"I have always forgotten to ask why she was called the witch of the manor," said Archie.
"Because she has established herself in this wood, which formerly belonged to the D'Haberville estate," said Uncle Raoul. "My brother exchanged it for a part of his present domain, in order to get nearer his mill at Trois Saumons."
"Let us go and see poor old Marie," said Blanche. "When I was a child she used to bring me the first spring flowers and the first strawberries of the season."
Uncle Raoul made some objections on account of the lateness of the hour, but he could refuse Blanche nothing, and presently the horses were hitched on the edge of the wood and our party were on their way to the witch's abode.
The dwelling of old Marie by no means resembled that of the Cumæan sybil, or of any other sorceress, ancient or modern. It was a sort of patchwork hut, built of logs and unquarried stones, and carpeted within with many colored mosses. The roof was cone-shaped and covered with birch-bark and spruce branches.
Old Marie was seated on a log at the door of her hut, cooking something in a frying-pan over a fire which was surrounded with stones to keep it from spreading. She paid no attention to her visitors, but maintained a conversation with some invisible being behind her. She kept waving first one hand and then the other behind her back, as if attempting to drive away this being, and the burden of her utterance was: "Avaunt, avaunt! it is you that bring the English here to eat up the French!"
"Oh, ho, my prophetess of evil," exclaimed Uncle Raoul, "when you get done talking to the devil, would you be kind enough to tell me what you mean by that threat?"
"Come, Marie," interposed Jules, "tell us if you really think you are talking to the devil? You can fool the habitants, but you must know that we put no faith in such delusions."
"Avaunt! Avaunt!" continued the witch with the same gestures, "you that are bringing the English to eat up the French."