This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
By George Meredith
A single tent stood in a gully running from one of the gravel-pits of theheath, near an iron-red rillet, and a girl of Kiomi's tribe leaned overthe lazy water at half length, striking it with her handkerchief. At adistance of about twice a stone's-throw from the new carriage-roadbetween Durstan and Bulsted, I fancied from old recollections she mightbe Kiomi herself. This was not the time for her people to be camping onDurstan. Besides, I feared it improbable that one would find her in anyof the tracks of her people. The noise of the wheels brought the girl'sface round to me. She was one of those who were babies in the tents whenI was a boy. We were too far apart for me to read her features. I layback in the carriage, thinking that it would have been better for my poorlittle wild friend if I had never crossed the shadow of her tents. Alife caught out of its natural circle is as much in danger of being lostas a limb given to a wheel in spinning machinery; so it occurred to me,until I reflected that Prince Ernest might make the same remark, anddeplore the damage done to the superior machinery likewise.
My movements appeared to interest the girl. She was up on a mound of thefast-purpling heath, shading her eyes to watch me, when I called atBulsted lodge-gates to ask for a bed under Julia's roof that night. Herbare legs twinkled in a nimble pace on the way to Durstan Hall, as if shewas determined to keep me in sight. I waved my hand to her. Shestopped. A gipsy's girl's figure is often as good an index to her mindas her face, and I perceived that she had not taken my greetingfavourably; nor would she advance a step to my repeated beckonings; Itried hat, handkerchief, purse, in vain. My driver observed that she wastaken with a fit of the obstinacy of 'her lot.' He shouted, 'Silver,' andthen 'Fortune.' She stood looking. The fellow discoursed on the natureof gipsies. Foxes were kept for hunting, he said; there was reason inthat. Why we kept gipsies none could tell. He once backed a gipsyprizefighter, who failed to keep his appointment. 'Heart sunk too lowbelow his belt, sir. You can't reckon on them for performances. Andthat same man afterwards fought the gamest fight in the chronicles o' theRing! I knew he had it in him. But they're like nothing better than theweather; you can't put money on 'em and feel safe.' Consequently he sawno good in them.
'She sticks to her post,' he said, as we turned into the Durstan grounds.
The girl was like a flag-staff on the upper line of heathland.
Heriot was strolling, cigar in mouth, down one of the diminutive alleysof young fir in this upstart estate. He affected to be prepossessed bythe case between me and Edbury, and would say nothing of his own affairs,save that he meant to try for service in one of the Continental armies;he whose susceptible love for his country was almost a malady. But hehad given himself to women it was Cissy this, Trichy that, and the wilesof a Florence, the spites of an Agatha, duperies, innocent-seemings,witcheries, reptile-tricks of the fairest of women, all through his