“Yes, the little brute has come back,” said the gypsy, grinding his teeth in a way that might have led one to suppose he would have been glad to have had the “little brute” between them.
“Serves ye right for stealin’ him away!” said the woman.
“Serves me right!” echoed the man, bitterly. “Did I not vow that I would have my revenge on that old witch? Did she not stand up in court and witness again’ me, so that I got two year for a job that many a fellow gits off with six months for?”
“Well, you know you deserved it!” was the woman’s comforting rejoinder. “You committed the robbery.”
“So I did; but if that she-wolf had not made it out so bad, I’d have got off with six months. Ha! but I knew how to touch her up. I knew her weakness! swore, afore I left the dock, that I’d steal away the little cub she was so fond of—and I did it!”
There was a gleam of triumph in the gypsy’s face as he said this, but it was quickly followed by a scowl when the woman said—
“Well, and much you have made of it. Here is the brat come back at the end o’ five years, to spoil our harvest!”
“How could I know he’d do that? I paid the captain a goodish lump o’ tin to take him on a long voyage, and I thought he was so young that he’d forget the old place.”
“How d’ye know that he hasn’t forgot it?” inquired the woman.
“’Cause, I seed him not twenty miles from this, and heerd him say he’d stop at the Blue Boar all night, and come on here in the morning—that’s to-morrow—so I come straight out to ask you wot I’m to do.”