in the
rest."

FORTUNE-TELLING.

Each city, each town, and every village,
Affords us either an alms or pillage.
And if the weather be cold and raw.
Then in a barn we tumble on straw.
If warm and fair, by yea-cock and nay-cock,
The fields will afford us a hedge or a hay-cock.

--_Merry Beggars_.

As I was walking one evening with the Oxonian, Master Simon, and the
general, in a meadow not far from the village, we heard the sound of a
fiddle, rudely played, and looking in the direction from whence it
came, we saw a thread of smoke curling up from among the trees. The
sound of music is always attractive; for, wherever there is music,
there is good-humour, or good-will. We passed along a footpath, and
had a peep through a break in the hedge, at the musician and his
party, when the Oxonian gave us a wink, and told us that if we would
follow him we should have some sport.

It proved to be a gipsy encampment, consisting of three or four little
cabins, or tents, made of blankets and sail-cloth, spread over hoops
that were stuck in the ground. It was on one side of a green lane,
close under a hawthorn hedge, with a broad beech-tree spreading above
it. A small rill tinkled along close by, through the fresh sward, that
looked like a carpet.

A tea-kettle was hanging by a crooked piece of iron, over a fire made
from dry sticks and leaves, and two old gipsies, in red cloaks, sat
crouched on the grass, gossiping over their evening cup of tea; for
these creatures, though they live in the open air, have their ideas of
fireside comforts. There were two or three children sleeping on the
straw with which the tents were littered; a couple of donkeys were
grazing in the lane, and a thievish-looking dog was lying before the
fire. Some of the younger gipsies were dancing to the music of a
fiddle, played by a tall, slender stripling, in an old frock-coat,
with a peacock's feather stuck in his hat-band.

As we approached, a gipsy girl, with a pair of fine, roguish eyes,
came up, and, as usual, offered to tell our fortunes. I could not but
admire a certain degree of slattern elegance about the baggage. Her
long black silken hair was curiously plaited in numerous small braids,
and negligently put up in a picturesque style that a painter might
have been proud to have devised.

Her dress was of figured chintz, rather ragged, and not over-clean but
of a variety of most harmonious and agreeable colours; for these