Free Dance of the Years by Margery Allingham

by guessing during the blanks, came to understand that some sort of experiment was afoot. He made cautious enquiries, and was half flattered, and half affronted to find they were prepared to answer him freely, having assumed, no doubt, that since he had shown an affinity with the beasts he would automatically know a great deal about them, and the peculiar mechanism of reproduction generally. He never forgot how offended he was by this; he was not shocked in the ordinary sense, having had a fairly accurate notion of the principal facts for some time, but he was shaken to the roots of his pride by something strange in their manner. There was a sort of “he’s funny, he doesn’t matter” note in their talk, and he found it very hard to bear, especially as he felt that they might possibly be right.
    Suddenly the whole explanation came out baldly; put with all the brutal truthfulness of the East Anglian. Old Larch had no intention of hurting the child; he was simply trying to explain something else, which to his way of thinking was remarkably interesting.
    â€œThe foal will be a half-breed. He won’t be a Blood, but he’ll have Blood in him,” he said earnestly. “Nothing’ll alter that whatever happens. See? Look now, it’s like yourself. You’re old Squire Galantry’s son all right, anyone can see that, but you’ve got your mother in you. You’re a Smith too; a gyppo; borned in a ditch. Nothing’ll alter that, will it? Whatever you do, you can’t never prevent the gyppo showing, and maybe a hundred years to-day you’ll have a grandchild who’s pure gyppo, like as not. Borned with ear-rings, very likely. Nature’s a wonderful little old girl; once she’s got a hold of a thing, she don’t never let that goo.”
    â€œHar! You don’t want to talk like that together,” said Jason, driving the nail right home in his clumsiness.
    The square little boy in his good clothes stood in the grass with his feet apart, and his weight balanced evenly. He stared at the two unwinking. Slowly the information settled into him; it got down into his mind; it answered questions; cleared up mysteries; filled in gaps. It fitted so neatly, went in so smoothly, that he knew it for the truth at once. Curiously, its immediate effect was calming. The sensation of approaching catastrophe and revelation which had hung over him for a long time now, and which had worked up to a crisis all the day, ceased abruptly. Here it was. Shulie was a gyppo.
    He himself was not the third most important person in the world by thousands. He was half a gyppo. James knew a great deal about gypsies, and he shared the common country view of them. He had seen them, too, and had heard their mendicant whimperings. To himthey were the lowest known human race, and he felt Larch and Jason entirely justified in despising them.
    His great strength, which was not only physical, asserted itself. He felt rather cold, but very quiet and self-contained, and very much aware that he must defend himself. He was so fresh and new in heart and mind that he was exquisitely sensitive to all that happened to him, and he knew that it was as though a half-perceived, shadowy creature, who had been walking beside him for a long time, had suddenly got into his skin with him. He looked at Jason coldly.
    â€œWill the foal be as strong as his father?” he enquired.
    â€œVery likely stronger,” said Jason; “hope so!”
    â€œWill he look like him?”
    â€œMight do.”
    â€œHe’ll have his father in him,” put in Larch, who was still anxious to make it all quite clear. “But he won’t be quite like him; not with that little old mare for a dam. Come what may, he’ll be a bit carty about the head and neck.” And for the life of him he could not help his wet, red-rimmed eyes from shooting a glance over James’s shoulders.
    â€œMore’n likely he’ll be