Bracebridge Hall: Fortune Telling

Fortune Telling

    Each city, each town, and every village
    Affords us either an alms or pillage.
    And if the weather be cold and raw,
    Then in a barn we tumble on straw.
    If warm and fair, by yea-cock and nay-cock,
    The fields will afford us a hedge or a hay-cock.
    MERRY BEGGARS.

As I was walking one evening with the Oxonian, Master Simon, and the
general, in a meadow not far from the village, we heard the sound of a
fiddle rudely played, and looking in the direction from whence it came,
we saw a thread of smoke curling up from among the trees. The sound of
music is always attractive; for, wherever there is music, there is good
humour, or goodwill. We passed along a footpath, and had a peep, through
a break in the hedge, at the musician and his party, when the Oxonian
gave us a wink, and told us that if we would follow him we should have
some sport.

It proved to be a gipsy encampment, consisting of three or four little
cabins, or tents, made of blankets and sail-cloth, spread over hoops
that were stuck in the ground. It was on one side of a green lane, close
under a hawthorn hedge, with a broad beech-tree spreading above it. A
small rill tinkled along close by, through the fresh sward, that looked
like a carpet.

A tea-kettle was hanging by a crooked piece of iron, over a fire made
from dry sticks and leaves, and two old gipsies, in red cloaks, sat
crouched on the grass, gossiping over their evening cup of tea; for
these creatures, though they live in the open air, have their ideas of
fireside comforts. There were two or three children sleeping on the
straw with which the tents were littered; a couple of donkeys were
grazing in the lane, and a thievish-looking dog was lying before the
fire. Some of the younger gipsies were dancing to the music of a
fiddle, played by a tall, slender stripling, in an old frock coat, with
a peacock's feather stuck in his hatband.

As we approached, a gipsy girl, with a pair of fine roguish eyes, came
up, and, as usual, offered to tell our fortunes. I could not but admire
a certain degree of slattern elegance about the baggage. Her long black
silken hair was curiously plaited in numerous small braids, and
negligently put up in a picturesque style that a painter might have been
proud to have devised. Her dress was of a figured chintz, rather ragged,
and not over clean, but of a variety of most harmonious and agreeable
colours; for these beings have a singularly fine eye for colours. Her
straw hat was in her hand, and a red cloak thrown over one arm.

The Oxonian offered at once to have his fortune told, and the girl began
with the usual volubility of her race; but he drew her on one side near
the hedge, as he said he had no idea of having his secrets overheard. I
saw he was talking to her instead of she to him, and by his glancing
towards us now and then, that he was giving the baggage some private
hints. When they returned to us, he assumed a very serious air.
"Zounds!" said he, "it's very astonishing how these creatures come by
their knowledge; this girl has told me some things that I thought no one
knew but myself!"

The girl now assailed the general: "Come, your honour," said she, "I see
by your face you're a lucky man; but you're not happy in your mind;
you're not, indeed, sir; but have a good heart, and give me a good piece
of silver, and I'll tell you a nice fortune."

The general had received all her approaches with a banter, and had
suffered her to get hold of his hand; but at the mention of the piece of
silver, he hemmed, looked grave, and turning to us, asked if we had not
better continue our walk. "Come, my master," said the girl archly,
"you'd not be in such a hurry, if you knew all that I could tell you
about a fair lady that has a notion for you. Come, sir, old love burns
strong; there's many a one comes to see weddings that go away brides
themselves!" Here the girl whispered something in a low voice, at which
the general coloured up, was a little fluttered, and suffered himself to
be drawn aside under the hedge, where he appeared to listen to her with
great earnestness, and at the end paid her half-a-crown with the air of
a man that has got the worth of his money.

The girl next made her attack upon Master Simon, who, however, was too
old a bird to be caught, knowing that it would end in an attack upon his
purse, about which he is a little sensitive. As he has a great notion,
however, of being considered a roister, he chucked her under the chin,
played her off with rather broad jokes, and put on something of the
rake-helly air, that we see now and then assumed on the stage by the
sad-boy gentlemen of the old school. "Ah, your honour," said the girl,
with a malicious leer, "you were not in such a tantrum last year when I
told you about the widow you know who; but if you had taken a friend's
advice, you'd never have come away from Doncaster races with a flea in
your ear!"

There was a secret sting in this speech that seemed quite to disconcert
Master Simon. He jerked away his hand in a pet, smacked his whip,
whistled to his dogs, and intimated that it was high time to go home.
The girl, however, was determined not to lose her harvest. She now
turned upon me, and, as I have a weakness of spirit where there is a
pretty face concerned, she soon wheedled me out of my money, and in
return read me a fortune which, if it prove true, and I am determined
to believe it, will make me one of the luckiest men in the chronicles of
Cupid.

I saw that the Oxonian was at the bottom of all this oracular mystery,
and was disposed to amuse himself with the general, whose tender
approaches to the widow have attracted the notice of the wag. I was a
little curious, however, to know the meaning of the dark hints which had
so suddenly disconcerted Master Simon: and took occasion to fall in the
rear with the Oxonian on our way home, when he laughed heartily at my
questions, and gave me ample information on the subject.

The truth of the matter is, that Master Simon has met with a sad rebuff
since my Christmas visit to the Hall. He used at that time to be joked
about a widow, a fine dashing woman, as he privately informed me. I had
supposed the pleasure he betrayed on these occasions resulted from the
usual fondness of old bachelors for being teased about getting married,
and about flirting, and being fickle and false-hearted. I am assured,
however, that Master Simon had really persuaded himself the widow had a
kindness for him; in consequence of which he had been at some
extraordinary expense in new clothes, and had actually got Frank
Bracebridge to order him a coat from Stultz. He began to throw out
hints about the importance of a man's settling himself in life before he
grew old; he would look grave whenever the widow and matrimony were
mentioned in the same sentence; and privately asked the opinion of the
squire and parson about the prudence of marrying a widow with a rich
jointure, but who had several children.

An important member of a great family connection cannot harp much upon
the theme of matrimony without its taking wind; and it soon got buzzed
about that Mr. Simon Bracebridge was actually gone to Doncaster races,
with a new horse, but that he meant to return in a curricle with a lady
by his side. Master Simon did, indeed, go to the races, and that with a
new horse; and the dashing widow did make her appearance in her
curricle; but it was unfortunately driven by a strapping young Irish
dragoon, with whom even Master Simon's self-complacency would not allow
him to enter into competition, and to whom she was married shortly
after.

It was a matter of sore chagrin to Master Simon for several months,
having never before been fully committed. The dullest head in the
family, had a joke upon him; and there is no one that likes less to be
bantered than an absolute joker. He took refuge for a time at Lady
Lillycraft's, until the matter should blow over; and occupied himself by
looking over her accounts, regulating the village choir, and inculcating
loyalty into a pet bullfinch by teaching him to whistle "God save the
King."

He has now pretty nearly recovered from the mortification; holds up his
head, and laughs as much as any one; again affects to pity married men,
and is particularly facetious about widows, when Lady Lillycraft is not
by. His only time of trial is when the general gets hold of him, who is
infinitely heavy and persevering in his waggery, and will interweave a
dull joke through the various topics of a whole dinner-time. Master
Simon often parries these attacks by a stanza from his old work of
"Cupid's Solicitor for Love:"

    "'Tis in vain to woo a widow over long,
      In once or twice her mind you may perceive;
    Widows are subtle, be they old or young,
      And by their wiles young men they will deceive."

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