end-curled hair was uncanny. Her hair curled at the ends,--so
did her eyes; she _was_ a witch.

"But there's a many witches as knows clever things," said Mrs.
Petulengro. "And I learned from one of them how to cure the rheumatiz.
Suppose you've got the rheumatiz. Well, just you carry a potato in your
pocket. As the potato dries up, your rheumatiz will go away."

Sam Smith was always known on the roads as Fighting Sam. Years have
passed, and when I have asked after him I have always heard that he was
either in prison or had just been let out. Once it happened that, during
a fight with a Gorgio, the Gorgio's watch disappeared, and Sam was
arrested under suspicion of having got up the fight in order that the
watch might disappear. All of his friends declared his innocence. The
next trouble was for _chorin a gry_, or stealing a horse, and so was the
next, and so on. As horse-stealing is not a crime, but only "rough
gambling," on the roads, nobody defended him on these counts. He was, so
far as this went, only a sporting character. When his wife died he
married Athalia, the widow of Joshua Cooper, a gypsy, of whom I shall
speak anon. I always liked Sam. Among the travelers, he was always
spoken of as genteel, owing to the fact, that whatever the state of his
wardrobe might be, he always wore about his neck an immaculate white
woolen scarf, and on _jours de fete_, such as horse-races, sported a
_boro stardi_, or chimney-pot hat. O my friend, Colonel Dash, of the
club! Change but the name, this fable is of thee!

"There's to be a _walgoro_, _kaliko i sala_--a fair to-morrow morning, at
Cobham," said Sam, as he departed.

"All right. We'll be there."

As I went forth by the river into the night, and the stars looked down
like loving eyes, there shot a meteor across the sky, one long trail of
light, out of darkness into darkness, one instant bright, then dead
forever. And I remembered how I once was told that stars, like mortals,
often fall in love. O love, forever in thy glory go! And that they send
their starry angels forth, and that the meteors are their messengers. O
love, forever in thy glory go! For love and light in heaven, as on
earth, were ever one, and planets speak with light. Light is their
language; as they love they speak. O love, forever in thy glory go!

III. COBHAM FAIR.

The walk from Oatlands Park Hotel to Cobham is beautiful with memorials
of Older England. Even on the g