Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/216

212 person of the speaker, from whom no one who once looked could well withdraw his eyes. She seemed some seventy years old, but unbowed or unbroken by age, and had that kind of commanding look which common spirits dread. Lord William listened to her words with a look of kindness and respect. 'Margery Forsythe,' he said, 'thou couldest have prophesied more fortunately and wisely hadst thou wished it; but thou art a faithful friend and servant to my Beatrice—accept this broad piece of gold, and imagine a more pleasant tale when, with the evening tide, I return with my love to Helvellyn.'

"The gold fell at the old woman's feet, but it lay glittering and untouched among the grass, for her mind and eye seemed intent on matters connected with the glory of her master's house.

Friend am I to Beatrice Maxwell, but no servant,' said Margery, in a haughty tone, 'though it's sweet to serve a face so beautiful. Touch not this shore, I say again, William Forster; but it's vain to forbid—the thing that must be must; we are fore-ordained to run our course, and this is the last course of the gallant house of Forster.'

"She then stepped aside, opposing Lord William no longer, who, impatient at her opposition, was preparing to leap ashore. Dipping her staff in the water as a fisher dips his rod, she held it dripping towards the Solway, to which she now addressed herself:—'False and fathomless sea, slumbering now in the sweet summer sun like a new-lulled babe, I have lived by thy side for years of sin that I shall not sum; and every year hast thou craved and yearned for thy morsel, and made the maids and matrons wail in green Galloway and Nithsdale. When wilt thou be satisfied, thou hungry sea? Even now, sunny and sweet as thou seemest, dost thou crave for the mouthful ordained to thee by ancient prophecy, and the fair and the dainty morsel is at hand.'

"Her eyes, dim and spiritless at first, became filled, while she uttered this apostrophe to the sea, with a wild and agitated light—her stature seemed to augment, and her face to dilate with more of grief than joy; and her locks, snowy and sapless with age, writhed on her forehead and temples, as if possessed with a distinct life of their own. Throwing her staff into the sea, she then went into the grove of holly, and disappeared.