t him back, my dear, I bought him back. Take him away with
you, my dear, for I am failing, and I shouldn't like to leave him with
George. Your eyes looks very hollow and your hair is grey. Not, that I
begrudges your making so much of my son, but he treats you ill, he
treats you very ill. Don't cry, my dear, it comes to an end at last,
though I thinks sometimes that all the men in the world put together is
not worth the love we wastes upon one. You hear what I say, Sybil? And
that rascal, Black Basil, is the worst of a bad lot."

"Hold your jaw, Mother," said Sybil sharply; and she added, "Be pleased
to excuse her, my lady: she is old and gets confused at times, and she
thinks you are Christian's mother, who is dead."

The old woman was bursting out again, when Sybil raised her hand, and we
all pricked our ears at a sound of noisy quarrelling that came nearer.

"It's George and his wife," said Sybil. "Mother, the gentlefolks had
better go. I'll go to the inn afterwards, and tell them about Christian.
Take the lady away, sir. Come, Mother, come!"

I've a horror of gipsy men, and even before our neighbours had
dispersed I hustled away with Mrs. Hedgehog into the bushes.

CHAPTER VIII.

Good Mrs. Hedgehog hurt one of her feet slightly in our hurried retreat,
and next day was obliged to rest it; but as our curiosity was more on
the alert than ever, I went down in the afternoon to the tinker camp.

The old woman was sitting in her usual position, and she seemed to have
recovered herself. Sybil was leaning back against a tree opposite; she
wore a hat and shawl, and looked almost as wild as the tinker-mother had
looked the day before. She seemed to have been at the inn with the
clergywoman, and was telling the tinker-mother the result.

"You told her he had got two years, my daughter? Does she say she will
get him out?"

"She says she has no more power to do it than yourself, Mother--and the
young gentleman says the same--unless--unless it was made known that
Christian was innocent."

"Two years," moaned the old woman. "Is she sure we couldn't buy him out,
my dear? Two years--oh! Christian, my child, I shall never live to see
you again!"

She sobbed for a minute, and then raising her hand suddenly above her
head, she cried, "A curse on Black--" but Sybil seized her by the wrist
so suddenly, that it checked her words.

"Don't curse him, Mother," said the gipsy girl, "and I'll--I'll see what
I can do. I mean