After a pause they continued talking, while they went about a hundred paces. Then the old man stopped again and pointed to a twig that lay across the path.

‘What do you think of that?’ he said. ‘You think it’s nothing? It’s bad that this stick is lying so.’

‘Why is it bad?’

He smiled.

‘Ah, you don’t know anything.

Just listen to me. When a stick lies like that don’t you step across it, but go round it or throw it off the path this way, and say “Father and Son and Holy Ghost,” and then go on with God’s blessing. Nothing will happen to you. That’s what the old men used to teach me.’