“Does the shirra blame the sojers?” exclaimed this quick-witted Egyptian.  “Weel, that cows, for he has nane to blame but himsel’.”

“What!” cried Halliwell, delighted.  “It was the sheriff who told tales?  Answer me.  You are counting a hundred this time.”

Perhaps the gypsy had two reasons for withholding her answer.  If so, one of them was that as the sheriff had told nothing, she had a story to make up.  The other was that she wanted to strike a bargain with the officer.

“If I tell you,” she said eagerly, “will you set me free?”

“I may ask the sheriff to do so.”

“But he mauna see me,” the Egyptian said in distress.  “There’s reasons, captain.”

“Why, surely you have not been before him on other occasions,” said Halliwell, surprised.

“No in the way you mean,” muttered the gypsy, and for the moment her eyes twinkled.  But the light in them went out when she remembered that the sheriff was near, and she looked desperately at the window as if ready to fling herself from it.  She had very good reasons for not wishing to be seen by Riach, though fear that he would put her in gaol was not one of them.

Halliwell thought it was the one cause of her woe, and great was his desire to turn the tables on the sheriff.

“Tell me the truth,” he said, “and I promise to befriend you.”

“Weel, then,” the gypsy said, hoping still to soften his heart, and making up her story as she told it, “yestreen I met the shirra, and he tolled me a’ I hae telled the Thrums folk this nicht.”

“You can scarcely expect me to believe that.  Where did you meet him?”

“In Glen Quharity.  He was riding on a horse.”

“Well, I allow he was there yesterday, and on horseback.  He was on his way back to Tilliedrum from Lord Rintoul’s place.  But don’t tell me that he took a gypsy girl into his confidence.”

“Ay, he did, without kenning.  He was gieing his horse a drink when I met him, and he let me tell him his fortune.  He said he would gaol me for an impostor if I didna tell him true, so I gaed about it cautiously, and after a minute or twa I telled him he was coming to Thrums the nicht to nab the rioters.”

“You are trifling with me,” interposed the indignant soldier.  “You promised to tell me not what you said to the sheriff, but how he disclosed our movements to you.”

“And that’s just what I am telling you, only you hinna the rumelgumption to see it.  How do you think fortunes is telled?  First we get out o’ the man, without his seeing what we’re after, a’ about himsel”, and syne we repeat it to him.  That’s what I did wi’ the shirra.”

“You drew the whole thing out of him without his knowing?”

“‘Deed I did, and he rode awa’ saying I was a witch.”

The soldier heard with the delight of a schoolboy.

“Now if the sheriff does not liberate you at my request,” he said, “I will never let him hear the end of this story.  He was right; you are a witch.  You deceived the sheriff; yes, undoubtedly you are a witch.”