implicity of
character is a puzzle to them. Your women are certainly extraordinary
creatures, Jasper."

"Didn't I say they were rum animals? Brother, we Romans shall always
stick together as long as they stick fast to us."

"Do you think they always will, Jasper?"

"Can't say, brother; nothing lasts for ever. Romany chies are Romany
chies still, though not exactly what they were sixty years ago. My wife,
though a rum one, is not Mrs. Herne, brother. I think she is rather fond
of Frenchmen and French discourse. I tell you what, brother, if ever
gypsyism breaks up, it will be owing to our chies having been bitten by
that mad puppy they calls gentility."

CHAPTER XII

The Dingle at Night--The Two Sides of the Question--Roman Females--Filling
the Kettle--The Dream--The Tall Figure.

I descended to the bottom of the dingle. It was nearly involved in
obscurity. To dissipate the feeling of melancholy which came over my
mind, I resolved to kindle a fire; and having heaped dry sticks upon my
hearth, and added a billet or two, I struck a light, and soon produced a
blaze. Sitting down, I fixed my eyes upon the blaze, and soon fell into
a deep meditation. I thought of the events of the day, the scene at
church, and what I had heard at church, the danger of losing one's soul,
the doubts of Jasper Petulengro as to whether one had a soul. I thought
over the various arguments which I had either heard, or which had come
spontaneously to my mind, for or against the probability of a state of
future existence. They appeared to me to be tolerably evenly balanced. I
then thought that it was at all events taking the safest part to conclude
that there was a soul. It would be a terrible thing, after having passed
one's life in the disbelief of the existence of a soul, to wake up after
death a soul, and to find one's self a lost soul. Yes, methought I would
come to the conclusion that one has a soul. Choosing the safe side,
however, appeared to me to be playing a rather dastardly part. I had
never been an admirer of people who chose the safe side in everything;
indeed I had always entertained a thorough contempt for them. Surely it
would be showing more manhood to adopt the dangerous side, that of
disbelief; I almost resolved to do so--but yet in a question of so much
importance, I ought not to be guided by vanity. The question was not
which was the safe, but the true side? yet how was I to know which was
the tr