Violet Jacob > Stories told by the miller

148 STORIES TOLD BY THE MILLER
were to go off in the green van at sunrise, and
the woman with her husband and baby were to
follow after midday. Dan knew the place for
their next camp, and he and his companion
were to get everything ready, and have fires
lit and water carried by the time the family
arrived with its belongings and the cocks and
hens.
It was a pleasant journey ; the roads were
good and the sun shone. They sat with their
feet on the shafts, and Dan talked more than
he had ever talked before. He told Maggie of
his youth and the tents among which he was
born; of his half-Spanish mother, who had died
in the cold of a snowy winter; and of his father,
who had beaten him with a strap till he had
learnt to ride better than any of the other boys.
She heard how he and his brother got enough
money to buy the van and the horses, and how
he had met Rhoda at a great gipsy gathering ;
how she had sung ‘ The Wind in the Broom ’
for him by a camp-fire when all their companions
had gone to sleep; how they had sat till the
morning came and the stars went out like so
many street-lamps in the daylight. Then he
said very little more, and sat with his cap pulled