this child
was the darling and care of a fond father; for she was not only provided
in a superior manner, but, by the position of his own sleeping
apartment, she was protected from all intercourse with the other members
of the tribe. Honest nature! thou art too many, even for a gipsy life;
and even here parental affection hallowed and refined what was unseemly
and revolting. I say revolting; for, in an obscure corner, and under the
shelter of a hazel-bush, lay a figure, emaciated with disease, and
probably with dissipation and crime, groaning in agony, and regarded
with no more sympathy by the great mass of the tribe than if he had been
a strangled hare or a mangled horse. There was something indeed terrible
in this sight. True, Helen Faa did all that she was permitted, but that
was but little, to alleviate his sufferings; but death was in his eye
and in his throat--he made one great effort to rise, grasped a branch
convulsively, and ceased to live. Mungo would willingly have retired,
even with the losses he had sustained, but he was not
permitted--probably because old Donald conjectured that information
would be immediately lodged against him, and he would be compelled to
relinquish one of his strongest holds in the south of Scotland.
Meantime, Mungo had an opportunity of beholding more closely the female
portion of this society; and was exceedingly struck--for he was yet a
young man and unmarried--with the really handsome faces and well-formed
persons which characterised the whole; but far and away above all the
rest shone Miss Helen Yetholm Faa--for thus was she designated by the
clan--in the pride of health, youth, and black, or rather brown,
eyes--those weapons of female onset which are sharper than a two-edged
sword, as Mungo used to sing or say afterwards, in a song which he
composed on the occasion:--

"They were jet, jet black, and like a hawk,
And wadna let a body be."

All this seemed to be fully appreciated by the Squire, who evidently
paid the young princess particular attention, and seemed, at the same
time, sufficiently jealous of any foreign interference with the object
of his attention. Donnert Davie was a stout, ill-made, squint-eyed
being, who stammered in his speech, and seemed particularly useful in
carrying on the culinary operations, under the direction of Helen, in
the retreat. He felled wood for the fire, carried water to the kettle,
heated cow and sheep horns in the flame; brought round