“And what do you tell them?” asked Vi.
“I tell ’em wot’s preparin’ for or agen ’em. I read th’ stars and I warn ’em.”
“Can they escape by taking your advice?”
“That’s more’n I can say. Thar was Joe Moyer, wot was hanged at Norwich for murthering ’is sweetheart. I telt ’im ’is fortune a year ago come St. Valentine’s Day. ‘Joe,’ says I, ‘your ’and ’ll be red before the poppies blow agen and you neck ’ll be bruk before th’ wheat is ripe. Leave off a-goin’ wi’ ’er,’ says I. And the lassie a-standin’ thar by ’is side, she laughs at her grannie. But it all come true, wot I telt ’im.”
“Could you read the stars for me?” asked Vi.
Her voice was so thin and eager that it pierced me like a knife. I quivered with fearful anticipation. All our future might depend on what this hag by the roadside might say. I did not want to hear her. She might release terror from the ghost-chamber of conscience. However much we scoffed at her words, they would influence our actions and haunt our minds. Who could say, perhaps Joe Moyer would never have murdered his sweetheart and would not have been hanged at Norwich, if she hadn’t suggested his crime.
“Vi,” I said sternly, “you don’t believe in fortune-telling. We must be going; it’s getting late.”
“Hee-hee-hee!” the gipsy tittered, “if she don’t believe in fortune-tellin’, we knows who do. Come, don’t be afeard, me dearie. Cross me ’and wi siller and I’ll read the stars for ’ee.”
Vi crossed her palm with a shilling. The gipsy flung fresh twigs on the fire, that she might study the lines in Vi’s hands more clearly. As the flames shot up, they illumined the other woman. Her features were strongly Romany, dark and fierce and shy. Somewhere I had seen them; their memory was pleasant. She regarded me fixedly, as though in a trance, across the fire. She too was trying to remember. Then, rising noiselessly, she stole like a panther into the poplars away from the circle of light. From out there in the darkness I felt that her eyes were still watching.
The old fortune-teller had flung back her shawl from her head. Her grizzled hair broke loose about her shoulders. She was peering over Vi’s hand, tracing out the lines with the stem of her foul pipe. Every now and then she paused to ask a whispered question or make a whispered statement. Now she would look up at the stars, and now would pucker her brows. Her head was near to Vi’s. The flames jumped up and showed their faces clearly: the one white and pure, and crowned with gold; the other cunning, mahogany-colored, and witch-like. The flames died down; the shadows danced in again.