‘Well,’ said she, when I had stopped to look round, ’it’s my belief as the cuss is a-workin’ now, and’ll have to spend itself.  If it could ha’ spent itself on the feyther as did the mischief, why all well an’ good, but, you see, he’s gone, an’ left it to spend itself on his chavi; jist the way with ’em Gorgio feythers an’ Romany daddies.  It’ll have to spend itself, though, that cuss will, I’m afeard.’

‘But,’ I said, ’you don’t mean that you think for her father’s crime she’ll have to beg her bread in desolate places.’

‘I do though, wusser luck,’ said the Gypsy solemnly, stopping suddenly, and standing still as a statue.

‘And this,’ I ejaculated, ’is the hideous belief of all races in all times!  Monstrous if a lie—­more monstrous if true!  Anyhow I’ll find her.  I’ll traverse the earth till I find her.  I’ll share her lot with her, whatever it may be, and wherever it may be in the world.  If she’s a beggar, I’ll beg by her side.’

‘Right you are, brother,’ said the Gypsy, breaking in enthusiastically.  ’I likes to hear a man say that.  You’re liker a Romany chi nor a Romany chal, the more I see of you.  What I says to our people is:—­“If the Romany chals would only stick by the Romany chies as the Romany chies sticks by the Romany chals, where ’ud the Gorgios be then?  Why, the Romanies would be the strongest people on the arth.”  But you see, reia, about this cuss—­a cuss has to work itself out, jist for all the world like the bite of a sap.’ [Footnote]

[Footnote:  Sap, a snake.]

Then she continued, with great earnestness, looking across the kindling expanse of hill and valley before us:  ’You know, the very dead things round us,—­these here peaks, an’ rocks, an’ lakes, an’ mountains—­ay, an’ the woods an’ the sun an’ the sky above our heads,—­cusses us when we do anythink wrong.  You may see it by the way they looks at you.  Of course I mean when you do anythink wrong accordin’ to us Romanies.  I don’t mean wrong accordin’ to the Gorgios:  they’re two very different kinds o’ wrongs.’

‘I don’t see the difference,’ said I; ’but tell me more about Winifred.’

‘You don’t see the difference?’ said Sinfi.  ’Well then, I do.  It’s wrong to tell a lie to a Romany, ain’t it?  But is it wrong to tell a lie to a Gorgio?  Not a bit of it.  And why?  ’Cause most Gorgios is fools and wants lies, an’ that gives the poor Romanies a chance.  But this here cuss is a very bad kind ’o cuss.  It’s a dead man’s cuss, and what’s wuss, him as is cussed is dead and out of the way, and so it has to be worked out in the blood of his child.  But when she’s done that, when she’s worked it out of her blood, things’ll come right agin if the cross is put back agin on your father’s buzzum.’

‘When she has done what?’ I said.

‘Begged her bread in desolate places,’ said the Gypsy girl solemnly.  ’Then if the cross is put back agin on your feyther’s buzzum, I believe things’ll all come right.  It’s bad the cusser was your feyther though.’