Yet the sun was already down when she turned the head of a deep and lonely coombe, which her tribe had chosen for their resting-place, and caught sight of the little points of fire that dotted its heathery ridge, toned down to dusky purple under the crimson flushes of the evening sky. Kettles were already simmering before the brown, weather-worn tents, and that happy hour of food and rest had arrived which seems to recompense the gipsy for all the hardships of his wandering lot, to make amends for toil and risk, rough usage, and coarse fare, the frown of justice, the ban of society, an outlaw's life, and, too often, a felon's grave.
To-night, however, more than its usual tendency to revelry and rejoicing seemed to pervade the camp. In the first place, this particular tribe were honoured by the presence of their chief, a crafty old gentleman, who chose to call himself "Duke Michael of Egypt," doubtless in memory of that celebrated vagabond, who, early in the fifteenth century, led his ragged troop through Saxony and Switzerland, leaving behind him, if we may believe the old chroniclers, a better character than might have been expected for good behaviour and honesty--nay, paying in hard money for such articles as he required from the peasantry in the countries through which he passed; an example, it is hardly necessary to observe, scrupulously avoided by the Duke Michael with whom we have to do. This worthy made it a rule, no doubt, to deny himself nothing he wanted that might be had for the taking; and few matters, he often boasted, were too hot or too heavy for his conveyance, but he could not have been induced to give anything in exchange.
It was as natural for his Grace to steal as to shape a tent-peg, mend a kettle, or tell a lie. Yet in bearing and costume he varied probably but little from his predecessor of the Middle Ages, as that nobleman's likeness has been handed down in the rude woodcuts of the period. There was the battered hat with a coarse and dirty kerchief rolled round its brim, the pair of patched, ill-mended shoes, slashed at the toes and slippered at the heel, of leggings worn and stained with mud from every soil, the gaudy blanket rent and frayed to hide the greasy coat and fouler skin beneath, with many another token of dirt, vermin, and dishonesty to pervade the man from head to foot, and proclaim him an outcast from his kind. The lapse of more than three centuries had done but little to civilize or improve a Duke Michael of Egypt.