“Him?—Whom?” cried Mother Goodhugh, sharply.
“Sir Mark,” faltered Anne, with her face growing crimson.
“Why not Captain Gil Carr?” replied Mother Goodhugh. “But there,” she continued, going into an inner room, and keeping on talking aloud till she returned with a little clumsily shaped phial, which she held with great care and reverence as she passed it to her visitor. “There, take care of it, child; every drop is worth a gold piece; but you have been disappointed, and I want to make thee happy.”
The visitor, while professing utter disbelief in such matters, snatched eagerly at the little phial, and hid it in her bosom.
“Now something else,” she cried. “You are so close and hard to deal with. Do something more.”
“What would you have me to do?” said the woman. “Shall I tell you of your future?”
“Yes, yes,” cried the girl.
“Sit on the stool then, there in the centre of the room,” said the old woman; “and whatever you see or hear do not speak or move, or I would not answer for the consequences; it might be dumbness, or craziness, or even death.”
Smiling scornfully, to hide a shudder, Anne Beckley did as she was bid; and as she seated herself the old woman closed and drew a rough curtain across the door, and over the little window, leaving only a few silver streaks of light to penetrate; and then, as there was utter silence as well, her visitor heard a voice that came apparently from a great distance say softly:—
“Things to come—things of the future—things of the many years. I see a house in its bright garden burned up and destroyed, the blast of powder, and the shrieks of the wounded; and I see a church, with a wedding-party coming away, and the face of the man is hidden, but the garb is that of an officer, and the face of the maid is that of Sir Thomas Beckley’s child.”