Oswald, who had in the mean time recovered himself entirely, examined the woman more closely and recognized in her one of the many gypsy women who infest that country, telling fortunes, hawking trifles, playing on the jewsharp, begging, or more frequently stealing. Thus they go from fair to fair, and from village to village. This one might have been twenty-five or thirty years old, as far as one could judge from the fire of her black eyes, the round, half-naked arms, and the firm carriage of her tall, slender form; but wind and weather, hunger and sorrow, perhaps also evil passions, had made sad havoc with the once good-looking face. The features were too sharply marked, the eyes too deeply sunk, and even the abundant bluish-black hair showed already here and there many a silvery streak. And yet it was a pity she did not rather display the thick tresses in their graceful windings than the rags of red stuff, which she had wrapped, turban-fashion, around her well-shaped head. Her dress was poor and much patched, her feet quite bare. Oswald now also noticed that an oddly shaped instrument was hanging on one of the trees, and a variety of quaint tools were lying about. A donkey, adorned with a red feather and a bright-colored blanket, was wandering thoughtfully through the trees and enjoying now and then a mouthful of the rich, hard grass.
"Are you quite alone, my good woman?" asked Oswald.
"No; I have my boy here, the Cziko; he is gone into the wood to fetch water; this here is fit only for frogs and toads."
"And how did you get to this secluded spot?"
"Know the place for years. Always stop here when I come to this country. Cheaper lodgings here than in the tavern, my good gentleman."
"Then you can show me the way to Berkow, I suppose. Is it far from here?"
"Not far at all. The boy, the Cziko, shall show you."
The woman put her hands to her mouth and imitated the call of the wood-dove in the most perfect manner. At once the cry of the hawk came back from the forest, and soon afterwards a boy came running out, who, however, stopped short, with an air of distrust and apprehension, as soon as he saw the stranger. The mother uttered a few words in an unknown tongue, and he seemed to feel at once reassured. He came forward, offered Oswald fearlessly the tin cup which he was holding in his hand, and said: "Will you drink, sir?"
The cup was not particularly neat, but the boy far too strikingly handsome to be refused, even if Oswald had been less thirsty than he really was. Cziko was perhaps ten years old, but he also looked older. The damp fogs drifting over autumnal fields, and the snow-storms whistling through the hawthorn bushes had washed out the youthful freshness of the boy's face, and given an expression of sorrow and defiance to the dark gazelle eyes, so that one could not look at them without feeling saddened.
The woman saw at once, with the doubly sharp eye of the beggar and the mother, what a deep impression her boy had made upon the stranger.