all
the surrounding district, and thought but little of the Bible in Spain.

So I rode about the country, over the heaths, and through the green lanes
of my native land, occasionally visiting friends at a distance, and
sometimes, for variety's sake, I stayed at home and amused myself by
catching huge pike, which lie perdue in certain deep ponds skirted with
lofty reeds, upon my land, and to which there is a communication from the
lagoon by a deep and narrow watercourse. I had almost forgotten the
Bible in Spain.

Then came the summer with much heat and sunshine, and then I would lie
for hours in the sun and recall the sunny days I had spent in Andalusia,
and my thoughts were continually reverting to Spain, and at last I
remembered that the Bible in Spain was still unfinished; whereupon I
arose and said: 'This loitering profiteth nothing'--and I hastened to my
summer-house by the side of the lake, and there I thought and wrote, and
every day I repaired to the same place, and thought and wrote until I had
finished the Bible in Spain.

* * * * *

And, as I wandered along the green, I drew near to a place where several
men, with a cask beside them, sat carousing in the neighbourhood of a
small tent. 'Here he comes,' said one of them, as I advanced, and
standing up he raised his voice and sang:--

'Here the Gypsy gemman see,
With his Roman jib and his rome and dree--
Rome and dree, rum and dry
Rally round the Rommany Rye.'

It was Mr. Petulengro, who was here diverting himself with several of his
comrades; they all received me with considerable frankness. 'Sit down,
brother,' said Mr. Petulengro, 'and take a cup of good ale.'

I sat down. 'Your health, gentlemen,' said I, as I took the cup which
Mr. Petulengro handed to me.

'Aukko tu pios adrey Rommanis. Here is your health in Rommany, brother,'
said Mr. Petulengro; who, having refilled the cup, now emptied it at a
draught.

'Your health in Rommany, brother,' said Tawno Chikno, to whom the cup
came next.

'The Rommany Rye,' said a third.

'The Gypsy gentlemen,' exclaimed a fourth, drinking.

And then they all sang in chorus:--

'Here the Gypsy gemman see,
With his Roman jib and his rome and dree--
Rome and dree, rum and dry
Rally round the Rommany Rye.'

'And now, brother,' said Mr. Petulengro, 'seeing that you have drunk and
been drunken, you will perhaps tell us where you have been, and what
about?'

'I have been in th