PURSUIT.
WILLIAM did not return that night — nor for two long years. During that time he travelled all England over. By woods and wilds, by moss and moor, wherever a fleeting gipsy camp was pitched, his wandering search was directed.
Euphan Curraple — any tidings of her? He would make it worth their telling. They should have what they asked for the discovery. These strange people listened to his earnest imploring appeals, gravely and civilly — sometimes thoughtfully — and spoke together in their own language; but always it ended in their saying that they knew no such person. People of the name they knew, but no Euphan Curraple.
He tracked his old adversary, Lussha Sinfield. That rogue did not like him, for a gipsy can bear most things better than being foiled at the game on which he prides himself by a “Gorgio.” Still the Squire’s money was as good coin as another man’s, and William offered it freely for any tidings of Euphan.
The man eyed him with a dark steady gaze; he was civil, and heard him out, and was silent for a while after he had done.
Sinfield’s gray and chestnut had been sold, I suppose; old Cowper was holding a cart-horse by a halter when the Squire reached them. They stood under a group of two or three trees at the edge of a common, where a little brook runs by, and meant to make a halt of some hours.
Sinfield looked out of the corners of his large dark eyes, as if at a distant object, and repeated: “Euphan Curraple! I can’t say, I’m sure; I’ll ask my partner.”
And he turned on his heel, and walked to his comrade. William’s heart beat violently as he watched him, and a mist seemed to cover his eyes.
Sinfield leaned across the horse’s back, and talked with his companion in their own tongue. The old gipsy looked hard at the Squire, as they talked low, for a while. Then the young man turned about, and told William, carelessly: —
“No — he don’t know no such woman.”
“Did you tell him all I said?” exclaimed William. “Here! I say — you’re Cowper, I saw you at the fair — I’ll pay you what you please, if only you’ll tell me where I may hear anything of Euphan Curraple.”
“There’s many a woman might tell you,” said the surly old fellow.
“Where?” asked William, with his soul at his lips.
“What is she to you?” Cowper replied, in turn, with a question.
“She was a guest at Haworth, and she’s gone,” he answered; “and we don’t know what’s become of her.”
“And how should we?” answered Cowper, gruffly.
“Who are those women you spoke of,” urged William, “who could tell me anything of her?”
“Such as lives in tents,” said Sinfield; and Cowper nodded.
“Ay, ’tis them I mean,” said the old man, who was now stuffing his pipe with tobacco.
“Gipsies?” said William.
“Why not?” answered Cowper.
“Are there any hear here?” he asked, with a hope strangely rising into agony at his heart.
“There’s five tents at Tarlton.”
“That’s about ten miles away?” said William, pointing with his arm northward.
“And a bit,” added Sinfield.
The old fellow lighted his pipe.
“Is she with them?” asked William, awaiting the answer — with what feelings you may guess.
“Not as we know,” interposed Sinfield; “you know more about that young woman yourself than me and Cowper does, I’m thinkin’.”
“And — and what are they likely to tell me?” asked William.
“Cross their hands with gold and they’ll tell ye,” said the old man, sternly, at the same time carelessly.
And he and Sinfield both again looked hard at the Squire.
“Do they know? — Do you think they know? — How do they know?” asked William, all in a gush.
“By the planets, and the hand — how else?” said old Cowper, spitting on the ground.
“They’ll tell you what they knows, and very like they’ll tell ye what ye want.”
“Come, now,” said William, suddenly, “I know all about you. You and he, there, were pursuing that young girl Euphan Curraple; and, for anything I know, you may have waylaid her as she went; and by — ! if she’s either hurt or missing, I’ll make you out, though you were hid under a mountain; and if I don’t hear of her within a week, I’ll have a warrant from the nearest magistrate, and arrest you both.”
Old Cowper looked at him from the corners of his eyes, and smoked on contemptuously.
“That’s a d —— d rum way to talk to honest men,” said Sinfield, with a swarthy flush, and a dangerous gleam from his dark eyes. “How do you know we ever heard her name? I don’t care a blast!
I’m d — d if I ever saw her in my days!
You’re talkin’ like that stick, mayhap; the oak ain’t out o’ your head yet.”
And he switched his clenched hand, as if dealing a blow with his cudgel.
William saw the ridicule and folly of a new row with these fellows; and a moment’s reflection assured him of the improbability that one so cautious and astute, and, one way or other, so well-informed about their movements, should in reality have misdirected her way, and fallen into that danger.
“Well,” said William, “you may be good fellows enough, though I don’t think you have much to boast about oak-sticks; but if you do know, you may as well tell, and I’ll make it better for you than I said — I will, indeed.”
“We knows nothing, him nor me, about her. D — n it! isn’t once enough?
Don’t ye think we’d like what ye offers well enough? It takes a while at horse-dealin’ to turn that money, I’ll swear — doesn’t it, Cowper?”
And Sinfield laughed angrily.
Cowper smoked on, listlessly. William waited in vain.
“Well, we shall see,” said William, with a heavy sigh. “I’ll try the people at Tarlton, as you say.”
“You’ll give us something to drink, after all that?” said Cowper, as the Squire turned his horse’s head away, and William threw him a shilling that was loose in his pocket. And after he had got some way, looking back suddenly, he saw the two gipsies looking steadily after him, and fancied they were conversing upon the interview that had just ended.
They did not turn away, or affect to conceal it; on the contrary, they continued to follow him with their eyes, steadily, till he was out of sight.