"I can find her myself," answered the tinker; "that is to say, I could find her if I could quit this; but I mustn't."
"Indeed!" said Chandos, in some surprise: "why not? I suppose you will go before night; for you have not got even a tent here to cover you."
"That's nothing," answered the gipsey; "I shall be here all night, unless some one comes to relieve me, as they call it."
"Why, are you on guard, then?" asked Chandos.
"I'm on watch, and that is as good," replied the tinker, winking his eye, and looking towards the house.
"Who are you watching there, then?" demanded the young gentleman; but the old man only grinned, and made no reply for a minute or two, till Chandos repeated his question.
"Very likely!" said the tinker; "don't you think I'll tell you, master? I'm watching some one who will not come out in a hurry while I am here; and when I'm gone, there will be another, and when he's gone, another, till we starve the rat out of his hole, or at all events find out if he is in it. But you have nothing to do with that. You are not one of us, you know. You've your own trade, and that's a gardener's. Stick to that."
"I've given that up sometime, as I think you know," answered Chandos.
"Aye, may be, may be," said the old tinker; "I've heard something of it. But what is it you want to say to Sally Stanley? Do you want your new fortune told? She is the rarest hand amongst them for that. Never was such a one; for she is always right, one way or another: and our people think she has got a spirit that tells her all that is going to happen, at those times when she gets into her tantarums and goes about amongst the dead men's graves and that. I would not bide her curse for a great deal. It fell hard upon poor Harry Chambers; for you know he was sent over the water for life, just three months after. But what do you want with her?"
"Nay, that is my business," answered Chandos; "only you tell her I am down here again, and will speak to her when she likes. I have a good many things to say that she may wish to hear; and she has something to say to me."