But she would not. My companion, seeing that the attention of the room was being drawn to us, tried to pull me by her. But I could not use force, and short of force there was no remedy. The ostler, indeed, would have interfered on our behalf, and returned to bid her, with a civility he had not bestowed on us, "give us passage." But she swiftly turned her eyes on him in a sinister fashion, and he retreated with an oath and a paling face, while those nearest to us--and half a dozen had crowded round--drew back, and crossed themselves in haste almost ludicrous.
"Let me see your face, young gentleman," she persisted, with a hollow cough. "My eyes are not so clear as they were, or it is not your cloak and your flap-hat that would blind me."
Thinking it best to get rid of her, even at a slight risk--and the chance that among the travelers present there would be one able to recognize me was small indeed--I uncovered. She shot a piercing glance at my face, and looking down on the floor, traced hurriedly a figure with her stick. She studied the phantom lines a moment, and then looked up.
"Listen!" she said solemnly, and waving her stick round me, she quavered out in tones which filled me with a strange tremor:
"The man goes east, and the wind blows west,
Wood to the head, and steel to the breast!
The man goes west, and the wind blows east,
The neck twice doomed the gallows shall feast!
"Beware!" she went on more loudly, and harshly, tapping with her stick on the floor, and snaking her palsied head at me. "Beware, unlucky shoot of a crooked branch! Go no farther with it! Go back! The sword may miss or may not fall, but the cord is sure!"
If Master Bertie had not held my arm tightly, I should have recoiled, as most of those within hearing had already done. The strange allusions to my past, which I had no difficulty in detecting, and the witch's knowledge of the risks of our present enterprise, were enough to startle and shake the most constant mind; and in the midst of enterprises secret and dangerous, few minds are so firm or so reckless as to disdain omens. That she was one of those unhappy beings who buy dark secrets at the expense of their souls, seemed certain; and had I been alone, I should have, I am not ashamed to say it, given back.
But I was lucky in having for my companion a man of rare mind, and besides of so single a religious belief that to the end of his life he always refused to put faith in a thing of the existence of which I have no doubt myself--I mean witchcraft.
He showed at this moment the courage of his opinions. "Peace, peace, woman!" he said compassionately. "We shall live while God wills it, and die when he wills it. And neither live longer nor die earlier! So let us by."
"Would you perish?" she quavered.