24 Seventy Tears a Master, 



SO rudely awakened by this most unexpected 

 of visitors, was filling the air w^ith a wealth 

 of curses, in the knowledge of which nobody 

 could hope to rival a gipsy. 



To make matters worse, there was also a 

 babe lying peacefully asleep in that tent at the 

 time of the red deer's intrusion, and the poor 

 mother was wildly rushing from tent to 

 caravan, utterly distracted. But it seems that 

 the babe was not the cause of the old man's 

 anxiety and noisy wrath. His favourite fiddle 

 also lay under the tent, and the deer, now 

 lumbering about in a clumsy and terrified 

 bewilderment, had got one cloof entangled in 

 the strings, with what result to the fiddle may 

 best be imagined. 



While the grey-haired gipsy cursed, the 

 deer kicked and struggled, smashing the fiddle 

 to smithereens, but, strangely enough, never 

 once touching the baby. My father said that 

 the row awoke the infant, but that, instead 

 of adding its lusty screams and wailing to the 

 general uproar, it lay there among the wreck- 

 age, laughing up at the great red deer, and 



