"Bad Old Woman In Black, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dunsany Lord)

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.*"