Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

the luck of the day is determined.

Some

have placed barley on the letters of the alphabet, and noted the order in which a fowl will pick up the ears.'

[ocr errors]

My maid Jenny,' I said, 'reads fortunes by the hand.'

It is palmistry,' said Mr. Hilyard, and a most curious art, though, like the rest, it is vain and useless; while, it hath been held by some, the Lord hath stamped the future of man upon every feature, so that, if we could learn it, we might read in the curve of an eyebrow, the lines of the lips, the turn of the chin, a sure and certain prognostic of what will happen to us before we die. With your permission, Miss Dorothy, we will examine the girl in this matter.'

Jenny was called, and I asked her first to read my hand. She replied, looking ashamed, that she had read it many times ; but when I commanded her to tell me what she saw there, she hesitated and changed colour, and then replied, like a gipsy at a fair when you cross her hand with a groat, that there was a fair young gentleman of a great estate, and that she saw a wedding

ring and happiness as long as a summer day, with beautiful children. But it was manifest that she said what she thought would please me. Then Mr. Hilyard bade her look at Mr. Frank's hand, into which she peered long and with a strange curiosity. After a while she dropped his hand, and turned to Mr. Hilyard, saying:

'Now yours, sir,' and read it glibly as if from a book, saying, 'The line of life is long, but the course of love is crossed. There is wealth for you, and honour; but no wife and no children. No one hath everything.' 'But mine,' cried Frank,' what is mine?'

She

But she replied not, running away. When afterwards I rebuked her, she acknowledged that she could not tell him what she read, so bad and unlucky it was. also told me that her grandmother, the old gipsy woman of whom I have spoken, had also told the fortune of Mr. Frank by cards, and that it came the same as her own telling, which made me marvel.

[ocr errors]

'Ask no more,' said Mr. Hilyard; and you, girl, keep these things to yourself, else

the people will get strange notions into their heads.'

The people had already got into their heads strange notions. First this girl of mine had filled the place with the terror of the ghosts she saw. Next it was said that she was a witch, and ought to be thrown into. a pond. Perhaps that would have been done, but for fear of us. Then it was said that she had bewitched a certain young fellow of the place named Job Oliver, a hind. They told Mr. Hilyard that Job would do whatever foolish things Jenny told him to do; that he would sometimes rise when she was not in the company, and say that Jenny called him, and so go to her; that he looked not as he was wont to look, but went about with eyes distracted and trembling hands.

[ocr errors]

She is a witch,' said Mr. Hilyard, 'just as all women are witches; and she hath bewitched this foolish lad. But the only arts, I think, are those which she practises in common with all her sex, namely, her eyes and her face. In a word, the fellow is in

love.'

I spoke to her on the subject, and she con

fessed, though she looked confused, that it was as Mr. Hilyard said, and that if the man chose to be in love with her she could not help it; perhaps he did and said foolish things, but she could not help that either; and he must do what he pleased. The girl was saucy about it, but yet one could not reprove her, because it makes every woman saucy and self-conceited, when a man is in love with her. When she crossed the quadrangle or entered any of their houses, the people looked askance and put thumb in fingers, but yet were monstrous civil, because they feared her. Witch or not, she did none of them any harm (I do not believe that a pig which died at this time was overlooked by her, though this was charged upon her). As for Job, after we went away he presently recovered, looked about him, became once more a cheerful wight, forgot his enchantress, and married another woman, who made him happy in such sort as rustics understand happiness; that is to say, every year a thumping boy or girl, and every Sunday a great dish of fat bacon. And as for Jenny herself, she paid no heed to what was

Yet

thought, but went about with an impudent answer for all except her mistress,. and a saucy laugh, and singing as she went, as if there was no such thing in the world at all as witchcraft, and she had no powers and gifts above those generally conferred upon young maids-namely, the bewitching of eyes and face, soft speech, and lovely limbs. all the time a deceitful hussy. I knew not then, though I learned afterwards, that she met Frank Radcliffe secretly, and taught him, I believe, her arts of prediction, and even sent him to see her wicked old grandmother (who I am quite sure was another Witch of Endor), when the camp came once to Hexham. What they told him, between them, I know not; but in the end it became manifest what a gipsy woman can do when a young gentleman is foolish enough to listen. to her wiles.

Not knowing these things, I begged Frank to give up this pursuit of his, as a useless, idle, and curious practice. He acknowledged that the priest gave him similar admonition, but yet that he continued, though he knew that he was wrong. Religion forbids it, that

« AnteriorContinuar »