"Dead! no, not he," answered a hoarse, cracked voice at my ear. "He'll live to do a power of mischief yet to woman and man. The devil would never suffer a Heath of Fairburn to die at his age."
"Woman," cried I, for it was the old gipsy crone, who had somehow transported herself to the spot with incredible speed, "for God's sake, go for help! There is a house yonder among those trees."
"And why should I stir a foot," replied she fiercely, "for the child of a race that has ever treated me and mine as though we were dogs?"
"Because," said I, at a venture, "you have children yourself."
"You are right," exclaimed she, clapping her skinny hands together, and seating herself calmly on the turf. "It is well that you have mentioned my kith and kin. One lad is across the seas, and will never see the green lanes and breezy commons of England more; another lies caged in yonder jail--and both for taking the wild creatures of the earth and air, to which such men as Massingberd Heath lay claim; while my little sister--ah, my Sinnamenta, my fair pearl!--may the lightning strike him in his wickedest hour! nay, let him perish, inch by inch, within reach of the aid that shall never come, ere the God of the Poor takes him into his hand!--Boy, you may talk to that flintstone, and it will rise up and get you help for that lad there--bonny as he is, and the bonnier the worse for them he sets his wilful eyes on--before you get this hand to wag a finger for him."
"Woman," said I, despairingly, "if you hate Massingberd Heath, and want to do him the worst service that lies in your power, flee, flee to that house, and bid them save this boy's life, which alone stands between his beggared uncle and untold riches."
"Is it so?" cried the old woman, rising up with an agility for which no one would have given her credit, and looking at me with furious eyes. "Is it indeed so, boy?"
Revenge accomplished what pity had failed to work. In an instant, she was with me down by Marmaduke's side; from her pocket she produced a spirit-flask in a leathern case, and applied it to his lips: after a painful attempt to swallow, he succeeded; his eyelids began tremulously to move, and the colour to return to his pallid lips.