Rookwood. A Romance By W. HARRISON AINSWORTH

Wrapped in a cloak composed of the skins of various animals, upon a low pallet, covered with stained scarlet cloth, sat Barbara. Around her head was coiffed, in folds like those of an Asiatic turban, a rich, though faded shawl, and her waist was encircled with the magic zodiacal zone—proper to the sorceress—the Mago Cineo of the Cingara (whence the name of Zingaro, according to Monçada), which Barbara had brought from Spain. From her ears depended long golden drops, of curious antique fashioning; and upon her withered fingers, which looked like a coil of lizards, were hooped a multitude of silver rings, of the purest and simplest manufacture. They seemed almost of massive unwrought metal. Her skin was yellow as the body of a toad; corrugated as its back. She might have been steeped in saffron from her finger-tips, the nails of which were of the same hue, to such portions of her neck as were visible, and which was puckered up like the throat of a turtle. To look at her, one might have thought the embalmer had experimented her art upon herself. So dead, so bloodless, so blackened seemed the flesh, where flesh remained, leather could scarce be tougher than her skin. She seemed like an animated mummy. A frame, so tanned, appeared calculated to endure for ages; and, perhaps, might have done so. But alas! the soul cannot be embalmed. No oil can re-illumine that precious lamp! And that Barbara’s vital spark was fast waning, was evident, from her heavy, bloodshot eyes, once of a swimming black, and lengthy as a witch’s, which were now sinister and sunken.

The atmosphere of the room was as strongly impregnated as a museum with volatile odours, emitted from the stores of drugs with which the shelves were loaded, as well as from various stuffed specimens of birds and wild animals. Barbara’s only living companion was a monstrous owl, which, perched over the old gipsy’s head, hissed a token of recognition as Sybil advanced. From a hook, placed in the plaster roof, was suspended a globe of crystal glass, about the size and shape of a large gourd, filled with a pure pellucid liquid, in which a small snake, the Egyptian aspic, described perpetual gyrations.

Dim were the eyes of Barbara, yet not altogether sightless. The troubled demeanour of her grandchild struck her as she entered. She felt the hot drops upon her hand as Sybil stooped to kiss it; she heard her vainly-stifled sobs.

“What ails you, child?” said Barbara, in a voice that rattled in her throat, and hollow as the articulation of a phantom. “Have you heard tidings of Luke Bradley? Has any ill befallen him? I told you thou wouldst either hear of him or see him this morning. He is not returned, I see. What have you heard?”

“He is returned,” replied Sybil, faintly; “and no ill hath happened to him.”

“He is returned, and you are here,” echoed Barbara. “No ill hath happened to him, thou sayest—am I to understand there is ill to you?”

Sybil answered not. She could not answer.

“I see, I see,” said Barbara, more gently, her head and hand shaking with paralytic affection: “a quarrel, a lovers’ quarrel. Old as I am, I have not forgotten my feelings as a girl. What woman ever does, if she be woman? and you, like your poor mother, are a true-hearted wench. She loved her husband, as a husband should be loved, Sybil; and though she loved me well, she loved him better, as was right. Ah! it was a bitter day when she left me for Spain; for though, to one of our wandering race, all countries are alike, yet the soil of our birth is dear to us, and the presence of our kindred dearer. Well, well, I will not think of that. She is gone. Nay, take it not so to heart, wench. Luke has a hasty temper. ‘Tis not the first time I have told you so. He will not bear rebuke, and you have questioned him too shrewdly touching his absence. Is it not so? Heed it not. Trust me, you will have him seek your forgiveness ere the shadows shorten ‘neath the noontide sun.”