Presently the tents were all astir; the gipsy children began to swarm about, the women lit fires in the open air, and the smell of very appetising breakfasts filled the atmosphere. The men also lounged into view, standing lazily at the doors of their tents, and smoking great pipes of tobacco. Annie lay quiet. She could see from her hiding-place without being seen. Suddenly—and her eyes began to dilate, and she found her heart beating strangely—she laid her hand on Tiger, who was quivering all over.
“Stay with me, dear dog,” she said.
There was a great commotion and excitement in the gipsy camp; the children screamed and ran into the tents, the women paused in their preparation for breakfast, the men took their short pipes out of their mouths; every dog, with the exception of Tiger, barked ferociously. Tiger and Annie alone were motionless.
The cause of all this uproar was a body of police, about six in number, who came boldly into the field, and demanded instantly to search the tents.
“We want a woman who calls herself Mother Rachel,” they said. “She belongs to this encampment. We know her: let her come forward at once; we wish to question her.”
The men stood about; the women came near; the children crept out of their tents, placing their fingers to their frightened lips, and staring at the men who represented those horrors to their unsophisticated minds called Law and Order.
“We must search the tents. We won’t stir from the spot until we have had an interview with Mother Rachel,” said the principal member of the police force.
The men answered respectfully that the gipsy mother was not yet up; but if the gentlemen would wait a moment she would soon come and speak to them.
The officers expressed their willingness to wait, and collected round the tents.
Just at this instant, under the hedge-row, Tiger raised his head. Annie’s watchful eyes accompanied the dog’s. He was gazing after a tiny gipsy maid who was skulking along the hedge, and who presently disappeared through a very small opening into the neighbouring field.