Читать книгу I've been a Gipsying. Rambles among our Gipsies and their children in their tents and vans онлайн

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“The mystery was soon solved, the secret was soon out. As she looked into my face, she cried out, ‘Art thou my son John, who ran away from his place nearly twenty years ago, and for whom I have prayed every day since that the Lord would bring you back to me before I died?’ And then she came a little nearer, and looked into my face a little closer, and cried out, ‘Thou art my son, John; bless the dear good Lord for preserving thee all these years.’ I said, ‘Are you my mother?’ tremblingly. And she took hold of me and put her arms round me, and clasped me closely to her, and she cried and sobbed out for a minute or two, and then, with tears streaming down her face upon my shoulder, said, while trembling and almost fainting, ‘I am thy mother, my son John; let me kiss thee.’ And she kissed me, and I kissed her. I cried, and she cried; I thought we were not going to be parted again. We were in each other’s arms for a few moments, and the man who brought the newspaper to the public-house to recognize me, made himself known to me as my brother-in-law. Some of my brothers came in the evening—and an evening it was. I shall never forget our meeting while I live.” “And you could have sung from your heart, Pether, ‘Come let us be merry, for this my son was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found.’” “Yes I could. I always felt, and do so still feel, that when I am gipsying, as you sometimes see me at ‘Robin Hood,’ my mother’s prayers are heard by God. She is a good creature, and is alive and lives with my sister at Battersea. I often go to see her. She is a good creature.” Mr. Pether, while narrating his troubles, difficulties, hairbreadth escapes, broke out frequently into sobs and cries almost like a child.