As she neared the brook she saw a tiny light near the place where she had left her gifts, and stopped suddenly; then, remembering that Lily had said witches usually carried tiny lanterns, she drew a long breath, and stepped boldly forward, bowing very low, according to Lily’s directions, and putting both hands over her eyes: for Lily had said it would be a fatal thing to let your eyes rest upon a witch.
CHAPTER XII
ORSON’S MISTAKE
With bent head and covered eyes Berry stumbled toward the trees, and at the sound of her approach Orson promptly extinguished his pipe; the tiny light, that Berry had mistaken for a witch lantern, having been the match he had used in lighting it.
The little girl had just reached the clump of trees when, close at hand, a high-pitched voice called: “Halt! What seek ye at the witch-tree?”
Orson was so close to Berry that he could have touched her, and Berry gave a little gasp of terror at the sound of a voice coming, apparently, from the tree itself. But her question was ready, and, although her voice faltered a little, Orson could hear distinctly.
“If you please, kind witch, I want to know where Mollie Bragg is, and when I will see her?” said Berry.
“Do you intend to obey, and promise what I require, if I answer?” growled the voice, so near to Berry that she gave a little backward start.
To obey a witch seemed rather a dreadful undertaking, but Berry did not hesitate. “I do!” she faltered.
“’Tis well! You promise to come to this tree each day: to look under a flat rock at its roots, and when you find a letter there to take it and run your swiftest until you give it to the person whose name is written upon it?” growled the voice.
“I promise,” said Berry.