| 294 | 295 | 296 | 297 | 298 |
| 1 | 133 | 265 | 398 | 530 |
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struck nine. Rising at the sound, she retraced her steps, and turned
thoughtfully towards the town.
She had gained a little wooden bridge, which, thrown across the
stream, led into a meadow in her way, when she came suddenly upon
a ruddy light, and looking forward more attentively, discerned that it
proceeded from what appeared to be an encampment of gipsies, who
had made a fire in one corner at no great distance from the path, and
were sitting or lying round it. As she was too poor to have any fear of
them, she did not alter her course (which, indeed, she could not have
done without going a long way round), but quickened her pace a little,
and kept straight on.
A movement of timid curiosity impelled her, when she approached the
spot, to glance towards the fire. There was a form between it and her,
the outline strongly developed against the light, which caused her to
stop abruptly. Then, as if she had reasoned with herself and were
assured that it could not be, or had satisfied herself that it was not
that of the person she had supposed, she went on again.
But at that instant the conversation, whatever it was, which had been
carrying on near this fire was resumed, and the tones of the voice that
spoke - she could not distinguish words - sounded as familiar to her
as her own.
She turned, and looked back. The person had been seated before, but
was now in a standing posture, and leaning forward on a stick on
which he rested both hands. The attitude was no less familiar to her
than the tone of voice had been. It was her grandfather.
Her first impulse was to call to him; her next to wonder who his
associates could be, and for what purpose they were together. Some
vague apprehension succeeded, and, yielding to the strong inclination
it awakened, she drew nearer to the place; not advancing across the
open field, however, but creeping towards it by the hedge.
In this way she advanced within a few feet of the fire, and standing
among a few young trees, could both see and hear, without much
danger of being observed.
There were no women or children, as she had seen in other gipsy
camps they had passed in their wayfaring, and but one gipsy - a tall
athletic man, who stood with his arms folded, leaning against a tree at
a little distance off, looking now at the fire, and now, under his black
eyelashes, at three other men who were there, with a watchful but
half-concealed interest in their conversation. Of these, her grandfather
was one; the others she recognised as the first card-players at the
public-house on the eventful night of the storm - the man whom they
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