that gem from heaven, an upright and enthusiastic heart, which would have honoured any land, or age, or people. The direction which it took might sometimes be wrong, the reasonings that guided it might wander upon wild, and prejudiced, and eccentric theories; but the principle was always good, and the purpose was always generous.

Thus, although he thought for some part of the way upon himself, and upon the cares and griefs that thronged around him, his mind soon turned to other objects; and the desire of serving and of soothing others was strong enough even to withdraw his thoughts from the powerful grasp of individual sorrows, always far more potent in their selfishness than joys.

As he approached the spot where his unsuccessful struggle had taken place with Colonel Manners, he felt, it is true, some sort of bitterness of heart, to think that he had been overcome. Vanity will have her share in all; and happy it is--ay, even more than we can expect--when she changes not the pain of her wound into hatred of those who have inflicted it. Manners was already on the spot, and the first words of the gipsy were those of human kindness. "How is she?" he asked, abruptly. "How is the young lady? You have seen--you have told her all is well, of course?"

"I have," answered Manners, "and her heart is greatly lighter, though she will remain still anxious and unsatisfied till I have with my own eyes seen her cousin, and can report to her the state of his health."

"Fear not, fear not," answered the gipsy; "I have promised to take you to him, and there is not that power under the heavens which should ever induce me to break my word, while I am capable of performing it."

"I do not fear, in the least," answered Manners: "I knew perfectly that you would keep your promise, and confidently assured the family at Morley House that you would lead me to De Vaux this night. I need hardly tell you how much joy that assurance gave them, and how much gratitude they felt to him who made the promise."

"Speak not of gratitude!" answered the gipsy--"speak not of gratitude! I only regret that from the first I had not foreseen what pain might fall on some of the good and kind, and that I did not assure myself of how I ought to act. But if you knew, gentleman, what a life I have led for the last three days, you would easily make excuse for some forgetfulness of others--a life so different from that to which we are accustomed. We come in sunshine, and pitch our dwelling in the warm bosom of nature, with beauty all round us, and neither care nor strife among ourselves; but now we have been hunted, and sought, and had to change our dwellings from place to place; and in order to provide that we left no traces of our way, we have been forced to double like a poor hare before the accursed hounds, to think every footstep the signal of an enemy, and every rustle of the leaves to look upon as the indication of an ambush. I fear me, too, I fear me that their persecutions are not yet over. But let us on: here lies our road."

"I trust," said Manners, following him--"I trust that as you are able to clear yourself in this business of my friend De Vaux, all the other suspicions against you will be found equally groundless; and then you may follow your way of life once more in peace."

"No, no," answered the gipsy, "he would persecute me still. Once he has made a false accusation against me, and he will never abandon it as long as he and I are on the face of the same earth--never, never! I know him too well."

"I do not clearly understand of whom you speak," answered Manners, keeping by the side of the gipsy, although the pace at which he had set off seemed accelerated at every step by the angry feelings that he was stirring up in his own bosom. "You do not name the person. Whom do you mean?"

"Whom should I mean?" answered the gipsy, sharply. "Whom but him who, born with violent passions and a haughty nature, was bred a lawyer, in order that dark cunning should be added to a bold spirit and a shrewd mind. I speak of Lord Dewry; and I tell you that he will never cease to persecute me. Does he not now hold in fast confinement a boy of our people whom he well knows to be innocent?"

"There is, certainly," answered Manners, "a gipsy-boy confined at Dimden, for I saw him there this morning; but Lord Dewry, as well as all the people of the neighbourhood, informed me that he had been taken in an attempt to steal the deer in the park."

"He was not present," said the gipsy: "he saw not the beast slaughtered by the mad-headed fools that did it, any more than I did. But he keeps him because he is a gipsy-boy, not that he thinks him guilty. And so, you saw him, did you?" continued Pharold, striving, with a slight mingling of the artful cunning of his people, to discover what Manners knew of the situation of the young gipsy--"so, you saw him? and, doubtless, he is to be sent soon to the county-jail, to die of imprisonment and despair at losing his blessed freedom."

"I did not hear any mention of such an intention," answered Manners. "Every one present joined in accusing the youth of direct participation in the deer-stealing; and he himself kept so obstinate a silence, that there was no possibility of drawing from him even a word that might exculpate himself."

"And do you call it obstinate silence to refuse to answer either the subtle or the idle questions of his enemies?" demanded the gipsy.

"There is the mistake into which your people fall too often, and with too fatal an effect," answered Manners. "You consider us, on all occasions, as your enemies, and act towards us as if we were such, instead of endeavouring to make us your friends, which might often be accomplished--always, I might say, with good men, were your actions to tend to that purpose. In the instance you speak of, the principal questions were addressed to your young companion by myself. Their object was solely to elicit some news of my friend De Vaux; and, had he answered them frankly, he would have made a friend who might have rendered him service."

"And he refused to answer?" demanded the gipsy.

"Not exactly refused," replied Manners; "but answered only by an unmeaning monosyllable, or kept a profound silence."

"He did right!" cried the gipsy; "he did right! The boy is more deserving than I thought him; he merits an effort."

"We judge very differently," answered Manners: "I thought he did very wrong; and had he given me the information I sought, it is more than probable that I should have met you with very different feelings from those with which I at first saw you this night."

"He did right, he did right!" cried the gipsy. "Would you have had him betray secrets intrusted to him? or was he to judge what I might think fit to be revealed? No, no: silence was his best security against discovering, through fear or through folly, those things, the value of which he knew not. He has shown both more prudence and more resolution than I thought he possessed. However, he could have told you nothing, for he knew nothing--not even the path we are now treading."

"Well, then, his candour would only have served to give a favourable opinion of himself," Manners rejoined, "without injuring you, or betraying your confidence."

"How can you tell that?" cried the gipsy--"how can you tell that? how could he tell it either? Might you not have led him on to other things? Might you not have wrung from him, if he had spoken candidly, as you call it, one admission after another, till you had discovered all that he could tell. Oh, we know your artful ways, your examinations and cross-examinations, which would make an angel of truth and wisdom seem like a liar and a fool. We know your skill in making men reveal what they would not, and speak two apparently opposite truths, without allowing them to give the explanation; so that they seem to contradict themselves at every word. We know you; and we have one way, and only one, to disappoint you, which is silence. You can make naught of that."

Manners saw that, where both the principles and the course of the reasoning were so different, discussion was of very little use; and he consequently made no reply to the gipsy's tirade, feeling, however, at the same time, that there was a portion of truth in what he said, which it would be difficult to separate from the great mass of prejudice with which it was combined. Pharold, however, wished the conversation prolonged upon the same topic; for with all the frank generosity of his individual nature, the habits and the character of the gipsy still modified and influenced the other qualities of his heart and his mind. His character, as a man, was open and candid; but the gipsy often acted, to render it stubborn and sullen when oppressed, or even wily and artful when some peculiar object was to be gained.

He now greatly desired to obtain from Colonel Manners, as a sincere and independent person, some information concerning the exact situation of the boy William, both in order to guide more surely any efforts made for his liberation, and to correct the report of the old beldam, whom he had sent down to inquire, and of whose purposes and views he entertained many a doubt. He did not choose, however, to let his design become apparent, and therefore approached his object with a careful art, which was not a part of his natural, but rather of his acquired character.

"Poor boy!" he said, as soon as he perceived that Manners did not reply--"poor boy! I am sorry for him. He has never known anything but liberty, and the enjoyment of all the free, wide, beautiful world; he has never known what it is to have fetters on his young limbs, or to be shut from the air and light of heaven, in some dark and gloomy dungeon."

"You must not let your imagination draw such a picture of his situation," answered Manners, who, having nothing to conceal, was easily led in the direction the gipsy wished. "The boy is not and cannot be in such a state as you suppose. He has no fetters upon his limbs, and, in all probability, is as well treated as a proper regard for his safe custody will permit."

"It will be pain and grief enough," rejoined the gipsy, "for one who has never in his life been debarred from turning his steps in whatsoever direction he thought fit--who has never been cutoff from the sight of nature, and the breath of the free air, since his eyes were first opened upon God's heaven and earth, and the breath of life was breathed into his nostrils--it will be pain and grief enough for him to be thrust into some dark and gloomy dungeon, perhaps under ground, or, at all events, looking into some dull stone-built court, where he can see nothing on any side but the hateful walls that keep him in, and the sly, dastard faces of those that watch him."

"Of course," answered Manners, "as I am nearly unacquainted with this part of the country and with Dimden Hall, I cannot be aware of the nature of the place in which the lad is confined. A dungeon it is not, certainly; for such things are now, thank God, quite out of the question. It appeared to me, too, that there was no such thing as a court to the dwelling-house; and that, therefore, wherever he may be placed, he will be able to see the face of nature, which you love so much. But you yourself--at least, all I have heard would lead me to suppose so--must know Dimden Hall far better than I do, and perhaps may be aware of where the strong room is; for it was to it that I heard Lord Dewry direct him to be taken, after we had in vain tried to gain any information from him."

"If he be there, he may do well," answered the gipsy; "but probably they will remove him to the county-jail, and there he will have sad and bitter hours enough."

"I should certainly think that they will not do so," answered Manners, "if what you tell me in regard to his innocence of all participation in the actual slaughter of the deer be correct. The magistrates will, of course, investigate the matter, and seek full evidence of the facts, before they either commit the boy, or even send him off to the jail, which, I understand, is many miles distant; so that it is much more probable that he will remain where he is for the present."

The gipsy saw well that Manners spoke without disguise, and that he had, in fact, nothing more to tell in regard to the situation of the prisoner. However, he had gained at least the certainty that the lad was confined in the strong room, which he knew well; that he was not likely to be speedily removed, and that he was not encumbered with fetters to impede his escape. Lest he might have been so secured, Pharold had entertained some fear, as he knew that blood had been shed in the encounter between the deer-stealers and the keepers, and thought it more than likely that the peer would strive to prove the lad William to have been an actual participator in that part of the unfortunate affair, and would treat him accordingly. His next anxiety was to know what was the state of the men who had been wounded, and what was the exact charge against himself, in regard to the affray in Dimden Park, as well as what evidence had been given to inculpate him.

He had found so much frankness in the replies of Colonel Manners to his former inquiries, however, that he now quitted the artful path which he had taken, and spoke more boldly of his own situation. "I would fain know," he said, after he had walked on about two hundred paces farther in silence--"I would fain know how I stand in regard to that false accusation which my enemy brought against me, respecting the slaughter of his pitiful deer. As I passed through the country this morning, after quitting his park, I gained some tidings; but when I first met you, gentleman, to-night, you told me that though I might be guilty of other things, you knew me to be innocent of that. If you be, as you seem to be, a friend to justice and humanity, you will tell me how you know that charge to be false, that I may prove it so, too, by some proof that will be better received than the mere oath of my own people."

"I can have no objection whatever," Manners answered, "to tell you at once how I was led to the conclusion that you mention. There were two persons wounded in that unfortunate affair--one a gentleman who is now lying at Dimden, and another a keeper, who was removed from the park to his own cottage. As I found that the surgeon had confined his attention to the person at Dimden, whose wound is far the most dangerous, I went down to the cottage of the keeper to inquire how he was going on--"

"Good and kind, good and kind!" interrupted the gipsy, with one of those bursts of vehement feeling to which he at times gave way. "Ah, I see and understand it all! The mercenary manufacturer of diseases and maker of men's ills remained with the gentleman, who could pay him for his fancied skill, and left the poor man to do the best for himself; and you went down to comfort him whom the other had neglected."

"Not exactly so," answered Manners: "the wound of the one was much more severe than that of the other, and the surgeon staid where his presence was most necessary. I went down, however, and sat with the poor fellow some time; and he distinctly informed me, not only that you had not been present when the deer were killed, but that you were coming up and calling to the others not to fire at the moment that the guns went off. He said, too, that if it had not been for your interference, there would have been far more bloodshed; and I strongly advise you, should there ever be any investigation of this business, to call the keeper Jones as a witness to establish your innocence."

"While I can keep my liberty," said the gipsy, "they shall never hold me in their gripe. Besides, he would find witnesses enough to swear away my life, if he were to bribe them with half his fortune. But the wounded men--are they likely to die, did you say?"

"I trust not," answered Manners; "and with care and attention, the wound of the keeper will not prove even dangerous. The other gentleman I did not see, but I hear he is much more severely hurt."

"What is his name?" demanded the gipsy.

"Sir Roger Millington, I think, was the name," answered Manners; "but I did not pay it any particular attention."

"Sir Roger Millington!" repeated the gipsy, musing--"Sir Roger Millington! I do not know him; and yet it sounds in my ears like a word spoken in a dream. Oh yes, yes--I remember now: it was to him that the money was owing."

"What money?" demanded Manners, in some surprise.

"Never mind," answered the gipsy; "but, be sure, if that man dies, my enemy will find means to make me out his murderer. Mark that, gentleman, and remember hereafter."

"It is impossible that he can do so," answered Manners, whose confidence in British justice was much stronger than that of the gipsy. "I understand that there were eight or nine people present. One of them, who has suffered severely, has already borne witness to your innocence; and, depend upon it, that among the rest, you would find plenty more to do the same. But it strikes me as extraordinary, I do confess, that you should seem to apprehend much more evil from an affair in which you can easily exculpate yourself, than from a charge which, referring to matters long gone, and to circumstances of which there could be but few witnesses, must be much more difficult to be met in a satisfactory manner--I mean the charge of having killed the late Lord Dewry."

"I will tell you why, I will tell you why," answered the gipsy. "In regard to this business, he can prove something against me: that I was in his park without right--at a suspicious hour--when persons were committing an unlawful act; and those people my own nation, and my own comrades. He may make out a plausible tale, and a little false swearing would easily do the rest. But in regard to the other, I laugh him to scorn; for why? because, when I will, I can blow the cloud away, like the west wind when it sweeps the mist from the valleys--because I can dispel it all, and prove my own innocence beyond a doubt, by proving who it was that did do the deed!"

"Do that," answered Manners, eagerly--"do that, and, beyond all doubt, Lord Dewry will forbear every other proceeding against you."

"Would he, indeed!" cried the gipsy, with a contemptuous laugh--"would he, indeed! Yet, perhaps, he might: but I will tell you, gentleman, if I did do so, I should not stand in need of his forbearance. But I will not do it; no, never! not if they were to cast a mountain upon me, it should not crush that secret from my heart till the right hour be come."

"Indeed!" said Manners; "that is a strange determination; but, however, you act and reason upon principles so different from those that influence ordinary men, that it is useless to inquire why you run great risks yourself, with motives apparently very slight."

"I do it because it is written in the book of that which I am to do," answered the gipsy. "But you say right; we do act and we do think upon different principles; and it is useless to inquire into mine, for you would not understand them; and yet I hold you to be a good man--better than most--braver--wiser than the great part of your fellows. Had you not been both brave and wise, you would never have learned from me what you are to know to-night--the fangs of tigers would not have torn it from me by any other means."

"I hope," answered Manners, with a smile, "that the secret will not be kept much longer unrevealed; for we have already walked several miles, and our fair friend, the moon, is going down to rest, as if she were as tired as I am."

"And who that sees her sink," said the gipsy, turning round as Manners spoke, and gazing for a moment on the setting orb--"and who that sees her sink shall dare to say that he will ever see that calm and splendid sight again? She goes, we know not whither, travelling alone upon her oft-trodden path--the path that she has walked in majesty through many a long century, looking unmoved upon the strifes and joys of nations who now have left us nothing but their ruins and their tombs. She saw my people live and rule in other lands.^[6] She has seen them bow the necks of proud and haughty enemies beneath their chariot-wheels. She has seen them fall day by day, till they are but a scattered remnant, dashed like the foam of a broken wave over the lands around, while their temples and their palaces, their homes and their altars, are the dwellings of the wolf and the jackal, that howl beneath her light. She has seen them--mighty and nothing; and, perhaps, when our bones are whitening beneath her beams, in the long wide vacancy of after times, she may also see the despised nation reinstated in its glory, and forgetful of the rod of the oppressor; but you mind not such things--you look upon us merely as wandering outcasts of some unknown race."

"No, indeed," answered Manners; "you do me wrong. I have always looked upon your people with much interest and curiosity. There is a sort of mystery in their history and their fate that will not let any one, who thinks and feels, regard them with indifference."

"There is a mystery," answered the gipsy--"there is a mystery; but it matters not. This is not the time to solve it;" and--as every person who has ever conversed with one of the more intelligent and better informed of the gipsies must have remarked as their invariable custom when spoken to either upon their language or history--he suddenly turned the conversation to other things, content with the vague hints of brighter times and more extended power, which he had already given. Manners endeavoured more than once to bring him back to the subject, but the gipsy pertinaciously avoided any approach to it. Nor was his companion more successful in an endeavour to lead him to the subject of De Vaux, in regard to whom Pharold pointedly refused to answer any questions. "You will know very soon all that you can know about the matter," he replied; "and I do not choose to speak at all on subjects where I might speak too much."

Manners pressed the question no further, and followed in silence. They had some time before crossed the summit of the rise above Morley House, skirting along the woods, and had descended into a valley on the other side, which, though not so deep as that in which the principal events we have related took place, sunk sufficiently below the level of the neighbouring hills to render a considerable ascent on the other side necessary ere the travellers could be said to have passed the chain of high grounds which separated that county from the next. This eminence, also, they had surmounted, when, as Manners had observed, the moon might be seen sinking below the dark line of the distant horizon. The aspect of the country was here very different from that on the other side of the hills; and although the light of the setting orb was not sufficient to display distinctly the various objects in the landscape, yet the long lines of light and shade that varied the wide extent below their feet gave Manners the idea of a rich and softly-undulating country, spreading for many miles without any considerable eminence. From the spot where they then stood the road, which they had now gained, wound through some young plantations down towards the plain; but ere they had finished the descent the moon was lost below the horizon, and the eye could no longer trace any but the objects in its immediate vicinity. Manners remarked, however, that along the young plantings were neat trimmed hedges, and that clean shining white gates gave entrance into the fields which they skirted. A dry raised footpath, too, rendered walking easy; and ere long he passed one of those friendly milestones wherewith most civilized governments have condescended to solace the longings of the weary traveller, as he plods on, anxious to know his distance from the expected rest. Just at the same moment, too, a village clock, with its kindly bell, tolled the hour, sounding clear and calm upon the still night air; and Manners, though without any great object in doing so, paused to make out the inscription of one hundred and some miles from London, and to count twelve, struck distinctly on the bell of the clock.

"Will not this be a very late hour," he asked, turning to the gipsy, who had paused also--"will not this be a very late hour to visit my poor friend, especially if he be ill as you say in body and in mind?"

"We will see that presently," answered the gipsy: "if he sleep, so much the better. You can wait till tomorrow. My part of the errand must be done to-night, or never; for something at my heart tells me that I shall not long be able to walk whither I will throughout the world."

Now, although Colonel Manners, with the firm determination of pursuing the adventure to the end, whatever might come of it, had gone on with the gipsy boldly, and had conversed with him as calmly as if they had both been in a drawing-room, yet it is by no means to be supposed that he refrained from speculating upon the place and circumstances into which his enterprise might lead him; as in this instance he saw the necessity of letting imagination range free, so long as she had reason for her guide, in order that he might be prepared for all. While they were on the hill, and near the woods, Manners imagined that he would most likely find his sick friend under the care and attendance of some separate party of gipsies; and, of course, fancy employed herself in thinking what could be the train of events which had brought about so strange a result. But as they descended into a more highly cultivated and evidently well-peopled track, he began to doubt whether it was such a spot as gipsies would choose for their habitation, and, consequently, whether De Vaux would be found in the hands of any of Pharold's tribe. Imagination had now, of course, a wider, field than before; and his surprise--or whatever the feeling may be called which is excited by circumstances we cannot account for--was still greater, as they began to pass through the scattered houses and small neat enclosures which mark the approach to an English country town.

At length the gipsy stopped at a gate, opened it, and bade his companion pass in. Manners did as he was desired, and found himself standing on a neat gravel walk, with a shrubbery on either hand, plentifully provided with laurels, hollies, and many another evergreen. The gipsy followed; and the walk, skirting for a couple of hundred yards round a trim, smooth, shaven green, brought them in front of a neat house, built of brick, and evidently modern in all its parts. Plate-glass, a-well-a-day! did not in those times decorate even the houses of the greatest in the land; and the dwelling before which they now stood, although it was clearly the abode of affluence, had no pretensions to be any thing more than a handsome house of the middle rank. It might be the new-built rectory of some wealthy parish, or the place of retirement of some merchant who had had wisdom enough to seek repose at the point where competence stops short of riches; but it had no one circumstance which could entitle it to affect the name of the Mansion, or the Hall, or the Abbey, or the Castle; and in those days the word cottage had never yet been applied to designate a palace. It had its little freestone portico, however, and its two low wings, in the windows of each of which there were lights. It was evident, therefore, if this was the place where Manners was destined to find De Vaux, that, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, there were other persons awake in the house besides those who might be supposed to watch in the chamber of an invalid.

As they came near the gipsy advanced a step before his companion, and rang the bell. A few minutes elapsed without any one appearing to answer the summons; but just as Pharold was about to repeat it, the door was opened by a servant, carrying a light, which was almost instantly extinguished by the gust of wind which rushed into the unclosed door. There had been time enough, however, for the man to recognise Pharold, and to bid him come in, as if his visit were a thing of course; and in the moment that the light had remained unextinguished, Colonel Manners could distinguish the countenance of the servant, the features of which, he felt convinced, were not unknown to him.

"Come in, sir," said the gipsy.--"Is there any one in the parlour, John?" he added, turning to the man as Manners entered.

"No one, Mr. Pharold," answered the servant, intones that were still more familiar to Manners's ear than his features had been to his eye. "My master is in the little room beyond."

"Then walk in here, sir, and wait for me one moment," said the gipsy; and Colonel Manners, without question, walked into the dark room, of which Pharold had opened the door, and waited patiently to see how all the strange affair in which he was engaged would end.