however induced a new train of idea, and without replying to the
Corporal, he sank into a deeper meditation than before.

The shrewd Bunting saw that it was not a favourable moment for renewing
the conversation; he therefore suffered his horse to fall back, and
taking a quid from his tobacco-box, was soon as well entertained as his
master. In this manner they rode on for about a couple of miles, the
evening growing darker as they proceeded, when a green opening in the
road brought them within view of a gipsy's encampment; the scene was so
sudden and so picturesque, that it aroused the young traveller from his
reverie, and as his tired horse walked slowly on, the bridle about its
neck, he looked with an earnest eye on the vagrant settlement beside his
path. The moon had just risen above a dark copse in the rear, and cast a
broad, deep shadow along the green, without lessening the vivid effect of
the fires which glowed and sparkled in the darker recess of the waste
land, as the gloomy forms of the Egyptians were seen dimly cowering round
the blaze. A scene of this sort is perhaps one of the most striking that
the green lanes of Old England afford,--to me it has always an
irresistible attraction, partly from its own claims, partly from those of
association. When I was a mere boy, and bent on a solitary excursion over
parts of England and Scotland, I saw something of that wild people,--
though not perhaps so much as the ingenious George Hanger, to whose
memoirs the reader may be referred, for some rather amusing pages on
gipsy life. As Walter was still eyeing the encampment, he in return had
not escaped the glance of an old crone, who came running hastily up to
him, and begged permission to tell his fortune and to have her hand
crossed with silver.

Very few men under thirty ever sincerely refuse an offer of this sort.
Nobody believes in these predictions, yet every one likes hearing them: