"Well, you know you deserved it!" was the woman's comforting rejoinder.
"You committed the robbery."

"So I did; but if that she-wolf had not made it out so bad, I'd have got
off with six months. Ha! but I knew how to touch her up. I knew her
weakness! swore, afore I left the dock, that I'd steal away the little
cub she was so fond of--and _I did it_!"

There was a gleam of triumph in the gypsy's face as he said this, but it
was quickly followed by a scowl when the woman said--

"Well, and much you have made of it. Here is the brat come back at the
end o' five years, to spoil our harvest!"

"How could I know he'd do that? I paid the captain a goodish lump o'
tin to take him on a long voyage, and I thought he was so young that
he'd forget the old place."

"How d'ye know that he hasn't forgot it?" inquired the woman.

"'Cause, I seed him not twenty miles from this, and heerd him say he'd
stop at the Blue Boar all night, and come on here in the morning--that's
to-morrow--so I come straight out to ask you wot I'm to do."

"Ha! that's like you. Too chicken-hearted to do any thing till I set
you on, an' mean enough to saddle it on me when ye'r nabbed."

"Come, that's an old story!" growled the man. "You know wot _I_ am, and
I knows wot _you_ are. But if something's not done, we'll have to cut
this here part o' the country in the very thick o' the season, when
these southern sightseers are ranging about the hills."

"That's true!" rejoined the woman, seriously. "Many a penny the bairns
get from them, an there's no part so good as this. Ye couldn't _put him
out o' the way_, could ye?"

"No," said the man, doggedly.

The woman had accompanied her question with a sidelong glance of
fiendish meaning, but her eyes at once dropped, and she evinced no anger
at the sharp decision of her companion's reply.

"Mother!" cried the young woman, issuing from the hut at the moment,
"don't you dare to go an' tempt him again like that. Our hands are
black enough already; don't you try to make them _red_, else I'll blab!"

The elder woman assumed an injured look as she said, "Who spoke of
makin' them red? Evil dreaders are evil doers. Is there no way o'
puttin' a chick out o' the way besides murderin' him?"

"Hush!" exclaimed the man, starting and glancing round with a guilty
look, as if he fancied the bare mention of the word "murder" would bring
the strong arm of the law down on his head.

"I won't hush!" cried th