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She looked at me, dreamily. "There are none ... that I fear." "Not even Catrine Montour?" I asked, to plague her. "No; it turns me cold to think of her running in the forest, but I am not afraid." She stood pensive in the doorway, rolling and unrolling her embroidery. Harry and Cecile came out, flourishing alder poles from which lines and hooks dangled.
In the wheel employed at Catrine, in Ayrshire, where the phenomenon was first observed by the eye of science, it had required ten years to produce a coating the tenth of an inch in thickness. This incrustation has all the characters of shell, displaying a highly polished surface, beautifully iridescent, and, when broken, a foliated texture.
"Dorothy," I said, smiling, "I use some weapons better than I do the war-axe. Are you afraid for me?" She looked at me seriously. "In that little world which I know there is much that terrifies men, yet I can say, without boasting, there is not, in my world, one living creature or one witch or spirit that I dread no, not even Catrine Montour!" "And who is Catrine Montour?"
"Miss Grant!" I cried, all in a disorder. "Yes, I asked her to kiss me good-bye, the which she did." "Ah, well!" said she, "you have kissed me too, at all events." At the strangeness and sweetness of that word, I saw where we had fallen; rose, and set her on her feet. "This will never do," said I. "This will never, never do. O Catrine, Catrine!"
Maybe I was countryfeed; at least, I was not so much so as she thought; and it was plain enough, even to my homespun wits, that she was bent to hammer up a match between her cousin and a beardless boy that was something of a laird in Lothian. "Saxpence had better take his broth with us, Catrine," says she. "Run and tell the lasses."
"And that is like to be her business," muttered Van Horn. "The painted forest-men are in the hills, and if Senecas, Cayugas, and Onondagas do not know it this night, it will be no fault of Catrine Montour." "Ride on, Peter," said Dorothy, and checked her horse till my mare came abreast. "Are you afraid?" I whispered. "Afraid? No!" she said, astonished. "What should arouse fear in me?"
Arms akimbo, the thing planted itself before me, mouthing and slavering in fury. "The Toad-woman! Catrine Montour! The Toad-witch!" groaned the Senecas, shrinking back, huddling together as the hag whirled about and pointed at them. "I want him! I want him! Give him to me!" yelped the Toad-woman. "Fools! Do you know where you are? Do you know this grove of maple-trees?"
"Miss Grant!" I cried, all in a disorder. "Yes, I asked her to kiss me good-bye, the which she did." "Ah, well!" said she, "you have kissed me too, at all events." At the strangeness and sweetness of that word I saw where we had fallen; rose, and set her on her feet. "This will never do," said I. "This will never, never do. O, Catrine, Catrine!"
"How can I?" said I, laughing. "Who is this busy hag, Catrine Montour?" "They say," said Dorothy, waving her fan thoughtfully, "that her father was that Count Frontenac who long ago governed the Canadas, and that her mother was a Huron woman. Many believe her to be a witch. I don't know. Milk curdles in the pans when she is running through the forest ... they say.
"Perhaps also the Senecas and Cayugas; for this she-devil, Catrine Montour, is a Huron-Seneca, and her nation will follow her.
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