The Disowned, Volume 1.

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THE DISOWNED

by Edward Bulwer Lytton

CHAPTER I.

I'll tell you a story if you please to attend.
G. KNIGHT: Limbo.

It was the evening of a soft, warm day in the May of 17--. The sun
had already set, and the twilight was gathering slowly over the large,
still masses of wood which lay on either side of one of those green
lanes so peculiar to England. Here and there, the outline of the
trees irregularly shrunk back from the road, leaving broad patches of
waste land covered with fern and the yellow blossoms of the dwarf
furze, and at more distant intervals thick clusters of rushes, from
which came the small hum of gnats,--those "evening revellers"
alternately rising and sinking in the customary manner of their
unknown sports,--till, as the shadows grew darker and darker, their
thin and airy shapes were no longer distinguishable, and no solitary
token of life or motion broke the voiceless monotony of the
surrounding woods.

The first sound which invaded the silence came from the light, quick
footsteps of a person whose youth betrayed itself in its elastic and
unmeasured tread, and in the gay, free carol which broke out by fits
and starts upon the gentle stillness of the evening.

There was something rather indicative of poetical taste than musical
science in the selection of this vesper hymn, which always commenced
with,--

"'T is merry, 't is merry, in good green wood,"

and never proceeded a syllable further than the end of the second
line,--

"when birds are about and singing;"

from the last word of which, after a brief pause, it invariably
started forth into joyous "iteration."

Presently a heavier, yet still more rapid, step than that of the youth
was heard behind; and, as it overtook the latter, a loud, clear, good-
humoured voice gave the salutation of the evening. The tone in which
this courtesy was returned was frank, distinct, and peculiarly
harmonious.

"Good evening, my friend. How far is it to W----? I hope I am not
out of the direct road?"

"To W----, sir?" said the man, touching his hat, as he perceived, in
spite of the dusk, something in the air and voice of his new
acquaintance which called for a greater degree of respect than he was
at first disposed to accord to a pedestrian traveller,--"to W----,
sir? why, you will not surely go there to-night? it is more than
eight miles distant, and the roads none of the best"

"Now, a curse on all rogues!" quoth the youth, with a serious sort of
vivacity. "Why, the miller at the foot of the hill assured me I
should be at my journey's end in less than an hour."

"He may have said right, sir," returned the man, "yet you will not
reach W---- in twice that time."

"How do you mean?" said the younger stranger.

"Why, that you may for once force a miller to speak truth in spite of
himself, and make a public-house, about three miles hence, the end of
your day's journey."

"Thank you for the hint," said the youth. "Does the house you speak
of lie on the road-side?"

"No, sir: the lane branches off about two miles hence, and you must
then turn to the right; but till then our way is the same, and if you
would not prefer your own company to mine we can trudge on together."

"With all my heart," rejoined the younger stranger; "and not the less
willingly from the brisk pace you walk. I thought I had few equals in
pedestrianism; but it should not be for a small wager that I would
undertake to keep up with you."

"Perhaps, sir," said the man, laughing, "I'll have had in the course of
my life a better usage and a longer experience of my heels than you
have."

Somewhat startled by a speech of so equivocal a meaning, the youth,
for the first time, turned round to examine, as well as the increasing
darkness would permit, the size and appearance of his companion. He
was not perhaps too well satisfied with his survey. His fellow
pedestrian was about six feet high, and of a corresponding girth of
limb and frame, which would have made him fearful odds in any
encounter where bodily strength was the best means of conquest.
Notwithstanding the mildness of the weather, he was closely buttoned
in a rough great-coat, which was well calculated to give all due
effect to the athletic proportions of the wearer.

There was a pause of some moments.

"This is but a wild, savage sort of scene for England, sir, in this
day of new-fashioned ploughs and farming improvements," said the tall
stranger, looking round at the ragged wastes and grim woods, which lay
steeped in the shade beside and before them.

"True," answered the youth; "and in a few years agricultural
innovation will scarcely leave, even in these wastes, a single furze-
blossom for the bee or a tuft of green-sward for the grasshopper; but,
however unpleasant the change may be for us foot-travellers, we must
not repine at what they tell us is so sure a witness of the prosperity
of the country."

"They tell us! who tell us?" exclaimed the stranger, with great
vivacity. "Is it the puny and spiritless artisan, or the debased and
crippled slave of the counter and the till, or the sallow speculator
on morals, who would mete us out our liberty, our happiness, our very
feelings by the yard and inch and fraction? No, no, let them follow
what the books and precepts of their own wisdom teach them; let them
cultivate more highly the lands they have already parcelled out by
dikes and fences, and leave, though at scanty intervals, some green
patches of unpolluted land for the poor man's beast and the free man's
foot."

"You are an enthusiast on this subject," said the younger traveller,
not a little surprised at the tone and words of the last speech; "and
if I were not just about to commence the world with a firm persuasion
that enthusiasm on any matter is a great obstacle to success, I could
be as warm though not so eloquent as yourself."

"Ah, sir," said the stranger, sinking into a more natural and careless
tone, "I have a better right than I imagine you can claim to repine or
even to inveigh against the boundaries which are, day by day and hour
by hour, encroaching upon what I have learned to look upon as my own
territory. You were, just before I joined you, singing an old song; I
honour you for your taste: and no offence, sir, but a sort of
fellowship in feeling made me take the liberty to accost you. I am no
very great scholar in other things; but I owe my present circumstances
of life solely to my fondness for those old songs and quaint
madrigals. And I believe no person can better apply to himself Will
Shakspeare's invitation,--

'Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
And tune his merry note
Unto the sweet bird's throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither,
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.'"

Relieved from his former fear, but with increased curiosity at this
quotation, which was half said, half sung, in a tone which seemed to
evince a hearty relish for the sense of the words, the youth replied,--

"Truly, I did not expect to meet among the travellers of this wild
country with so well-stored a memory. And, indeed, I should have
imagined that the only persons to whom your verses could exactly have
applied were those honourable vagrants from the Nile whom in vulgar
language we term gypsies."

"Precisely so, sir," answered the tall stranger, indifferently;
"precisely so. It is to that ancient body that I belong."

"The devil you do!" quoth the youth, in unsophisticated surprise; "the
progress of education is indeed astonishing!"

"Why," answered the stranger, laughing, "to tell you the truth, sir, I
am a gypsy by inclination, not birth. The illustrious Bamfylde Moore
Carew is not the only example of one of gentle blood and honourable
education whom the fleshpots of Egypt have seduced."

"I congratulate myself," quoth the youth, in a tone that might have
been in jest, "upon becoming acquainted with a character at once so
respectable and so novel; and, to return your quotation in the way of
a compliment, I cry out with the most fashionable author of
Elizabeth's days,--

'O for a bowl of fat Canary,
Rich Palermo, sparkling Sherry,'

in order to drink to our better acquaintance."

"Thank you, sir,--thank you," cried the strange gypsy, seemingly
delighted with the spirit with which his young acquaintance appeared
to enter into his character, and his quotation from a class of authors
at that time much less known and appreciated than at present; "and if
you have seen already enough of the world to take up with ale when
neither Canary, Palermo, nor Sherry are forthcoming, I will promise,
at least, to pledge you in large draughts of that homely beverage.
What say you to passing a night with us? our tents are yet more at
hand than the public-house of which I spoke to you." The young man
hesitated a moment, then replied,--

"I will answer you frankly, my friend, even though I may find cause to
repent my confidence. I have a few guineas about me, which, though
not a large sum, are my all. Now, however ancient and honourable your
fraternity may be, they labour under a sad confusion, I fear, in their
ideas of meum and tuum."

"Faith, sir, I believe you are right; and were you some years older, I
think you would not have favoured me with the same disclosure you have
done now; but you may be quite easy on that score. If you were made
of gold, the rascals would not filch off the corner of your garment as
long as you were under my protection. Does this assurance satisfy
you?"

"Perfectly," said the youth; "and now how far are we from your
encampment? I assure you I am all eagerness to be among a set of
which I have witnessed such a specimen."

"Nay, nay," returned the gypsy, "you must not judge of all my brethren
by me: I confess that they are but a rough tribe. However, I love
them dearly; and am only the more inclined to think them honest to
each other, because they are rogues to all the rest of the world."

By this time our travellers had advanced nearly two miles since they
had commenced companionship; and at a turn in the lane, about three
hundred yards farther on, they caught a glimpse of a distant fire
burning brightly through the dim trees. They quickened their pace,
and striking a little out of their path into a common, soon approached
two tents, the Arab homes of the vagrant and singular people with whom
the gypsy claimed brotherhood and alliance.

CHAPTER II.

Here we securely live and eat
The cream of meat;
And keep eternal fires
By which we sit and do divine.
HERRICK: Ode to Sir Clipseby Crew.

Around a fire which blazed and crackled beneath the large seething-
pot, that seemed an emblem of the mystery and a promise of the good
cheer which are the supposed characteristics of the gypsy race, were
grouped seven or eight persons, upon whose swarthy and strong
countenances the irregular and fitful flame cast a picturesque and not
unbecoming glow. All of these, with the exception of an old crone who
was tending the pot, and a little boy who was feeding the fire with
sundry fragments of stolen wood, started to their feet upon the
entrance of the stranger.

"What ho! my bob cuffins," cried the gypsy guide, "I have brought you
a gentry cove, to whom you will show all proper respect: and hark ye,
my maunders, if ye dare beg, borrow, or steal a single croker,--ay,
but a bawbee of him, I'll--but ye know me." The gypsy stopped
abruptly, and turned an eye, in which menace vainly struggled with
good-humour, upon each of his brethren, as they submissively bowed to
him and his protege, and poured forth a profusion of promises, to
which their admonitor did not even condescend to listen. He threw off
his great-coat, doubled it down by the best place near the fire, and
made the youth forthwith possess himself of the seat it afforded. He
then lifted the cover of the mysterious caldron. "Well, Mort," cried
he to the old woman, as he bent wistfully down, "what have we here?"

"Two ducks, three chickens, and a rabbit, with some potatoes," growled
the old hag, who claimed the usual privilege of her culinary office,
to be as ill-tempered as she pleased.

"Good!" said the gypsy; "and now, Mim, my cull, go to the other tent,
and ask its inhabitants, in my name, to come here and sup; bid them
bring their caldron to eke out ours: I'll find the lush."

With these words (which Mim, a short, swarthy member of the gang, with
a countenance too astute to be pleasing, instantly started forth to
obey) the gypsy stretched himself at full length by the youth's side,
and began reminding him, with some jocularity and at some length, of
his promise to drink to their better acquaintance.

Something there was in the scene, the fire, the caldron, the intent
figure and withered countenance of the old woman, the grouping of the
other forms, the rude but not unpicturesque tent, the dark still woods
on either side, with the deep and cloudless skies above, as the stars
broke forth one by one upon the silent air, which (to use the orthodox
phrase of the novelist) would not have been wholly unworthy the bold
pencil of Salvator himself.

The youth eyed, with that involuntary respect which personal
advantages always command, the large yet symmetrical proportions of
his wild companion; nor was the face which belonged to that frame much
less deserving of attention. Though not handsome, it was both shrewd
and prepossessing in its expression; the forehead was prominent, the
brows overhung the eyes, which were large, dark, and, unlike those of
the tribe in general, rather calm than brilliant; the complexion,
though sun-burnt, was not swarthy, and the face was carefully and
cleanly shaved, so as to give all due advantage of contrast to the
brown luxuriant locks which fell rather in flakes than curls, on
either side of the healthful and manly cheeks. In age, he was about
thirty-five, and, though his air and mien were assuredly not lofty nor
aristocratic, yet they were strikingly above the bearing of his
vagabond companions: those companions were in all respects of the
ordinary race of gypsies; the cunning and flashing eye, the raven
locks, the dazzling teeth, the bronzed colour, and the low, slight,
active form, were as strongly their distinguishing characteristics as
the tokens of all their tribe.

But to these, the appearance of the youth presented a striking and
beautiful contrast.

He had only just passed the stage of boyhood, perhaps he might have
seen eighteen summers, probably not so many. He had, in imitation of
his companion, and perhaps from mistaken courtesy to his new society,
doffed his hat; and the attitude which he had chosen fully developed
the noble and intellectual turn of his head and throat. His hair, as
yet preserved from the disfiguring fashions of the day, was of a deep
auburn, which was rapidly becoming of a more chestnut hue, and curled
in short close curls from the nape of the neck to the commencement of
a forehead singularly white and high. His brows finely and lightly
pencilled, and his long lashes of the darkest dye, gave a deeper and
perhaps softer shade than they otherwise would have worn to eyes quick
and observant in their expression and of a light hazel in their
colour. His cheek was very fair, and the red light of the fire cast
an artificial tint of increased glow upon a complexion that had
naturally rather bloom than colour; while a dark riding frock set off
in their full beauty the fine outline of his chest and the slender
symmetry of his frame.

But it was neither his features nor his form, eminently handsome as
they were, which gave the principal charm to the young stranger's
appearance: it was the strikingly bold, buoyant, frank, and almost
joyous expression which presided over all. There seemed to dwell the
first glow and life of youth, undimmed by a single fear and unbaffled
in a single hope. There were the elastic spring, the inexhaustible
wealth of energies which defied in their exulting pride the heaviness
of sorrow and the harassments of time. It was a face that, while it
filled you with some melancholy foreboding of the changes and chances
which must, in the inevitable course of fate, cloud the openness of
the unwrinkled brow, and soberize the fire of the daring and restless
eye, instilled also within you some assurance of triumph, and some
omen of success,--a vague but powerful sympathy with the adventurous
and cheerful spirit which appeared literally to speak in its
expression. It was a face you might imagine in one born under a
prosperous star; and you felt, as you gazed, a confidence in that
bright countenance, which, like the shield of the British Prince,
[Prince Arthur.--See "The Faerie Queene."] seemed possessed with a
spell to charm into impotence the evil spirits who menaced its
possessor.

"Well, sir," said his friend, the gypsy, who had in his turn been
surveying with admiration the sinewy and agile frame of his young
guest, "well, sir, how fares your appetite? Old Dame Bingo will be
mortally offended if you do not do ample justice to her good cheer."

"If so," answered our traveller, who, young as he was, had learnt
already the grand secret of making in every situation a female friend,
"if so, I shall be likely to offend her still more."

"And how, my pretty master?" said the old crone with an iron smile.

"Why, I shall be bold enough to reconcile matters with a kiss, Mrs.
Bingo," answered the youth.

"Ha! Ha!" shouted the tall gypsy; "it is many a long day since my old
Mort slapped a gallant's face for such an affront. But here come our
messmates. Good evening, my mumpers; make your bows to this gentleman
who has come to bowse with us to-night. 'Gad, we'll show him that old
ale's none the worse for keeping company with the moon's darlings.
Come, sit down, sit down. Where's the cloth, ye ill-mannered loons,
and the knives and platters? Have we no holiday customs for
strangers, think ye? Mim, my cove, off to my caravan; bring out the
knives, and all other rattletraps; and harkye, my cuffin, this small
key opens the inner hole, where you will find two barrels; bring one
of them. I'll warrant it of the best, for the brewer himself drank
some of the same sort but two hours before I nimm'd them. Come,
stump, my cull, make yourself wings. Ho, Dame Bingo, is not that pot
of thine seething yet? Ah, my young gentleman, you commence betimes;
so much the better; if love's a summer's day, we all know how early a
summer morning begins," added the jovial Egyptian in a lower voice
(feeling perhaps that he was only understood by himself), as he gazed
complacently on the youth, who, with that happy facility of making
himself everywhere at home so uncommon to his countrymen, was already
paying compliments suited to their understanding to two fair daughters
of the tribe who had entered with the new-comers. Yet had he too much
craft or delicacy, call it which you will, to continue his addresses
to that limit where ridicule or jealousy from the male part of the
assemblage might commence; on the contrary, he soon turned to the men,
and addressed them with a familiarity so frank and so suited to their
taste that he grew no less rapidly in their favour than he had already
done in that of the women, and when the contents of the two caldrons
were at length set upon the coarse but clean cloth which in honour of
his arrival covered the sod, it was in the midst of a loud and
universal peal of laughter which some broad witticism of the young
stranger had produced that the party sat down to their repast.

Bright were the eyes and sleek the tresses of the damsel who placed
herself by the side of the stranger, and many were the alluring
glances and insinuated compliments which replied to his open
admiration and profuse flattery; but still there was nothing exclusive
in his attentions; perhaps an ignorance of the customs of his
entertainers, and a consequent discreet fear of offending them,
restrained him; or perhaps he found ample food for occupation in the
plentiful dainties which his host heaped before him.

"Now tell me," said the gypsy chief (for chief he appeared to be), "if
we lead not a merrier life than you dreamt of? or would you have us
change our coarse fare and our simple tents, our vigorous limbs and
free hearts, for the meagre board, the monotonous chamber, the
diseased frame, and the toiling, careful, and withered spirit of some
miserable mechanic?"

"Change!" cried the youth, with an earnestness which, if affected, was
an exquisite counterfeit, "by Heaven, I would change with you myself."

"Bravo, my fine cove!" cried the host, and all the gang echoed their
sympathy with his applause.

The youth continued: "Meat, and that plentiful; ale, and that strong;
women, and those pretty ones: what can man desire more?"

"Ay," cried the host, "and all for nothing,--no, not even a tax; who
else in this kingdom can say that? Come, Mim, push round the ale."

And the ale was pushed round, and if coarse the merriment, loud at
least was the laugh that rang ever and anon from the old tent; and
though, at moments, something in the guest's eye and lip might have
seemed, to a very shrewd observer, a little wandering and absent, yet,
upon the whole, he was almost as much at ease as the rest, and if he
was not quite as talkative he was to the full as noisy.

By degrees, as the hour grew later and the barrel less heavy, the
conversation changed into one universal clatter. Some told their
feats in beggary; others, their achievements in theft; not a viand
they had fed on but had its appropriate legend; even the old rabbit,
which had been as tough as old rabbit can well be, had not been
honestly taken from his burrow; no less a person than Mim himself had
purloined it from a widow's footman who was carrying it to an old maid
from her nephew the Squire.

"Silence," cried the host, who loved talking as well as the rest, and
who for the last ten minutes had been vainly endeavouring to obtain
attention. "Silence! my maunders, it's late, and we shall have the
queer cuffins [magistrates] upon us if we keep it up much longer.
What, ho, Mim, are you still gabbling at the foot of the table when
your betters are talking? As sure as my name's King Cole, I'll choke
you with your own rabbit skin, if you don't hush your prating cheat,--
nay, never look so abashed: if you will make a noise, come forward,
and sing us a gypsy song. You see, my young sir," turning to his
guest, "that we are not without our pretensions to the fine arts."

At this order, Mim started forth, and taking his station at the right
hand of the soi-disant King Cole, began the following song, the chorus
of which was chanted in full diapason by the whole group, with the
additional force of emphasis that knives, feet, and fists could
bestow:--

THE GYPSY'S SONG.

The king to his hall, and the steed to his stall,
And the cit to his bilking board;
But we are not bound to an acre of ground,
For our home is the houseless sward.
We sow not, nor toil; yet we glean from the soil
As much as its reapers do;
And wherever we rove, we feed on the cove
Who gibes at the mumping crew.
CHORUS.--So the king to his hall, etc.

We care not a straw for the limbs of the law,
Nor a fig for the cuffin queer;
While Hodge and his neighbour shall lavish and labour,
Our tent is as sure of its cheer.
CHORUS.--So the king to his hall, etc.

The worst have an awe of the harman's [constable] claw,
And the best will avoid the trap; [bailiff]
But our wealth is as free of the bailiff's see
As our necks of the twisting crap. [gallows]
CHORUS.--So the king to his hall, etc.

They say it is sweet to win the meat
For the which one has sorely wrought;
But I never could find that we lacked the mind
For the food that has cost us nought!
CHRUS.--So the king to his hall, etc.

And when we have ceased from our fearless feast
Why, our jigger [door] will need no bars;
Our sentry shall be on the owlet's tree,
And our lamps the glorious stars.

CHORUS.
So the king to his hall, and the steed to his stall,
And the cit to his bilking board;
But we are not bound to an acre of ground,
For our home is the houseless sward.

Rude as was this lawless stave, the spirit with which it was sung
atoned to the young stranger for its obscurity and quaintness; as for
his host, that curious personage took a lusty and prominent part in
the chorus; nor did the old woods refuse their share of the burden,
but sent back a merry echo to the chief's deep voice and the harsher
notes of his jovial brethren.

When the glee had ceased, King Cole rose, the whole band followed his
example, the cloth was cleared in a trice, the barrel--oh! what a
falling off was there!--was rolled into a corner of the tent, and the
crew to whom the awning belonged began to settle themselves to rest;
while those who owned the other encampment marched forth, with King
Cole at their head. Leaning with no light weight upon his guest's
arm, the lover of ancient minstrelsy poured into the youth's ear a
strain of eulogy, rather eloquent than coherent, upon the scene they
had just witnessed.

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