THE GIPSY EACE. 135 



in, their summer tents for thatched huts. From these hovels 

 they early in May decamp with the salmon fry, which, collecting 

 in shoals, leave for the vast ocean the waters in which they first 

 appeared ; so, at a signal, as it were, and in a day, the gipsy 

 breaks up his encampment ; all go with them, old and young ; 

 they move like a flock of birds, as if not intending ever to return, 

 A return with them is merely a contingent, not a necessity. 



As yet, they roosted in the village through which we passed 

 whilst ascending the first range of the Cheviot, over which we 

 were directed to pass to reach the collateral valley in which runs, 

 shut in between two ridges of the Cheviot, the College water ; a 

 clear crystal brook, winding for miles through a lonely glen, all 

 but uninhabited, and chiefly tenanted by the Cheviot sheep. 



As we passed through the village, I was anxious to get a sight 

 of some of its inhabitants. Unlike what we find in a Scottish 

 village, nobody was to be seen ; ever watchful, ever suspicious. 

 So, knocking boldly at the door of one of the huts, I asked my 

 way to the College water. Immediately a young woman ap- 

 peared ; the only really beautiful gipsy I had ever seen : she 

 came out to point out to me the road I sought. On raising up 

 her arm, the short sleeve exposed a good deal of the part above 

 the elbow ; a circular leprous spot caught my eye, and I looked 

 at my companion. She was instantly sensible that I had dis- 

 cerned the curse of the race, and, blushing deeply, retired into 

 the interior of the hut. 



We journeyed onwards towards the College water, which was 

 soon reached, for the distance is not great. We were in hopes of 

 overtaking the salmon fry, which we knew were, like the gipsies, 

 preparing to migrate. But in the College water we found only 

 small trout of both kinds, and parr abundantly. Just as we had 

 begun to despair of seeing the smolt of the season, we reached a 

 small dam head at the commencement of the Glen the name 

 the united streams of the Beaumont and College waters receive : 

 in this dam-head, retarded by it, and awaiting the first May 

 flood, swarmed the smolt in thousands. The fry is far from being 

 timid or delicate in its food like the salmon. It leaps at an 

 artificial fly readily, like the parr, in places where the common 

 trout will not look at it. We caught a few, to be quite sure 



