GIPSY'S WARNING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13722, 11 April 1908, Page 2 (Supplement)

GIPSY'S WARNING.

HOW A FQRTUXE-TELLER'S PREDICT- j •; 'HON CAME TRUE.A romaxtic story of a miller and a maid, in which the outstanding ieafere is said to be the fulfilment of a .■".•dW m,uic by a gipsy fortune-teller, is ex<ffisj;''can*iderable interest in the neighbourhood of Chard. One sunny morning last July, a gipsy j named Britannia Mauley, a well-known j character, knocked at the door of the house adjoining an old-fashioned mill at Forton,: about a mile from Chard. Here resided the , miller, Mr. Walter . Helliar, his two little children, and his maid-servant, Florrie Tytherietgh. His wife, unhappily, was, and still is, an inmate of an asylum. Florae, then only 16 years old. was at the moment upstairs attending to her household duties. When she came down, the gipsy succeeded in selling her some lace, and then suggested that she should tell her fortune. Florrie at length consenting, the gipsy took her hand, bent her sun-browned face over it for a moment or two, and then said, " Mrs. Helliar is never coming home." The gipsy went on to say that the girl's master, Mr. Helliar, was very fond of the maid, that site (the girl) was very loud of him, and that he was to ask her to go a long journey with him. When Britannia; had gone Mr. Helliar came into the house and found Florrie white and trembling. He asked her what was the matter, and, in halting words, she related what had happened." Britannia was arrested, brought before the magistrates at Chard, and sentenced to one months hard labour. The hag made no attempt to conceal her chagrin. Turning to Miss Tytherleigh she said, angrily, " I will make her bad when I come out." WOULD BE A LADY. That was seven months ago. The sequel to the incident is that, true to the iripy's prediction, Mr. Helliar and the maid, to the astonishment of all who know them, have gone off on a long journey together; indeed, there is every reason to believe that they are making their way to Canada. With them are the miller's two little children. A newspaper representative paid a visit to the girl's home at Tatworth, a little over two miles from Chard. In a pretty thatched cottage he found her sorrowing mother. She said the news had conic upon her as a great surprise, and what had intensified her grid was that she had had no word from her daughter. Florrie only went into the service of Mr. Helliar about two years ago as a nursemaid. With the miller was then living his sister. After a while Florrie left to enter the service of a brother of Mr. Helliar. residing at Bristol. " She got on well at Bristol, but Helliar, of Forton, wrote to her saying that his sister wur going to get married, and asking her to come back. I didn't altogether like her going to Forton, with no other woman in the house, but tluir wur the children, and I thought 'twould be all right. Florrie had been back at Forton only about a fortnight when uus gipsy woman called. 1 know she wur frightened a good deal. Florrie told me that the gipsy said Mr. Helliar would come to worship the very ground she walked on, that he would marry her some day, and that she would be a laity, and that he would make her handsome presents." « LETTER WRITTEN' AT SKA. From Tatworth the representative made .s way to the old mill at Forton, hidden away among fir trese. The water-wheel was'still running, though the whole place had a look of desolation. He found there a young man, one of the mill hands, who could throw little light on the sudden departure of his master. "He told pie on the morning he went away,'' he said, " that he wur just going for a little holiday to a place near Taunton. The girl told the same thing, though I don't know whether she knew anything different. Perhaps she didn't know she wur going a Ions? way. They all went away in the dogcart, and I've heard nothing of them since." He also had a. talk with a brother of Mr. Helliar. living in the adjoining village of Winsham. "My brother told me," lie said, " that he was going for a snort holiday to Bournemouth, where he had been before. "He had had a lot of worry, and I thought a change would do him good. He was in financial trouolo. He had about £600 on his books which he could not get in, and he was, therefore, not able to settle up with the merchants. " Some time after he had gone I got a letter from him, written at sea. He didn't state definitely where he was going, but I gathered he was on his way to Canada. " He said in his letter that he could not stay and see his home sold up. "As for the girl, he said he was taking her with him to look after the children."