“What is it?” said I, retreating, “I never saw the horse so before.”

“Go between his legs, agrah,” said the smith, “his hinder legs;” and he again showed his fang.

“I dare not,” said I, “he would kill me.”

“He would kill ye! and how do ye know that, agrah?”

“I feel he would,” said I, “something tells me so.”

“And it tells ye truth, agrah; but it’s a fine beast, and it’s a pity to see him in such a state: Is agam an’t leigeas”—and here he uttered another word in a voice singularly modified, but sweet and almost plaintive; the effect of it was as instantaneous as that of the other, but how different!—the animal lost all its fury and became at once calm and gentle.  The smith went up to it, coaxed and patted it, making use of various sounds of equal endearment; then turning to me, and holding out once more the grimy hand, he said: “And now ye will be giving me the Sassanach tenpence, agrah?”

From the wild scenes which I have attempted to describe in the latter pages I must now transport the reader to others of a widely different character.  He must suppose himself no longer in Ireland, but in the eastern corner of merry England.  Bogs, ruins and mountains have disappeared amidst the vapours of the west: I have nothing more to say of them; the region in which we are now is not famous for objects of that kind; perhaps it flatters itself that it can produce fairer and better things, of some of which let me speak; there is a fine old city before us, and first of that let me speak.

Such was the place to which, when the war was over, my father retired: it was here that the old tired soldier set himself down with his little family.  He had passed the greater part of his life in meritorious exertion in the service of his country, and his chief wish now was to spend the remainder of his days in quiet and respectability; his means, it is true, were not very ample; fortunate it was that his desires corresponded with them: with a small fortune of his own, and with his half-pay as a royal soldier, he had no fears for himself or for his faithful partner and helpmate; but then his children! how was he to provide for them? how launch them upon the wide ocean of the world?  This was, perhaps, the only thought which gave him uneasiness, and I believe that many an old retired officer at that time, and under similar circumstances, experienced similar anxiety; had the war continued, their children would have been, of course, provided for in the army, but peace now reigned, and the military career was closed to all save the scions of the aristocracy, or those who were in some degree connected with that privileged order, an advantage which few of these old officers could boast of; they had slight influence with the great, who gave themselves very little trouble either about them or their families.

“I have been writing to the Duke,” said my father one day to my excellent mother, after we had been at home somewhat better than a year, “I have been writing to the Duke of York about a commission for that eldest boy of ours.  He, however, affords me no hopes; he says that his list is crammed with names, and that the greater number of the candidates have better claims than my son.”

“I do not see how that can be,” said my mother.

“Nor do I,” replied my father.  “I see the sons of bankers and merchants gazetted every month, and I do not see what claims they have to urge, unless they be golden ones.  However, I have not served my king fifty years to turn grumbler at this time of life.  I suppose that the people at the head of affairs know what is most proper and convenient; perhaps when the lad sees how difficult, nay, how impossible it is that he should enter the army, he will turn his mind to some other profession; I wish he may!”

“What, indeed!” said my father; “that is a consideration which gives me no little uneasiness.  I am afraid it will be much more difficult to settle him in life than his brother.  What is he fitted for, even were it in my power to provide for him?  God help the child!  I bear him no ill-will, on the contrary all love and affection; but I cannot shut my eyes; there is something so strange about him!  How he behaved in Ireland!  I sent him to school to learn Greek, and he picked up Irish!”

“And Greek as well,” said my mother.  “I heard him say the other day that he could read St. John in the original tongue.”

“You will find excuses for him, I know,” said my father.  “You tell me I am always talking of my first-born; I might retort by saying you are always thinking of the other; but it is the way of women always to side with the second-born.  There’s what’s-her-name in the Bible, by whose wiles the old blind man was induced to give to his second son the blessing which was the birthright of the other.  I wish I had been in his place!  I should not have been so easily deceived! no disguise would ever have caused me to mistake an impostor for my first-born.  Though I must say for this boy that he is nothing like Jacob; he is neither smooth nor sleek, and, though my second-born, is already taller and larger than his brother.”

“Just so,” said my mother, “his brother would make a far better Jacob than he.”

“But he thinks of other things now,” said my mother.

“Other languages, you mean,” said my father.  “It is strange that he has conceived such a zest for the study of languages; no sooner did he come home than he persuaded me to send him to that old priest to learn French and Italian, and, if I remember right, you abetted him; but, as I said before, it is in the nature of women invariably to take the part of the second-born.  Well, there is no harm in learning French and Italian, perhaps much good in his case, as they may drive the other tongue out of his head.  Irish! why, he might go to the university but for that; but how would he look when, on being examined with respect to his attainments, it was discovered that he understood Irish?  How did you learn it? they would ask him; how did you become acquainted with the language of Papists and rebels?  The boy would be sent away in disgrace.”

“Be under no apprehension, I have no doubt that he has long since forgotten it.”

“I know a better than that,” said my mother; “one of David’s own words, ‘I have been young and now am grown old, yet never have I seen the righteous man forsaken, or his seed begging their bread’.”

It was a tessara-glot grammar—a strange old book, printed somewhere in Holland, which pretended to be an easy guide to the acquirement of the French, Italian, Low Dutch, and English tongues, by means of which any one conversant in any one of these languages could make himself master of the other three.  I turned my attention to the French and Italian.  The old book was not of much value; I derived some benefit from it, however, and, conning it intensely, at the end of a few weeks obtained some insight into the structure of these two languages.  At length I had learnt all that the book was capable of informing me, yet was still far from the goal to which it had promised to conduct me.  “I wish I had a master!” I exclaimed; and the master was at hand.  In an old court of the old town lived a certain elderly personage, perhaps sixty, or thereabouts; he was rather tall, and something of a robust make, with a countenance in which bluffness was singularly blended with vivacity and grimace; and with a complexion which would have been ruddy, but for a yellow hue which rather predominated.  His dress consisted of a snuff-coloured coat and drab pantaloons, the former evidently seldom subjected to the annoyance of a brush, and the latter exhibiting here and there spots of something which, if not grease, bore a strong resemblance to it; add to these articles an immense frill, seldom of the purest white, but invariably of the finest French cambric, and you have some idea of his dress.  He had rather a remarkable stoop, but his step was rapid and vigorous, and as he hurried along the streets, he would glance to the right and left with a pair of big eyes like plums, and on recognising any one would exalt a pair of grizzled eyebrows, and slightly kiss a tawny and ungloved hand.  At certain hours of the day he might be seen entering the doors of female boarding-schools, generally with a book in his hand, and perhaps another just peering from the orifice of a capacious back pocket; and at a certain season of the year he might be seen, dressed in white, before the altar of a certain small popish chapel, chanting from the breviary in very intelligible Latin, or perhaps reading from the desk in utterly unintelligible English.  Such was my preceptor in the French and Italian tongues.  “Exul sacerdos; vone banished esprit.  I came into England twenty-five years ago, ‘my dear.’”

So I studied French and Italian under the tuition of the banished priest, to whose house I went regularly every evening to receive instruction.  I made considerable progress in the acquisition of the two languages.  I found the French by far the most difficult, chiefly on account of the accent, which my master himself possessed in no great purity, being a Norman by birth.  The Italian was my favourite.

“Vous serez un jour un grand philologue, mon cher,” said the old man, on our arriving at the conclusion of Dante’s Hell.

“I hope I shall be something better,” said I, “before I die, or I shall have lived to little purpose.”

“That’s true, my dear! philologist—one small poor dog.  What would you wish to be?”

“Many things sooner than that; for example, I would rather be like him who wrote this book.”

“Quoi, Monsieur Dante?  He was a vagabond, my dear, forced to fly from his country.  No, my dear, if you would be like one poet, be like Monsieur Boileau; he is the poet.”

“I don’t think so.”

“How, not think so!  He wrote very respectable verses; lived and died much respected by everybody.  T’other, one bad dog, forced to fly from his country—died with not enough to pay his undertaker.”

“Were you not forced to flee from your country?”

“That very true; but there is much difference between me and this Dante.  He fled from country because he had one bad tongue which he shook at his betters.  I fly because benefice gone, and head going; not on account of the badness of my tongue.”

“Well,” said I, “you can return now; the Bourbons are restored.”

Under this old man, who was well versed in the southern languages, besides studying French and Italian, I acquired some knowledge of Spanish.  But I did not devote my time entirely to philology; I had other pursuits.  I had not forgotten the roving life I had led in former days, nor its delights; neither was I formed by Nature to be a pallid indoor student.  No, no!  I was fond of other and, I say it boldly, better things than study.  I had an attachment to the angle, ay, and to the gun likewise.  In our house was a condemned musket, bearing somewhere on its lock, in rather antique characters, “Tower, 1746”; with this weapon I had already, in Ireland, performed some execution among the rooks and choughs, and it was now again destined to be a source of solace and amusement to me, in the winter season, especially on occasions of severe frost when birds abounded.  Sallying forth with it at these times, far into the country, I seldom returned at night without a string of bullfinches, blackbirds, and linnets hanging in triumph round my neck.  When I reflect on the immense quantity of powder and shot which I crammed down the muzzle of my uncouth fowling-piece, I am less surprised at the number of birds which I slaughtered, than that I never blew my hands, face, and old honey-combed gun, at one and the same time, to pieces.

But the winter, alas! (I speak as a fowler) seldom lasts in England more than three or four months; so, during the rest of the year, when not occupied with my philological studies, I had to seek for other diversions.  I have already given a hint that I was also addicted to the angle.  Of course there is no comparison between the two pursuits, the rod and line seeming but very poor trumpery to one who has had the honour of carrying a noble firelock.  There is a time, however, for all things; and we return to any favourite amusement with the greater zest, from being compelled to relinquish it for a season.  So, if I shot birds in winter with my firelock, I caught fish in summer, or attempted so to do, with my angle.  I was not quite so successful, it is true, with the latter as with the former—possibly because it afforded me less pleasure.  It was, indeed, too much of a listless pastime to inspire me with any great interest.  I not unfrequently fell into a doze whilst sitting on the bank, and more than once let my rod drop from my hands into the water.

And there I sat upon the bank, at the bottom of the hill which slopes down from “the Earl’s Home”; my float was on the waters, and my back was towards the old hall.  I drew up many fish, small and great, which I took from off the hook mechanically and flung upon the bank, for I was almost unconscious of what I was about, for my mind was not with my fish.  I was thinking of my earlier years—of the Scottish crags and the heaths of Ireland—and sometimes my mind would dwell on my studies—on the sonorous stanzas of Dante, rising and falling like the waves of the sea—or would strive to remember a couplet or two of poor Monsieur Boileau.

“Canst thou answer to thy conscience for pulling all those fish out of the water, and leaving them to gasp in the sun?” said a voice, clear and sonorous as a bell.

I started, and looked round.  Close behind me stood the tall figure of a man, dressed in raiment of quaint and singular fashion, but of goodly materials.  He was in the prime and vigour of manhood; his features handsome and noble, but full of calmness and benevolence; at least I thought so, though they were somewhat shaded by a hat of finest beaver, with broad drooping eaves.

“Surely that is a very cruel diversion in which thou indulgest, my young friend,” he continued.

“I am sorry for it, if it be, sir,” said I, rising; “but I do not think it cruel to fish.”

“What are thy reasons for not thinking so?”

“Fishing is mentioned frequently in Scripture.  Simon Peter was a fisherman.”

“True; and Andrew and his brother.  But thou forgettest: they did not follow fishing as a diversion, as I fear thou doest.  Thou readest the Scriptures?”

“Sometimes.”

“Sometimes? not daily? that is to be regretted.  What profession dost thou make?  I mean to what religious denomination dost thou belong, my young friend?”

“Church.”

“It is a very good profession—there is much of Scripture contained in its liturgy.  Dost thou read aught besides the Scriptures?”

“Sometimes.”

“What dost thou read besides?”

“Greek, and Dante.”

“No.”

“Thou shouldst study it.  Why dost thou not undertake the study?”

“I have no books.”

“I will lend thee books, if thou wish to undertake the study.  I live yonder at the hall, as perhaps thou knowest.  I have a library there, in which are many curious books, both in Greek and Hebrew, which I will show to thee, whenever thou mayest find it convenient to come and see me.  Farewell!  I am glad to find that thou hast pursuits more satisfactory than thy cruel fishing.”

And the man of peace departed, and left me on the bank of the stream.  Whether from the effect of his words, or from want of inclination to the sport, I know not, but from that day I became less and less a practitioner of that “cruel fishing”.  I rarely flung line and angle into the water, but I not unfrequently wandered by the banks of the pleasant rivulet.  It seems singular to me, on reflection, that I never availed myself of his kind invitation.  I say singular, for the extraordinary, under whatever form, had long had no slight interest for me; and I had discernment enough to perceive that yon was no common man.  Yet I went not near him, certainly not from bashfulness, or timidity, feelings to which I had long been an entire stranger.  Am I to regret this? perhaps, for I might have learned both wisdom and righteousness from those calm, quiet lips, and my after-course might have been widely different.  As it was, I fell in with other guess companions, from whom I received widely different impressions than those I might have derived from him.  When many years had rolled on, long after I had attained manhood, and had seen and suffered much, and when our first interview had long since been effaced from the mind of the man of peace, I visited him in his venerable hall, and partook of the hospitality of his hearth.  And there I saw his gentle partner and his fair children, and on the morrow he showed me the books of which he had spoken years before, by the side of the stream.  In the low quiet chamber, whose one window, shaded by a gigantic elm, looks down the slope towards the pleasant stream, he took from the shelf his learned books, Zohar and Mishna, Toldoth Jesu and Abarbenel.

And would there were many like him, amidst the money-changers of princes!  The hall of many an earl lacks the bounty, the palace of many a prelate the piety and learning, which adorn the quiet Quaker’s home!

I was standing on the castle hill in the midst of a fair of horses.

I have already had occasion to mention this castle.  It is the remains of what was once a Norman stronghold, and is perched upon a round mound or monticle, in the midst of the old city.  Steep is this mound and scarped, evidently by the hand of man; a deep gorge, over which is flung a bridge, separates it, on the south, from a broad swell of open ground called “the hill;” of old the scene of many a tournament and feat of Norman chivalry, but now much used as a show-place for cattle, where those who buy and sell beeves and other beasts resort at stated periods.

So it came to pass that I stood upon this hill, observing a fair of horses.

The reader is already aware that I had long since conceived a passion for the equine race, a passion in which circumstances had of late not permitted me to indulge.  I had no horses to ride, but I took pleasure in looking at them; and I had already attended more than one of these fairs: the present was lively enough, indeed, horse fairs are seldom dull.  There was shouting and whooping, neighing and braying; there was galloping and trotting; fellows with highlows and white stockings, and with many a string dangling from the knees of their tight breeches, were running desperately, holding horses by the halter, and in some cases dragging them along; there were long-tailed steeds, and dock-tailed steeds of every degree and breed; there were droves of wild ponies, and long rows of sober cart horses; there were donkeys, and even mules: the last rare things to be seen in damp, misty England, for the mule pines in mud and rain, and thrives best with a hot sun above and a burning sand below.  There were—oh, the gallant creatures!  I hear their neigh upon the wind; there were—goodliest sight of all—certain enormous quadrupeds only seen to perfection in our native isle, led about by dapper grooms, their manes ribanded and their tails curiously clubbed and balled.  Ha! ha!—how distinctly do they say, ha! ha!

“What horse is that?” said I to a very old fellow, the counterpart of the old man on the pony, save that the last wore a faded suit of velveteen, and this one was dressed in a white frock.

“The best in mother England,” said the very old man, taking a knobbed stick from his mouth, and looking me in the face, at first carelessly, but presently with something like interest; “he is old like myself, but can still trot his twenty miles an hour.  You won’t live long, my swain; tall and overgrown ones like thee never does; yet, if you should chance to reach my years, you may boast to thy great grand boys, thou hast seen Marshland Shales.”

Amain I did for the horse what I would neither do for earl or baron, doffed my hat; yes! I doffed my hat to the wondrous horse, the fast trotter, the best in mother England; and I, too, drew a deep ah! and repeated the words of the old fellows around.  “Such a horse as this we shall never see again; a pity that he is so old.”

But now, with a nod to the figure who had stopped him, and with another inquiring glance at myself, the big man once more put his steed into motion, and after riding round the ring a few more times darted through a lane in the crowd, and followed by his two companions disappeared, whereupon the figure who had whispered to him and had subsequently remained in the middle of the space, came towards me, and cracking a whip which he held in his hand so loudly that the report was nearly equal to that of a pocket pistol, he cried in a strange tone:—

“What! the sap-engro?  Lor! the sap-engro upon the hill!”

“Jasper, your pal!  Truth, and no lie, brother.”

“It is strange that you should have known me,” said I.  “I am certain, but for the word you used, I should never have recognised you.”

“Not so strange as you may think, brother; there is something in your face which would prevent people from forgetting you, even though they might wish it; and your face is not much altered since the time you wot of, though you are so much grown.  I thought it was you, but to make sure I dodged about, inspecting you.  I believe you felt me, though I never touched you; a sign, brother, that we are akin, that we are dui palor—two relations.  Your blood beat when mine was near, as mine always does at the coming of a brother; and we became brothers in that lane.”

“And where are you staying?” said I; “in this town?”

“Not in the town; the like of us don’t find it exactly wholesome to stay in towns; we keep abroad.  But I have little to do here—come with me and I’ll show you where we stay.”

We descended the hill in the direction of the north, and passing along the suburb reached the old Norman bridge, which we crossed; the chalk precipice, with the ruin on its top, was now before us; but turning to the left we walked swiftly along, and presently came to some rising ground, which ascending, we found ourselves upon a wild moor or heath.

“You are one of them,” said I, “whom people call—”

“Just so,” said Jasper; “but never mind what people call us.”

“And that tall handsome man on the hill, whom you whispered?  I suppose he’s one of ye.  What is his name?”

“Tawno Chikno,” said Jasper, “which means the small one; we call him such because he is the biggest man of all our nation.  You say he is handsome, that is not the word, brother; he’s the beauty of the world.  Women run wild at the sight of Tawno.  An earl’s daughter, near London—a fine young lady with diamonds round her neck—fell in love with Tawno.  I have seen that lass on a heath, as this may be, kneel down to Tawno, clasp his feet, begging to be his wife—or anything else—if she might go with him.  But Tawno would have nothing to do with her.  ‘I have a wife of my own,’ said he, ‘a lawful Rommany wife, whom I love better than the whole world, jealous though she sometimes be’.”

“Why, you know, brother, beauty is frequently a matter of taste; however, as you ask my opinion, I should say not quite so beautiful as himself.”

We had now arrived at a small valley between two hills or downs, the sides of which were covered with furze.  In the midst of this valley were various carts and low tents forming a rude kind of encampment; several dark children were playing about, who took no manner of notice of us.  As we passed one of the tents, however, a canvas screen was lifted up, and a woman supported upon a crutch hobbled out.  She was about the middle age, and, besides being lame, was bitterly ugly; she was very slovenly dressed, and on her swarthy features ill nature was most visibly stamped.  She did not deign me a look, but addressing Jasper in a tongue which I did not understand, appeared to put some eager questions to him.

“He’s coming,” said Jasper, and passed on.  “Poor fellow,” said he to me, “he has scarcely been gone an hour and she’s jealous already.  Well,” he continued, “what do you think of her? you have seen her now and can judge for yourself—that ’ere woman is Tawno Chikno’s wife!”

We went to the farthest of the tents, which stood at a slight distance from the rest, and which exactly resembled the one which I have described on a former occasion; we went in and sat down, one on each side of a small fire which was smouldering on the ground, there was no one else in the tent but a tall tawny woman of middle age, who was busily knitting.  “Brother,” said Jasper, “I wish to hold some pleasant discourse with you.”

“As much as you please,” said I, “provided you can find anything pleasant to talk about.”

“Never fear,” said Jasper; “and first of all we will talk of yourself.  Where have you been all this long time?”

“Here and there,” said I, “and far and near, going about with the soldiers; but there is no soldiering now, so we have sat down, father and family, in the town there.”

“And do you still hunt snakes?” said Jasper.

“No,” said I, “I have given up that long ago; I do better now: read books and learn languages.”

“Well, I am sorry you have given up your snake-hunting; many’s the strange talk I have had with our people about your snake and yourself, and how you frightened my father and mother in the lane.”

“And where are your father and mother?”

“Where I shall never see them, brother; at least, I hope so.”

“Not dead?”

“No, not dead; they are bitchadey pawdel.”

“What’s that?”

“Sent across—banished.”

“Ah!  I understand; I am sorry for them.  And so you are here alone?”

“Not quite alone, brother!”

“No, not alone; but with the rest—Tawno Chikno takes care of you.”

“Takes care of me, brother!”

“Yes, stands to you in the place of a father—keeps you out of harm’s way.”

“For about three years older than myself.”

“Perhaps; but you are of the Gorgios, and I am a Rommany Chal.  Tawno Chikno take care of Jasper Petulengro!”

“Is that your name?”

“Don’t you like it?”

“Very much, I never heard a sweeter; it is something like what you call me.”

“The horse-shoe master and the snake-fellow, I am the first.”

“Who gave you that name?”

“Ask Pharaoh.”

“I would, if he were here, but I do not see him.”

“I am Pharaoh.”

“Then you are a king.”

“Chachipen, pal.”

“I do not understand you.”

“Where are your languages?  You want two things, brother: mother sense and gentle Rommany.”

“What makes you think that I want sense?”

“That, being so old, you can’t yet guide yourself!”

“I can read Dante, Jasper.”

“Anan, brother.”

“I can charm snakes, Jasper.”

“I know you can, brother.”

“Yes, and horses too; bring me the most vicious in the land, if I whisper he’ll be tame.”

“Then the more shame for you—a snake-fellow—a horse-witch—and a lil-reader—yet you can’t shift for yourself.  I laugh at you, brother!”

“Then you can shift for yourself?”

“For myself and for others, brother.”

“And what does Chikno?”

“Sells me horses, when I bid him.  Those horses on the chong were mine.”

“And has he none of his own?”

“Is that fine fellow poor?”

“One of the poorest, brother.  Handsome as he is, he has not a horse of his own to ride on.  Perhaps we may put it down to his wife, who cannot move about, being a cripple, as you saw.”

“And you are what is called a Gypsy King?”

“Ay, ay; a Rommany Kral.”

“Are there other kings?”

“Those who call themselves so; but the true Pharaoh is Petulengro.”

“Did Pharaoh make horse-shoes?”

“The first who ever did, brother.”

“Pharaoh lived in Egypt.”

“So did we once, brother.”

“And you left it?”

“My fathers did, brother.”

“And why did they come here?”

“They had their reasons, brother.”

“And you are not English?”

“We are not Gorgios.”

“And you have a language of your own?”

“Avali.”

“This is wonderful.”

“She called you her son, Jasper?”

“I am her son, brother.”

“I thought you said your parents were—”

“Bitchadey pawdel; you thought right, brother.  This is my wife’s mother.”

“Then you are married, Jasper?”

“Ay, truly; I am husband and father.  You will see wife and chabo anon.”

“Where are they now?”

“In the gav, penning dukkerin.”

“We were talking of language, Jasper?”

“True, brother.”

“Yours must be a rum one?”

“’Tis called Rommany.”

“I would gladly know it.”

“You need it sorely.”

“Would you teach it me?”

“None sooner.”

“Suppose we begin now.”

“Suppose we do, brother.”

“What do you call God, Jasper?”

“You had better be jawing,” said the woman, raising her voice to a terrible scream; “you had better be moving off, my Gorgio; hang you for a keen one, sitting there by the fire, and stealing my language before my face.  Do you know whom you have to deal with?  Do you know that I am dangerous?  My name is Herne, and I comes of the hairy ones!”

And a hairy one she looked!  She wore her hair clubbed upon her head, fastened with many strings and ligatures; but now, tearing these off, her locks, originally jet black, but now partially grizzled with age, fell down on every side of her, covering her face and back as far down as her knees.  No she-bear of Lapland ever looked more fierce and hairy than did that woman, as, standing in the open part of the tent, with her head bent down, and her shoulders drawn up, seemingly about to precipitate herself upon me, she repeated, again and again,—

“My name is Herne, and I comes of the hairy ones!—”

“I call God Duvel, brother.”

“It sounds very like Devil.”

“It doth, brother, it doth.”

“And what do you call divine, I mean godly?”

“Oh!  I call that duvelskoe.”

“I am thinking of something, Jasper.”

“What are you thinking of, brother?”

“Would it not be a rum thing if divine and devilish were originally one and the same word?”

“It would, brother, it would—”

* * * * *

“Rommany chals!  I should not wonder after all,” said I, “that these people had something to do with the founding of Rome.  Rome, it is said, was built by vagabonds; who knows but that some tribe of the kind settled down thereabouts, and called the town which they built after their name; but whence did they come originally? ah! there is the difficulty.”

But abandoning these questions, which at that time were far too profound for me, I went on studying the language, and at the same time the characters and manners of these strange people.  My rapid progress in the former astonished, while it delighted, Jasper.  “We’ll no longer call you Sap-engro, brother,” said he; “but rather Lav-engro, which in the language of the gorgios meaneth Word Master.”  “Nay, brother,” said Tawno Chikno, with whom I had become very intimate, “you had better call him Cooro-mengro, I have put on the gloves with him, and find him a pure fist master; I like him for that, for I am a Cooro-mengro myself, and was born at Brummagem.”

“I am going to my people,” said Mrs. Herne, placing a bundle upon a donkey, which was her own peculiar property; “I am going to Yorkshire, for I can stand this no longer.  You say you like him; in that we differs: I hates the gorgio, and would like, speaking Romanly, to mix a little poison with his waters.  And now go to Lundra, my children, I goes to Yorkshire.  Take my blessing with ye, and a little bit of a gillie to cheer your hearts with when ye are weary.  In all kinds of weather have we lived together; but now we are parted, I goes broken-hearted.  I can’t keep you company; ye are no longer Rommany.  To gain a bad brother, ye have lost a good mother.”

So the gypsies departed: Mrs. Herne to Yorkshire, and the rest to London.  As for myself, I continued in the house of my parents, passing my time in much the same manner as I have already described, principally in philological pursuits.  But I was now sixteen, and it was highly necessary that I should adopt some profession, unless I intended to fritter away my existence, and to be a useless burden to those who had given me birth.  But what profession was I to choose? there being none in the wide world perhaps for which I was suited; nor was there any one for which I felt any decided inclination, though perhaps there existed within me a lurking penchant for the profession of arms, which was natural enough, as, from my earliest infancy, I had been accustomed to military sights and sounds; but this profession was then closed, as I have already hinted, and, as I believe, it has since continued, to those who, like myself, had no better claims to urge than the services of a father.

Other professions were talked of, amongst which the law; but now an event occurred which had nearly stopped my career, and merged all minor points of solicitude in anxiety for my life.  My strength and appetite suddenly deserted me, and I began to pine and droop.  Some said that I had overgrown myself, and that these were the symptoms of a rapid decline; I grew worse and worse, and was soon stretched upon my bed, from which it seemed scarcely probable that I should ever more rise, the physicians themselves giving but slight hopes of my recovery; as for myself, I made up my mind to die, and felt quite resigned.  I was sadly ignorant at that time, and, when I thought of death, it appeared to me little else than a pleasant sleep, and I wished for sleep, of which I got but little.  It was well that I did not die that time, for I repeat that I was sadly ignorant of many important things.  I did not die, for somebody coming, gave me a strange, bitter draught; a decoction, I believe, of a bitter root which grows on commons and desolate places; and the person who gave it me was an ancient female, a kind of doctress, who had been my nurse in my infancy, and who, hearing of my state, had come to see me; so I drank the draught, and became a little better, and I continued taking draughts made from the bitter root till I manifested symptoms of convalescence.

* * * * *

“What ails you, my child?” said a mother to her son, as he lay on a couch under the influence of the dreadful one; “what ails you? you seem afraid!”

Boy.  And so I am; a dreadful fear is upon me.

Mother.  But of what; there is no one can harm you; of what are you apprehensive?

Boy.  Of nothing that I can express; I know not what I am afraid of, but afraid I am.

Mother.  Perhaps you see sights and visions; I knew a lady once who was continually thinking that she saw an armed man threaten her, but it was only an imagination, a phantom of the brain.

Mother.  Your forehead is cool, and your speech collected.  Do you know where you are?

Boy.  I know where I am, and I see things just as they are; you are beside me, and upon the table there is a book which was written by a Florentine; all this I see, and that there is no ground for being afraid.  I am, moreover, quite cool, and feel no pain—but, but—