affair of the old woman."

So the struggle ended, and my Romany friend once more pressed me to join
his tribe in their camp and in their life. I declined the offer, for I
had resolved to practice yet another calling, the trade of a blacksmith.
I could do so, for amongst the stock-in-trade I had purchased from the
tinker was a small forge, with an anvil and hammers.

It has always struck me that there is something poetical about a forge.
I believe that the life of any blacksmith, especially a rural one, would
afford material for a highly poetical treatise. But a rude stop was put
to my dream. One morning, a brutal-looking ruffian, whom I had met
before and recognised as a character known as the Flaming Tinman,
appeared on the scene, accusing me with fearful oaths of trespassing on
his ground. After volleys of abuse, he attacked me, and a fearful fight
ensued, in which he was not the victor, for in one of his terrific
lunges he slipped, and a blow which I was aiming happened to strike him
behind the ear. He fell senseless. Two women were with him, one, a
vulgar, coarse creature, his wife; the other a tall, fine young woman,
who travelled with them for company, doing business of her own with a
donkey and cart, selling merchandise.

While I was bringing water from a spring in order to seek to revive the
Flaming Tinman, his wife and the young woman violently quarrelled, for
the latter took my part vehemently. When at length my enemy recovered
sufficiently to look about him, and then to stand up, I found that his
wife had put an open knife in his hand. But his intention could not be
carried out, for his right hand was injured in the fight, and was for
the time useless, as he quickly realised.