HECATE.
THIS stranger was an old woman, dark and grim beyond anything he could have imagined, and resembled nothing that William had ever heard of but the witch of a fairy-tale. Her shoulders were humped with age; her face extraordinarily long and swart, the chin resting on her breast. Her eyes were black and vivid. She wore a very wide-leafed black hat, tied down over her ears with a handkerchief, and a short dark cloak, from the folds of which her brown bare arm was extended; and her fingers, on which were several rings, grasped a long stick, on which she leaned.
Beautiful Euphan leaned with her shoulder lightly on the silvery stem of a birch-tree, one of three that sprang forking from the same root; and her arm and slender hand wound on a branch beside her, the small leaves of which waved and quivered slightly in answer to the motion, else unperceived, with which she accompanied her talk. Now and then her narrow shapely foot peeped forth, and listlessly poked the little tufts of grass.
Here, truly, were the embodied types of the graceful and the grotesque — the ugly and the beautiful — contrasted.
The old woman is talking now. The strange mask shines in the setting sun, like burnished bronze.
And now it is Euphan’s turn, and William sighs, “How beautiful she is! — how beautiful!”
What a mysterious prettiness, and novelty, and finish in all her movements, when a gesture or a change of attitude accompanies her speech! How strange and sinister the bright-eyed hag, who now and then, as she talks, lifts the point of her stick, and makes little diagrams and circles in the air! The shrivelled hand, the fixed smile, the hawk-like eye and myriad wrinkles, lend a malignant force to that picture of a witch performing an incantation.
Now they join hands, The old woman’s head is nodding in time to some last words; and now she walks, with her hunched stoop and wiry gait, swiftly enough to the old Druidic ring, close by, through which her path lies. As she reaches these tall gray stones, she turns, extending her long shrunken arm towards the girl, with an uncertain wave in the hand, as if pronouncing a farewell benediction. As she does so, William thinks she sees him; for it seemed, far as he was, that her piercing black eyes were directed suddenly on him. He had caught her eye, he felt She remained fixed, for a moment or two. Then — had she made a sign to the girl? — she turned again, and disappeared among those hoary stones and bushes.
Euphan Curraple looked towards William, smiled — not kindly, he thought — and remained where she was.
The young Squire was nettled. Here was a secret conference — a secret influence, he assumed — advising and planning going on; and he not informed even of the subject of it! He was stung and angry. Yet, could anything be more unreasonable? What right on earth had he to all this girl’s confidence?
Is not the whole Court of Love near akin to Bedlam? Is ever love without jealousy? And what madder than jealousy — save love itself?
If William had reflected for a moment, being proud, I think he would have walked straight home without troubling Euphan with a word. But, being impulsive too, he walked straight up to her, and raised his hat ironically, and said: —
“I’m so afraid I’ve interrupted a conversation.”
“Why need ye raise your hat, sir, to a gipsy girl?”
The avowal did not come by surprise on William. This was his second theory. But she interested him the more.
“I treat all people — and your sex especially — with respect.”
“Oh no! That was banter, sir, and you’re angry.”
“Angry? Not a bit. Why should I?”
“Very true — why should you?” she replied, coldly.
“I say, I’m not angry!” said William, a little hotly. “Every one has their own business, and, provided that’s not interfered with, I don’t see what right any one has to be angry.”
“It is I that should be angry, sir,” said the girl.
“I don’t think, lately,” said William, “I have had an opportunity of saying anything to incur your displeasure.”
“You should not have watched me, sir, like that; no gentleman would have done so.”
As she spoke she waved her hand, ever so slightly, towards the spot where William had been standing.
“Watch you!” said William. “I never dreamed of such a thing. I was walking home, and saw you, ana was surprised — little more than one minute; and I did not hear one word you were saying — not a syllable. If you knew anything of me — if you cared to understand me — you would know that I’m no such person; that’s quite impossible.”
“Well, you need look no more, and guess no more; I’ve told you all.”
A brilliant color flushed under the clear brown of that beautiful girl, and made her splendid black eyes burn like fire.
“You’ve told me only what I thought before, Euphan,” he said, in a tone on a sudden quite changed. “I have read about your race, ever SQ much, with the deepest interest. Think what you will of me, Euphan, but don’t think me a fool or a worldling. I treasure the words you said to me — words that you forget — when first you came, so true and wise, containing the very secret of all the happiness that this sad earth can yield.”
“If you had asked me, sir, when I told you my name, I’d have told you all; we never deny our people. There are some of them passing, and they’ll camp near the cat-stone, on the moss, to-night, They are bad gipsies; we don’t like them, but they can fetch a message, and that old woman had a message for me. She says I may go on safely to my own people now. That was all; I would have told you, if you had asked me.”
She spoke a little coldly — she looked pained. What a dignity there was in this young queen of nature!