leave them; I re-entered their crew: I am one among them. Not that
I have become altogether and solely of the tribe: I still leave
them whenever the whim seizes me, and repair to the great cities and
thoroughfares of man. There I am soon driven back again to my favourite
and fresh fields, as a reed upon a wild stream is dashed back upon the
green rushes from which it has been torn. You perceive that I have many
comforts and distinctions above the rest; for, alas, sir, there is no
society, however free and democratic, where wealth will not create
an aristocracy; the remnant of my fortune provides me with my
unostentatious equipage and the few luxuries it contains; it repays
secretly to the poor what my fellow-vagrants occasionally filch from
them; it allows me to curb among the crew all the grosser and heavier
offences against the law to which want might otherwise compel them;
and it serves to keep up that sway and ascendency which my superior
education and fluent spirits enabled me at first to attain. Though not
legally their king, I assume that title over the few encampments with
which I am accustomed to travel; and you perceive that I have given my
simple name both to the jocular and kingly dignity of which the old song
will often remind you. My story is done."

"Not quite," said his companion: "your wife? How came you by that
blessing?"

"Ah! thereby hangs a pretty and a love-sick tale, which would not
stand ill in an ancient ballad; but I will content myself with briefly
sketching it. Lucy is the daughter of a gentleman farmer: about four
years ago I fell in love with her. I wooed her clandestinely, and at
last I owned I was a gypsy: I did not add my birth nor fortune; no, I
was full of the romance of the Nut-brown Maid's lover, and attempted
a trial of woman's affection, which even in these days was not
disappointed. Still her father would not consent to our marriage, till
very luckily things went bad with him; corn, crops, cattle,--the deuce
was in them all; an execution was in his house, and a writ out against
his person. I settled these matters for him, and in return received a
father-in-law's blessing, and we are now the best friends in the world.
Poor Lucy is perfectly reconciled to her caravan and her wandering
husband, and has never, I believe, once repented the day on which she
became the gypsy's wife!"

"I thank you heartily for your history," said the youth, who had
listened very attentively to this d