THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 195 



About a week afterwards, Russell was again 

 passing the blacksmith's forge, and, reining up 

 his horse, he inquired if the money had been 

 paid by the gipsy. 



"Yes, sir," he replied; "every penny of it." 

 In becoming " surety for a stranger," and 

 that stranger a gipsy and a horse-dealer, it is 

 only too wonderful that he did not "smart for 

 it;" but it was just the reverse: he gained by 

 that and other acts of kindness to his race, the 

 goodwill and gratitude of the whole "vagrant 

 train." Nor was their gratitude a matter of 

 sentiment only, for the King of the Gipsies, a 

 very old man, falling ill, and feeling that his 

 earthly hours were drawing to a close, expressed 

 a last wish that a charm he had long worn 

 and prized greatly — it was a silver Spanish 

 coin. Temp. Car. IIL Rex Hispaniae — should 

 be handed over to Mr. Russell, in token of the 

 sympathy he had ever shown to him and his 

 tribe. He left him also, as a legacy, his royal 

 rat-catcher's belt ; and on his death-bed sent 

 him a message begging he might be buried 

 in Swymbridge Churchyard by Mr. Russell 

 himself. 



The patriarch's chief legatee could scarcely 

 do less than comply with so simple a request ; 

 and accordingly in that God's-acre, where " the 

 rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep," he now 

 lies ; and there, to his memory, his people have 



