and I have seen a good many men and women in my time. Some of them walk
like my father, they bustle along and kick up the leaves as he does; and
some of them move quickly and yet softly, as snakes go. The gipsy girl
moved so, and wherever she went the gipsy man's eyes went after her.

Suddenly he turned them on me. For an instant I was paralyzed and stood
still. I could hear my father bustling down the bank; in a few minutes
he would be at home, where my brother and sisters were safe and sound,
whilst I was alone and about to reap the reward of my disobedience, in
the fate of which he had warned me--to be taken by gipsies and flitted.

Nothing, my dear children--my seven dear children--is more fatal in an
emergency than indecision. I was half disposed to hurry after my father,
and half resolved to curl myself into a ball. I had one foot out and
half my back rounded, when the gipsy man pinned me to the ground with a
stick, and the gipsy girl strode up. I could not writhe myself away from
the stick, but I gazed beseechingly at the gipsy girl and squealed for
my life.

"Let the poor little brute go, Basil," she said, laughing. "We've three
flitted still."

"Let it go?" cried the young man scornfully, and with another poke,
which I thought had crushed me to bits, though I was still able to cry
aloud.

The gipsy girl turned her back and went away with one movement and
without speaking.

"Sybil!" cried the man; but she did not look round.