The landlord scratched his head, and looked helplessly at his wife. But she was quite taken up with awe of the stranger, whose head nearly touched the ceiling of the low room; while his long, pale face seemed in the obscurity--for the day was dark--to be of an unearthly pallor.
"An adverse influence," the astrologer continued gravely. "What is more, I now see where it is. It is in the stable. You have a grey horse."
The landlord, somewhat astonished, said he had.
"You had. You have not now. The devil has it!" was the astounding answer.
"My grey horse?"
The stranger inclined his head.
"Nay, there you are wrong!" the host retorted briskly. "I'm hanged if he has! For I rode the horse this morning, and it went as well and quietly as ever in its life."
"Send and see," the tall man answered.
The serving girl, obeying a nod, went off reluctantly to the stable, while her master, casting a look of misliking at his guest, walked uneasily to the window. In a moment the girl came back, her face white. "The grey is in a fit," she cried, keeping the whole width of the room between her and the stranger. "It is sweating and staggering."
The landlord, with an oath, ran off to see, and in a minute the appearance of an excited group in the square under the window showed that the thing was known. The traveller took no notice of this, however, nor of the curious and reverential glances which the womenfolk, huddled about the door of the room, cast at him. He walked up and down the room with his eyes lowered.