Читать книгу The children and the pictures - Pamela Grey - Страница 8

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How can a bird that is born for joy

Sit in a cage and sing?

How can a child when fears annoy

But droop his tender wing

And forget his youthful spring?

w. blake.

IT was late the next day when Mousie opened her eyes. She had lain sensible of discomfort for some time before she wholly woke, and now a sense of movement and the gritting of wheels on a road shook sleep finally from her. She raised herself and looked round. She was lying in a little box-bed, only just large enough to hold her. A rough sheet was thrown across her of the dingiest nature, and the muscles of her neck and shoulders ached when she turned about. And there in the corner of the van, lying on the floor with his head on a bundle of clothes, lay Robin. A very old woman sat in a chair beside him, and every now and then she would bend down and look earnestly into his sleeping face.

“Robin, wake up,” cried Mousie; “Robin, where are we?”

“Whist there, with your wake up,” said the woman in a low voice. “Be silent, will ’ee? rousing him from the first bit o’ quiet sleep he’s had the whole night long.”

She looked at Mousie long after her half-whispered words were uttered, scowling from under her shaggy brows; and the child kept her eyes fixed on the old woman’s evil face. She had never seen so sinister and wrinkled a countenance—it held her spell-bound; she dared not so much as move in her box-bed. Slowly the van ground along the flinty roads, sometimes lurching this way and that, sometimes almost overturning in the stony inequalities. The old hag moved about, but was never far from Robin, bathing his temples with a moistened rag, or forcing the pale lips asunder, and giving him a spoonful of brown liquid. Then Mousie saw that Robin moved languidly, and every now and then opened his eyes. That he should be awake and not seek her seemed strange, but so long as the old hag watched over them, she dared say nothing.

Then the van stopped, and the door was thrown roughly open. The old woman climbed down the steps into the fresh air.

“Now then, get up, and let’s see what you’re good for,” she said crossly, as she looked back threateningly at Mousie, and disappeared. The child rose from her box-bed and followed.

The delight was great to feel the warm clear sunlight round her, as she stepped out on to the soft grass. They were in a wide track with ragged thorn hedges, and two or three gipsies were unharnessing the horses. Freedom, the girl who had swooned in the wood, was building a fire with sticks and great branches. Mousie ran eagerly towards her, but to her surprise Freedom seemed hardly to recognise her, and Mousie shrank back before the strange void of her face. It was as if she moved in her sleep, barely conscious of her surroundings.

The gang consisted of seven gipsies, three men and three women, and a boy. There was Bill and Mr. Petulengro, a shrivelled old man, whose grey hair toned ill with the deep brown of his complexion. There was a younger man than Bill, whom they called Farrer, and the boy Abel. The other woman, Maria, had a baby in the shawl at her back.

Soon the men had picketed out the ponies, and gone their various ways, leaving Freedom, the old grandmother, and Maria, in charge of the encampment on the Down.

Mousie was made to do the old Grannie’s behests. She had to clean the utensils, see to the fire, haul out the murky rags that made their tents, and generally fetch and carry. She got more scoldings in half-an-hour than she had in a month at her own home, and there was no time to look peaky over it.

“Just ’ee set that sack down where ’ee took un from, and come ’ee here, and peel these potatoes, and if ’ee cut deeper than the rind, I tell ’ee I’ll cut into ’ee! Oho, my sweet pigeon, and it’s fine ladies we are, and the likes as I never see; and when you’ve done the potatoes do ’ee cut up that hill in double-quick time and bring me back some tent-pins, and if ’ee gather crooked ones, I’ll prick yer skin with them, I promise ye—I’ll prick yer pretty skin for ’ee! I’ll prick yer skin!”

She leered, and scowled, and coughed, and spat, while she shambled about talking, sometimes pinching Mousie’s cheek with her clawlike hand, or raising her skinny arm as if to strike her. It was a new experience for Mousie, and had she been given less to do, would have frightened her severely. As it was she just obeyed, and dared not question, far less object or make delay. Meanwhile Maria sat on the steps of the van, crooning over her baby. And the words of her song were these:—

“Holly stands within the hall, faire to behold;

Ivy stands without the door, she is full sore a-cold.

Holly and his merry men they dancen and they sing;

Ivy and her maidens, they weepen and they wring.

Ivy hath a smooth leaf, she wraps it like a cloak

Round about the ash-tree, round about the oak.

Holly hath his berries as red as any rose.

The foresters, the hunters, they keep them fro’ the does.

Ivy hath her berries as black as any sloe.

For wayfarers a bitter wine as any they may know.

Holly hath his birds, a full faire flocke—

The nightingale, the perpinguy, the gentle laverocke.

And Ivy, good Ivy, what birds hast thou?

None but the howlet that crieth Whoo, whoo.”

Mousie heard these words as she peeled the potatoes, and liked the list of the birds’ names. She didn’t know, however, that she was listening to a song hundreds of years old, a song that has been sung by voices long since dead and silent. Yet there was the holly-tree in the hedge, as lusty as ever, his strong spiny leaves giving back the sunshine, each one a polished green. And below at his feet, creeping through a wattle and wrapping an old ash pollard, was the insidious ivy.

“Ivy and her maidens, they weepen and they wring.”

There are some characters like Ivy, gentle and clinging, yet as terribly strong. They cannot stand alone, others must support them—yes, till the weight kills. And Ivy, the dependent, takes this service. At first tentatively, even timidly—one tender little trail innocently feeling its way up the great stem; no one would think there is any mischief here. But Ivy must know while she weaves her mats and meshes, that she kills to live. For all the fruit she bears is bitter.

Throughout that day Robin lay sick and ailing in the gipsy’s van, and when Freedom came back from a long errand, she climbed into the van and stayed there, speaking to no one.

Towards evening the men returned, and old Granny prepared the dinner. Mousie liked the tripod with the heavy kettle hanging from it, and the smell of the burning wood. Then Freedom stepped out again carrying Robin in her strong arms, and brought him to the camp fire. But when Mousie looked at him she cried out, for he was as brown as a nut all over. His little face and neck, and his hands and arms, and his feet and legs, all stained with walnut juice, and his curls cropped like a convict. This was Freedom’s doing, and Mousie’s heart sank when she realised it, for she had silently counted on Freedom as their friend. How should they ever get home again if Freedom wanted to hide and disguise them?

However, as the days went on, the children learnt to look on her once more as in some sort an ally, partly because she got almost as many harsh words as they, partly, because when no one was looking, she would do them a kindness if she could.

And so the hard days passed over, full of work and blows, and chidings; ugly with the sound of oaths, and rough voices, and coarse food.