More than ever convinced that grat.i.tude is hopeless to seek in human nature, the gipsies had shaken the dust of Holmhurst from the soles of their not very tidy feet, and had moved off, no one knew whither.

These proceedings had, among other persons, interested Alexander Magnus Bilk not a little, and no one mourned the rapid departure of the gipsies more than he. For Bilk had for some days past secretly hugged the idea of presenting himself to the oracle of these wise ones and having his fortune told. He had in fact gone so far as to make a secret observation of their quarters one afternoon, and had resolved to devote the next half-holiday to the particular pursuit of knowledge they offered, when, lo! cruel fate s.n.a.t.c.hed the cup from his lips and swept the promised fruit from his reach. In other words, the gipsies had gone, and, like his great namesake, Alexander, Magnus mourned.

Among those who noticed his dejection and guessed the cause of it were two of his particular persecutors. Morgan and Dell had for some months been suffering affliction for lack of any notion how to get a rise out of their victim. But they now suddenly cheered up, as they felt the force of a mighty idea moving them once more to action.

"Old chap," said Morgan, "I've got it at last!"

"What have you got?" asked "the old chap"; "your back tooth, or measles, or what?"

"I've got a dodge for scoring off the Lamp-post."

"Have you, though? You are a clever chap, I say! What is it?"

What it was, Morgan disclosed in such a very low whisper to his ally that the reader will have to guess. Suffice it to say, the two dear lads put their heads together for some time, and were extremely busy in the privacy of their own study all that evening.

Bilk, little dreaming of the compa.s.sion and interest he was evoking in the hearts of his schoolfellows, retired early to his sorrowful couch, and mourned his departed gipsies till slumber gently stepped in and soothed his troubled mind. But returning day laid bare the old wound, and Alexander girded himself listlessly to the duties of the hour, with a heart far away.

He was wandering across the playground after dinner, disinclined alike for work and play, when Dell accosted him. Bilk might have known Dell by this time, but his memory was short and his mind preoccupied, and he smelt no rat, as the Irish would say, in his companion's salutation.

"Hullo! where are you off to, Lamp-post? How jolly blue you look!"

"I'm only taking a walk."

"Well, you don't seem to be enjoying it, by the looks of you. I've just been taking a trot over the common."

"I suppose the gipsies have all gone?" inquired Bilk, as unconcernedly as he could.

"Yes, I suppose so," answered Dell, offhand. "Anyhow, they've cleared off the common."

"But I was told," said Bilk rather nervously, "they'd gone quite away."

"Not all of them, anyhow," said Dell. "But of course they can't now show up the way they used to."

"Where are they, then?" asked Magnus, with a new hope breaking in upon him.

"How can I tell? All I know is there are some hanging about still, and I shouldn't wonder if they weren't far from here."

"Really, I say! I wonder where?"

"I'd as good as bet you'd come across one or two of them after dark in Deadman's Lane, or up at the cross roads, any evening for a week yet.

They don't clear out as fast as fellows think. But I must be off now, as I've a lot of work to do. Ta, ta!"

Alexander stood where the other left him, in deep meditation. Those few casual observations of his schoolfellow had kindled anew the fire that burned within him. Little could Dell guess how interesting his news was! After dark! The afternoon was getting on already. The school clock had struck half-past four nearly a quarter of an hour ago, and by five it would be quite dark. Tea was at a quarter-past five, and for half an hour after tea boys could do as they liked. Yes, it would be foolish to throw away such a chance. At any rate, he would take the air after tea in Deadman's Lane, and if there he should meet--oh! how he wondered what his fortune would be! Tea was a feverish meal for Bilk that evening. He spoke to no one, and ate very little; and as the hand of the clock worked round to a quarter to six he began to feel distinctly that a crisis in his life was approaching. He was glad neither Dell nor Morgan, whose studies probably kept them in their study, were at tea. They were such fellows for worrying him, and just now he wanted to be in peace.

The meal was over at last, and the boys rushed off to enjoy their short liberty before the hour of preparation. Bilk, who had taken the precaution to put both a sixpence and a cricket-cap in his pocket, silently and un.o.bserved slid out into the deserted playground, and in another minute stood beyond the precincts of Holmhurst.

Deadman's Lane was scarcely three minutes distant, and thither, with nervous steps, he wended his way, fumbling the sixpence in his pocket, and straining his eyes in the darkness for any sign of the gipsies.

Alas! it seemed to be a vain quest. The lane was deserted, and the cross roads he knew were too far distant to get there and back in half an hour. He was just thinking of giving it up and turning back, when a sound behind one of the hedges close to him startled him and sent his heart to his mouth. He stood still to listen, and heard a gruff voice say--or rather intone--the following mysterious couplet:

Ramsdam pammydiddle larrybonnywigtail Wigtaillarrybonny keimo.

This could be no other than an incantation, and Bilk stood rooted to the spot, unable to advance or retreat. He heard a rustling in the hedge, and the incantation suddenly ceased. Then a figure like that of an old man bent with age and clad in a ragged coat which nearly touched the ground advanced slowly, saying in croaking accent as he did so--

"Ah, young gentleman, we've waited for ye. We couldn't go till we'd seen ye; for we've something to tell ye. Come quietly this way, and say not a word, or the spell's broken--come, young gentleman; come, young gentleman;" and the old man went on crooning the words to himself as he led the way with tottering steps round the hedge, and discovered a sort of tent in which sat, with her face half shrouded in a shawl, an old woman who wagged her head incessantly and chattered to herself in a language of her own. She took no notice of Bilk as he drew near tremblingly, and it was not until the old man had nudged her vehemently, and both had indulged in a long fit of coughing, that she at last growled, without even lifting her head--

"I see nothing unless for silver."

It said a great deal for Bilk's quickness of apprehension that he at once guessed this vague observation to refer to the sixpence he had not yet offered. He drew it out and handed it to the old woman, and was about to offer an apology at the same time, when the man put his hand to his mouth and snarled--

"Not a word."

The old woman took the coin in her trembling hand, and bent her head over it in silence. Bilk began to get uneasy. The time was pa.s.sing, and he would have to start back in a very few moments. Could it be possible these gipsies, now they had his sixpence, were going to refuse to tell him the fortune for which he had longed and risked so much?

No! After a long pause the old woman lifted up her hand and said something in gibberish to her partner. It was a long time coming, for they both coughed and groaned violently during the recital. At length, however, the old man turned to Bilk and said gruffly--

"Kneel."

The boy obeyed, and the old man proceeded.

"She says a great danger threatens you this night. If you escape it, you will live to be a baronet or member of parliament, and perhaps you will marry a duke's daughter; but she can't be certain of that. If you don't escape it, you will be in a lunatic asylum next week, and never come out. Not a word," added he, as Bilk once more showed signs of breaking silence. "Wait till she speaks again."

Another long pause, and then another long recital in gibberish by the old woman, broken by the same coughing and groaning as before. Then the man said--

"Stand up, and hold your hands above your head."

Bilk obeyed.

"You want to know how to escape the peril?" said the man.

Bilk, with his hands still up, nodded.

"To-night at nine o'clock you will hear a bell."

Again Bilk nodded. Fancy the gipsies knowing that!

"You will go up to a small room with a chair and a bed in it, and undress."

A pause, and another nod from the astonished Bilk.

"You will put on a long white robe coming down to your ankles. At half- past nine the place will be dark--as black as pitch."

Bilk shuddered a little at the prospect.

"Then will be the time to escape your peril, or else to fall a victim.

To escape it you must go quietly down the stairs and out of the house.

The being who rules your life will be away for this one evening, and you will escape through his room by the window, which is close to the ground."

Bilk started once more. _He_ knew the doctor was to be out that evening, but what short of supernatural vision could tell the gipsies of it?