"If you know the time so exactly without a watch," replied his lordship, "you can have no use for mine. However, it's a pretty keepsake enough, and you're welcome to it. But harky'e, my friend, one word before you go. Is there no chance of our being beset by other gentlemen of your profession? You've left nothing for them to take, 'tis true, except the clothes on our backs; but the disappointment might make them harder to deal with than you have been yourselves. You couldn't afford us a guard, could you? That pretty boy, for instance," glancing at Waif, who shrank hastily behind the others, "and a couple of stout fellows, in case there should be a fight."
Nobody but Mistress Rachel seemed disappointed at the gipsy's answer.
"It is needless," he said; "our patrin will hold you unharmed, as if your coach was surrounded by an escort of Light Horse."
"Your patrin? What is that?" asked my lord.
"The sign that none of our people will pass unnoticed," said the gipsy; "that not one of the profession dare disregard, from the best galloping gentleman on the road to the poor cly-faker who pulls an old woman's petticoat off a hedge. I will set it for you at once."
Thus speaking, he drew his knife from the sheath, and cut three crosses, side by side, in the turf, north, south, east, and west of the party. This done, the word was given to march; and in less than a minute these strange assailants, who seemed to have the facility of deer and other wild animals in availing themselves of any irregularity in the ground, had disappeared from the surface of the downs, though a moon already nearly full was shining brightly above the horizon.
My lord looked after them in silence as they vanished. Then, turning to his wife, observed, with a meaning smile, "They have left you your diamonds, my dear. I wonder where they learned to know brilliants from paste?"
Her ladyship, an image of outraged dignity, was sitting bolt upright in the back of the coach.
"Their leader is a perfect gentleman," she replied, "and would no more rob a lady of her trinkets than he would allude to her misfortunes. There are noblemen of position who might take example by the gracious manners and high bearing of this mysterious gipsy."