GIPSY LIES 217 



and it chanced that the leaves drifted over his traps, 

 so that when he came to find them he hunted the 

 ground in vain. One day the gipsy's boy came to 

 the keeper's cottage. He said that while picking wood 

 for his father's fire he had trodden on something 

 hard, which turned out to be a heap of traps, and 

 that his father, thinking they must belong to the 

 keeper, had sent him to tell the story. Where is 

 another gipsy in England who would throw away 

 such a chance ? 



Gipsies are certainly good sportsmen, after their own 

 fashion. But one seldom hears of a gipsy shooting 

 with a gun ; the gun speaks too loudly. 

 The gipsy makes sport with dogs, ferrets, 

 and nets. He takes no open risks ; he 

 holds it to be a disgraceful thing to be caught red- 

 handed. And if caught he never makes confession. 

 No matter how red his hands, there is always an 

 excuse. His horse is found feeding, perhaps, on 

 the farmer's crops. Then the horse must have 

 broken loose unbeknown. Or his dog crosses the 

 road, leveret in mouth. Then, "He picked un up 

 dead, killed by a stoat what I seed a-sniffin' about." 

 His dog has snapped up a sitting partridge. ;t It 

 must be one as they beggarin' foxes 'ave killed." Or the 

 gipsy himself, hunting a rabbit in a hedge, is taken 

 in the act of knocking over the rabbit with his stick. 

 All was done in mistake for a rat. The keeper 



