A band of gipsies was the next event. They arrived late one evening, nobody knew from where, and encamped on a patch of ground by the roadside, not very far from the Abbey (much too near, Father said, for the safety of his hen-roosts), coming like a tribe of wandering Israelites, with most of their worldly possessions on their backs. They were real gipsies, too, not the fair-haired hybrid pretenders who go about in neat caravans with muslin curtains to the windows, and wicker baskets slung on the top, but a dark-eyed, Spanish-looking crew, who put up a tent with a pole and a ragged blanket, and stewed their supper in a black caldron hung from three sticks set in the ground.