"The Romany chal to his horse did cry
As he placed the bit in his jaw,
Kosko gry, Romany gry,
Muk, man, kuster, tute knaw."

He was still humming this weird tune when they emerged into the open
fields, and there the traveler experienced a surprise.

A little rivulet lay across their path, and up from the margin of it
where she had been gathering water cresses there sprang a young girl,
who cast a startled glance at him, then bounded swiftly toward the tent
and vanished through the opening.

Now it happened that this keen admirer of horses was equally susceptible
to the charms of female beauty, and the loveliness of this young girl
made his blood tingle. In her hand she carried a bunch of cresses still
dripping with the water of the brook. A black bodice was drawn close to
a figure which was just unfolding into womanhood. The color of this
garment formed a striking contrast to a scarlet skirt which fell only a
little below her knees. On her feet were low-cut shoes, fastened with
rude silver buckles. A red kerchief had become untied and let loose a
wave of black hair, which fell over her half bare shoulders. Her face
was oval, her complexion olive, her eyes large, eager and lustrous.

All this the man who admired women even more than he admired horses, saw
in the single instant before the girl dashed toward the tent and
disappeared. So swift an apparition would have bewildered rather than
illumined the mind of an ordinary man. But the quack was not an ordinary
man. He was endowed with a certain rude power of divination which