Gilbert Parker

“ The pennant had been on the pole of the Ry's tent in far-off days in the Roumelian country. In the girl herself there was that which corresponded to the gorgeous pennant and the bronze cross. It was not in dress or in manner, for there was no sign of garishness, of the unusual anywhere—in manner she was as well controlled as any woman of fashion, in dress singularly reserved—but in the depths of the eyes there was some restless, unsettled thing, some flicker of strange banners akin to the pennant at the joining of the pink curtains. ”

“ She grew suddenly thin and a little worn, and her big eyes had that look of yearning which only comes to those whose sorrow is for another. Old Gabriel Druse was emphatic in his encouragement, but his face reflected the trouble in that of his daughter. He knew well that if Ingolby remained blind he would never marry Fleda, though he also knew well that, with her nature, almost fanatical in its convictions, she would sacrifice herself, if sacrifice was the name for it. ”

“ As she talked, Ingolby in his imagination pictured her as a girl of ten or twelve, in a dark-red dress, brown curls falling in profusion on her shoulders, with a clear, honest, beautiful eye, and a face that only spoke of a joy of living, in which the small things were the small things and the great things were the great: the perfect proportion of sane life in a sane world. ”

“ Every throb says, 'Fleda—Fleda—Fleda, come to me.' I have loved you since you were three. I want you now. We can be happy. Every night we will make a new home. The world will be ours; the best that is in it will come to us. We will tap the trees of happiness —they're hid from the Gorgio world. You and I will know where to find them. Every land shall be ours; every gift of paradise within our reach —riches, power, children. Come back to your own people; be a true daughter of the Ry of Rys; live with your Romany chal. You will never be at home anywhere else. ”

“ Fleda wanted to ask how he knew, but hesitated from feelings of delicacy. Ingolby seemed to understand. A faint reflection of the old whimsical smile touched his lips, and his hands swept over the coverlet as though smoothing out a wrinkled map.
"The blind man gets new senses," he said dreamily. "I feel things where I used to see them. How did I know it was a fine day? Simple enough. When the door opened there was only the lightest breath of wind, and the air was fresh and crisp, and I could smell the sun. One sense less, more degree of power to the other senses. ”

“ The best life can give you in misfortune is a woman. It's the great beginning-of-the-world thing in them. Men can't stand prosperity, but women can stand misfortune. Why, if Jim and Osterhaut and Jowett and all the men of Lebanon and Manitou had deserted me, I shouldn't have been surprised; but I'd have had to recast my philosophy if Fleda Druse had turned her bonny brown head away. ”

“ With sudden resolve Dennis squared his shoulders. "All right," he said. "This thing's too much for me. I can't get the hang of it. I've lost my head."
"No, I won't come, I can't come now," said Ingolby, in response to an inquiring look from Fleda.
"Not now, but before sundown, please."
As Fleda and Dennis disappeared, Ingolby looked back towards the fire. "How good it is to see again even a sight like that," he said. "Nothing that the eyes see is so horrible as the pictures that come to the mind when the eyes don't see. As Dennis said, I can't get the hang of it, but I'll try—I'll try." ”

“ As a barren woman loves a child, so I loved you. I loved you for the sake of your mother. I gave her to the Ry, who was the better man, that she might be great and well placed. So it is I would have you be ruler over us, and I would serve you as I served your father until I, also, fall asleep."
"It is too late," Fleda answered, and there was great emotion in her voice now. "I am no longer a Romany. I am my father's daughter, but I have not been a Romany since I was ill in England. I will not go back; I shall go with the man I love, to be his wife, here, in the Gorgio world. ”

“ With foresight Ingolby had quickly and quietly accomplished that while Dennis's back was turned.
"You'd be treating her like a brute if you went to prison for killing Marchand," urged Ingolby. "Give her a chance. She's fretting her heart out."
"She wants to go back to Elk Mountain with you," pleaded Fleda gently.
"She couldn't do that if the law took hold of you."
"Ain't there to be any punishment for men like him?" demanded Dennis, stubbornly yet helplessly. "Why didn't I let him burn! I'd have been willing to burn myself to have seen him sizzling. Ain't men like that to be punished at all?" ”

“ Jethro said, with an unnatural shining in his eyes, his voice broken in its passion. "You think you can come it over me with your Gorgio talk and the clever things you've learned in the Gorgio world. You try to look down on me. I'm as well born or as ill born as you. The only difference between us is the way you dress, the way you live and use your tongue. All that belongs to the life of the cities. Anyone can learn it. Anyone well born like you and me, with a little practice, can talk like Gorgio dukes and earls. ”

“ The old look of power came to a face hardly strong enough to bear it.
It was so fine and thin now, and the spirit in him was so prodigious.
"No one cares what happens to the man who always succeeds; no one loves him," he continued. "Do you know, in my trouble I've had more out of nigger Jim's affection than I've ever had in my life. Then there's Rockwell, Osterhaut and Jowett, and there's your father. It was worth while living to feel the real thing." ”

“ It's all part of a set piece. There's no independence in that life; you live by rule. Diable! I know. I've been in palaces; I've played my fiddle to the women in high places who can't blush. It's no good; it brings nothing in the end. It's all hollow. Look at our people there." He swept a hand to the tent door.
"They're tanned and rough, as all out-door things are rough, but they've got their share of happiness, and every day has its pleasures. Listen to them!" he cried with a gesture of exultation. "Listen to that!"
The colour slowly left Fleda's face. ”

“ He made a motion towards the dead man. "There are things to be said which can only be said now, and things to be done which can only be done according to what is said now," grimly remarked Rhodo.
"I wish you to remain," said Fleda to Ingolby with resolution in her bearing as she placed herself beside the chair where the dead man sat. "What is it you want to say to me?" she asked Rhodo again.
"Must a Romany bare his soul before a stranger?" replied Rhodo. "Must a man who has been the voice of the Ry of Rys for the long years have no words face to face with the Ry's daughter now that he is gone? ”

“ When she regained consciousness Fleda found herself in a tent, set in a kind of prairie amphitheatre valanced by shrubs and trees. Bright fires burned here and there, and dark-featured men squatted upon the ground, cared for their horses, or busied themselves near two large caravans, at the doors or on the steps of which now and again appeared a woman. ”

“ Two people, however, were cheerful; they were Ingolby and Jim. Jim went about the place humming a nigger melody to himself, and twice he brought Berry the barber to play to his Chief on the cottonfield fiddle. Nigger Jim, though it was two generations gone which linked him with the wilds of the Gold Coast, was the slave of fanatical imagination, and in Ingolby's own mind there was the persistent superstition that all would be well, because of a dream he had had. He dreamed he heard his dead mother's voice in the room, where he lay. ”

“ They recognized the touch of fashion and of form, of a worldly education, of a convention which lifted her away from the tan and the caravan, from the everlasting itinerary. They had not had Jethro's experiences in fashionable hotels of Europe, at midnight parties, at gay suppers, at garish dances, where Gorgio ladies answered the amorous looks of the ambitious Romany with the fiddle at his chin. Because these young Romanys knew they dare not aspire, they were resentful; but Jethro, the head of the rival family and the son of the dead claimant to the headship, had not such compulsory modesty. ”

“ As I came, I met the woman of this tent who has been your friend. She is a good woman; she has suffered. Her people are gone, but she has a heart for others. I met her. She told me of what that rogue and devil had done and would do. He is the head of the Fawes, but the Ry of Rys is the head of all the Romanys of the world. He has spoken the Word against Jethro, and the Word shall prevail. The Word of the Ry when it is given cannot be withdrawn. It is like the rock on which the hill rests. ”

“ So often a face familiar over half a lifetime perhaps, suddenly at some new angle, or because, by chance, one has looked at it searchingly, shows a new expression, a new contour never before observed, giving fresh significance to the character. There was that in Ingolby's mind, a depth of desire, a resolve to stake two lives against the chances of Fate, which made him look at Fleda now with a revealing intensity. ”

“ No one had ever seen Osterhaut quite so cheerful—and he had a bonny cheerfulness on occasion—as on this grisly October day when Nature was very sour and the spirit of the winds was in a "scratchy" mood. But Osterhaut was not more cheerful than Jowett who, in a very undignified way, described the state of his feelings, on receiving a certain confidence from Halliday, the lawyer, and Gabriel Druse, by turning a cart-wheel in the Mayor's office; which certainly was an unusual thing in a man of fifty years of age. ”

“ Then came the match, and the flames made ashes of all those things which once he called his own. Standing apart, Tekewani and his braves watched the ceremonial of fire with a sympathy born of primitive custom. It was all in tune with the traditions of their race.
As dawn broke, and its rosy light valanced the horizon, a great procession moved away from the River Sagalac towards the East, to which all wandering and Oriental peoples turn their eyes. With it, all that was mortal of Gabriel Druse went to its hidden burial. Only to the Romany people would his last resting-place be known ”

“ He had gone as most men wish to go—in the midst of the business of life, doing the usual things, and so passing into the sphere of Eternity as one would go from this room to that. Only a few days before had he yielded up his temporary position as chief constable, and had spent almost every hour since in conference with Rhodo. What he had planned would never be known to his daughter now. It was Rhodo himself who had found his master with head bowed before the Master of all men.
Before Fleda entered the room she knew what awaited her; a merciful intuition had blunted the shock to her senses. ”

“ In his philosophy, intellect alone had never been the governing influence. Intellect must find its play through the senses, be vitalized by the elements of physical life, or it could not prevail. There was not one sensual strain in him, but with a sensuous mind he loved the vital thing. He was sure that presently Gabriel Druse would disappear, leaving her behind with him. That was what he meant to ask her to-day—to be and stay with him always. He knew that the Romanys were gathering in the prairie. ”

“ Whatever Ingolby's defects, however, infinitely more than the girl's beauty, more than the palpitating life in her, than red lips and bright eye, than warm breast and clasping hand, was something beneath all which would last, or should last, when the hand was palsied and the eye was dim. ”

“ From a lonely spot by the river, Fleda watched the westering gleam until it vanished, her soul alive to the melancholy beauty of it all. Not a human being seemed to be within the restricted circle of her vision. ”

“ From the woods around came swarthy-faced men, with great gold rings in their ears and bright scarfs around their necks or waists, some of them handsome, dirty and insolent; others ugly, watchful, and quiet in manner and face; others still most friendly and kind in face and manner. All showed instant respect for Fleda. They raised their hands in a gesture of salutation as a Zulu chief thrusts up a long arm and shouts "Inkoos!" ”

“ On either side of her, but a few feet behind, stood Rhodo and Ingolby.
Presently in a low, firm voice Rhodo spoke.
"The Ry of Rys is dead, but his daughter must stand upon her feet, and in his place speak for him. Is it not well with him? He sleeps. Sleep is better than pain. Let his daughter speak."
Slowly Fleda arose. Not so much what Rhodo had said as the meaning in his voice, aroused her to a situation which she must face. Rhodo had said that she must speak for her father. What did it mean?
"What is it you wish to say to me, Rhodo?" she asked. ”

“ There are plenty who pretend they care, but it's only because they're sailing with the wind, and with your even keel. It's only the Master Man himself that doesn't know in the least he's that who gets anything out of it all."
"Aren't you getting anything out of it?" she asked softly. "Aren't you
—Chief?"
At the familiar word—Jowett always called him Chief—a smile slowly stole across his face. "I really believe I am, thanks to you," he said nodding.
He was going to say, "Thanks to you, Fleda," but he restrained himself. He had no right to be familiar, to give an intimate turn to things. ”