“I thought I saw someone hurry away through the furze bushes as we came up, as if to avoid being seen. Your friend Macey I think.”
“Couldn’t have been, uncle, or he would have stopped.”
“I was mistaken perhaps.—A singular people these, so wedded to their restless life. I should like to trace them back and find out their origin. It would be a curious experience to stay with them for a year or two,” continued the doctor, after a long silence, “and so find out exactly how they live. I’m afraid that they do a little stealing at times when opportunity serves. Fruit, poultry, vegetables, any little thing they can snap up easily. Then, too, they have a great knowledge of herbs and wild vegetables, with which, no doubt, they supplement their scanty fare. Like to join them for a bit, Vane?”
“Oh, no,” said the boy laughing. “I don’t think I should care for that. Too fond of a comfortable bed, uncle, and a chair and table for my meals.”
“If report says true, their meals are not bad,” continued the doctor. “Their women are most clever at marketing and contrive to buy very cheaply of the butchers, and they are admirable cooks. They do not starve themselves.”
“Think there’s any truth about the way they cook fowls or pheasants, uncle?”
“What, covering them all over with clay, and then baking them in the hot embers of a wood fire? Not a doubt about it, boy. They serve squirrels and hedgehogs in the same way, even a goose at times. When they think it is done, the clay is burned into earthenware. Then a deft blow with a stick or stone cracks the burnt clay and the bird or animal is turned out hot and juicy, the feathers or bristles remaining in the clay.”
“Don’t think I could manage hedgehog or squirrel, uncle.”
“I should not select them for diet. They are both carnivorous, and the squirrel, in addition, has its peculiar odorous gland like the pole-cat tribe.”
“But a squirrel isn’t carnivorous, uncle,” said Vane, “he eats nuts and fruit.”