I've a horror of gipsy men, and even before our neighbours had dispersed I hustled away with Mrs. Hedgehog into the bushes.
CHAPTER VIII.
Good Mrs. Hedgehog hurt one of her feet slightly in our hurried retreat, and next day was obliged to rest it; but as our curiosity was more on the alert than ever, I went down in the afternoon to the tinker camp.
The old woman was sitting in her usual position, and she seemed to have recovered herself. Sybil was leaning back against a tree opposite; she wore a hat and shawl, and looked almost as wild as the tinker-mother had looked the day before. She seemed to have been at the inn with the clergywoman, and was telling the tinker-mother the result.
"You told her he had got two years, my daughter? Does she say she will get him out?"
"She says she has no more power to do it than yourself, Mother—and the young gentleman says the same—unless—unless it was made known that Christian was innocent."
"Two years," moaned the old woman. "Is she sure we couldn't buy him out, my dear? Two years—oh! Christian, my child, I shall never live to see you again!"
She sobbed for a minute, and then raising her hand suddenly above her head, she cried, "A curse on Black—" but Sybil seized her by the wrist so suddenly, that it checked her words.
"Don't curse him, Mother," said the gipsy girl, "and I'll—I'll see what I can do. I meant to, and I've come to say good-bye. I've brought a packet of tea for you; see that you keep it to yourself. Good-bye, Mother."