Page:Cornelia Meigs--The Pool of Stars.djvu/189

 dim and old now, it was what I heard. On the very night when Mr. Donald was here and Mr. Reynolds was stricken, that was when I heard. Something moving in the dark, something that muttered to Itself, that stood by the pool for a minute there in the black and white of the moonlight. I heard the water splash like a fish jumping, but I am thinking it was more like a charm for bad luck being dropped in, as such Creatures love to do. I used to think that the bad spell was only on the old house but it is on the water now also, on that pool that lies so deep and quiet and pictures back the stars. If it was running water, now, the spell would carry away, but not with a still basin as that is, the evil lies there so quiet and works and works—"

"Michael," cried Betsey, " you should not believe such things!"

He shook his head.

"I'd like to put it by," he declared, "but how can a man do so? Can you deny there is sorrow come to this house, undeserved and unforeseen? Yes, the curse of ill luck will lie on a house until some one knows how to drive it away. And the best time for lifting such a spell is in the hour before midnight and in the dark of the moon."

Betsey stood up and took her basket.

"I am not going to believe what you say," she