166 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 
Spanish, and Italian blood. It is, in fact, the inter. 
marriages that have kept the falsely so-called pure races 
of these human parasites alive. The mixing is con- 
tinually going on. The gipsies who still stay in their 
tents, however, look askance upon those who desert them 
for the roof. Two gipsy women, thorough-bred, came 
into a village shop and bought a variety of groceries, 
ending with a pound of biscuits and a Guy Fawkes mask 
for a boy. They were clad in dirty jackets and hats, 
draggle-tails, unkempt and unwashed, with orange and 
red kerchiefs round their necks (the gipsy colours). Hap- 
pening to look out of window, they saw a young servant 
girl witha perambulator on the opposite side of the 'street;’ 
she was tidy and decently dressed, looking after her mis- 
tress’s children in civilised fashion; but they recognised 
her as a deserter from the tribe, and blazed with contempt. 
‘Don’t she look a figure!’ exclaimed these dirty creatures. 
‘The short hours shorten, and the leaf-crop is gathered 
to the great barn of the earth; the oaks alone, more 
tenacious, retain their leaves, that have now become a 
colour like new leather. It is too brown for buff—it is 
more like fresh harness. The berries are red on the 
holly bushes and holly trees that grow, whole copses of 
them, on the forest slopes—‘the Great Rough ;’ the 
half-wild sheep have polished the stems of these holly trees 
till they shine, by rubbing their fleeces against them. 
The farmers have been drying their damp wheat in the 
oeast-houses over charcoal fires, and wages are lowered, 
and men discharged. Vast loads of brambles and 
thorns, dead firs, useless hop-poles and hop-bines, and 
gorse are drawn together for the great bonfire on the 
green. The 5th of November bonfires are still vital 
institutions, and from the top of the hill you may see 
them burning in all directions, as 11 an enemy had set 
fire to the hamlets. 
