grouped seven or eight persons, upon whose swarthy and strong
countenances the irregular and fitful flame cast a picturesque and not
unbecoming glow. All of these, with the exception of an old crone who
was tending the pot, and a little boy who was feeding the fire with
sundry fragments of stolen wood, started to their feet upon the
entrance of the stranger.

"What ho! my bob cuffins," cried the gypsy guide, "I have brought you
a gentry cove, to whom you will show all proper respect: and hark ye,
my maunders, if ye dare beg, borrow, or steal a single croker,--ay,
but a bawbee of him, I'll--but ye know me." The gypsy stopped
abruptly, and turned an eye, in which menace vainly struggled with
good-humour, upon each of his brethren, as they submissively bowed to
him and his protege, and poured forth a profusion of promises, to
which their admonitor did not even condescend to listen. He threw off
his great-coat, doubled it down by the best place near the fire, and
made the youth forthwith possess himself of the seat it afforded. He
then lifted the cover of the mysterious caldron. "Well, Mort," cried
he to the old woman, as he bent wistfully down, "what have we here?"

"Two ducks, three chickens, and a rabbit, with some potatoes," growled
the old hag, who claimed the usual privilege of her culinary office,
to be as ill-tempered as she pleased.

"Good!" said the gypsy; "and now, Mim, my cull, go to the other tent,
and ask its inhabitants, in my name, to come here and sup; bid them
bring their caldron to eke out ours: I'll find the lush."

With these words (which Mim, a short, swarthy member of the gang, with
a countenance too astute to be pleasing, instantly started forth to