Mr. Nelson used vigorously his last opportunity of lecturing these people. He had it all his own way, for the humility of the gipsies was edifying. Woodruffe fancied he saw some finger-talk passing, the while, though the gipsies never looked at each other, or raised their eyes from the ground. Woodruffe had to remind the Director that the whistle of the next train would soon be heard; and this brought the lecture to an abrupt conclusion. On his finishing off with, “I expect, therefore, that you will remember my advice, and never show your faces here again, and that you will take to a proper course of life in future, and bring up your son to honest industry;” the woman, with a countenance of grief, seized one hand and covered it with kisses, and the husband took the other hand and pressed it to his breast. “We must make haste,” observed Mr. Nelson, as he led the way quickly back; “but I think I have made some impression upon them. You see now the right way to treat these people. I don’t think you will see them here again.” “I don’t think we shall.” As he reached the steps the whistle was heard, and Mr. Nelson could only wave his hand to Woodruffe, rush up the embankment, and throw himself panting into a carriage. Only just in time! By an evening train, he re-appeared. When thirty miles off, he had wanted his purse, and it was gone. It had no doubt paid for the gipsies’ final gratitude. Of course, a sufficient force was immediately sent to the alder clump; but there was nothing there but some charred sticks, and some clean pork bones, this time, instead of feathers of fowls, and a cabbage leaf or two. The boy had had his whipping at noon, after a conference with his little brother at the keyhole, which had caused him to withdraw the bolt, and offer no resistance. Considering his cries and groans, he had run off with surprising agility, and was now, no doubt, far away. CHAPTER VIII. The gipsies came no more. The fogs came no more. The fever came no more; at least, in such a form as to threaten the general safety. Where it still lingered, it was about those only who deserved it,—in any small farm-house, where the dung-yard was too near the house; and in some cottage where the slatternly inmates did not mind a green puddle or choked ditch within reach of their noses. More dwellings arose, as the fertility of the land increased, and invited a higher kind of tillage; and among the prettiest of them was one which stood in the corner,—the most sunny corner,—of Woodruffe’s paddock. Harry Hardiman and his wife and child lived there, and the cottage was Woodruffe’s property.