In the Country of the Blind
Was a sighted stranger kind.
Go you calm, or go you wild,
You have helped a gipsy child;
He shall grow with courage grim,
Strength of sight and strength of limb—
All you lack shall be in him.
Go you far or go you near.
Take no guards, and take no fear.
Where you walk, there he shall run,
In the snow or in the sun.
Shield your daughter and your son.
Lined your face and grey your hair,
Under home or strangest skies,
Sunk in seeming dark despair,
Death or madness everywhere,
Be your friends however fair,
Let your enemies beware
Of dark eyes and of dark hair.
And she hitched round and fixed her own on me, with a jerk, so to speak. I got up in a hurry while I could, and, as she still continued to regard me with that intent night-cat look of hers, I got out half a crown, awkwardly enough, and, as she never moved a finger, I laid it down on the edge of the ashes. She never looked at it, but at me, so I shuffled off, and round the corner I made good time to the Farmers' Arms.
But a strange thing was to happen. I worked all that night, and went out at daybreak with my pipe, and seemed to be swung round in my eccentric strolling past the Three Corners. I thought I'd see how the gipsy camp looked asleep, but it was gone. It was, save for a circular patch of white ashes, as if it had never been. The grass was clean. Even the signs
