and were you some years older, I
think you would not have favoured me with the same disclosure you have
done now; but you may be quite easy on that score. If you were made of
gold, the rascals would not filch off the corner of your garment as long
as you were under my protection. Does this assurance satisfy you?"

"Perfectly," said the youth; "and now how far are we from your
encampment? I assure you I am all eagerness to be among a set of which I
have witnessed such a specimen."

"Nay, nay," returned the gypsy, "you must not judge of all my brethren
by me: I confess that they are but a rough tribe. However, I love them
dearly; and am only the more inclined to think them honest to each
other, because they are rogues to all the rest of the world."

By this time our travellers had advanced nearly two miles since they had
commenced companionship; and at a turn in the lane, about three hundred
yards farther on, they caught a glimpse of a distant fire burning
brightly through the dim trees. They quickened their pace, and striking
a little out of their path into a common, soon approached two tents,
the Arab homes of the vagrant and singular people with whom the gypsy
claimed brotherhood and alliance.

CHAPTER II.

Here we securely live and eat
The cream of meat;
And keep eternal fires
By which we sit and do divine.
HERRICK: Ode to Sir Clipseby Crew.

Around a fire which blazed and crackled beneath the large seething-pot,
that seemed an emblem of the mystery and a promise of the good cheer
which are the supposed characteristics of the gypsy race, were grouped
seven or eight persons, upon whose swarthy and strong countenances the
irregular and fitful flame cast a picturesque and not unbecoming glow.
All of these, with the exception of an old crone who was tending the
pot, and a little boy who was feeding the fire with sundry fragments of
stolen wood, started to their feet upon the entrance of the stranger.

"What ho! my bob cuffins," cried the gypsy guide, "I have brought you a
gentry cove, to whom you will show all proper respect: and hark ye, my
maunders, if ye dare beg, borrow, or steal a single croker,--ay, but a
bawbee of him, I'll--but ye know me." The gypsy stopped abruptly, and
turned an eye, in which menace vainly struggled with good-humour, upon
each of his brethren, as they submissively bowed to him and his protege,
and poured forth a profusion of promises, to which their admonitor