“Not whilst I am here,” said the woman, flinging her knitting down, and starting upon her feet; “not whilst I am here shall this gorgio learn Romany.  A pretty manoeuvre, truly; and what would be the end of it?  I goes to the farming ker with my sister, to tell a fortune, and earn a few sixpences for the chabes.  I sees a jolly pig in the yard, and I says to my sister, speaking Romany, ‘Do so and so,’ says I; which the farming man hearing, asks what we are talking about.  ‘Nothing at all, master,’ says I; ’something about the weather,’—­when who should start up from behind a pale, where he has been listening, but this ugly gorgio, crying out, ‘They are after poisoning your pigs, neighbor,’ so that we are glad to run, I and my sister, with perhaps the farm-engro shouting after us.  Says my sister to me, when we have got fairly off, ’How came that ugly one to know what you said to me?’ Whereupon I answers, ’It all comes of my son Jasper, who brings the gorgio to our fire, and must needs be teaching him.’  ‘Who was fool there?’ says my sister.  ’Who indeed but my son Jasper,’ I answers.  And here should I be a greater fool to sit still and suffer it; which I will not do.  I do not like the look of him; he looks over-gorgeous.  An ill day to the Romans when he masters Romany; and when I says that, I pens a true dukkerin.”

“What do you call God, Jasper?”

“You had better be jawing,” said the woman, raising her voice to a terrible scream; “you had better be moving off, my gorgio; hang you for a keen one, sitting there by the fire, and stealing my language before my face.  Do you know whom you have to deal with?  Do you know that I am dangerous?  My name is Herne, and I comes of the Hairy Ones!”

And a hairy one she looked!  She wore her hair clubbed upon her head, fastened with many strings and ligatures; but now, tearing these off, her locks, originally jet black, but now partially grizzled with age, fell down on every side of her, covering her face and back as far down as her knees.  No she-bear of Lapland ever looked more fierce and hairy than did that woman, as standing in the open part of the tent, with her head bent down and her shoulders drawn up, seemingly about to precipitate herself upon me, she repeated again and again—­

“My name is Herne, and I comes of the Hairy Ones!”—­

“I call God Duvel, brother.”

“It sounds very like Devil.”

“It doth, brother, it doth.”

“And what do you call divine, I mean godly?”

“Oh!  I call that duvelskoe.”

“I am thinking of something, Jasper.”

“What are you thinking of, brother?”

“Would it not be a rum thing if divine and devilish were originally one and the same word?”

“It would, brother, it would.”