And Nicholas recoiled, appalled by her fearful gestures.
"You carry your malignity too far, old woman," said Richard severely.
"And thou darest tell me so," cried the hag. "Set me before him, Nance, that I may curse him," she added, raising her palsied arm.
"Nah, nah—yo'n cursed ower much already, grandmother," cried Nan Redferne, endeavouring to drag her away. But the old woman resisted.
"I will teach him to cross my path," she vociferated, in accents shrill and jarring as the cry of the goat-sucker.
"Handsome he is, it may be, now, but he shall not be so long. The bloom shall fade from his cheek, the fire be extinguished in his eyes, the strength depart from his limbs. Sorrow shall be her portion who loves him—sorrow and shame!"
"Horrible!" exclaimed Richard, endeavouring to exclude the voice of the crone, which pierced his ears like some sharp instrument.
"Ha! ha! you fear me now," she cried. "By this, and this, the spell shall work," she added, describing a circle in the air with her stick, then crossing it twice, and finally scattering over him a handful of grave dust, snatched from an adjoining hillock.
"Now lead me quickly to the smaller cross, Nance," she added, in a low tone.
Her grand-daughter complied, with a glance of deep commiseration at Richard, who remained stupefied at the ominous proceeding.