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I had learned to know the lines, from that which winds along at the base of the thumb-ball and if clear means health and long life, to that which crosses close to the fingers and indicates the course of love, and had traced them on many a delicate palm. So that the 'gips' could tell me nothing new. The women are the hardiest in the country; they simply ignore the weather.
Even the hedgers and ditchers and the sturdiest labourers choose the lee side of the hedge when they pause to eat their luncheons; but the 'gips' do not trouble to seek such shelter. Passing over the hills one winter's day, when the Downs looked all alike, being covered with snow, I came across a 'gip' family sitting on the ground in a lane, old and young exposed to the blast.
These 'gips' country folk do not say gipsy were unknown to us; but we were on terms with some members of a tribe who called at our house several times in the course of the year to buy willow. The men wore golden earrings, and bought 'Black Sally, a withy that has a dark bark, for pegs, and 'bolts' of osier for basket-making. A bolt is a bundle of forty inches in circumference.
He said there were finer nuts in a valley he pointed out, and then carefully instructed us how to get back into the waggon track without returning by the same path. An old barn was the landmark; and, with a request from him not to break the bushes, he left us. Down in the wooded vale we paused. The whole thing was now clear: the hare in the wire was a trap laid for the 'gips' whose camp was below.
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