After the young ladies had gone, the woman winked at me with a twinkle, and said, with her arm raised, “Don’t you spoil my game, and I will bless you. If all goes on right we shall have lots of money the whole of the winter. If you do spoil my game, I—I—I will curse you to death; to death will I curse you, and shall call you a vile wretch for ever; to death you shall be sent.”
While this was going on, a little bird was singing in the trees overhead, which caused the old gipsy woman to look up at it and me, and in a softened voice said, “What does it say?” I said, “If you could but read it rightly, it says, ‘Be not deceived, God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.’” This seemed to startle the old gipsy, and she vanished into the crowd.
Among the crowd of gipsies I noticed several gipsy men clustered together. In the centre of the group there was a dead sheep. Sticker said to Nobbler, “How did you come by it?” “Never mind,” said Nobbler. “I’ve got it and that’s enough, but I may as well tell you a little. I went round the villages a few miles away selling some pegs and skewers, and just outside one of the villages there was a large lot of sheep in one of the fields in prime condition, belonging to a farmer who, they say, is a sleepy sort of a chap, and will never put any of the bobbies upon your track. I conceived a liking for one of the sheep. I knew Goggle Fletcher would be passing by the end of the field in which the sheep were with his cart; and so I hung about in the public-house in the village till it was dark. I entered the field through a gap, and drove them into a dry corner. I kept upon the tufts of grass as much as I could, so that I could not be traced. I was not long before I made short work with one of them. After this I dragged him to the ditch by the side of the road by which Goggles was to pass. I lay in the ditch for a long time. It seemed as if he never would come. At last about eleven o’clock he came. I could tell the sound of his trap. On coming up to me I bawled out in a soft voice, ‘Goggles, Goggles, step down. I’ve got something for you. It will be a treat for Sunday’s dinner.’ ‘Is that you, Nobbler? What! You’ve been up to it again, have you? You will have the “long wools,” if they are to be got, without either love or money.’” Goggles jumped down and helped Nobbler to lift the sheep into the cart, and off they bowled, arriving in the meadow about one o’clock in the morning. Gipsies always take their plunder far away. The skin was buried, and they set to work dividing the carcase among their kith and kin.