The old woman stared keenly at him for a moment, and then smiled.
"Well, and will this, then, be like what you have seen in your dreams, if ever a great oganach like you dreams at all:
"First: She is beautiful as this May day.
"Second: She is tall and graceful as a young pine, and moves like a hind upon the hills, an' no flower sways in the wind more dainty-sweet than she.
"Third: She is fair of face, with all the soft skin of her like new milk. But her hair is dark, like the woods at dusk, and fragrant as they.
"Fourth: She lives at a mountain-farm, and all her heart is in a man's keeping, and all her beauty is his to love, and she is the tallest, and strongest, and sweetest lass in all the strath or in the big world beyond, and as beautiful as Roscrana that was wife to Fingal of old and mother of Ossian the blind bard—ay, good as Morna, which is the name of a woman that is beloved by all, and fair-to-see as Fiona, which is the name given of old to a bonnie maid, and lovely as Alona, than whom not woman could be lovelier.
"Fifth: And the man she loves is a poor misguidit wastrel who lives on a hill opposite to her, and I'm thinkin' his name will be Alan too, Alan this or Alan that.
"Sixth: 'Tis Himself only, praise be to Him, who knows who this Morna-Fiona-Alona may be: but in a dream I had, I'm thinkin' her name is Sorcha.
"And Seventh" (this in a relapse from Gaellic into the Lowland tongue): "I may be a silly auld wife, Alan my man, but I'm na sae blind as ta fail ta see through a split poke, for a' yer havers and blethers!"
With a shamefaced laugh Alan told her she was an old witch, and was sheer doited at that! Then, suddenly stooping and kissing her grey hair, he bade her good-bye, and went on his way.