“Ha! you’re a wise woman. Come, out with your plan, and see if I’m not game to do it.”
“There’s no plan worth speakin’ of,” rejoined the woman, somewhat mollified by her companion’s complimentary remarks. “All you’ve to do is to go down the road to-morrow, catch him, and bring him to me. I’ll see to it that he don’t make his voice heard until we’ve done with this part of the country. Then we can slip the knot, and let the brat go free.”
“I’ll do it!” said the man, sitting down on a stone and beginning to fill his pipe.
“I thought he was dead!” said the woman.
“So did I; but he’s not dead yet, an’ don’t look as if he’d die soon.”
“Maybe,” said the woman, “he won’t remember ye. It’s full five year now sin’ he was took away.”
“Won’t he?” retorted the man, with an angry look, which did not tend to improve his disagreeable visage. “Hah! I heerd him say he’d know me if he saw me in a crowd o’ ten thousand. I would ha’ throttled the cub then and there, but the place was too public.”
A short silence ensued, during which the gypsies ate their food with the zest of half-starved wolves.
“You’d better go down and see old Moggy,” suggested the woman, when the man had finished his repast and resumed his pipe. “If the brat escapes you to-morrow, it may be as well to let the old jade know that you’ll murder both him and her, if he dares to blab.”
The man shook his head. “No use!” said he. But the woman repeated her advice in a tone that was equivalent to a command, so the man rose up sulkily and went.