As soon as he saw them come in together the old man fell to chuckling
and rubbing his hands.

"Wife Mald, wife Mald, look up!" cried he; "there will be a wedding
this night. See, they are hand-fasted already."

Mald the witch rose up from the hearth at last and faced the
betrothed. She was terrible to view in her witless old age; her face
drawn into furrows and dull as lead, her bleared eyes empty of sight
or conscience, and her thin hair scattered before them. It was
despair, not sorrow, that Prosper read on such a face. Now she peered
upon the hand-locked couple, now she parted the hair from her eyes,
now slowly pointed a finger at them. Her hand shook with palsy, but
she raised it up to bless them. To Prosper she said--

"Thou who art as pitiful as death, shalt have thy reward. And it shall
be more than thou knowest."

To the girl she gave no promises, but with her crutch hobbled over the
floor to where she stood. She put her hand into her daughter's bosom
and felt there; she seemed contented, for she said to her very
earnestly--

"Keep thou what thou hast there till the hour of thy greatest peril.
Then it shall not fail thee to whomsoever thou shalt show it."

Then she withdrew her hand and crawled back to crouch over the ashes
of the fire; nor did she open her lips again that night, nor take any
part or lot in what followed.