found it better to band together for mutual benefit than to remain
isolated units. But the camp certainly contained many elements, and
these, acting co-operatively, formed a large and somewhat reckless
community, which justified Garvington's alarm. A raid in the night by
one or two, or three, or more of these lean, wiry, dangerous-looking
outcasts was not to be despised. But it must be admitted that, in a
general way, law and order prevailed in the encampment.

There were many caravans, painted in gay colors and hung round with
various goods, such as brushes and brooms, goat-skin rugs, and much
tinware, together with baskets of all sorts and sizes. The horses, which
drew these rainbow-hued vehicles, were pasturing on the outskirts of the
camp, hobbled for the most part. Interspersed among the travelling homes
stood tents great and small, wherein the genuine Romany had their abode,
but the autumn weather was so fine that most of the inmates preferred to
sleep in the moonshine. Of course, there were plenty of dogs quarrelling
over bones near various fires, or sleeping with one eye open in odd
corners, and everywhere tumbled and laughed and danced, brown-faced,
lithe-limbed children, who looked uncannily Eastern. And the men,
showing their white teeth in smiles, together with the fawning women,
young and handsome, or old and hideously ugly, seemed altogether alien
to the quiet, tame domestic English landscape. There was something
prehistoric about the scene, and everywhere lurked that sense of
dangerous primeval passions held in enforced check which might burst
forth on the very slightest provocation.

"It's a migrating tribe of Aryans driven to new hunting grounds by
hunger or over-population," said Miss Greeby, for even her unromantic
nature was stirred by the unusual picturesqueness of the scene. "The
sight of these people and the reek of their fires make me feel like a