y
husband, Launcelot, whistled a horse from a farmer's field, and sold it
for forty-pounds; and for that horse he was taken, put in prison, tried,
and condemned to be sent to the other country for life. Two days before
he was to be sent away, I got leave to see him in the prison, and in the
presence of the turnkey I gave him a thin cake of gingerbread, in which
there was a dainty saw which could cut through iron. I then took on
wonderfully, turned my eyes inside out, fell down in a seeming fit, and
was carried out of the prison. That same night my husband sawed his
irons off, cut through the bars of his window, and dropping down a height
of fifty feet, lighted on his legs, and came and joined me on a heath
where I was camped alone. We were just getting things ready to be off,
when we heard people coming, and sure enough they were runners after my
husband, Launcelot Lovell; for his escape had been discovered within a
quarter of an hour after he had got away. My husband, without bidding me
farewell, set off at full speed, and they after him, but they could not
take him, and so they came back and took me, and shook me, and threatened
me, and had me before the poknees, who shook his head at me, and
threatened me in order to make me discover where my husband was, but I
said I did not know, which was true enough; not that I would have told
him if I had. So at last the poknees and the runners, not being able to
make anything out of me, were obliged to let me go, and I went in search
of my husband. I wandered about with my cart for several days in the
direction in which I saw him run off, with my eyes bent on the ground,
but could see no marks of him; at last, coming to four cross roads, I saw
my husband's patteran."

"You saw your husband's patteran?"

"Yes, brother. Do you know what patteran means?"

"Of course, Ursula; the gypsy trail, the handful of grass which the
gypsies strew in the roads as they travel, to give information to any of
their companions who may be behind, as to the route they have taken. The
gypsy patteran has always had a strange interest for me, Ursula."

"Like enough, brother; but what does patteran mean?"

"Why, the gypsy trail, formed as I told you before."

"And you know nothing more about patteran, brother?"

"Nothing at all, Ursula; do you?"

"What's the name for the leaf of a tree, brother?"

"I don't know," said I; "it's odd enough that I have asked that question
of a dozen Roma