I defied them to touch me, and, as I did so, made a motion well understood by the viper that lay hid in my bosom.  The reptile instantly lifted its head and stared at my enemies with its glittering eyes.  The woman, in amazed terror, retreated to the tent, and the man stood like one transfixed.  Presently the two commenced talking to each other in what to me sounded like French, and next, in a conciliating tone, they offered me a peculiar sweetmeat, which I accepted.  A peaceable conversation ensued, during which they cordially invited me to join their party and to become one of them.

The interview was rudely interrupted.  Hoofs were heard, and the next moment a man rode up and addressed words to the gipsies which produced a startling effect.  In a few minutes, from different directions, came swarthy men and women.  Hastily they harnessed the ponies and took down the tent, and packed the carts, and in a remarkably brief space of time the party rode off with the utmost speed.

Three years passed, during which I increased considerably in stature and strength, and, let us hope, improved in mind.  For at school I had learnt the whole of Lilly’s “Latin Grammar”; but I was very ignorant of figures.  Our regiment was moved to Edinburgh, where the castle was a garrison for soldiers.  In that city I and my brother were sent to the high school.  Here the scholars were constantly fighting, though no great harm was done.  I had seen deaths happen through fights at school in England.

I became a daring cragsman, a character to which an English lad can seldom aspire, for in England there are neither crags nor mountains.  The Scots are expert climbers, and I was now a Scot in most things, particularly the language.  The castle in which I dwelt stood on a craggy rock, to scale which was my favourite diversion.

In the autumn of 1815, when the war with Napoleon was ended, we were ordered to Ireland, where at school I read Latin and Greek with a nice old clergyman, and of an evening studied French and Italian with a banished priest, Italian being my favourite.

It was in a horse fair I came across Jasper Petulengro, a young gipsy of whom I had caught sight in the gipsy camp I have already alluded to.  He was amazed to see me, and in the most effusively friendly way claimed me as a “pal,” calling me Sapengro, or “snake-master,” in allusion, he said, to the viper incident.  He said he was also called Pharaoh, and was the horse-master of the camp.

From this time I had frequent interviews with Jasper.  He taught me much Romany, and introduced me to Tawno Chikno, the biggest man of the gipsy nation, and to Mrs. Chikno.  These stood to him as parents, for his own were banished.  I soon found that in the tents I had become acquainted with a most interesting people.  With their language I was fascinated, though at first I had taken it for mere gibberish.  My rapid progress astonished and delighted Jasper.  “We’ll no longer call you Sapengro, brother,” said he, “but Lavengro, which in the language of the gorgios meaneth word-master.”  And Jasper’s wife actually proposed that I should marry her sister.