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Deadman’s Lane was scarcely three minutes distant, and thither, with nervous steps, he wended his way, fumbling the sixpence in his pocket, and straining his eyes in the darkness for any sign of the gipsies. Alas! it seemed to be a vain quest. The lane was deserted, and the cross roads he knew were too far distant to get there and back in half an hour. He was just thinking of giving it up and turning back, when a sound behind one of the hedges close to him startled him and sent his heart to his mouth. He stood still to listen, and heard a gruff voice say–or rather intone–the following mysterious couplet:

Ramsdam pammydiddle larrybonnywigtail
Wigtaillarrybonny keimo.

This could be no other than an incantation, and Bilk stood rooted to the spot, unable to advance or retreat. He heard a rustling in the hedge, and the incantation suddenly ceased. Then a figure like that of an old man bent with age and clad in a ragged coat which nearly touched the ground advanced slowly, saying in croaking accent as he did so–

“Ah, young gentleman, we’ve waited for ye. We couldn’t go till we’d seen ye; for we’ve something to tell ye. Come quietly this way, and say not a word, or the spell’s broken–come, young gentleman; come, young gentleman;” and the old man went on crooning the words to himself as he led the way with tottering steps round the hedge, and discovered a sort of tent in which sat, with her face half shrouded in a shawl, an old woman who wagged her head incessantly and chattered to herself in a language of her own. She took no notice of Bilk as he drew near tremblingly, and it was not until the old man had nudged her vehemently, and both had indulged in a long fit of coughing, that she at last growled, without even lifting her head–

“I see nothing unless for silver.”

It said a great deal for Bilk’s quickness of apprehension that he at once guessed this vague observation to refer to the sixpence he had not yet offered. He drew it out and handed it to the old woman, and was about to offer an apology at the same time, when the man put his hand to his mouth and snarled–

“Not a word.”

The old woman took the coin in her trembling hand, and bent her head over it in silence. Bilk began to get uneasy. The time was passing, and he would have to start back in a very few moments. Could it be possible these gipsies, now they had his sixpence, were going to refuse to tell him the fortune for which he had longed and risked so much?

No! After a long pause the old woman lifted up her hand and said something in gibberish to her partner. It was a long time coming, for they both coughed and groaned violently during the recital. At length, however, the old man turned to Bilk and said gruffly–

“Kneel.”

The boy obeyed, and the old man proceeded.

“She says a great danger threatens you this night. If you escape it, you will live to be a baronet or member of parliament, and perhaps you will marry a duke’s daughter; but she can’t be certain of that. If you don’t escape it, you will be in a lunatic asylum next week, and never come out. Not a word,” added he, as Bilk once more showed signs of breaking silence. “Wait till she speaks again.”

Another long pause, and then another long recital in gibberish by the old woman, broken by the same coughing and groaning as before. Then the man said–

“Stand up, and hold your hands above your head.”

Bilk obeyed.

“You want to know how to escape the peril?” said the man.