de.'

'Right you are, brother,' said the Gypsy, breaking in
enthusiastically. 'I likes to hear a man say that. You're liker a
Romany chi nor a Romany chal, the more I see of you. What I says to
our people is:--"If the Romany chals would only stick by the Romany
chies as the Romany chies sticks by the Romany chals, where 'ud the
Gorgios be then? Why, the Romanies would be the strongest people on
the arth." But you see, reia, about this cuss--a cuss has to work
itself out, jist for all the world like the bite of a sap.'
[Footnote]

[Footnote: _Sap_, a snake.]

Then she continued, with great earnestness, looking across the
kindling expanse of hill and valley before us: 'You know, the very
dead things round us,--these here peaks, an' rocks, an' lakes, an'
mountains--ay, an' the woods an' the sun an' the sky above our
heads,--cusses us when we do anythink wrong. You may see it by the
way they looks at you. Of course I mean when you do anythink wrong
accordin' to us Romanies. I don't mean wrong accordin' to the
Gorgios: they're two very different kinds o' wrongs.'

'I don't see the difference,' said I; 'but tell me more about
Winifred.'

'You don't see the difference?' said Sinfi. 'Well then, I do. It's
wrong to tell a lie to a Romany, ain't it? But is it wrong to tell a
lie to a Gorgio? Not a bit of it. And why? 'Cause most Gorgios is
fools and wants lies, an' that gives the poor Romanies a chance. But
this here cuss is a very bad kind 'o cuss. It's a dead man's cuss,
and what's wuss, him as is cussed is dead and out of the way, and so
it has to be worked out in the blood of his child. But when she's
done that, when she's worked it out of her blood, things'll come
right agin if the cross is put back agin on your father's buzzum.'

'When she has done what?' I said.

'Begged her bread in desolate places,' said the Gypsy girl solemnly.
'Then if the cross is put back agin on your feyther's buzzum, I
believe things'll all come right. It's bad the cusser was your
feyther though.'

'But why?' I asked.

'There's nobody can't hurt you and them you're fond on as your own
breed can. As my poor mammy used to say, "For good or for ill you
must dig deep to bury your daddy." But you know, brother, the wust o'
this job is that it's a trushul as has been stole.'

'A trushul?'

'What you call a cross. There's nothin' in the world so strong for
cussin' and blessin' as a trushul, unless the stars shinin' in the
river or the han