hat the whole appearance of this youth was very
picturesque, but it was a great deal more picturesque than attractive.
His long shaggy hair and dark olive complexion were alike remarkable;
but the expression of his countenance was decidedly bad, and he never
looked you straight in the face. To be sure, the treatment which, in
common with others of his class, he probably receives from the
Bohemians, is not calculated to make him fall in love with them; for
the people of the country seem to regard these wanderers with a mixture
of contempt and loathing. Yet I imagined that I read in that downcast
look, and in the stealthy air which attached to all his movements,
marks of the sort of training which may be expected to produce an
accomplished vagabond. I dare say that young fellow knew perfectly well
how to silence the cackling of a barn-door fowl in a hurry, and might
not be inexpert in the operation of removing quietly a knapsack, or
other load, from beneath a sleeping man's head. But the thews and
sinews of the boy, and I may add, of all of his tribe whom we
encountered, were not such as to impress me with any very exalted ideas
of their strength or prowess. I fancied that, with the aid of a good
stick, I should not be afraid to give any three of them the knives of
which I had heard so much, and then join battle.

When the boy was gone we proceeded to question our landlady as to the
habits of his people, and we received from her an account corresponding
in all respects with that which our first informant had given us. She
added, over and above, that there was no trusting them; that they were
deceitful to a degree unparalleled among men, and that no arts or
offices of kindness ever won their forbearance. We listened to her
statements more than half disposed to credit them, yet we adhered to
our original determination, nevertheless, of joining the first gypsy
camp on which, during the course of our tour, we might stumble.

By this time it was necessary to move; and I state the fact in
consequence of a trifling incident, illustrative, I conceive, of the
extreme honesty of this simple people. We had advanced, perhaps, a
quarter of an English mile towards Arnau, a town through which our
route lay, when we heard a female voice shouting behind us, and on
turning round saw our landlady in full pursuit. I had left behind me on
the table a penknife,--of very little value, inasmuch as one of the
blades was broken,--and this good wo