The bad old woman in black ran down the street of the ox-butchers.
Windows at once were opened high up in those crazy gables; heads were
thrust out: it was she. Then there arose the counsel of anxious
voices, calling sideways from window to window or across to opposite
houses. Why was she there with her sequins and bugles and old black
gown? Why had she left her dreaded house? On what fell errand she
hasted?
They watched her lean, lithe figure, and the wind in that old black
dress, and soon she was gone from the cobbled street and under the
town's high gateway. She turned at once to her right and was hid from
the view of the houses. Then they all ran down to their doors, and
small groups formed on the pavement; there they took counsel together,
the eldest speaking first. Of what they had seen they said nothing,
for there was no doubt it was she; it was of the future they spoke,
and the future only.
In what notorious thing would her errand end? What gains had tempted
her out from her fearful home? What brilliant but sinful scheme had
her genius planned? Above all, what future evil did this portend? Thus
at first it was only questions. And then the old grey-beards spoke,
each one to a little group; they had seen her out before, had known
her when she was younger, and had noted the evil things that had
followed her goings: the small groups listened well to their low and
earnest voices. No one asked questions now or guessed at her infamous
errand, but listened only to the wise old men who knew the things that
had been, and who told the younger men of the dooms that had come
before.
Nobody knew how many times she had left her dreaded house; but the
oldest recounted all the times that they knew, and the way she had
gone each time, and the doom that had followed her going; and two
could remember the earthquake that there was in the street of the
shearers.
So were there many tales of the times that were, told on the pavement
near the old green doors by the edge of the cobbled street, and the
experience that the aged men had bought with their white hairs might
be had cheap by the young. But from all their experience only this was
clear, that never twice in their lives had she done the same infamous
thing, and that the same calamity twice had never followed her goings.
Therefore it seemed that means were doubtful and few for finding out
what thing was about to befall; and an ominous feeling of gloom came
down on the street of the ox-butchers. And in the gloom grew fears of
the very worst. This comfort they only had when they put their fear
into words--that the doom that followed her goings had never yet been
anticipated. One feared that with magic she meant to move the moon;
and he would have dammed the high tide on the neighbouring coast,
knowing that as the moon attracted the sea the sea must attract the
moon, and hoping by his device to humble her spells. Another would
have fetched iron bars and clamped them across the street, remembering
the earthquake there was in the street of the shearers. Another would
have honoured his household gods, the little cat-faced idols seated
above his hearth, gods to whom magic was no unusual thing, and, having
paid their fees and honoured them well, would have put the whole case
before them. His scheme found favour with many, and yet at last was
rejected, for others ran indoors and brought out their gods, too, to
be honoured, till there was a herd of gods all seated there on the
pavement; yet would they have honoured them and put their case before
them but that a fat man ran up last of all, carefully holding under a
reverent arm his own two hound-faced gods, though he knew well--as,
indeed, all men must--that they were notoriously at war with the
little cat-faced idols. And although the animosities natural to faith
had all been lulled by the crisis, yet a look of anger had come into
the cat-like faces that no one dared disregard, and all perceived that
if they stayed a moment longer there would be flaming around them the
jealousy of the gods; so each man hastily took his idols home, leaving
the fat man insisting that his hound-faced gods should be honoured.
Then there were schemes again and voices raised in debate, and many
new dangers feared and new plans made.
But in the end they made no defence against danger, for they knew not
what it would be, but wrote upon parchment as a warning, and in order
that all might know: "_The bad old woman in black ran down the street
of the ox-butchers._"