Page:The Knife.pdf/10

124 them. All her replies were as simple as they were straight-forward. She was powerfully affected when the magistrate spoke to her of the cruelty of the deed; but it was, or seemed to be, a natural and womanly horror of so shocking a crime. Nothing could be elicited from her that excited suspicion; on the contrary, the effect she produced was a very favourable one. It now came to the gipsy's own turn. Fierceness, defiance, and a shrewd and bold speech, characterised his answers. He was asked why he came into that part of the country? "Because it is one of the very few places where there is a patch of green grass and an old tree whose shelter may be had without payment." He was then interrogated—"Why, having such an advantage, he had abandoned it?" "Because my habits are not as your habits. You dwell in houses, as if you were like the stock or the stone with which they are built; I wander as free and as far as the wind. Look ye! our faces are not as your faces, our speech is not as your speech; we have come from a distant country, over seas and mountains, over rough paths and smooth roads; we have numbered more miles than your whole island contains; and yet you ask us why we left one little village! I left it because it was my will to do so." The pack which each carried was examined; and though convincing proofs of divers small thefts