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!" 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!"