"Peace, foolish boy! Thinkest thou if gipsy lore could unravel the riddle, that it had not long ago become known to me? We have our gifts, our powers, our arts, and well we know how to use them be it for good or ill. But we know full well what the limits are. And if men know it not, it is more their blindness than our skill that keeps them in ignorance. And if they give us more praise and wonder than we merit, do they not also give us hatred and enmity in like meed? Have we not gone through fire and sword when men have risen up against us and called us sorcerers? Have we not suffered for our reputation; and do we not therefore deserve to wear it with what honour we may?" The woman spoke with a strange mixture of bitterness, earnestness, and scorn--scorn, as it seemed, almost of herself and of her tribe, yet a scorn so proudly worn that it scarce seemed other than a mark of distinction to the wearer. Cuthbert listened in amaze and bewilderment. It was all so different from what he had looked for. He had hoped to consult an oracle, to learn hidden secrets of which the gipsies had cognizance through their mysterious gifts; and, behold, he was almost told that these same gifts were little more than the idle imagining of superstitious and ignorant men. "Then canst thou tell me nothing?" he asked. "I can tell thee much," was the steady answer, "albeit not all that thou wouldst know; that will still be thine to track out with patience and care. But these lines may help; they may contain a clue. I wonder how and where Esther learned them! But come within the cave. The evening air grows chill, and I and thou have both walked far, and stand in need of refreshment. All is ready for us within. Come; I will lead the way." Joanna stepped on before, and Cuthbert followed. He had thought the cave a small and shallow place before, but now he discovered that this shallow cavity in the rock was but the antechamber, as it were, to a larger cavern, where twenty men might sit or lie at ease; and the entrance to this larger place was through a passage so narrow and low that none who did not know the secret would think it possible to traverse it.