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“Those were the very words he said, my daughter. He had a swiftness of tongue, for which I am myself famous, especially in fortune-telling; but he used the language of gentility, and a shortness of speech which you will observe among those who are accustomed to order what they want instead of asking for it. I had hard work to summon voice to reply to him, my daughter, and I cannot tell you, nor would you understand it if I could find the words, what were my feelings to hear him speak with that confidence of the young clergywoman as his mother.

“‘A green welcome to the woods and the fields, my noble little gentleman,’ says I. ‘Be pleased to honour the poor tinker-woman by accepting the refreshment of a seat and a cup of tea.’

“‘I mayn’t eat or drink anything when I am visiting the poor people,’ says he, ‘Mother doesn’t allow me. But thank you all the same, and please don’t give me your stool, for I’d much rather sit on the grass; and, if you please, I should like you to tell me all about living in woods, and making fires, and hanging kettles on sticks, and going about the country and sleeping out of doors.'”

“Did you tell him the truth, or make up a tale for him?” asked Sybil.

“Partly one and partly the other, my daughter. But when persons sets their minds on anything, they sees the truth in a manner according to their own thoughts, which is of itself as good as a made-up tale.

“He asks numberless questions, to which I makes suitable replies. Them that lives out of doors–can they get up as early as they likes, without being called? he asks.

“Does gipsies go to bed in their clothes?

“Does they sometimes forget their prayers, with not regularly dressing and undressing?

“Did I ever sleep on heather?

“Does we ever travel by moonlight?

“Do I see the sun rise every morning?

“Did I ever meet a highwayman?

“Does I believe in ghosts?

“Can I really tell fortunes?

“I takes his shapely little hand–as brown as your own, my daughter, for his mother, like myself, was a pure Roman, and looked down upon by her people in consequence for marrying my son, who is of mixed blood (my husband being in family, as in every other respect, undeserving of the slightest mention).

“‘Let me tell you your fortune, my noble little gentleman,’ I says. ‘The lines of life are crossed early with those of travelling. Far will you wander, and many things will you see. Stone houses and houses of brick will not detain you. In the big house with the blue roof and the green carpet were you born, and in the big house with the blue roof and the green carpet will you die. The big house is delicately perfumed, my noble little gentleman, especially in the month of May; at which time there is also an abundance of music, and the singers sits overhead. Give the old gipsy woman a sight of your comely feet, my little gentleman, by the soles of which it is not difficult to see that you were born to wander.’

“With this and similar jaw I entertained him, my daughter, and his eyes looks up at me out of his face till I feels as if the dead had come back; but he had a way with him besides which frightened me, for I knew that it came from living with gentlefolk.

“‘Are you mighty learned, my dear?’ says I. ‘Are you well instructed in books and schooling?’

“‘I can say the English History in verse,’ he says, ‘and I do compound addition; and I know my Catechism, and lots of hymns. Would you like to hear me?’

“‘If you please, my little gentleman,’ I says.

“‘What shall I say?’ he asks. ‘I know all the English History, only I am not always quite sure how the kings come; but if you know the kings and can just give me the name, I know the verses quite well. And I know the Catechism perfectly, but perhaps you don’t know the questions without the book. The hymns of course you don’t want a book for, and I know them best of all.’