and strength were notorious, and no one cared to encounter him. Some of
the Jews looked eager for a moment; but their sharp eyes quailed quickly
before his savage glances, as he towered in the ring his huge form
dilating, and his black features convulsed with excitement. The
Westminster bravoes eyed the Gypsy askance; but the comparison, if they
made any, seemed by no means favourable to themselves. 'Gypsy! rum
chap.--Ugly customer,--always in training.' Such were the exclamations
which I heard, some of which at that period of my life I did not
understand.

No man would fight the Gypsy.--Yes! a strong country fellow wished to win
the stakes, and was about to fling up his hat in defiance, but he was
prevented by his friends, with--'Fool! he'll kill you!'

As the Gypsies were mounting their horses, I heard the dusty phantom
exclaim--

'Brother, you are an arrant ring-maker and a horse-breaker; you'll make a
hempen ring to break your own neck of a horse one of these days.'

They pressed their horses' flanks, again leaped over the ditches, and
speedily vanished, amidst the whirlwinds of dust which they raised upon
the road.

The words of the phantom Gypsy were ominous. Gypsy Will was eventually
executed for a murder committed in his early youth in company with two
English labourers, one of whom confessed the fact on his death-bed. He
was the head of the clan Young, which, with the clan Smith, still haunts
two of the eastern counties.