Labour is at a stand: the house has been a
scene of confusion the whole evening. It has been beleagured by gipsy
women, with their children on their backs, wailing and lamenting;
while the old virago of a mother has cruised up and down the lawn in
front, shaking her head, and muttering to herself, or now and then
breaking into a paroxysm of rage, brandishing her fist at the Hall,
and denouncing ill-luck upon Ready-Money Jack, and even upon the
Squire himself.
Lady Lillycraft has given repeated audiences to the culprit's weeping
wife, at the Hall door; and the servant maids have stolen out, to
confer with the gipsy women under the trees. As to the little ladies
of the family, they are all outrageous on Ready-Money Jack, whom they
look upon in the light of a tyrannical giant of fairy tale. Phoebe
Wilkins, contrary to her usual nature, is the only one that is
pitiless in the affair. She thinks Mr. Tibbets quite in the right; and
thinks the gipsies deserve to be punished severely, for meddling with
the sheep of the Tibbets's.
In the mean time, the females of the family evinced all the provident
kindness of the sex, ever ready to soothe and succour the distressed,
right or wrong. Lady Lillycraft has had a mattress taken to the
outhouse, and comforts and delicacies of all kinds have been taken to
the prisoner; even the little girls have sent their cakes and
sweetmeats; so that, I'll warrant, the vagabond has never fared so
well in his life before.
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