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as I approached while wanting nothing to do with it if I could.
    It was clear that the mumper was determined to speak with me, but men as I neared him he crouched down and flopped both arms over his head and shoulders, as if to protect himself from a beating. I stopped and stared at him. He raised his head suddenly and I saw his face.
    He was an old man. His eyes were big and watery – the lines on his face dark grooves. He had a few days’ growth of beard that was grey. It was the face of someone in great pain.
    We stared at each other for a while, then he threw his head back and gave a short bark of a laugh. This startled me and I went to continue on but he held out his hand and said pleadingly, ‘No, child, child, stay a minute.’
    I stopped and we stared at each other again. ‘Pray, child, tell me,’ he said, ‘are you a member of the sooty crew?’
    Who’s he calling sooty? I thought indignantly. Has he looked in a puddle lately?
    ‘I mean, are you part of the lawless clan? I think you have that look about you, and I cannot tell you what joy that is for me. Are you a child of Tyso, perhaps? You resemble him somewhat. Is he hereabouts?’
    At this I began to wonder if he could be a
Romani chal
, but I could not believe that one of us could ever sink to such a state of degradation. I knew not what to do.
    ‘I must be on my way, sir, I am expected,’ I said gently, giving a little bob of a curtsey, Lord knows why.
    He pointed across the field and said with pride, ‘’Twas in yonder brook I came across a sizeable gudgeon.’ There was no brook anywhere nearby that I could see.
    It was at this point I had the misfortune to notice that his trousers were unbuttoned. I gave a start, for I had never seen such a thing on a grown man. A sizeable gudgeon indeed. I was now becomingfearful again because my mother had always told me three things about mad people: they feel neither heat nor cold; they undress themselves at any moment; and they do not realise you are a person at all because they are mad and do not even know what people are.
    I realised that the man in front of me was truly mad and so might do anything. He seemed to have forgotten my presence, for he was staring at the earth and muttering, ‘Ah, the marshy fen … the marshy fen …’ Then he fell to saying, ‘Marshy, marshy, marshy …’ as if there was something in the sound of the word that upset him.
    There was nothing for it, I bobbed another curtsey, turned on my heel and began walking back the way I had come.
    I only realised he was following me as he was almost upon me. I heard his breath close behind and turned on him. He had been running but at once dropped on all floors and bowed his head again.
    ‘You can’t come home with me, sir,’ I said firmly, although my heart was knocking in my chest. ‘My mother and father would not like it.’
Dei, I’ve come back with the carrot, oh, and I found a lunatic in a field and I’ve brought him back with me, too.
I had a sudden image of the lunatic spinning and bumping inside the butter churn.
    Then he did something most alarming. He grabbed my hand. He kept his head bowed, though, and said, ‘I am knocked up and foot foundered, Mary. I have walked from Essex. If you do not take me in, I will surely die.’
    Well, he’s not one of us, just a common vagrant, I thought, but I can’t leave him in the field. I’ll have to take him back to Dei and Dadus.
    ‘Come back with me to the place where we are stopped,’ I said, trying to sound as high and mighty as was possible. ‘And you can speak to my father.’
    I could think of nothing else to do. I could hardly turn up at my cousin’s tents with a lunatic in tow.
    He was good as gold after that, following behind me at a respectful distance, not speaking, only humming to himself now and then.
    You should have seen the look on Dei’s face when she saw me walking back towards the camp, my very own lunatic following close behind.
    *
    Later that day, the