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Two or three old crones had crawled out of the Porte Narbonnaise to examine the advancing visitor; and a very ancient peasant, lying there with his back against a tower, was tending half a dozen lean sheep. A poor man in a very old blouse, crippled and with crutches lying beside him, had been brought out and placed on a stool, where he enjoyed the afternoon as best he might.
We parted with our friends on the barge, and found our way through the gypsy crones squatted on the grass, weaving the web of fate and selling brooms and brushes in the intervals of their mystical employ, or cosily gossiping together; and then we took for the station the harmless fly which we had forever renounced as predatory in the morning.
I scrambled up the hill to the only shelter that could be found, a small country store owned by a Captain Conk who kept entertainment for the traveller. Rough fellows and old crones came in to talk about the spooks that had been seen in the neighboring hills. It was veritable "Sleepy Hollow" talk. The physician of the place, they said, had been "skert clean off a bridge the other night."
When I entered this neglected temple of a neglected image, an old, superannuated priest was saying mass, and three or four old crones were kneeling before her altar. Such are the effects that followed the revolution of Iguala.
They stood near an empty house, waiting the pleasure of the chief, and exposed to the abuse of a crowd of old crones. This troop of harpies surrounded them, shaking their fists, howling and vociferating. Some English words that escaped their coarse mouths left no doubt that they were clamoring for immediate vengeance.
Oh, Scarlet Jem, he is trusty and trim, Like his wig to his poll, sticks his conscience to him; But I vows I despises the fellow who prizes More his own ends than the popular stock, sir; And the soldier as bones for himself and his crones, Should be boned like a traitor himself at the block, sir.
I had not time to come out and tell you and Patience, the old crones kept me so close, stitching at shirts for a captain that is to sail next week, and I knew you would be coming in." "Where is it?" was all Stead uttered. "What think you of Master Henshaw's, the great merchant, and an honest well-wisher to King and Church to boot?" "Master Henshaw, the West Indian merchant?
Why, their very sun-bonnets those fresh little pink sun-bonnets shriveled into old women's caps, and even in the hearts of the poor little old crones the hardening process was going on, a fierce fire of hate scorching the last central drop of dew, until nothing would ever, ever grow and bloom again. It was all over with Lu and Kathie forever and ever.
They bore baskets, most of the girls and housewives and crones; with some were husbands, who sometimes carried the basket but not always; some even carried children in their arms, unable even for an hour to escape the poor housewife's old-man-of-the-seas. The men were absorbed, hidden away, in the flood of wearied women. There were men, of course, in the crowd, among the stallkeepers hundreds.
The appearance of such a group was enough of itself to have deterred one, less accustomed to such sights than the old man, from trusting himself within the circle of their wild and repulsive rites. Each of the crones, as she received the weapon, commenced a slow and measured, but ungainly, step, around the savage, until the whole were circling him in a sort of magic dance.
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