"Peace, peace, man! and show us in," said Master Bertie impatiently.
With a shrug of his shoulders the man obeyed. Crossing the courtyard behind him, we entered the great kitchen, which, full of light and warmth and noise, presented just such a scene of comfort and bustle, of loud talking, red-faced guests, and hurrying bare-armed serving-maids, as I remembered lighting upon at St. Albans three years back. But I had changed much since then, and seen much. The bailiff himself would hardly have recognized his old antagonist in the tall, heavily cloaked stranger, whose assured air, acquired amid wild surroundings in a foreign land, gave him a look of age to which I could not fairly lay claim. Master Bertie had assigned the lead to me as being in less danger of recognition, and I followed the ostler toward the hearth without hesitation. "Master Jenkin!" the man cried, with the same rough bluntness he had shown without, "here are two travelers want the lace-seller who was here to-day. Has he gone?"
"Who gone?" retorted the host as loudly.
"The lace merchant who came this morning."
"No; he is in No. 32," returned the landlord. "Will you sup first, gentlemen?"
We declined, and followed the ostler, who made no secret of our destination, telling those in our road to make way, as the gentlemen were for No. 32. One of the crowd, however, who seemed to be crossing from the lower end of the room, failed apparently to understand, and, interposing between us and our guide, brought me perforce to a halt.
"By your leave, good woman!" I said, and turned to pass round her.
But she foiled me with unexpected nimbleness, and I could not push her aside, she was so very old. Her gums were toothless and her forehead was lined and wrinkled. About her eyes, which under hideous red lids still shone with an evil gleam--a kind of reflection of a wicked past--a thousand crows' feet had gathered. A few wisps of gray hair struggled from under the handkerchief which covered her head. She was humpbacked, and stooped over a stick, and whether she saw or not my movement of repugnance, her voice was harsh when she spoke.
"Young gentleman," she croaked, "let me tell your fortune by the stars. A fortune for a groat, young gentleman!" she continued, peering up into my face and frustrating my attempts to pass.
"Here is a groat," I answered peevishly, "and for the fortune, I will hear it another day. So let us by!"