"Then be partaker of the wrath that is just ready to burst upon her doomed house."
"I told thee," said Grace, "she is the herald of misfortune! What woe does she denounce? What cruel judgment hast thou invoked upon our race?" cried she to this grim messenger of evil.
"Evil will—evil must! I will cling to ye till your last sustenance be dried up, and your inheritance be taken from ye."
"Her fate be mine," said Buckley, indignantly. "Her good or evil fortune I will share."
"Be it so. Thou hast made thy choice, and henceforth thou canst not complain."
She stretched out her two hands, one towards Clegg Hall, the abode of the maiden, and the other towards Buckley, her lover's paternal roof, from which a blue curl of smoke was just visible over the rising grounds beneath them.
"A doom and a curse to each," she muttered. "Your names shall depart, and your lands to the alien and the stranger. Your honours shall be trodden in the dust, and your hearths laid waste, and your habitations forsaken."
In this fearful strain she continued until Buckley cried out—
"Cease thy mumbling, witch. I'll have thee dealt with in such wise thy tongue shall find another use."
Turning upon him a look of scorn, she seemed to grow fiercer in her maledictions.