Dare had come across a couple of their encampments while riding out the day before, but it was not till to-day when, as he stood on the fringe of the crowd, listening to the chaffering and bargaining, but thinking of other things, a smiling, black-eyed, ruddy-lipped chi sidled up to him and asked him to cross her hand with a bit of silver, that of a sudden an idea came to him which seemed to open up a way out of the difficulty with which he had been perplexing his brain ever since he left London.
If Dare crossed the girl's hand with a piece of silver, it was not with the view of having his fortune told. Drawing her further apart from the crowd, he stood in earnest talk with her for several minutes, nor did they part till they had come to a mutual understanding. Dare's last words to the girl were, "Tell your father that he may expect to see me at dusk to-morrow."
Dare was not unacquainted with Romany life and Romany ways. As a lad of seventeen he had once spent a month of vie intime at one of their encampments, and the knowledge then acquired by him he hoped to be able to turn to good account on the present occasion.
Not till the sun had dipped below the horizon did he set out next afternoon to walk the couple of miles or more which would bring him to a certain furze-lined hollow among the moors, where a number of gypsies whom the fair had brought into the neighborhood had made their temporary home. He had got about half-way, and was on the point of turning off the high-road--which was here unfenced and open to the moors on both sides--at a place previously described to him, when he was suddenly confronted by a man who started up from behind a thick clump of brambles. Dare came to a halt, and for a few moments the two stood measuring each other in silence.
The stranger, an unmistakable gypsy, was the first to speak: "You are the gorgio that had something to say to my daughter yesterday at the fair?"
"I am."
"And you want her, with my leave, to do something for you for which you are willing to pay us in good red gold?"
"You could not have put the case in fewer words."
"Well, here we are, with only the rising moon and our own shadows for company. We could not have a better chance for saying what is to be said."
Nothing could have suited Dare's purpose better.