Adders on the Heath

that he had had his share of the herbage and that it was getting on for her own tea-time.

She remounted, stirred him into action and they had retraced about three hundred yards of their outward route when she had to pull up to allow a lorry to turn out of the gates of another enclosure on to a broad path which led across a bridge on to the common. Before she got going again, she saw the gipsy. He was riding one of the Forest ponies, whether his own property or not Laura was in no way able to determine.

Laura challenged him.

'Hey, where do I find mushrooms?'

The gipsy smiled.

'Anywhere you like, lady, once you get on to the common. The Forest mushrooms be all about there.' He rode on. Laura knew better than to follow him and attempt to resume conversation. She returned her horse to the stables, satisfied that, whatever was in the wind and whatever he knew or guessed, the gipsy was not prepared to talk.

'How did you get on?' asked the girl to whom she handed over the horse.

'Only so-so,' Laura replied. 'I came away nearly as wise as I went. No comment. I thought we were going to get somewhere, but we didn't.'

'Too bad. Didn't he say anything at all?-not that I really thought he would. Although he's no longer a traveller-very few of the Forest gipsies are-he's a true Romany still, and they don't give away anything to strangers.'

'So I believe. He did say one thing, but I couldn't tell whether he was serious or merely pulling my leg.'

'If there was likely to be any money involved, you can bet he was serious. The gipsies don't beg, but you can count them in if there's any chance of making any sort of a sale.'

'Well, I suppose you could reckon it as such. He advised me to go and see his old mother. I suppose he wanted me to have my fortune told, and that would mean crossing her palm with silver, if nothing more.'

'I should go, if I were you, Mrs Gavin.'

'You would?'

'Certainly I would. It's the only way to get any information out of the gipsies, unless they really get to know you and trust you. Start with two bob, and see how you get on. She's sure to want more, if she's really got anything to tell you.'

'I met Lee again while I was out riding.'

'Was he on foot? I'll bet not!'

'No, he was on a Forest pony.'

'He's a genius at catching them. He's got the knack of talking to them. He can do anything with our horses, too. Never known him have the slightest difficulty with any of them. We had to get rid of a biter last year, but he'd literally eat out of Lee's hand. It was quite fantastic, if you knew the horse as we did.'

'Where do I find this old lady?'

'Oh, she lives with her son and his wife. Go back there, when you've got time, and ask Mrs Lee about her, if Lee is not back home.'

'Would it be all right to go there after I've had my tea? I'm absolutely starving.'

'Sure it will be all right. His wife's name is Eliza. She isn't out of the Forest. She comes from Dorset and he says she misses the travelling, especially when her family comes roving over this way. His mother, old Mrs Lee, is named Dosha.'

'I see. Well, thanks very much. I shall certainly seek her out.'

She returned to the hotel to find Dame Beatrice and the two young men in the television lounge, where most of the guests took tea. It was a large, pleasant room, partly formed by having had an extension built on to the original house. This extension had an enormous window overlooking the garden and it acted as a sun-lounge during the day and could be heavily blacked out when the television set was turned on during the evening.

As soon as Laura had washed and changed, Denis rang for tea. Richardson asked her how she had enjoyed her ride. The fact that he was still at liberty, and was also free of the Superintendent for a while, had restored his spirits, and he listened attentively while Laura described her afternoon. He shook his head, though, when she said that she had hopes of obtaining information from a gipsy fortune-teller.

'They just make the stuff up,' he said. 'My mother went to one once and paid the usual two bob and was told she had the usual 'lucky hand,' and then the gipsy said that if my mother would fork out another five shillings there was plenty more she could tell her, all of it very important indeed. Well, of course, Ma didn't fall for that one, so I'm blessed if the gipsy didn't pick up her hand again and tell her that she had a mean, cheese-paring nature and no sympathy or kindness in her heart.'

Laura laughed. She did not linger over her tea, excused herself to the others, went upstairs for a coat and then strode off to the gipsy's cottage. Lee was not at home, but Eliza, a dark-skinned girl in a red satin blouse and wearing enormous earrings, asked her to come in when she heard her errand. The cottage was clean and smelt of stew, and old Mrs Lee was in the room in which the family lived and ate. There was a well-scrubbed kitchen table in the room, supporting a bird-cage containing two budgerigars. Two little boys, bright-eyed and dirty-faced, were having a wrestling match on a brilliant hearthrug made from 'pieces' and an elderly woman in a rocking-chair stirred them occasionally with her elastic-sided boot while her brown fingers were busy weaving a basket.

The girl spoke to her in a mixture of English and Romany, and the old lady, who was dressed in a dark- grey skirt and a black blouse with an orange-coloured scarf at the throat, looked Laura over and, shaking her head, made an assertion in the Romany tongue and, getting up out of the rocking-chair, motioned Laura to take a seat at the table.

'I'm sorry, lady,' said the girl. 'I want she should take you into the front room, but she says there's no fire in there, and no more there isn't. Nelson, and you, Goliath, out of the way.' The boys took not the slightest notice