Bettesworth was tarring a shed one cold February day, when the tar needed warming to make it “run.” I found him stooping over a little smoky fire beside the shed.

“I shouldn't make much of a gyp,” said he.

“No. 'Twould take you all the morning to get your breakfast.”

“Now they gyps—many 's a time I've see 'm all sittin' round their fire in the mornin'.”

“I don't remember ever seeing 'em.”

“Oh, I have. Up there at Burntheath, when them Gentses was there—afore any o' their houses was built for 'em. All squattin' round a fire, like this. Frost, or snow on the ground—'twas all the same to them. And after he's house was built, old Phil, he wouldn't have no fire in it, not to dry it nor nothing. Would have it out by the tent, same as before. … I helped build that house. An' many a time I've come across 'em, an' dropped in an' had a dish o' tea round the fire wi' 'em, at ha'-past-five in the mornin' when I was gwine along to work.”

“Was that,” I asked, “the house that Jenkinson built for them, and that I heard about t'other day?