Chapter XV: The Reason Continued

"About a year after our departure from Fairburn, Sinnamenta and I had been to sell some baskets, the making of which was a great trade with us at that time, at Wooler, in Northumberland; and on our return from the fair that was being held there, we met a number of gentlemen driving home from shooting in the Cheviots. They went by very rapidly, yet not so fast but that I recognized one of their number; I had only to look at my little sister's cheeks to see that she had recognized him also. The very next day came Massingberd Heath to our camp, professing himself injured by our abrupt withdrawal from his society, volunteering his companionship as before, and reiterating his vows and promises to Sinnamenta. She expressed herself in such a manner as to lead us almost to fear she might be induced to elope with him; while he, upon his side, seemed prepared to sacrifice everything to obtain her: his very selfishness caused him, as it were, to forget himself; and I do believe, if it had been insisted upon, he would have had the banns published in Wooler Church, in the hearing of the fine friends with whom he was staying, and been married by the parson. However, he again proposed to go through the Cingari ceremony, and this time, <i>Morris and my father agreed to it</i>. Having acknowledged himself to be an adopted gipsy, Massingberd Heath was joined in wedlock to Sinnamenta Liversedge; the ordinary ceremonies were dispensed with, by command of Morris, the bride and bridegroom only pledging themselves to one another solemnly in the presence of the assembled tribe. It was then, since he could not purchase suitable presents in such an out-of-the-way district, that I received from that man's hand this shooting-flask, as a remembrance of that day; my uncle commanded me to accept it (although I vehemently disapproved of what had been done), and I therefore keep it now, when every other gift of that accursed man has long been committed to the flames. For my part, I could not understand this novel pliancy on the part of Morris and my father; while Sinnamenta, as I think, implicitly believed in her lover's protestation, that for her sake he would all his life be a wanderer like ourselves. That very day, however, he took her away southward, on his road to London.

"For beauty, as I have said, and for gentleness, there never breathed the equal of my little sister, and yet in six short months this Heath grew weary of her; like a spoiled child tired with a fragile toy, he cared not what became of her, so long as it vexed his eyes no more. It is not necessary to tell what brutal insult he put upon her; enough to say that she fled from him in terror, as he had intended her to do, and returned to us, heart-stricken, woe-begone, about to become a mother, with nothing but wretchedness in the Future, and even her happy Past a dream dispelled. It was dreadful to look upon my little sister, and compare her to what she had been so short a time before. She felt the cold after her luxurious life in town; but she was far more ill at ease in mind than body. Above all, she sorrowed because her lover's desertion had left her disgraced--that she had brought shame upon all who belonged to her. Incited by the poor girl's misery, Morris and my father put into effect an audacious design which they had privately had long in hand. We were back again at Fairburn--all but Stanley Carew, who was away about a new horse for our covered cart--not camping in the plantation, as of old, for fear of Sir Wentworth, but upon the common hard by. On a certain morning, neither my father nor uncle went forth as usual, but sat at home smoking and watching at the opening of the tent. Not long after breakfast, there appeared a wayfarer in the distance, whose form showed gigantic in the summer haze.

"That must be a big fellow, little sister," said I, drawing her attention to it. She was sitting huddled up, as usual, in front of the fire; but no sooner had she caught sight of the object in question, than she ran with a cry to her father's knee, and besought him to save her from Massingberd Heath. Ah, even then, at that last moment, if father or uncle had but consulted me, or let me into their plans, I should not have my little sister's shuddering face before me as now, the large eyes wild, the full lips pale with terror. He had beaten her, poor darling, even before the scene that was coming; but she had even more reason than she knew for fear. This man came striding on to the entrance of the tent, and stood there looking at its inmates with a withering scowl. 'Why don't you speak,' said he, 'you vagabonds! For what is it that you have dared to send for me?'

"My father pointed towards Sinnamenta--'Is not that cause enough, Massingberd Heath?'

"'No,' retorted the ruffian coolly. 'What is she to me? The drab has come to her thieving friends again, it seems--the more fool she; for there was more than one who had a fancy for her in town, and would have taken her off my hands.'

"My father's fingers mechanically sought the knife which lay beside his half-finished basket; but my uncle Morris stood up between him and the speaker, and thus replied:--

"Massingberd Heath, I sent for you to tell you something which concerns both us and you. Many months ago, you came to us, uninvited and unwelcome, and elected to be a gipsy like ourselves. This makes you smile very scornfully; yet if you did not mean the thing you said, you lied. However, we believed you. You were admitted into what, however wretched and debased it may seem to you, was our home, and all we had to offer you was at your service. You fell in love with that poor girl yonder, and she did not tremble at your voice, as now, but trusted to your honour. It is true, your position in the world was high, and hers was what you saw it to be. Still you wooed her, and not she you; that is so, and you know it. Do not slander her, sir, lest presently you should be sorry for it. Again and again, then, you demanded her hand in marriage--such marriage, that is, as prevails among our people--not so ceremonious, indeed, as with the rest of the world, but not less binding. This we would not grant, because we disbelieved your protestations on your honour and before your God; and disbelieved them, as it has turned out, with reason. Then we fled from you and your false solicitations to the north, hundreds of miles away; even thither you followed us, or else accidentally fell in with us; I know not which. You renewed your offers and your oaths. We found, all worthless as you are, that the poor girl loved you still, and, yielding to your repeated importunity, we suffered her to become your wife.'

"'Wife!' repeated the renegade contemptuously. 'Do you suppose, then, that I valued your gipsy mummeries at a pin's head? You might as well attempt to tie these wrists of mine with the gossamer from yonder furze.'

"'We knew that, Massingberd Heath, although the girl did not know it; she trusted you, although your every word was false.'

"'She is fool enough for anything,' returned the other brutally. 'But I know all this. Have you dared to bring me here merely to repeat so stale a story?'

"'A story with an ending that you have yet to learn,' pursued my uncle sternly. You were wedded by no gipsy mummeries, as you call them; you took Sinnamenta Liversedge, in the presence of many persons, solemnly to wife.'

"'Ay, and I might take her sister there, and marry her to-day after the same fashion, and no law could say me "nay."'

"'Yes, <i>here</i>, Massingberd Heath; but not at Kirk-Yetholm.'

"'And why not?' inquired the ruffian, with a mocking laugh, that had, however, something shrill and wavering in it.

"'Because Kirk-Yetholm is over the Border, and, by the laws of Scotland, my niece Sinnamenta is your wife, proud man, and nothing but death can dissever the bond!'

"An awful silence succeeded my uncle's words. Massingberd Heath turned livid, and twice in vain essayed to speak; he was well nigh strangled by passion.

"'I thank heaven, Rachel,' murmured my little sister, 'that I am not that shame to thee and to my race which I thought myself to be.'

"'You shall have but little to thank heaven for, girl, if this be true,' cried her husband hoarse with concentrated rage; 'somebody shall pay for this.'

"'It <i>is</i> true,' quoth my father, 'and you feel it to be so. Nothing remains, then, but to make the best of it. We do not seek anything at your hands, nor--'

"'Only the right of camping undisturbed about Fairburn,' interposed my uncle Morris, who was of a grasping disposition, and had planned the whole matter, I fear, not without an eye to the advantage of his tribe. 'You wouldn't treat your wife's family as trespassers.'

"'Certainly not,' returned Massingberd Heath, with bitterness; 'they shall be most welcome. I should be extremely sorry if they were to leave my neighbourhood just yet. In the meantime, however, I want my wife--my Wife. Come along with me, my pretty one.'

"He looked like a wild beast, within springing distance of his prey.

"'Oh, father, uncle, defend me!' cried the miserable girl. 'What have you done to bring this man's vengeance upon me?'

"'Ay, you are right there!' answered her husband, in a voice that froze my veins. 'That is still left for me--vengeance. Come along, I say; I hunger until it shall begin.'

"'Massingberd Heath,' cried I, throwing myself at his feet, 'for God's sake have mercy upon her; it is not her fault. She knew no more than you of all these things. Look how ill and pale she is--you above all men should have pity on her wretched condition. Oh leave her with us, leave my little sister here, and neither she nor we will ever trouble you, ever come near you. It shall be just the same as though you had never set eyes upon us; it shall indeed! Oh, you would not, <i>could</i> not surely be cruel to such a one as she.'

"I pointed to her as she stood clinging to her father's arm as much for support as in appeal, so beautiful, so pitiful, so weak; a spectacle to move a heart of stone.

"'Could I not be cruel,' returned he, with a grating laugh, 'ay, to even such a one as she? Ask <i>her</i>--ask <i>her</i>.'

"There was no occasion to put the question; you saw the answer in her shrinking form, her trembling limbs: his every word fell upon her like a blow.

"'She has not yet known, however, what I can be to my <i>Wife</i>,' continued he. 'Come, my pretty one, come.'

"'She shall not,' cried my father, vehemently; 'it shall never be in his power to hurt her.'

"'What! and I her husband?' exclaimed the other, mockingly. 'Both one until death us do part! Not come?'

"'He will kill her,' murmured my father; 'her blood will be on my head.'

"'Are you coming, wife?' cried Massingberd Heath, in a terrible voice; he stepped forward, and grasped her slender wrist with fingers of steel. Morris and my father rushed forward, but the man had swung her behind him, placing himself between her and them, and at the same instant he had taken from his pocket a life-preserver--he carries it to this day--armed with which he was a match for five such men. 'And now,' cried he, 'what man shall stop me from doing what I will with my own?"'

"'I!' exclaimed a sudden voice, and with the word some dark mass launched itself so violently against the throat of Massingberd Heath that the giant toppled and fell; upon his huge breast, knife in hand, knelt Stanley Carew, his eyes gleaming with hate, his lithe body working like a panther's. He was not hesitating, not he, he was only drinking in a delicious draught of revenge, before he struck.

"'Strike!' cried I, 'strike hard and quick, Carew!' But while the blade was in air, Morris and my father plucked him backwards, and suffered his intended victim to rise, although despoiled of his weapon.

"'No, Carew; that will never do,' quoth Morris. 'We should have the whole country upon us in an hour, and they would hang us altogether.'

"'Carew is that man's name, is it?' exclaimed Massingberd Heath. 'I will not forget it, be sure. You shall all pay for this, trust me; but he, and <i>this one</i>, more than all. Come away, wife, come away.'

"'Yes, she must go, Carew,' interposed my uncle, checking a furious movement of the young man's. 'He knows all now, and has a right to what he demands.'

"'Ay, but if he lays one finger upon her,' cried the passionate gipsy, 'if he dares to harm her even by a word, and I hear of it, as sure as I see the sun this day, I will know what is the colour of his life-blood. You may take her away across the seas, but I will follow you; you may surround yourself with precautions, but I will come at you; you may go day and night in mail, but this knife shall find your heart out.'

"Massingberd Heath nodded contempuously, without speaking; and striding from the tent, signed to Sinnamenta to follow him, which she did, moaning and weeping, and casting backward, ever and anon, pitiful glances upon the home and friends she had exchanged for such an evil lot. I never saw my little sister more."

As if the remembrance of this sad scene had utterly overcome her, Rachel Liversedge hid her face in her hands, and wept until the tears welled through her tanned and shrivelled fingers.

"I am indeed distressed," said I, "to have caused you so much pain. I will not make you sad by telling me more."

"Nay, my boy, since I have begun it, let me finish with it; I shall think of it all the same, and it is better to speak than think. That very night Stanley Carew was arrested upon the charge of stealing the horse which he had bought in open market, and ridden home just in time to play the part I have described. In the days I speak of, forty pound was given as a reward to those who gave such evidence as produced a capital conviction, and many a gipsy perished innocently in consequence of that wicked ordinance. It is possible that this accusation was made by one of those who made a practice of earning blood-money; but I am positively certain the false witness was set on by Massingberd Heath, even if that man did not originate the charge. It was pressed against poor Carew very harshly; and although the farmer of whom he bought the animal came honestly forward, and swore to its being the same which he had sold the prisoner, his evidence was rejected on account of some slight mistake in the description. You must have heard tell of that awful execution long ago at Crittenden jail, when the wretched victim to perjury and revenge uttered these terrible words: 'O God, if thou dost not deliver me, I will not believe there is a God.' That unhappy man was Stanley Carew. My father and uncle were pitilessly persecuted and imprisoned, and died before their time. These wrists have worn fetters, this back has suffered stripes; nor did the vengeance of our enemy cease even with one generation. One of my boys is beyond seas, and another within stone walls; yet I know that the hate of Sir Massingberd Heath is not yet slaked."

"But what became of your little sister, poor Sinnamenta?"

"I know not what she suffered immediately after she was taken from us; Heaven only knows: her husband carried her a great way off out of our ken. But this I have heard, that when he told her of the death of Stanley Carew she fell down like one dead, and presently being delivered of a son, the infant died after a few hours; the mother lived--a maniac. Yes, Massingberd Heath, you did not kill my little sister, after all; yonder she lives, but recks not whether you are kind or cruel; she drinks no more the bitter cup of love's betrayal."

"She is surely not at Fairburn," asked I, "is she?"

"What else should keep us here, boy, to be harried by keepers, to be vexed by constables and justices? What else should keep me here in a place that tortures me with memories of my youth and of loving faces that have crumbled into dust? What else but the hope of one day seeing my little sister yet, and the vengeance of Heaven upon him who has worked her ruin!" The old woman rose up as she spoke, and looked menacingly towards Fairburn Hall. "I could almost exclaim with poor Carew," cried she, "that if Massingberd Heath escape some awful end, there is no Avenger on high. I am old, but I shall see it, yes, I shall see it before I die."

If there had been more to tell, which fortunately there was not, I do not think Rachel Liversedge could have spoken further; her emotion far more than her exertions, had reduced her strength so far, that though she uttered the last words energetically enough, I had had for some time a difficulty in hearing what she said.

"I thank you for listening to the tediousness of an ancient dame so long," murmured she: "if you were not a good boy, and half a gipsy, you would never have been so patient. I have told you all this to put you on your guard: it is no secret, but still you may not have heard it. Distrust, despise, detest Massingberd Heath; and warn his nephew, if you be his friend, not to venture again within his uncle's reach."

"I will, I will!" cried I; "and I thank you in his name," I held out my hand, and she turned it over in her own.

"An honest palm," quoth she, "without a stain. There is one unlucky cross about it, Peter, that is all. You must not fret for that."

I mounted my horse amid cordial "good-byes" from the gipsies, who had been pursuing their usual avocations during the above recital, as though nothing was more common than that the head of the family should have a secret of two hours long to communicate to a strange young gentleman; and throwing a shilling to the boy who had shown me the way, I took my leave.

It was not till I left the plantation far behind me, and had ridden at speed for some distance on the open road, that I was able to shake off the sombre feelings that oppressed me, and to meet Mrs. Myrtle's welcome to the rectory with an answering smile.