The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-09-08

whipped beatings of bare branches and bedraggled brown leaves.
 . Illus gifts old, doan't hus?"
 This from tinker Zeke, one November morning where I had remained over night with a gipsy caravan beside a dreary down on the old stage road to Bath.
 Bareheaded and barefooted he had clambered outside our tiny roadside habitation to Hook OCT tn day" could see him through the frowsy tent mouth, peering anxiously for omens in the still, half-darkened sky.
 He looked again and again at the sky and over to the saffron-tinted east. -.-.
 Illus gifts old, doan't hus?" he re- peated dejectedly.
 Flows that, Zeke?" answered mer- rily enough, determined to provoke a continuation of his strain of gipsy philosophy if possible. "Gipsies never get old. And besides, you're too brave an old rascal, Zeke. to whimper about getting on in years a little."
 "Hi tells ye, hus all gifts .old"' This vehemently. "Hi never quits tn coun- try 'thout mindin' O hit. Hits like moullan (dying), leastwise for me, to jaw vree tn drom Cto leave the road.) Cans a sturdie (the towns prison!)
 Here. was a genuine exhibition of gipsy sentiment, [Zeke, pumped him. self down alongside the mouldering campfire with his elbows upon his knees and his fine old head in his hands and apparently gave way to the moodiest reflections.
 Catching gipsy off his guard is not a common thing and felt like prod ding him little.
 Turn Gorgio (non-gipsy) then, Zeke. Enjoy every day of life with a happy, permanent home over your head. Go to church like white man of Sun day; and finally get to heaven where there won't be any rough gipsy win tersw
 He looked at me first in blank amaze ment. A fine scorn came into his swar- thy face. Then in a tone of mingled re- proof, disbelief and almost pathetic longing, he said with ridiculous solem- nifty:
 "Ay, an Hid turn Gorgio, an even kair rajah Gown or false gipsy) fur a O that-made sure!'
 An, honest Zeke, who would not?
 Here were perhaps two score vans with all their ramsackle belongings, their ponies, asses and dogs, their crockery, cocoanuts and oilcloths, their skewers, pegs and rush baskets, their dried flowers and leaves, and their far more interesting owners.
 Some of the wanderers came from as far north as Beauty in Scotland, from away up in the classic Wentworth land by the quiet English lakes; from off southwest. by the shore hooks of Somerset and Devon, and even from St. Ives and Penzance in Cornwall; but most from dickering and dukker- ing among the midland and western counties fairs.
 As if through some secret under standing they had drifted together for a bit of roadside reunion at the edge of these windswept moors, where few of the constabulary come with their remorseless summons, "Move on, you gipsy dogs" @ &.
 Returning from the great city from a country tramp in Buckinghamshire, by right of rank and station as Gorgio chal (non-gipsy gtpsies' friend,) I had become one of them in their little registering, before the final abandon ment of the seasons wanderings by blossoming lane and road.
 The camp was to be broken that very morning. The dark places of London would close upon the tawny crew, scat tered in little groups and families, by night. It was. absolutely certain they would never all meet again, even though separate families or bands should again know the boundless joy of the springtime outgoing.
 And there is a large and ample hu- man regard, one for another, in this community of roadside interest and companionship, which we of civilized" thought and ways can never know.
 Tinker Zeke was not alone in his mournful regret. The camp was rife with it, just as the landscape sky and air were instinct with the tender sad ness of the dying year.
 It seemd to me, nor was 1t all of seem- ing, that the fires themselves burned with less crackle than flame. Even the sizzling pots, hanging from the grimy kettle-sticks, boiled and blubbered in minor hearthside tones.
 Over in the stunted copses of the moor the tethered donkeys stood meek ly silent, with bowed heads, or -nibbled at the frosty grass as if in serious rum- ination.
 As the morning advanced goodwivea sat by the tent mouths, or in the open van doors, in sober discussion with their husbands, or still busted them