HT before Christmas Gypsies were every-
where:
Vans were drawn up on wastes, women trailed to
the fair.
"My gentleman," said one, "You've got a lucky
face."
"And you've a luckier," I thought, "if such a grace
And impudence in rags are lucky." "Give a penny
For the poor baby's sake." "Indeed I have not any
Unless you can give change for a sovereign, my
dear."
"Then just half a pipeful of tobacco can you
spare?"
I gave it. With that much victory she laughed
content.
I should have given more, but off and away she
went
With her baby and her pink sham flowers to rejoin
The rest before I could translate to its proper coin
Gratitude for her grace. And I paid nothing then,
As I pay nothing now with the dipping of my pen
For her brother's music when he drummed the
tambourine
And stamped his feet, which made the workmen
passing grin,
While his mouth-organ changed to a rascally
Bacchanal dance
"Over the hills and far away." This and his glance
Outlasted all the fair, farmer and auctioneer,
Cheap-jack, balloon-man, drover with crooked
stick, and steer,
Pig, turkey, goose, and duck, Christmas Corpses
to be.
Not even the kneeling ox had eyes like the Romany.
That night he peopled for me the hollow wooded
land,
More dark and wild than stormiest heavens, that I
searched and scanned
Like a ghost new-arrived. The gradations of the
dark
Were like an underworld of death, but for the spark
In the Gypsy boy's black eyes as he played and
stamped his tune,
"Over the hills and far away," and a crescent moon.

MAN AND DOG

"'TWILL take some getting." "Sir, I think 'twill
so."
The old man stared up at the mistletoe
That hung too high in the poplar's crest for plunder
Of any climber, though not for kissing under:
Then he went on against the north-east wind--
Straight but lame, leaning on a staff new-skinned,
Carrying a brolly, flag-basket, and old coat,--
Towards Alton, ten miles off. And he had not
Done less from Chilgrove where he pulled up docks.
'Twere best, if he had had "a money-box,"
To have waited there till the sheep cleared a field
For what a half-week's flint-picking would yield.
His mind was running on the work he had done
Since he left Christchurch in the New Forest, one
Spring in the 'seventies,--navvying on dock and
line
From Southampton to Newcastle-on-Tyne,--
In 'seventy-four a year of soldiering
With the Berkshires,--hoeing and