Then we came out again among the huts, and all the other gipsies crowded round me, laughing and clapping their hands; for now, they thought, their tribe would have wonderful luck wherever they went. The women put a pot upon the fire, ready for supper. Everybody treated me (very much to my annoyance) as though I were a fairy child. Whenever I spoke, they bowed and laughed and clapped their hands, crying out in their wild language, till I could have boxed their ears. When supper was ready, they brought me to the place of honour by the fire, and fed me with all the delicacies of the gipsy race. We had hedgehog baked in a clay cover--though I did not much like him--and then a stew of poultry and pheasant (both stolen, I'm afraid) with bread baked in the ashes; and wonderful tea, which they said cost eighteen shillings a pound. They annoyed me very much by the way in which they bowed and smirked, but they really meant to be kind, and I had sense enough to know that while I was with them I should be practically safe from the runners and yeomanry. After supper they made me up a bed in the waggon. The next morning before daybreak we started off, horses, waggon, and all, away towards the west; going to Portsmouth Fair, the man said, to sell their horses. I had not been very long among the gipsies when I discovered that I was as much a prisoner as a pet. They would never let me out of their sight. If I tried to get away by myself, one of the children, or a young woman would follow me, or rather, come in the same direction, and pretend not to be following me; but all the time noting where I went, and heading me off carefully if I went too far from the caravan. Before the end of the first day I was wondering how it would all finish, and whether they meant to make a gipsy of me. They were very careful not to let me be seen by other travellers. When the road was clear, they would let me follow the caravan on foot; but when people drove past us, and whenever we came to a village (they always avoided the big towns), they hurried me into the waggon, and kept me from peeping out. At night, when we pitched our camp, after a long day's journey of sixteen or seventeen hours, they gave me a bed inside the caravan; and the elderly chief laid his blankets on the waggon floor, between my bed and the door, so that I should not get out. I lived with the gipsies in this way for three whole days. I did not like it any better as time went on. I kept thinking of how I should escape, and worrying about the anxiety at home, now that my letter must have reached them. I did not think any more about the police. I felt that they would give me no more trouble; but my distress at not being able to get away from these gipsies was almost more than I could bear. On the afternoon of the third day I made a dash for freedom, but the chief soon caught me and brought me back, evidently very much displeased, and muttering something about stealing the red coat.