“I only brought it because cook told me,” she said.
“Cook didn’t give you the kind heart that makes you want to cry for me now,” said the witch.
The old woman sank down in a crouching heap, and her voice changed to one of sing-song.
“I know,” she said,—“I know many things. All alone the livelong day and the death-long night, I have learned to see. As cats see through the dark, I see through the days that have been and shall be. I know that you are not here, that you are not now. You will return whence you came, and this time that is not yours shall bear no trace of you. And my blessing shall be with you in your own time and your own place, because you brought a love-gift to the poor old wise woman of Arden.”
“Is there anything I can do for you?” Elfrida asked, very sorry indeed, for the old woman’s voice was very pitiful.
“Kiss me,” said the old woman,—“kiss me with your little child’s mouth, that has come back a hundred years to do it.”
Elfrida did not wish to kiss the wrinkled, grey face, but her heart wished her to be kind, and she obeyed her heart.
“Ah!” said the wise woman, “now I see. Oh, never have I had such a vision. None of them all has ever been like this. I see great globes of light like the sun in the streets of the city, where now are only little oil-lamps and guttering lanterns. I see iron roads, with fiery dragons drawing the coaches, and rich and poor riding up and down on them. Men shall speak in England and their voice be heard in France—more, the voices of men dead shall be kept alive in boxes and speak at the will of those who still live. The handlooms shall cease in the cottages, and the weavers shall work in palaces with a thousand windows lighted as bright as day. The sun shall stoop to make men’s portraits more like than any painter can make them. There shall be ships that shall run under the seas like conger-eels, and ships that shall ride over the clouds like great birds. And bread that is now a shilling and ninepence shall be fivepence, and the corn and the beef shall come from overseas to feed us. And every child shall be taught who can learn, and——”
“Peace, prater,” cried a stern voice in the doorway. Elfrida turned. There stood the grandfather, Lord Arden, very straight and tall and grey, leaning on his gold-headed cane, and beside him Edred, looking very small and found-out.
The old witch did not seem to see them; her eyes, that rolled and blinked, saw nothing. But she must have heard, for—