TRAVELLER, _a donkey_ (_gypsy_, _mailla_), _belonging to_ ISOPEL BERNERS. THE SCENE _is laid under the greenwood tree_, _in the height of an English summer_. THE DINGLE _is a deep_, _wooded_, _and consequently somewhat gloomy_, _hollow in the middle of a very large_, _desolate field_. _The shelving sides of the hollow are overgrown with trees and bushes. A belt of sallows crowns the circular edge of the small crater_. _At the lowest part of the Dingle are discovered a stone and a fire of charcoal_, _from which spot a winding path ascends to_ "_the plain_." _On either side of the fire is a small encampment. One consists of a small pony cart and a small hut-shaped tent_, _occupied by the word-master_. _On the other side is erected a kind of tent_, _consisting of large hoops covered over with tarpaulin_, _quite impenetrable to rain; hard by stands a small donkey-cart_. _This is_ "_the tabernacle_" _of_ ISOPEL BERNERS. _A short distance off_, _near a spring of clear water_, _is the encampment of the Romany chals and chies--the Petulengres and their small clan_. THE PLACE _is about five miles from Willenhall in Staffordshire_. THE TIME _is July_ 1825. CHAPTER I--THE SCHOLAR SAYS GOOD-BYE TO THE GYPSY, AND PITCHES HIS TENT IN THE DINGLE. [In May 1825 our autobiographer, known among the gypsies as the word-master, decided to leave London, and travelled, partly on foot and partly by coach, to Amesbury; and then, after two days at Salisbury, struck northwards. A few days later, in a small beer-house, he met a tinker and his wife; the tinker was greatly depressed, having recently been intimidated by a rival, one Bosville, "the flaming tinman," and forced by threats to quit the road. The word-master, who meditated passing the summer as an amateur vagrant, and had some 15 or 16 pounds in his pocket, conceived the idea of buying the pony-cart, the implements and the beat of the tinker, one Jack Slingsby, whose face he remembered having seen some ten years before. "I want a home and work," he said to the tinker. "As for a home, I suppose I can contrive to make a home out of your tent and cart; and as for work, I must learn to be a tinker; it would not be hard for one of my trade to be a tinker: what better can I do?" "What about the naming tinman?" said the tinker. "Oh, don't be afraid on my account," said the word-master: "if I were to meet him, I could easily manage him one way or the other: I know all kinds of strange words and names, and, as I told you before, I sometimes hit people when they put me out."