to four cross
roads, I saw my husband's patteran.'

'You saw your husband's patteran?' {77c}

'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 Romany chals and chies, and they always told me that they did
not know.'

'No more they did, brother; there's only one person in England that
knows, and that's myself--the name for a leaf is patteran. Now there are
two that knows it--the other is yourself.'

'Dear me, Ursula, how very strange! I am much obliged to you. I think I
never saw you look so pretty as you do now; but who told you?'

'My mother, Mrs. Herne, told it me one day, brother, when she was in a
good humour, which she very seldom was, as no one has a better right to
know than yourself, as she hated you mortally: it was one day when you
had been asking our company what was the word for a leaf, and nobody
could tell you, that she took me aside and told me, for she was in a good
humour, and triumphed in seeing you balked. She told me the word for
leaf was patteran, which our people use now for trail, having forgotten
the true meaning. She said that the trail was called patteran, because
the gypsies of old were in the habit of making the marks with the leaves
and branches of the trees, placed in a certain manner. She said that
nobody knew it but herself, who was one of the old sort, and begged me
never to tell the word to any one but him I should marry, and to be
particularly cautious never to let you know it, whom she hated. Well,
brother, perhaps I have done wrong to tell you; but, as I said before, I
likes you, and am always ready to do your pleasure in words and
conversation; my mother, moreover, is dead and gone, and, poor thing,
will never know anything about the matter. So, when I married, I told my
husband about the patteran, and we were in the habit of making our
private trail with