1826.] An Old Gipsy: a Village Sketch. 15 



diction gained our gipsy half-a-crown ; and master Welles — the thriving 

 thrifty yeoman of the lea — she managed to win sixpence from his hard 

 honest frugal hand, by a prophecy that his old brood mare, called 

 Blackfoot, should bring forth twins ; and Will the blacksmith, who was 

 known to court the tall nursemaid at the mill — she got a shilling from 

 Will, simply by assuring him that his wife should have the longest 

 coffin that ever was made in our wheelwright's shop. A most tempting 

 prediction ! ingeniously combining the prospect of winning and of 

 surviving the lady of his heart — a promise equally adapted to the hot 

 and cold fits of that ague, called love ; lightening the fetters of wedlock ; 

 uniting in a breath the bridegroom and the widower. W^ill was the best 

 pleased of all her customers, and enforced his suit with such vigour, 

 that he and the fair giantess were asked in church the next Sunday, 

 and married at the fortnight's end. 



No wonder that all the world — that is to say, all our world — were 

 crazy to have their fortunes told — to enjoy the pleasure of hearing from 

 such undoubted authority, that what they wished to be should be. 

 Amongst the most eager to take a peep into futurity, was our pretty 

 maid Harriet, although her desire took the not unusual form of dis- 

 clamation, — " nothing should induce her to have her fortune told, 

 nothing upon earth !" " She never thought of the gipsy, not she !" 

 and to prove the fact, she said so at least twenty times a day. Now 

 Harriet's fortune seemed told already ; her destiny was fixed. She, 

 the belle of the village, was engaged to our village beau, Joel Brent ; 

 they were only waiting for a little more money to marry ; and as Joel 

 was already head carter to our head farmer, and had some prospect of 

 a bailiff's place, their union did not appear very distant. But Harriet, 

 besides being a beauty, was a coquette, and her affection for her be- 

 trothed did not interfere with certain flirtations which came in like 

 Isabella, " by-the-bye," and occasionally cast a shadow of coolness 

 between the lovers, which, however, Joel's cleverness and good humour 

 generally contrived to chase away. There had probably been a little 

 fracas in the present instance, for at the end of one of her daily pro- 

 fessions of unfaith in gipsies and their prediction?, she added, " that 

 none but fools did believe them ; that Joel had had his fortune told, 

 wanted to treat her to a prophecy — but she was not such a sim- 

 pleton." 



About half an hour after the delivery of this speech, I happened, in 

 tying up a chrysanthemum, to go to our wood yard for a stick of proper 

 dimensions, and there, enclosed between the faggot pile and the coal- 

 shed, stood the gipsy, in the very act of palmistry, conning the lines 

 of fate in Harriet's hand. Never was a stronger contrast than that 

 between the old withered sybil, dark as an Egyptian, with bright laughing 

 eyes, and an expression of keen humour under all her affected solem- 

 nity, and our village beauty, tall, and plump, and fair, blooming as a rose, 

 and simple as a dove. She was listening too intently to see me, but 

 the fortune-teller did, and stopt so suddenly, that her attention was 

 awakened and the intruder discovered. 



Harriet at first meditated a denial. She called up a pretty innocent 

 unconcerned look ; answered my silence (for I never spoke a word) by 

 muttering something about " coals for the parlour ;" and catching up 

 my new painted green watering-pot, instead of the coal-scuttle, began 

 filling it with all her might, to the unspeakable discomfiture of that 



