never been known to have before."

I murmured something to the effect that the winter was coming on, and that it was likely enough that they should have procured for themselves some peripatetic shelter of that kind; but a nameless horror took hold upon me, in spite of myself, when Mr. Long rejoined, that he should think it his duty to have the gipsies followed, and a thorough examination of their effects to be made. I had not another word to say. I seemed already to see poor old Rachel Liversedge standing in the felon's dock, avowing and glorying in her guilt, and defiant of the sentence which would consign her and hers to the same fate that had overtaken, with no such justice, Stanley Carew. Any hope of escape for them, I knew, was out of the question. They had not the means for speedy travel, while, in those days of superstition and intolerance, the Cingari were an object of animadversion and alarm, whithersoever they moved. That very day—acting upon information received concerning their present whereabouts—Mr. Long set out on horseback, accompanied by the parish constable, and Came up with the party whom he sought upon a certain common within twenty miles of Fairburn. The tribe, of whom I had only seen three grown-up members, were tolerably numerous, and the constable evinced his fitness for being a peace-officer by counselling the rector to do nothing rash, at least until reinforcements should permit of his doing so with safety. The sight, however, of the covered cart, placed, as it seemed, jealously in the very centre of the encampment, was too much for Mr. Long, who, to do him justice, was as bold as a lion, except where conventional "position," as in the case of Sir Massingberd, made him indisposed for action. He turned his horse straight for the desired object, in spite of the threatening looks of several men, who were tinkering about an immense fire, and was only stopped by the youngest of them starting up, and laying his hand imperatively upon his bridle-rein.

"Have you a warrant, Mr. Long," inquired the gipsy sternly, "that you ride through our camp, when all the rest of the common is open to you, and wish to pry into that poor place yonder, which is all we have of house and home?"

The rector had no sort of right for what he did, and was therefore proportionally indignant.

"Unhand my bridle, sirrah!" cried he. "What is your name, who seem to know mine so well, and yet who knows me so little, that you can imagine I am here in any other cause than that of Right and Justice?"

"My name is Walter Carew," 

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