mock Molly Ban now,
eh? No, 'faith, nor Mary Lafferty either, that turned me from the door
and shut it agin me. Where 'll her pride be to-morrow night, when they
bring in her husband a corpse to her? Look at that!'

With these words she threw her cloak on one side, and showed the blue
jacket of a fisherman which I had seen her sprinkling with the water as
we came up.

'The blue water will be his winding-sheet this night, calm as it is
now.'

'Oh, Molly dear, don't speak this way!'

'Molly dear!' echoed the beldame, in an accent of biting derision. 'Who
ever heerd one of your name call me that? Or are ye come for a charm
for that young man beside you? See, now! the sun's just gone; in a minit
more the sea 'll be in, and it'll be too late. Here, come near me! kneel
down there! kneel down, I say! or is it only my curse ye mind?'

'She's mad, poor thing,' said I, in my companion's ear. 'Let her have
her way; do as she bids you.'

Sinking with terror, pale as death, and trembling all over, Louisa bent
one knee upon the little rock beside the well, while the old hag took
her fair hand within her own skinny fingers and plunged it rudely in the
well.

'There, drink,' said the old woman, offering me the fair palm, through
which the clear water was running rapidly, while she chanted rather than
spoke the rude rhyme that follows--

'By the setting sun,
The flowing sea,
The waters that run,
I swear to thee
That my faith shall be true, at this moment now,
In weal or in woe, wherever or how:
So help me, Saint Senan, to keep my vow!'

The last words had scarcely been uttered when Louisa, who apparently had
been too much overcome by terror to hear one word the hag had muttered,
sprang up from the stone, her face and neck covered with a deep blush,
her lip trembling with agitation, while her eyes were fixedly directed
towards the old woman with an expression of haughty anger.

'Ay, ye may look as proud as ye like. It's little I mind ye, in love
or in hate. Ye are well humbled enough now. And as for you,' said she,
turning towards me a look of scornful pity--'you, I wish ye joy of your
fair sweetheart; let her only keep her troth like her own mother, and
ye'll have a happy heart to sit at your fireside with.'

[Illustration: 442]

The blood fled from Louisa's cheek as these words were uttered; a deadly
paleness spread over her features; her li