There
stood a little shop--a watchmaker's--just opposite, and next to the
shop a small ope with one dingy window over it. She vanished up the
passage, at the entrance of which I was still staring idly, when, half
a minute later, a skinny trembling hand appeared at the window and
drew down the blind.
I looked round at the men and maids; but their eyes were all for the
pageant, now not a stone's-throw away.
"Who is that old woman?" I asked, touching Caleb, the head ostler, on
the shoulder.
Caleb--a small bandy-legged man, with a chin full of furrows, and the
furrows full of grey stubble--withdrew his gaze grudgingly from the
sheriff's coach.
"What woman?"
"She that went by a moment since."
"She in the blue cloak, d'ee mean?--an old, ancient, wisht-lookin'
body?"
"Yes."
"A timmersome woman, like?"
"That's it."
"Well, her name's Cordely Pinsent."
The procession reclaimed his attention. He received a passing wink
from the charioteer, caught it on the volley and returned it with a
solemn face; or rather, the wink seemed to rebound as from a blank
wall.
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