Born to Wander: A Boy's Book of Nomadic Adventures Read online

I'll take Ossian with me."

  "And I, too, will go," cried Effie. So hand in hand, with the faithfuldog by their side, and guided by the solemn song that rose on the nightair at intervals, they walked slowly onwards through the wood.

  All at once, on rounding a spruce thicket, the light of a fire gleamedover their faces and figures. They would have retreated, for they hadcome to see, not to be seen; but from a group of wild-looking men andwomen who were gathered round the log fire in this clearing, a littlegipsy girl not bigger than Effie sprang up and rushed towards them.

  She was bare-footed and bare-legged, and her black eyes sparkled likediamonds in the firelight. Round her head and shoulders she wore aragged little tartan shawl.

  "Walk gently," she whispered, or rather hissed. "Hush, hush! do notspeak. Granny is dying."

  She took Leonard's half-unwilling hand as she spoke, and led themforward to the light.

  There was silence for a little while, for all eyes were turned upon thenew-comers.

  Gipsies all undoubtedly, and of the very lowest caste, dark, swarthy,ragged, and wild-looking.

  Lying with her head in the lap of a tall woman was an aged crone, herface almost as black as a negro's with age and exposure.

  The fire blazed higher, its gleams reaching to the highest pine trees,and lighting up the faces of all around.

  It was a strange, a weird scene, almost awful in its impressiveness.Once again the voices rose and swelled on the night air. Even boldLeonard felt his heart beat faster, while Effie's hand trembled in his.

  Book 1--CHAPTER FIVE.

  STRANGE ADVENTURES IN WOOD AND WILD.

  "How sweet it is when mother fancy rocks The wayward brain, to saunter through a wood; An old place full of many a lovely brook, Tall trees, green arbours, and ground flowers in flocks."

  Wordsworth.

  Scene: Still in the forest around the log fire, but the dying gipsy hasraised herself to nearly a sitting position, her dim and hollow eyes arefixed on Leonard, and she beckons him to her side. As if under astrange spell, the boy obeys, leaving Effie kneeling by Ossian, andclasping his great neck in her terror.

  "Fear not," the gipsy gasps, "I knew--your--father. And his father.Kind, kind to me and mine were both."

  She took Leonard's little white hand in her dark claws, and opened itspalm towards the firelight. "Never--never--will old Nell Bayne readanother fortune. But look; that line will lead you far ayont the seas.You are _born to wander_, born to roam over the ocean, by mountain,stream, and plain. Yet list! the water is not made to drown you, norhemp nor lead to take your life, yet list! again,--

  "When dead yon lordly pike shall float, While loud and hoarse the ravens call, Then grief and woe shall be thy lot, Glen Lyle's house must fall."

  The aged crone dropped the hand she held, and sunk back into the arms ofher nurse, while the other gipsies, with scared faces, gathered closerround and knelt beside her.

  Neither Leonard nor Effie saw nor heard anything more. They fled awayfrom the firelight out into the darkness of the woods, which they muchpreferred to the solemn scene they had just witnessed.

  They walked in the direction, as they thought, of their caravan, butafter a while Ossian, whom Effie held by the collar, stopped short, andthen began pulling them in quite another direction. The noble dog knewthe road though they did not.

  They were soon back now at their house-on-wheels. It was a gloomynight's experience, but they slept none the less soundly, and when theyawoke in the morning Leonard felt as happy as if he were king ofElfinland, and Effie his little queen. The sun was shining in a sky ofunusual brightness, and the woods all around were musical with the songsof a thousand joyous birds.

  Leonard made a fire of sticks, and boiled his kettle in true gipsyfashion, and after everybody, including Don and Ossian, had enjoyedbreakfast, away they went again.

  The country soon grew more open, and they were not at all sorry to leavethe darksome pine woods. They had nothing whereby to tell the time,except the sun, and this was, in some measure, their guide also as tothe direction they were taking, but of course they left a deal to Don.

  Sometimes, on coming to cross-roads, Don, as if he was quite aware ofthe responsibility that lay on his pretty striped shoulders, would stopshort and eye all the three roads that lay before him. Ossian wouldthen caper round him and bark, upon which Don would shake his long earsas much as to say,--

  "Don't you be quite so fast, master; I know well enough what I'm about.Catch me going wrong if I can help it."

  Then having made up his mind Don would tramp on again.

  Now Don was a wily old donkey, and I'm not sure that in choosing a roadhe did not consult his own interest much more than that of his littleowners. For Effie soon noticed that if one road was hilly and the otherlevel, Don chose the latter. Again, he kept going northwards and east,for he was very partial to a nice fresh green juicy thistle, justsufficiently thorny to tickle his tongue, and the farther north and thenearer the sea he got the fatter and finer the thistles grew.

  "But it doesn't matter, Eff, you know," Leonard would say, "one road isas good as another."

  Next evening found them bivouacked near a pretty wee country cottage.The good-wife of this humble home made them come in and sit by the fire,and she regaled them on barley scones and butter with delicious milk towash it down, and made them tell their story over and over again.

  Then the children all came round Effie, and she told their fortunes,something good for each of them, and sent them all to bed happy.

  The wanderers slept as before, but the good-wife of the cottage was upbefore them, and had boiled fresh eggs for their breakfast, and madethem coffee. And so good was she, that she even packed a little hamperand put it in their caravan, and blessed them and wished them God-speed.And the children gathered round the door, and all of them cheered withmight and main as the caravan rolled away from the door.

  A DISMAL NIGHT.

  But though the morning was bright and blue and lovely, clouds banked upover the sky soon after noon, and just as they found themselves oncemore in a pine forest, where also grew great oaks and elms, behold, bigdrops of rain began to patter down on the dry road, sending up cloudletsof dust, and before they could draw into the shelter of the trees, thestorm was on them with all its force.

  It was not a still summer storm, for while the thunder pealed andcrashed, and the lightning hissed among the falling rain, the wind blewwith terrible force, bending the trees like fishing rods, and strewingthe road with broken branches.

  Nor did the rain cease when the squall blew over, but continued to pourdown.

  Night came on this evening a full hour before its time, and still therain rained on.

  The bivouac was once more in a wood, and oh! what a fearful night itwas--the thunder deafening, the rain looking like streams of fire in theglare of the lightning. But our tired little wanderers fell soundly tosleep amidst it all, and though some drops came through the canvas, andeven fell upon their faces, it did not wake them. Only when the birdshad been singing for fully two hours they opened their eyes, andwondered where they were now.

  The day was very hot and close, and the sun so bright that the roads,much to Don's joy, soon dried up.

  The country through which they were now passing was very grand andwildly picturesque. Hills on hills successively rose on every sidearound them; they crossed romantic single-arched bridges, over deepravines, far down at the bottom of which streams went foaming on througha chaos of great dark boulders, which had fallen from the beetlingcliffs below, and to which wild flowers clung in patches, with here andthere a dwarf pine or silver-stemmed birch.

  Slowly, but surely, the roots of these tiny trees were loosening therocks.

  What a lesson this reads one of the virtues of perseverance! For listento this: the thickness of the rootlets that do the work is no greaterthan that of a stocking wire, the rate of their growth in length is nota hundredth part of that of the motion of
a watch's hour-hand, thestrength they expend in a given second would not be enough to lift ormove the tiniest midge or fly that alights upon the page you arereading. But these rootlets have faith, and faith moves mountains.They keep on growing and creeping into every crevice, and in time, loand behold! tons of solid rock are detached, a thunder shower perhapsbeing the last straw to break the camel's back, and down it thunders tothe bottom of the ravine, smashing trees and crunching other rocks, tillit all reaches the bottom with the force and speed of a littleavalanche.

  Sometimes they passed over broad open moors, the heather on which wasstill green, and would be for months to come, but patched all throughoutwith low flat bushes of golden furze, the scent from which perfumed theair all round, and must have penetrated even to the clouds. The lark,high in air, thrilling out his wild melody, and the rose-breasted weelinnet were the only songsters on these lonely moorlands.

  They went very slowly to-day, often stopping to let Don