Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/236

232 which she has invented to avoid the misery, perhaps, of open speech. She seemed scarcely aware of my presence.

"At last she threw back her long hair from her face, that nothing might intercept her steady gaze at the river; and, plucking a silver bodkin from her bosom, she proceeded to describe on the ground two small and coffin-shaped holes—one something longer than the other. I could not help shuddering while I looked on these symbols of certain fate; and my fears instantly connected what I saw with the wedding and the bride and bridegroom. I seized her by the arm, and, snatching the bodkin from her, said: 'Judith, thou art an evil foreboder, and I shall cast this bodkin of thine, which has been made under no good influence, into the blackest pool of Annanwater.' At other times I was an overmatch for her in strength; but when the time of her sorrow came she seemed to obtain supernatural strength in body as well as in mind, and on this occasion she proved it by leaping swiftly to her feet and wresting the bodkin from me. She resumed her seat; and, taking the bride and bridegroom's ribands from her bosom, she put the latter into the larger grave and the former in the less, and wrung her hands, threw her hair wildly over her face, and wept and sobbed aloud.

"All this had not passed unobserved of others. 'Mercy on us!' cried the Laird of Gooseplat, 'but the young witch is casting cantraips, and making the figures of graves, and dooming to the bedral's spade and the parish mortcloth the quick instead of the dead. I'se tell thee what, my cannie lass, two red peats and a tar-barrel would make a warm conclusion to these unsonsie spells ye are casting; and may I be choked with a thimbleful of brandy if ye should want a cross on the brow as deep as the bone if I had my whittle.' Other spectators came to more charitable conclusions. 'Red peats and sharp whittles!' muttered William Graeme of Cummerlair; 'I'se tell ye what, laird, if ye lay a hand of harm on the poor demented lassie, I'se lend ye a Lockerby lick to take home with ye. Eh, sirs, but this be fearful to look upon—she is showing us by dumb looks, and sure nods, and sad signs, and awful symbols, the coming of wrath and woe. There are two graves, and the bridal ribands laid like corses in them—he that runs may read.'

"While this passed out of doors, the dancing and bridal mirth abounded more than ever. It was now ten