James Matthew Barrie - The Complete Works of J. M. Barrie (With Illustrations)

“‘I am,’ says I, ‘and wha be you?’

“‘I’m just a puir gypsy lassie,’ she says.

“‘And what’s that in your hand?’ says I.

“‘It’s a horn I found in the wood,’ says she, ‘but it’s rusty and winna blaw.’

“I laughed at her ignorance, and says I, ‘I warrant I could blaw it.’

“‘I dinna believe you,’ says she.

“‘Gie me haud o’t,’ says I, and she gae it to me, and I blew some bonny blasts on’t. Ay, you see she didna ken the way o’t. ‘Thank you kindly,’ says she, and she ran awa without even minding to take the horn back again.”

“You incredible idiot!” cried the sheriff. “Then it was you who gave the alarm?”

“What hae I done to madden you?” honest Wearyworld asked in perplexity.

“Get out of my sight, sir!” roared the sheriff.

But the captain laughed.

“I like your doughty policeman, Riach,” he said. “Hie, obliging friend, let us hear how this gypsy struck you. How was she dressed?”

“She was snod, but no unca snod,” replied Wearyworld, stiffly.

“I don’t understand you.”

“I mean she was couthie, but no sair in order.”

“What on earth is that?”

“Weel, a tasty stocky, but gey orra put on.”

“What language are you speaking, you enigma?”

“I’m saying she was naturally a bonny bit kimmer rather than happit up to the nines.”

“Oh, go away,” cried Halliwell; whereupon Wearyworld descended the stair haughtily, declaring that the sheriff was an unreasonable man, and that he was a queer captain who did not understand the English language.

“Can I gae hame now, sheriff?” asked Langlands, hopefully.

“Take this fellow back to his cell,” Riach directed shortly, “and whatever else you do, see that you capture this woman. Halliwell, I am going out to look for her myself. Confound it, what are you laughing at?”

“At the way this vixen has slipped through your fingers.”

“Not quite that, sir, not quite that. She is in Thrums still, and I swear I’ll have her before day breaks. See to it, Halliwell, that if she is brought here in my absence she does not slip through your fingers.”

“If she is brought here,” said Halliwell, mocking him, “you must return and protect me. It would be cruelty to leave a poor soldier in the hands of a woman of Thrums.”

“She is not a Thrums woman. You have been told so a dozen times.”

“Then I am not afraid.”

In the round-room (which is oblong) there is a throne on which the bailie sits when he dispenses justice. It is swathed in red cloths that give it the appearance of a pulpit. Left to himself, Halliwell flung off his cloak and taking a chair near this dais rested his legs on the bare wooden table, one on each side of the lamp. He was still in this position when the door opened, and two policemen thrust the Egyptian into the room.

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“This is the woman, captain,” one of the policemen said in triumph; “and, begging your pardon, will you keep a grip of her till the sheriff comes back?”

Halliwell did not turn his head.

“You can leave her here,” he said carelessly. “Three of us are not needed to guard a woman.”

“But she’s a slippery customer.”

“You can go,” said Halliwell; and the policemen withdrew slowly, eyeing their prisoner doubtfully until the door closed. Then the officer wheeled round languidly, expecting to find the Egyptian gaunt and muscular.

“Now then,” he drawled, “why——By Jove!”

The gallant soldier was as much taken aback as if he had turned to find a pistol at his ear. He took his feet off the table. Yet he only saw the gypsy’s girlish figure in its red and green, for she had covered her face with her hands. She was looking at him intently between her fingers, but he did not know this. All he did want to know just then was what was behind the hands.

Before he spoke again she had perhaps made up her mind about him, for she began to sob bitterly. At the same time she slipped a finger over her ring.

“Why don’t you look at me?” asked Halliwell, selfishly.

“I daurna.”

“Am I so fearsome?”

“You’re a sojer, and you would shoot me like a craw.”

Halliwell laughed, and taking her wrists in his hands, uncovered her face.

“Oh, by Jove!” he said again, but this time to himself.

As for the Egyptian, she slid the ring into her pocket, and fell back before the officer’s magnificence.

“Oh,” she cried, “is all sojers like you?”

There was such admiration in her eyes that it would have been self-contempt to doubt her. Yet having smiled complacently, Halliwell became uneasy.

“Who on earth are you?” he asked, finding it wise not to look her in the face. “Why do you not answer me more quickly?”

“Dinna be angry at that, captain,” the Egyptian implored. “I promised my mither aye to count twenty afore I spoke, because she thocht I was ower glib. Captain, how is’t that you’re so fleid to look at me?”

Thus put on his mettle, Halliwell again faced her, with the result that his question changed to “Where did you get those eyes?” Then was he indignant with himself.

“What I want to know,” he explained severely, “is how you were able to acquaint the Thrums people with our movements? That you must tell me at once, for the sheriff blames my soldiers. Come now, no counting twenty!”

He was pacing the room now, and she had her face to herself. It said several things, among them that the officer evidently did not like this charge against his men.

“Does the shirra blame the sojers?” exclaimed this quick-witted Egyptian. “Weel, that cows, for he has nane to blame but himsel’.”

“What!” cried Halliwell, delighted. “It was the sheriff who told tales? Answer me. You are counting a hundred this time.”

Perhaps the gypsy had two reasons for withholding her answer. If so, one of them was that as the sheriff had told nothing, she had a story to make up. The other was that she wanted to strike a bargain with the officer.

“If I tell you,” she said eagerly, “will you set me free?”

“I may ask the sheriff to do so.”

“But he mauna see me,” the Egyptian said in distress. “There’s reasons, captain.”

“Why, surely you have not been before him on other occasions,” said Halliwell, surprised.

“No in the way you mean,” muttered the gypsy, and for the moment her eyes twinkled. But the light in them went out when she remembered that the sheriff was near, and she looked desperately at the window as if ready to fling herself from it. She had very good reasons for not wishing to be seen by Riach, though fear that he would put her in gaol was not one of them.

Halliwell thought it was the one cause of her woe, and great was his desire to turn the tables on the sheriff.

“Tell me the truth,” he said, “and I promise to befriend you.”

“Weel, then,” the gypsy said, hoping still to soften his heart, and making up her story as she told it, “yestreen I met the shirra, and he telled me a’ I hae telled the Thrums folk this nicht.”

“You can scarcely expect me to believe that. Where did you meet him?”

“In Glen Quharity. He was riding on a horse.”

“Well, I allow he was there yesterday, and on horseback. He was on his way back to Tilliedrum from Lord Rintoul’s place. But don’t tell me that he took a gypsy girl into his confidence.”

“Ay, he did, without kenning. He was gieing his horse a drink when I met him, and he let me tell him his fortune. He said he would gaol me for an impostor if I didna tell him true, so I gaed about it cautiously, and after a minute or twa I telled him he was coming to Thrums the nicht to nab the rioters.”