kings, not even a chemise--two sacks of coarse stuff, one tied
around her waist half covering her bare legs, one over her shoulders;
two children with her, a big overgrown girl of about twelve, equally
without clothing, an old black bodice gaping open over her bare skin,
held together by one button, a short skirt so dirty and torn that one
wondered what kept it on, no shoes nor stockings, black hair falling
straight down over her forehead and eyes; the boy, about six, in a
dirty apron, also over his bare skin. I was horrified, tried to make
them turn and speak to me, but they disappeared under the brushwood as
quickly as they could, "evidently up to no good," said W. In a few
moments the keeper appeared, red and breathless, having been running
after poachers--a woman the worst of the lot. We described the party
we had just seen, and he was wildly excited, wanted to start again in
pursuit, said they were just the ones he was looking for. The woman
belonged to a band of poachers and vagabonds they could not get hold
of. They could trace her progress sometimes by the blood on the grass
where the thorns and sharp stones had torn her feet. It seems they
were quite a band, living anywhere in the woods, in old
charcoal-burners' huts or under the trees, never staying two nights in
the same place. There are women, and children, and babies, who appear
and disappear, in the most extraordinary manner. Many of them have
been condemned, and have had two weeks or a month of prison. One
family is employed by one of the small farmers near, who lets them
live in a tumbledown hut in the midst of his woods, and that is their
centre. We passed by there two or three days later, when we were
riding across the fields, and anything so miserable I never saw; the
house half falling to pieces, no panes of glass, dirty rags stuffed in
the windows, no door at all, bundles of dirty straw inside, a pond of
filthy water at one side of the house, two or three dirty children
playing in it, and inside at the opening, where the door should have
been, the same lame woman in her two sacks. She glowered at us,
standing defiantly at the opening to prevent our going in, in case we
had any such intention. I suppose she had various rabbits and hares
hung up inside she couldn't have accounted for. There was no other
habitation anywhere near; no cart or vehicle of any kind could have
got there. We followed a narrow path, hardly visible in the long
grass, and the hor