“Od wite it!” replies the girl impatiently, “who’s daft or dreamin’ noo?  I’d a bin dead wi’ fear, if ’twas any such thing.  It cudna be; all was sa luvesome, and bonny, and shaply.”

“Weel, and what do ye want o’ me, lass?” asked the old woman sharply.

“I want to know—­here’s t’ sixpence—­what I sud du,” said the young lass. “’Twud be a pity to lose such a marrow, hey?”

“Say yer prayers, lass; I can’t help ye,” says the old woman darkly.  “If ye gaa wi’ the people, ye’ll never come back.  Ye munna talk wi’ them, nor eat wi’ them, nor drink wi’ them, nor tak a pin’s-worth by way o’ gift fra them—­mark weel what I say—­or ye’re lost!”

The girl looked down, plainly much vexed.

The old woman stared at her with a mysterious frown steadily, for a few seconds.

“Tell me, lass, and tell me true, are ye in luve wi’ that lad?”

“What for sud I?” said the girl with a careless toss of her head, and blushing up to her very temples.

“I see how it is,” said the old woman, with a groan, and repeated the words, sadly thinking; and walked out of the door a step or two, and looked jealously round.  “The lass is witched, the lass is witched!”

“Did ye see him since?” asked Mother Carke, returning.

The girl was still embarrassed; and now she spoke in a lower tone, and seemed subdued.

“I thought I sid him as I came here, walkin’ beside me among the trees; but I consait it was only the trees themsels that lukt like rinnin’ one behind another, as I walked on.”

“I can tell thee nowt, lass, but what I telt ye afoore,” answered the old woman peremptorily.  “Get ye heyame, and don’t delay on the way; and say yer prayers as ye gaa; and let none but good thoughts come nigh ye; and put nayer foot autside the door-steyan again till ye gaa to be christened; and get that done a Sunda’ next.”

And with this charge, given with grizzly earnestness, she saw her over the stile, and stood upon it watching her retreat, until the trees quite hid her and her path from view.

The sky grew cloudy and thunderous, and the air darkened rapidly, as the girl, a little frightened by Mall Carke’s view of the case, walked homeward by the lonely path among the trees.

A black cat, which had walked close by her—­for these creatures sometimes take a ramble in search of their prey among the woods and thickets—­crept from under the hollow of an oak, and was again with her.  It seemed to her to grow bigger and bigger as the darkness deepened, and its green eyes glared as large as halfpennies in her affrighted vision as the thunder came booming along the heights from the Willarden-road.

She tried to drive it away; but it growled and hissed awfully, and set up its back as if it would spring at her, and finally it skipped up into a tree, where they grew thickest at each side of her path, and accompanied her, high over head, hopping from bough to bough as if meditating a pounce upon her shoulders.  Her fancy being full of strange thoughts, she was frightened, and she fancied that it was haunting her steps, and destined to undergo some hideous transformation, the moment she ceased to guard her path with prayers.