She showed them how to gather the gipsies’ tent-pins, which are the thorns that grow on the sloe bushes. And she picked the thyme, that grew in scented cushions on the turf, to make tea from it later in the day. She saw squirrels before they did, and beetles whose noses bleed a bright ruby drop when you touch them--not because you’ve touched them too hard, but because that is their weapon of defence when in danger, and they do it to frighten you away. And she showed them the larder of a butcher-bird, the bird who impales the things he is going to eat on the sharp points of thorns. Beetles and nestlings, and shrew-mice, and it’s interesting to find a strike’s larder, because it’s not a thing you very often see. And so on through the lovely day in September they walked on, or sang, or rested, or lay quite flat, and looked up through clinched eyelids to see who could best bear the light of the wide blue sky. When they arrived at the race meeting, Freedom caught back her hair under a yellow kerchief, which she tied round her head, and the real fun of the day was over, for the children found themselves once more in a crowd. Freedom kept them closely with her, so that they might not get lost, and they were interested in listening to her telling people’s fortunes. Have you ever heard a gipsy tell a fortune? It is something like this. You must imagine a very rapid utterance, and a face thrust forward. An almost closed lid, veiling a very sharp eye, the face set sideways looking upwards, and a wheedling tone of voice. “Shall I tell the pretty lady’s fortune? Bless her pretty heart, just cross the gipsy’s palm with a silver coin, my dear, and let the gipsy tell the fortune of the pretty lady, so her fate shan’t cross her wishes, but everything come true just as the lady (bless her pretty heart!) will be joyful and thankful for the good fortune to be. And remember the poor gipsy girl when she gives her hand into the hand of her true lover, the sweetheart who has vowed to be true. It’s just a coin that does it, thank you, my lovely lady, cross the gipsy’s palm with a silver coin, and the good luck will follow it.... Thank you, my dear, thank you, place your hand on mine and let the lines tell the gipsy girl what never a print book can’t reveal, but only the stars as does it; yes, my dear; there’s a ship coming, a long journey, I see a distant land, but there’s happiness in store for those as believe it, though for those as sets their hearts agen’ it, it may be far from otherwise.