The World For Sale, Volume 1.

nd a will, new-born and fearless, possessed it. Yesterday this will had been only a trembling, undisciplined force, but since then she had been p

riding her Indian pony through the streets of Manitou and out on the North Trail, or sou

light; what the Romany folk call its own 'tan', its home, though it be but home of each day's trek. That wild sp

ddenly; and the face of Felix Marchand had taught her even more. Something new and strange had happened to her, and her father's uncouth but piercing mind saw the change in her. Her quick, fluttering moods, her careless, undirected energy,

ood-a dim, distant time when she lived and ate and slept for ever in the field or the vale, in the quarry, beside the hedge, or on the edge of harvest-fields; when she was carried in strong arms, or sat in the shelter of a man's breast as a horse cantered down a gla

he preposterous claim-as though she were some wild dweller of the jun

y husband?" she asked

le to whom anger and passion were part of every relationship of life

ws, and as you will remember, if you fix your mind upon it. It was beyond the city of Starzke three leagues, under the brown scarp of the Dragbad Hills. It was in the morning when the sun was by a quar

, she looked him full in the eyes. There was a contemptuous p

been a hundred times justified in demanding her from her father, according to the pledge and bond of so many years ago. He had nothing to lose but his life, and he had risked that before. This old man, the head of the Romany folk, had the bulk of the fortune which had been his own father's and he had the logic of lucre which is the most convincing of all logic. Yet with the girl holding his eyes c

ing, and a lad that held her hand, and banners waved over their heads, and galloping and shouting, and then a sudden quiet, and many men and women gathered about a tent, and a wailing thereafter. After which, in her faint remembrance, there seemed to fall a mist, and a sp

poken the truth, and that these fleeting things were pictures of her sealing to Jethro Fawe and the death of

seemed, how barbaric and revolting! Yet here it all was rolling up like a flood to her feet, to bear her aw

never have been accomplished in a great city-in London, Vienna, Rome, or New York. She had had here the old free life of the road, so full of the scent of deep woods-the song of rivers, the carol of birds, the murmuring of trees, the mysterious and devout whisperings of the night, the happy communings of stray peoples meeting and passing, the gaiety and gossip of the market-place, the sound of church bells across a valley, the storms and wild lightnings and rush

he fire, while some Romany 'pral' drew all hearts with the violin or the dulcimer. When Ambrose or Gild

he wind over

the drop

er had but o

en wood he

lf into an ecstasy, poured out race and passion and war with the law, in the tru

went to my

she cam

was still a Gorgio of Gorgios; and this man before her-her husband-was at best but a man of the hedges and the byre and the clay-pit, the quarry and the wood; a nomad with no home, nothing that be

for three thousand pounds, not in three thousand years. Look at me well, and se

eventeen years ago," he answer

urned quietly, but her eyes forced his to look at her

our people. It has been so, and it will be so wh

l Druse could keep

all. I pass the word, and things are so and so. By long and by last, if I pa

" she said maliciously, "he has come a long way for naught. It will be longer goi

e. Biting rejection was in her tones. He knew dimly that the thing he shrank from belonged to nothing Ro

meness was certain proof that it was not wilfulness which rejected his claims.

hand out towards Gabriel Druse-"and because I keep to the open road as my father did, true to my Romany blood. The wind and the sun and the fatness of the field have made me what I am, and never in my l

ing the three thousand pounds, give it to him and let him

him here. And let him keep his eyes skinned, or he shall have no breath with which to return. I am Gabriel Druse, lord over al

ill do," he added. "When I return to my people I will deal with this matter in the place where

d the young

as I will to return." Then suddenly he adde

naught to do with any Romany law. Not by Starzke shall the matter be dealt with, but here by the River Sagalac. This Rom

k, submerging the sulkiness which had filled him. Twice he e

u were that day by Starzke, like the young bird in the nest; and the thought of it was with me always. I knew that when I saw you again the brown eyes would be browner, the words at the lips would be sweeter-and so it is. All

face, then slowly faded, leaving it pale

are one. I have not heard, but I know-I know that you have had a hundred loves, and been true to none. The red s

cerning him. He had gone too far. He had been convincing while he had said what was true, but her instinct had suddenly told her what he was. Her perception had pierced to the core of his lif

thing which might at once restore his fortunes. He had bra

any lass? One fondled mine to-day in his arms down there at Car

lies 'neath the

ach my ta

she sleeps a

o the chur

went to my

she cam

is strength, a strength which in his younger days was greater than any two men in any Romany camp, and the "breath and beauty" of Jethro Fawe grew less and less. Hi

aining hands on the old man's shoulders. He withdrew his han

The old man felt the breast of the unconscious m

the girl asked aga

n his arms as though it was that of a child. "Where a

ll he had disappeared with his limp burden into the depths of