Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction; Family life -- Juvenile fiction; Grandparents -- Juvenile fiction
Pamela squeezed herself forward between Duke and a bush, and looked
where he pointed to. A little group of people was to be seen making
their way slowly along the lane. There were a man, two women, and two
boys--the women with red kerchiefs over their heads, and something
picturesque about their dress and bearing, though they were dirty and
ragged. They, as well as the man, had very dark skins, black hair, and
bright piercing eyes, and the elder of the two boys, a great
loose-limbed fellow of sixteen or so, was just like them. But the other
boy, who did not look more than nine or ten, though his skin was tanned
by the weather nearly as brown as his companion's, had lighter hair and
eyes. He followed the others at a little distance, not seeming to attend
to what they were saying, though they were all talking eagerly, and
rather loudly, in a queer kind of language, which Duke and Pamela could
not understand at all. The younger boy whistled as he came along, and he
held a stout branch in his hand, from which, with a short rough knife,
he was cutting away the twigs and bark. He did not seem unhappy though
he looked thin, and his clothes hardly held together they were so
ragged.
All these particulars became visible to the children, as the party of
gipsies--for such they were, though of a low class--came nearer and
nearer. I forgot to say that the sixth member of the party was a donkey,
a poor half-starved looking creature, with roughly-made panniers,
stuffed with crockery apparently, for basins and jugs and pots of
various kinds were to be seen sticking out of them in all directions.
And besides the donkey's load there was a good deal more to carry, for
the man and the women and the big boy were all loaded with bundles of
different shapes and sizes, and the little fellow had a sort of knapsack
on his back. They would probably have passed on their way without
dreaming of the two small people in Spy Tower up above their heads, had
not Duke, suddenly catching sight of the donkey's burden, exclaimed
loudly to Pamela:
"See, see, sister; they have jugs and dishes. Perhaps us could get a
bowl like ours."
At the sound of the child's voice the man stopped short in what he was
saying to his companions, and looked up.
"Good day, my little master, and my pretty missy too," he said in a
smooth voice, not the least like the rather harsh tones in which he had
been speaking a moment before in the strange language. "At your service,
and is there anything I can do for you?"
"Oh the pretty dears," exclaimed one of the two women, while the other
turned away with a rough laugh, muttering something the children could
not distinguish the meaning of. "Oh the pretty dears! Like two sweet
birds up in a nest. And wouldn't you like your fortunes told, my
honeys?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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