Fisher alone heard the manager’s calculations and saw the public fears unmoved. Secretly rejoicing in his own wisdom, he walked from window to window, slily listening for the gipsy’s signal. “There it is!” cried he with more joy sparkling in his eyes than had ever enlightened them before. “Come this way, Archer; but don’t tell anybody. Hark! do ye hear those three taps at the window? This is the old woman with twelve buns for me. I’ll give you one whole one for yourself, if you will unbar the window for me.” “Unbar the window!” interrupted Archer; “no, that I won’t, for you or the gipsy either; but I have heard enough to get your buns without that. But stay; there is something of more consequence than your twelve buns. I must think for ye all, I see, regularly.” So he summoned a council, and proposed that everyone should subscribe, and trust the subscription to the gipsy, to purchase a fresh supply of provisions. Archer laid down a guinea of his own money for his subscription; at which sight all the company clapped their hands, and his popularity rose to a high pitch with their renewed hopes of plenty. Now, having made a list of their wants, they folded the money in the paper, put it into a bag, which Archer tied to a long string, and, having broken the pane of glass behind the round hole in the window-shutter, he let down the bag to the gipsy. She promised to be punctual, and having filled the bag with Fisher’s twelve buns, they were drawn up in triumph, and everybody anticipated the pleasure with which they should see the same bag drawn up at dinner-time. The buns were a little squeezed in being drawn through the hole in the window-shutter; but Archer immediately sawed out a piece of the shutter, and broke the corresponding panes in each of the other windows, to prevent suspicion, and to make it appear that they had all been broken to admit air. What a pity that so much ingenuity should have been employed to no purpose! It may have surprised the intelligent reader that the gipsy was so punctual to her promise to Fisher, but we must recollect that her apparent integrity was only cunning; she was punctual that she might be employed again, that she might be intrusted with the contribution which, she foresaw, must be raised amongst the famishing garrison. No sooner had she received the money than her end was gained. Dinner-time came; it struck three, four, five, six. They listened with hungry ears, but no signal was heard. The morning had been very long, and Archer had in vain tried to dissuade them from devouring the remainder of the provisions before they were sure of a fresh supply. And now those who had been the most confident were the most impatient of their disappointment.