Is it not
glorious to ride on the wind--to mount the stars--to kiss the moon
through the dark rolling clouds, when the blast scatters them in its
might? To ride unharmed on their huge peaks tipped with thunder? To be
for ever young in desire and enjoyment, though old and haggard, and bent
double with age and infirmities? To have our wish and our revenge--ay,
and the bodies of our enemies wasting before our spells, like wax to the
flame? But go, sneak and drivel, and mind thy meal and barley-cakes, and
go childless to thy grave."
She rose as if to depart; but Goody Dickisson's evil destiny prevailed,
and she promised to attend the feast, with this condition only, that no
harm should befall her, nor force nor entreaty should be used to win her
consent to join their confederacy. But she returned not from that
unhallowed assembly until body and soul were for ever under the dominion
of the destroyer.
The mill went merrily on no more, and the miller's song was still. He
looked a heavy and a doomed man. Strange suspicions haunted him. His
wife's ill-humour he could have borne; but her very laugh now made him
tremble: it was as if the functions of mind and body were animated by a
being distinct from herself.
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