"Now it was certain that Massingberd Heath sought only a temporary home; as soon as his father died, or even offered terms to him, he would leave us, and resume his proper station. Moreover, how was the maintenance of discipline and obedience to the chief of our tribe, absolutely essential as it is, to be kept up in the case of this new-comer? Even at that time, he was a headstrong, wilful man, to whom all authority, however lawful or natural, was hateful. Was it to be expected that he who defied his own father, himself a man of iron will, would obey Morris Liversedge? On the other hand, Uncle Morris rather liked the young fellow. He had connived at many a raid on his father's own preserves--to such a pitch had the quarrel grown between them--and kept our pot boiling with bird and beast. Many and many a time had he led the Fairburn keepers to one extremity of the preserves, while the slaughter was going on in the other. Moreover, it would be of great importance, could we make a friend of the man who would one day own all these pleasant haunts of ours, and who could say a good word, and a strong one, for the poor persecuted gipsies, when it was needed. Poor Morris did not know that the rebel but too often turns out a tyrant, when he gets his chance. He could not foresee Sir Massingberd Heath sending folks to prison, or getting them kidnapped, and sent across the seas, for snaring the hares that he held so cheaply when they did not happen to belong to himself. If you want to find a gentleman who in his youth, and landless, has been a poacher whenever the opportunity offered, look you among the game-preservers on the bench of justices. This, however, is among the least of the basenesses of him of whom I speak. It is not for his bitter guardianship of bird and beast, or his hateful oppression of his fellow-creatures, that my heart cries out for judgment against this man, that I look with eager longing for that hour when God shall take him into His own hand."
The old woman paused a moment with closed eyes, and muttered something that was inaudible to me, rocking herself at the same time to and fro.
"Massingberd Heath became one of us, Peter Meredith as far as it is possible for such a wretch to be so; he ate with us, and drank with us, which they say is a sacred bond among even savages. It was not so with him. He cast his evil eyes upon Sinnamenta, to love her after the fashion of his accursed race. Perhaps you may think, Peter Meredith, that such an occurrence should have been foreseen by her father or her uncle Morris, and, for my part, I always thought that it was the presence of my lovely sister which mainly caused this man to join our company; but, at all events, neither they nor I dreaded any ill consequences. A gipsy girl is not a light-of-love maiden, like those of fairer skins. Heaven, who gives her beauty, gives her virtue also: this is not denied, even by our enemies. When you call your sweetheart 'Gipsy,' it is in love, not in reproach. Massingberd Heath knew this well, and therefore it was foe took such pains in the matter. It is true that we do not marry in church, but when we wed among ourselves, the marriage is not less sacred; It was a wedding of this sort, indissoluble by one party, but not by the other, which this man wished to compass. He did not gain his end."