Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1895-08-17

The men on the ground took no no.
tice, but continued to stare doggeGly
before them. The man working at the
tent looked round quickly for a mo
ment, and the old man on the bucket
looked up and nodded.
Quick to see the most likely friend.
Hewitt at once went up to the old man,
extending his hand. "Sarshin daddO,"
Good luck, brothers.) he said: 'deg
mandy tooty's rarst." CHow do you do,
father? Give me your hand.)
The old man smiled and shook hands,
though without speaking. Then Hew-
lit proceeded, producing the fiat bottle
of whisky: "Iatty for pacny, chals. Del
mandy the pacny and hU .posh tie tatty."
Spirits for water, lads. Give mi the
water and take your share of the
spirits.)
The whisky did it. We were Romany
ryes in twenty minutes or less, and had
already been taking tea with the
gypsies for half the time. The two or
three we had found about the fire were
| still reserved, but these, l found, were
only half gypsies and understood very
little Romany. One or two others,
however, including the old man, We're
of purer breed, and talked freely, as
did n of the ONE They were
Lees, they said, and expected to be on
Wirksby race course in three days
time. We, too, were pirimengr0cs or
travellers, Hewitt explained, and might
look to see them on the course. Then
he fell to telling gypsy stories, and they
to telling others back, to my intense
mystiication. Hewitt explained after
wards that they were mostly stories of
p~oaching, with now and again a horse
coping anecdote thrown in. Since then
I have learned enough of Romany to
take my part in such a conversation,
but at the time a word or two here and
| there was all 1 could understand. In
all this talk the man we had first no.
ticed stretching the tent rope took very
little interest, but lay with his head
away from the fire, smoking his pipe.
He was a much darker man than any
other present-had, in fact, the appear
ance of a man of even a swarthier race
than that Of the others about us. Pres
emily in the middle of q long and, of
course, to me unintelligible story by
the old man, I caught Hewitt's eye. He
lifted one eyebrow almost impercepti-
bly,, and glanced for a single moment
at his walking stick. Then I saw that
it was pointed towards the feet of the
very dark man who had not yet spoken.
One leg was thrown over the other as he
lay, with the soles of his shoes pre-
sented towardthe fire, and in its glare I
saw-that the right sole was worn and
broken and that a small triangular tag
of leather was doubled over beneath in
just the place we knew of from the
prints in Ratherby wood.
l could not take my eyes off that man
with his broken shoe. There lay the
secret. The whole mystery of the
fastastic crime in Ratherby wood
centered in that shabby ruffian. What
was it?
But Hewitt went on, talking and
joking furiously. The men who were
not speaking mostly smoked gloomily,
but whenever n spoke he became
animated and lively. 1 had attempted,
once or twice, to join in, though amy
efforts were not particularly successful,
except in inducing one man to offer me
tobacco from his box-tobacco that al
most made me giddy in the smell. He
tried some of mine in exchange, and
though he praised it with native polite
ness, and smoked the pipe through, I