She was generally regarded as a gipsy, but I doubt if she had any gipsy blood in her veins.

She was simply a tramper, with occasional fits of localization.

Her worst fault was the way she treated her son, whom she starved apparently that she might continue able to beat him.
The particular occasion which led to the recognition of the growing relation between Robert and Shargar was the following.

Upon a certain Saturday--some sidereal power inimical to boys must have been in the ascendant--a Saturday of brilliant but intermittent sunshine, the white clouds seen from the school windows indicating by their rapid transit across those fields of vision that fresh breezes friendly to kites, or draigons, as they were called at Rothieden, were frolicking in the upper regions--nearly a dozen boys were kept in for not being able to pay down from memory the usual instalment of Shorter Catechism always due at the close of the week.

Amongst these boys were Robert and Shargar.
Sky-revealing windows and locked door were too painful; and in proportion as the feeling of having nothing to do increased, the more uneasy did the active element in the boys become, and the more ready to break out into some abnormal manifestation.