‘So it appears,’ said she, ‘like a boat, and it is laden with the old moon—that betokens a storm.’
‘But when?’ said her husband with a sigh, mournfully disposed to humour the aberrations of her fancy.
‘The power is not yet given to me to tell,’ was her solemn response. ‘But the sign is a witness that the winds of the skies shall perform some dreadful agency in the fortunes of all enterprises ruled by this lunar influence. Had the moon been first seen but as a portion of a broken ring, I would have veiled my face, and deplored the omen. She comes forth, however, in her brightness—a silver boat sailing the azure depths of the Heavens, and bearing a rich lading of destiny to the glorious portals of the sun.’
At that moment a cow looked over the churchyard wall, and lowed so close to Mr. Eadie’s ear, that it made him start and laugh. Instead, however, of disturbing the Pythian mood of his lady, it only served to deepen it; but she said nothing, though her look intimated that she was offended by his levity.
After a pause of several minutes she rose, and moved towards the gate without accepting his proffered arm.
‘I am sorry,’ said he, ‘that you are displeased with me; but really the bathos of that cow was quite irresistible.’
‘Do you think,’ was her mystical reply, ‘that an animal, which, for good reasons, the wise Egyptians hardly erred in worshipping, made to us but an inarticulate noise? It was to me a prophetic salutation. On the morning before my father left Glengael to join the royal standard, I heard the same sound. An ancient woman, my mother’s nurse, and one of her own blood, told me that it was a fatal enunciation, for then the moon was in the wane; but heard, she said, when the new moon is first seen, it is the hail of a victory or a bridal.’
‘It is strange,’ replied the minister, unguardedly attempting to reason with her, ‘that the knowledge of these sort of occurrences should be almost exclusively confined to the inhabitants of the Highlands.’
‘It is strange,’ said she; ‘but no one can expound the cause. The streamers of the northern light shine not in southern skies.’
At that moment she shuddered, and, grasping the minister wildly by the arm, she seemed to follow some object with her eye that was moving past them.