Oh yes! kind sir, give me hold of your hand;
For you have got honours, both riches and land.
Of all the pretty maidens, you must lay aside;
For it is the little gipsy girl that is to be your bride.
4.
He led me o’er hills, through valleys deep, I’m sure,
Where I’d servants for to wait on me, and open me the door;
A rich bed of dowle, to lay my head upon.
In less than nine months after, I could his fortune tell.
5.
Once I was a gipsy girl, but now a squire’s bride,
I’ve servants for to wait on me, and in my carriage ride.
The bells shall ring so merrily; sweet music they shall play,
And we’ll crown the glad tidings of that lucky, lucky day.
Two men with carts passed whilst we were resting, and they halted to look at our donkeys.
It was nearly 2 o’clock, when myself and Noah went up to the wooden seat to load the animals. As we were standing by our things, a carriage passed, a gentleman driving with apparently his son, asked if we were going to camp there, we told him we were going on; He asked how many miles we travelled in a day, and we answered fourteen or fifteen. They wished us a pleasant excursion, we wished him bon voyage, and, lifting our hats, he drove on. Two donkeys were packed, and Noah brought up the third. Where’s the pocket? said Noah, looking rather wild. “Pocket?” said we, “isn’t it among the things?” No, sir, we never took it off; “it must have slipt off somewhere.” In fact, we had not taken the pockets off two of the donkeys, but one pocket had been pushed off by the Puru Rawnee, against the road rails, whilst we were at lunch, and Noah had placed it by the seat; what had become of the other we could not tell; we both went some distance along the road where they had been browsing, but could not find it. Esmeralda was much enraged. All her things with Noah and Zachariah’s scanty stock, and their sheets, tent blankets, and sleeping blankets, were also in the lost pocket. We went up to the house, and managed to explain to two women the position we were in. Noah said: “Sir, it must have been taken off, for there is no mark on the road where it has come down.” Esmeralda fixed her suspicions on the unfortunate cart drivers, who had been looking at the donkeys; we repudiated the idea, and said they were driving the wrong way to have done so. A vigorous search was made, with the help of the younger peasant woman, amongst the bushes of the steep bank, between the road and the river, where the two donkeys had been also wandering, but no pocket could be found.
We decided to go on. To the young peasant girl, who seemed as anxious as ourselves for its recovery, we gave a mark, and an address, so that the pocket, if found, might be sent to Nystuen, to the “Herren mit drei asen.”[44] Esmeralda rode one donkey, and in no very enviable frame of mind, we hurried along at a rapid pace.
Noah exclaimed, “I could sit down and cry, sir. I don’t want no tea—I can’t eat.”
“Well, I can,” said Esmeralda, boiling with indignation. “I know it is taken; we shall never see it again. My small smoothing-iron, I would not have parted with it for anything, I have had it so long; and my dress—” and she half gave way to a flood of tears. “It will do them as has taken it no good.”