to a deep
dell close by; and there it was buried beneath a rock, dressed just as I
have told you; and this was done by the bidding of Leonora, who had heard
her bebee say that she wished to be buried, not in gorgious fashion, but
like a Roman woman of the old blood, the kosko puro rati, brother. When
it was over, and we had got back to the encampment, I prepared to be
going. Before mounting my gry, however, I bethought me to ask what could
have induced the dead woman to make away with herself--a thing so
uncommon amongst Romanies; whereupon one squinted with his eyes, a second
spirted saliver into the air, and a third said that he neither knew nor
cared; she was a good riddance, having more than once been nearly the
ruin of them all, from the quantity of brimstone she carried about her.
One, however, I suppose rather ashamed of the way in which they had
treated me, said at last that if I wanted to know all about the matter
none could tell me better than the child, who was in all her secrets, and
was not a little like her; so I looked about for the child, but could
find her nowhere. At last the same man told me that he shouldn't wonder
if I found her at the grave; so I went back to the grave, and sure enough
there I found the child Leonora, seated on the ground above the body,
crying and taking on; so I spoke kindly to her, and said, "How came all
this, Leonora? tell me all about it." It was a long time before I could
get any answer; at last she opened her mouth and spoke, and these were
the words she said, "It was all along of your Pal"; and then she told me
all about the matter--how Mrs. Herne could not abide you, which I knew
before; and that she had sworn your destruction, which I did not know
before. And then she told me how she found you living in the wood by
yourself, and how you were enticed to eat a poisoned cake; and she told
me many other things that you wot of, and she told me what perhaps you
don't wot, namely, that finding you had been removed, she, the child, had
tracked you a long way, and found you at last well and hearty, and no
ways affected by the poison, and heard you, as she stood concealed,
disputing about religion with a Welsh Methody. Well, brother, she told
me all this; and, moreover, that when Mrs. Herne heard of it, she said
that a dream of hers had come to pass. I don't know what it was, but
something about herself, a tinker, and a dean; and then she added that it
was all up with her, a