eleste; Avo. Mandy's kaired my patteran adusta chairuses where a
drum jals atut the waver," which means in English--"God bless you, yes.
Many a time I have marked my sign where the roads cross."

I was seated in the cottage of an old Gipsy mother, one of the most noted
fortune-tellers in England, when I heard this from her brother, himself
an ancient wanderer, who loves far better to hear the lark sing than the
mouse cheep when he wakes of a morning.

It was a very small but clean cottage, of the kind quite peculiar to the
English labourer, and therefore attractive to every one who has felt the
true spirit of the most original poetry and art which this country has
produced. For look high or low, dear reader, you will find that nothing
has ever been better done in England than the pictures of rural life, and
over nothing have its gifted minds cast a deeper charm.

There were the little rough porcelain figures of which the English
peasantry are so fond, and which, cheap as they are, indicate that the
taste of your friends Lady --- for Worcester "porcelain," or the Duchess
of --- for Majolica, has its roots among far humbler folk. In fact there
were perhaps twenty things which no English reader would have supposed
were peculiar, yet which were something more than peculiar to me. The
master of the house was an Anglo-Saxon--a Gorgio--and his wife, by some
magic or other, the oracle before-mentioned.

And I, answering said--

"So you all call it _patteran_?" {24}

"No; very few of us know that name. We do it without calling it
anything."

Then I took my stick and marked on the floor the following sign--

[Sign: ill24.jpg]

"There," I said, "is the oldest patteran--first of all--which the Gipsies
use to-day in foreign lands. In Germany, when one band of Gipsies goes
by a cross road, they draw that deep in the dust, with the end of the
longest line pointing in the direction in which they have gone. Then,
the next who come by see the mark, and, if they choose, follow it."

"We make it differently," said the Gipsy. "This is our sign--the _trin
bongo drums_, or cross." And he drew his patteran thus--

[Cross: ill25.jpg]

"The long end points the way," he added; "just as in your sign."

"You call a cross," I remarked, "_trin bongo drums_, or the three crooked
roads. Do you know any such word as _trushul_ for it?"

"No; _trushilo_ is thirsty, and _trushni_ means a faggot, and also a
basket."

"I shouldn't