Anne bent her head in terror, and promised to obey; and the weird woman, again exclaiming--"Go!--be silent!--obey!" hastened from her sight.
When Anne entered the house, her father, and her adopted brother, or lover, were making ready for their journey. She sat down silently and thoughtfully in a corner of the apartment, and her half-suppressed sighs reached their ears.
"Why, what in the globe, daughter Anne," said her father, "can make thee sigh? Art thou sad because Patrick is to leave thee to go to a fair for a day or two? I suppose thou wouldn't hae troubled thy head, had thy father been to be absent as many months. But I don't blame thee; I mind I was tender-hearted at thy age, too--but Patrick knaws better what to say to thee than I do."
"Dear Anne," whispered the youth, taking her hand, "what ails thee?"
"Ask my father," she rejoined, hesitatingly, "that I may accompany you to Whitsome fair to-morrow."
"Nay, thou canst not go, dear," returned Patrick; "it is a long ride and a rough one; and the society thou wilt meet with will afford thee no pleasure, and but small amusement."
"I must go," she replied--"a strange being has laid a terrible command on me!"
"A grey-haired, wild-looking woman?" ejaculated Patrick, and his voice trembled as he spoke.
"Ask me no more," was her reply, "I must--I will accompany you."
"A dead dream," said the youth, "seems bursting into life within my brain. There are once familiar words ready to leap to my tongue that I cannot utter; and long forgotten memories haunting my mind, and flinging their shadows over it as though the substance again were approaching. But the woman that ye speak of!--yes! yes!--there is something more than a dream, dear Anne, that links my fate with her! I remember--I am sure it is no fancy--I do remember having been at a fair when I was a child--a mere child--and the woman ye allude to was there! Yes! yes!--you must accompany us! I feel, I am certain, that woman hath, indeed, my destiny in her hands!"
"Gudeness me!" exclaimed Sandy, "what is it that ye twasome are saying between ye? Is there ony light thrown upon the awd story; or, is it only the half-crazed randy--(forgie me for ca'ing the poor afflicted creature by ony sic name)--but, I say, is it only some o' the same nonsense that Babby Moor has been cramming into Anne's ear wi' which she has filled thine, lad? Upon my word, if I had my will o' the awd witch, I would douk her in the Reed till she confessed that every story she has tould to thee was a lie from end to end."