real peril, but I was fortunately delivered by a timely
and providential interposition. The malignant old gipsy woman and her
granddaughter were scared as they watched my sufferings by hearing the
sound of travellers approaching. Two wayfarers came along, one of whom
happened to be a kind and skillful doctor. He saved my life by drastic
remedies.

The next that I heard of Mrs. Herne was, as Petulengro told me when we
again met, that she had hanged herself, the girl finding her suspended
from a tree. That announcement was accompanied by an unexpected
challenge from my friend Jasper to fight him. He declared that as she
was his relative, and I had been the cause of her destruction, there was
no escape from the necessity of fighting. My plea that there was no
inclination on my part for such a combat was of no avail. Accordingly we
fought for half an hour, when suddenly Petulengro exclaimed: "Brother,
there is much blood on your face; I think enough has been done in the
affair of the old woman."

So the struggle ended, and my Romany friend once more pressed me to join
his tribe in their camp and in their life. I declined the offer, for I
had resolved to practice yet another calling, the trade of a blacksmith.
I could do so, for amongst the stock-in-trade I had purchased from the
tinker was a small forge, with an anvil and hammers.

It has always struck me that there is something poetical about a forge.
I believe that the life of any blacksmith, especially a rural one, would
afford material for a highly poetical treatise. But a rude stop was put
to my dream. One morning, a brutal-looking ruffian, whom I had met
before and recognised as a character known as the Flaming Tinman,
appeared on the scene, accusing me with fearful oaths of trespassing on
his ground. After volleys of abuse, he attacked me, and a fearful fight
ensued, in which he was not the victor, for in one of his terrific
lunges he slipped, and a blow which I was aiming happened to strike him
behind the ear. He fell senseless. Two women were with him, one, a
vulgar, coarse creature, his wife; the other a tall, fine young woman,
who travelled with them for company, doing business of her own with a
donkey and cart, selling merchandise.

While I was bringing water from a spring in order to seek to revive the
Flaming Tinman, his wife and the young woman violently quarrelled, for
the latter took my part vehemently. When at length my enemy recovered
sufficiently to