and insisted on treating him like a public. Perhaps I would shake hands
at parting? I did cordially, and remembered him when people were not so
civil. They wanted to know whether we had made a runaway match of it.
The fun of passing a boys'-school and hearing the usher threaten to
punish one fellow for straying from ranks, entertained me immensely. I
laughed at them just as the stupid people we met laughed at me, which was
unpleasant for the time; but I knew there was not a single boy who would
not have changed places with me, only give him the chance, though my
companion was a gipsy girl, and she certainly did look odd company for a
gentleman's son in a tea-garden and public-house parlour. At nightfall,
however, I was glad of her and she of me, and we walked hand in hand.
I narrated tales of Roman history. It was very well for her so say,
'I'll mother you,' as we lay down to sleep; I discovered that she would
never have hooted over churchyard graves in the night. She confessed she
believed the devil went about in the night. Our bed was a cart under a
shed, our bed-clothes fern-leaves and armfuls of straw. The shafts of
the cart were down, so we lay between upright and level, and awakening in
the early light I found our four legs hanging over the seat in front.
'How you have been kicking!' said I. She accused me of the same. Next
minute she pointed over the side of the cart, and I saw the tramp's horse
and his tents beneath a broad roadside oak-tree. Her face was comical,
just like a boy's who thinks he has escaped and is caught. 'Let's run,'
she said. Preferring positive independence, I followed her, and then she
told me that she had overheard the tramp last night swearing I was as
good as a fistful of half-crowns lost to him if he missed me. The image
of Rippenger's school overshadowed me at this communication. With some
melancholy I said: 'You'll join your friends, won't you?'

She snapped her fingers: 'Mumpers !' and walked on carelessly.