Indeed, he says, she scarcely said
this much, to him, but stood with her face turned upwards to the sky,
and never looked towards him once.'
Sir John took a pinch of snuff; glanced approvingly at an elegant little
sketch, entitled 'Nature,' on the wall; and raising his eyes to the
locksmith's face again, said, with an air of courtesy and patronage,
'You were observing, Mr Varden--'
'That she never,' returned the locksmith, who was not to be diverted by
any artifice from his firm manner, and his steady gaze, 'that she never
looked towards him once, Sir John; and so she died, and he forgot her.
But, some years afterwards, a man was sentenced to die the same death,
who was a gipsy too; a sunburnt, swarthy fellow, almost a wild man; and
while he lay in prison, under sentence, he, who had seen the hangman
more than once while he was free, cut an image of him on his stick, by
way of braving death, and showing those who attended on him, how little
he cared or thought about it. He gave this stick into his hands at
Tyburn, and told him then, that the woman I have spoken of had left her
own people to join a fine gentleman, and that, being deserted by him,
and cast off by her old friends, she had sworn within her own proud
breast, that whatever her misery might be, she would ask no help of any
human being.
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