"Why not?" and Don Aloysius returned her smile. "If old Alison has anything to do with your happiness I should like to hear."
"Well, you see, you are a priest," went on Morgana, slowly, "and she is a witch. Oh yes, truly!--a real witch! There is no one in all that part of the Highlands that does not know of her, and the power she has! She is very, very old--some folks say she is more than a hundred. She knew my father and grandfather--she came to my father's cottage the night I was born, and said strange things about a 'May child'--I was born in May. We went--as I tell you--to see her, and found her spinning. She looked up from her wheel as we entered--but she did not seem surprised at our coming. Her eyes were very bright--not like the eyes of an old person. She spoke to my father at once--her voice was very clear and musical. 'Is it you, John Royal?' she said--'and you have brought your fey lass along with you!' That was the first time I ever heard the word 'fey.' I did not understand it then."
"And do you understand it now?" asked Aloysius.
"Yes"--she replied,--"I understand it now! It is a wonderful thing to be born 'fey'! But it is a kind of witchcraft,--and you would be displeased--"
"At what should I be displeased?" and the priest bent his eyes very searchingly upon her--"At the fact,--which none can disprove,--that 'there are things in heaven and earth' which are beyond our immediate knowledge? That there are women strangely endowed with premonitory instincts land preternatural gifts? Dear child, there is nothing in all this that can or could displease me! My faith--the faith of my Church--is founded on the preternatural endowment of a woman!"
She lifted her eyes to his, and a little sigh came from her lips.
"Yes, I know what you mean!"--she said--"But I am sure you cannot possibly realise the weird nature of old Alison! She made me stand before her, just where the light of the sun streamed through the open doorway, and she looked at me for a long time with such a steady piercing glance that I felt as if her eyes were boring through my flesh. Then she got up from her spinning and pushed away the wheel, and stretched out both her hands towards me, crying out in quite a strange, wild voice--'Morgana! Morgana! Go your ways, child begotten of the sun and shower!--go your ways! Little had mortal father or mother to do with your making, for you are of the fey folk! Go your ways with your own people!--you shall hear them whispering in the night and singing in the morning,--and they shall command you and you shall obey!--they shall beckon and you shall follow! Nothing of mortal flesh and blood shall hold you--no love shall bind you,--no hate shall wound you!--the clue is given into your hand,--the secret is disclosed--and the spirits of air and fire and water have opened a door that you may enter in! Hark!--I can hear their voices calling "Morgana! Morgana!" Go your ways, child!--go hence and far!--the world is too small for your wings!' She looked so fierce and grand and terrible that I was frightened--I was only a girl of sixteen, and I ran to my father and caught his hand. He spoke quite gently to Alison, but she seemed quite beyond herself and unable to listen. 'Your way lies down a different road, John Royal'--she said--'You that herded sheep on these hills and that now hoard millions of money--of what use to you is your wealth? You are but the worker,--gathering gold for HER--the "fey" child born in an hour of May moonlight! You must go, but she must stay,--her own folk have work for her to do!' Then my father said, 'Dear Alison, don't frighten the child!' and she suddenly changed in her tone and manner. 'Frighten her?' she muttered. 'I would not frighten her for the world!' And my father pushed me towards her and whispered--'Ask her to bless you before you go.' So I just knelt before her, trembling very much, and said, 'Dear Alison, bless me!'--and she stared at me and lifted her old brown wrinkled hands and laid them on my head. Then she spoke some words in a strange language as to herself, and afterwards she said, 'Spirit of all that is and ever shall be, bless this child who belongs to thee, and not to man! Give her the power to do what is commanded, to the end.' And at this she stopped suddenly and bending down she lifted my head in her two hands and looked at me hard--'Poor child, poor child! Never a love for you--never a love! Alone you are, alone you must be! Never a love for a "fey" woman!' And she let me go, and sat down again to her spinning-wheel, nor would she say another word--neither to me nor to my father."