His orders, however, were now as promptly obeyed as if he had been present. Each of the gipsies who were destined immediately for the wood hastened to unload the carts as fast as possible. The women took their children on their backs, and large bundles in their hands; the men charged themselves with the heavier packages; and the carts, greatly lightened, having set off in the direction assigned to them, the rest of the party proceeded across the common towards the wood. They set off silently, and in straggling parties, that their footsteps might not betray their path; but they had not gone far ere the tongue of the old woman was heard, addressing one of the men who walked near her--at first in few words and a low tone, but gradually increasing in power and volubility as it became encouraged by its own sound. "He's a cruel, hard hand, that Pharold," said she, looking carefully round. But her companion made no reply, and she went on: "It's a hard thing for poor Dickon to be sent out to starve or be hanged, just because he was a spirity lad, and had different notions from that Pharold." Still the other was silent. "I often do wonder," she continued, "how a number of strong hearty men, every one a better man than Pharold, should submit to be led, and bullied, and ill-treated, by an ill-looking thief like that, only because he comes from our old dukes that are dead and gone.[5] It's all your own faults. If two or three of you were but to lay your heads together, and to say--" --------------------- [Footnote 5: The gipsies of all countries still hold the persuasion that they were originally led into Europe by persons whom they term Dukes or Lords of Upper Egypt.] --------------------- "Come, come, you old rip," broke forth the man angrily, "none of such talk to me, if you have not a mind to be pitched into that pond. Hold your tongue, now, and give us no more of it. I am not one of your Dickons to be made a fool of; and if I hear you saying another word of such matters, I will have you sent after him you have got turned out from among us."