But to these, the appearance of the youth presented a striking and beautiful contrast.
He had only just passed the stage of boyhood, perhaps he might have seen eighteen summers, probably not so many. He had, in imitation of his companion, and perhaps from mistaken courtesy to his new society, doffed his hat; and the attitude which he had chosen fully developed the noble and intellectual turn of his head and throat. His hair, as yet preserved from the disfiguring fashions of the day, was of a deep auburn, which was rapidly becoming of a more chestnut hue, and curled in short close curls from the nape of the neck to the commencement of a forehead singularly white and high. His brows finely and lightly pencilled, and his long lashes of the darkest dye, gave a deeper and perhaps softer shade than they otherwise would have worn to eyes quick and observant in their expression and of a light hazel in their colour. His cheek was very fair, and the red light of the fire cast an artificial tint of increased glow upon a complexion that had naturally rather bloom than colour; while a dark riding frock set off in their full beauty the fine outline of his chest and the slender symmetry of his frame.
But it was neither his features nor his form, eminently handsome as they were, which gave the principal charm to the young strangers appearance: it was the strikingly bold, buoyant, frank, and almost joyous expression which presided over all. There seemed to dwell the first glow and life of youth, undimmed by a single fear and unbaffled in a single hope. There were the elastic spring, the inexhaustible wealth of energies which defied in their exulting pride the heaviness of sorrow and the harassments of time. It was a face that, while it filled you with some melancholy foreboding of the changes and chances which must, in the inevitable course of fate, cloud the openness of the unwrinkled brow, and soberize the fire of the daring and restless eye, instilled also within you some assurance of triumph, and some omen of success,a vague but powerful sympathy with the adventurous and cheerful spirit which appeared literally to speak in its expression. It was a face you might imagine in one born under a prosperous star; and you felt, as you gazed, a confidence in that bright countenance, which, like the shield of the British Prince, [Prince Arthur.See The Faerie Queene.] seemed possessed with a spell to charm into impotence the evil spirits who menaced its possessor.
Well, sir, said his friend, the gypsy, who had in his turn been surveying with admiration the sinewy and agile frame of his young guest, well, sir, how fares your appetite? Old Dame Bingo will be mortally offended if you do not do ample justice to her good cheer.
If so, answered our traveller, who, young as he was, had learnt already the grand secret of making in every situation a female friend, if so, I shall be likely to offend her still more.
And how, my pretty master? said the old crone with an iron smile.
Why, I shall be bold enough to reconcile matters with a kiss, Mrs. Bingo, answered the youth.
Ha! Ha! shouted the tall gypsy; it is many a long day since my old Mort slapped a gallants face for such an affront. But here come our messmates. Good evening, my mumpers; make your bows to this gentleman who has come to bowse with us to-night. Gad, well show him that old ales none the worse for keeping company with the moons darlings. Come, sit down, sit down. Wheres the cloth, ye ill-mannered loons, and the knives and platters? Have we no holiday customs for strangers, think ye? Mim, my cove, off to my caravan; bring out the knives, and all other rattletraps; and harkye, my cuffin, this small key opens the inner hole, where you will find two barrels; bring one of them. Ill warrant it of the best, for the brewer himself drank some of the same sort but two hours before I nimmd them. Come, stump, my cull, make yourself wings. Ho, Dame Bingo, is not that pot of thine seething yet? Ah, my young gentleman, you commence betimes; so much the better; if loves a summers day, we all know how early a summer morning begins, added the jovial Egyptian in a lower voice (feeling perhaps that he was only understood by himself), as he gazed complacently on the youth, who, with that happy facility of making himself everywhere at home so uncommon to his countrymen, was already paying compliments suited to their understanding to two fair daughters of the tribe who had entered with the new-comers. Yet had he too much craft or delicacy, call it which you will, to continue his addresses to that limit where ridicule or jealousy from the male part of the assemblage might commence; on the contrary, he soon turned to the men, and addressed them with a familiarity so frank and so suited to their taste that he grew no less rapidly in their favour than he had already done in that of the women, and when the contents of the two caldrons were at length set upon the coarse but clean cloth which in honour of his arrival covered the sod, it was in the midst of a loud and universal peal of laughter which some broad witticism of the young stranger had produced that the party sat down to their repast.
Bright were the eyes and sleek the tresses of the damsel who placed herself by the side of the stranger, and many were the alluring glances and insinuated compliments which replied to his open admiration and profuse flattery; but still there was nothing exclusive in his attentions; perhaps an ignorance of the customs of his entertainers, and a consequent discreet fear of offending them, restrained him; or perhaps he found ample food for occupation in the plentiful dainties which his host heaped before him.
Now tell me, said the gypsy chief (for chief he appeared to be), if we lead not a merrier life than you dreamt of? or would you have us change our coarse fare and our simple tents, our vigorous limbs and free hearts, for the meagre board, the monotonous chamber, the diseased frame, and the toiling, careful, and withered spirit of some miserable mechanic?
Change! cried the youth, with an earnestness which, if affected, was an exquisite counterfeit, by Heaven, I would change with you myself.
Bravo, my fine cove! cried the host, and all the gang echoed their sympathy with his applause.
The youth continued: Meat, and that plentiful; ale, and that strong; women, and those pretty ones: what can man desire more?
Ay, cried the host, and all for nothing,no, not even a tax; who else in this kingdom can say that? Come, Mim, push round the ale.
And the ale was pushed round, and if coarse the merriment, loud at least was the laugh that rang ever and anon from the old tent; and though, at moments, something in the guests eye and lip might have seemed, to a very shrewd observer, a little wandering and absent, yet, upon the whole, he was almost as much at ease as the rest, and if he was not quite as talkative he was to the full as noisy.
By degrees, as the hour grew later and the barrel less heavy, the conversation changed into one universal clatter. Some told their feats in beggary; others, their achievements in theft; not a viand they had fed on but had its appropriate legend; even the old rabbit, which had been as tough as old rabbit can well be, had not been honestly taken from his burrow; no less a person than Mim himself had purloined it from a widows footman who was carrying it to an old maid from her nephew the Squire.
Silence, cried the host, who loved talking as well as the rest, and who for the last ten minutes had been vainly endeavouring to obtain attention. Silence! my maunders, its late, and we shall have the queer cuffins [magistrates] upon us if we keep it up much longer. What, ho, Mim, are you still gabbling at the foot of the table when your betters are talking? As sure as my names King Cole, Ill choke you with your own rabbit skin, if you dont hush your prating cheat,nay, never look so abashed: if you will make a noise, come forward, and sing us a gypsy song. You see, my young sir, turning to his guest, that we are not without our pretensions to the fine arts.