IN DEVONSHIRE LANES. 215 



gorse, we may meet with a party of caravan folk 

 encamped for the night. The law, we believe, as 

 it now stands only allows these nomads the privilege 

 of staying one night at any given place by the 

 wayside. They must move off again next day. 

 If the hour be early we may meet their hobbled 

 horses grazing along the lane ; and the smell of the 

 blazing fire of faggots taints the fresh morning air 

 afar. I met with such an encampment only yester- 

 day. It was soon after sunrise, and but one man was 

 astir. He sat busily engaged making clothes-pegs 

 by the fire, keeping careful watch meanwhile over 

 a big iron pot in which a savoury breakfast was 

 cooking. What stranger could guess the contents 

 of that mysterious utensil? The meal may have 

 been hedgehog, perhaps rabbit, perhaps Pheasant, 

 or even fowl, flavoured with herbs and cooked 

 with all a gipsy's cunning. Beneath the van two 

 children lay fast asleep, only their brown curly 

 heads being visible under the pile of rags that 

 covered them. Visions of overcrowded rooms in 

 the slums of darkest London involuntarily rose 

 before me as I contemplated these sleeping children 

 here, with the blue sky for their canopy, and all 

 fair Devonshire for their habitation. Such a life 

 has its hardships and its seamy side no doubt, but 



