Morva pondered seriously as she fed the fire from a heap of dried furze piled up in the corner behind the big chimney.
"I was very little when Gethin went away, but I remember it. Now tell me about the night when first I came to you. I love that story as much now as I did when I was a child."
"That night," said Sara, "oh! that night, my child. I see it as plainly as I have seen the gold of the sunset to-night. It had been blowing all day from the north-west till the bay was like a pot of boiling milk. It was about sunset (although we couldn't see the sun), there was a dark red glow over everything as if it were angry with us. Up here on the moor the wind shrieked and roared and tore the poor sheep from the fold, and the little sea-crows from their nests. I sat here alone, for it was the year when my husband and baby had died, and, oh, I was lonely, child! I moaned with the wind, and my tears fell like the rain. I heaped the furze on the fire and kept a good blaze; it was cold, for it was late in October. It grew darker and darker, and I sat on through the night, and gradually my ears got used to the raging of the storm, I suppose, for I fell asleep, sitting here under the chimney, but suddenly I awoke. The wind was shrieking louder than ever, and there in that dark corner by the spinning-wheel I saw a faint shadow that changed into the form of a woman. She was pale, and had on a long white gown, her hair, light like thine, hung down in threads as if it were wet. She held out her hands to me, and I sat up and listened. I saw her lips move, and, though I could not hear her voice, I seemed to understand what she said, for thee know'st, Morva, I am used to these visions."
"Well, I rose and answered her, and drew my old cloak from the peg there. 'I am coming,' I said, and she glided before me out through the door and down the path over the moor. I saw her, a faint, white figure, gliding before me till I reached the Cribserth, and there she disappeared, but I knew what she wished me to do; and I followed the path down to the shore, and there was tumult and storm indeed, the air full of spray, and even in the black night the foaming waves showing white against the darkness. Out at sea there was a ship in distress, there was a light on the mast, and we knew by its motion that the poor ship was sorely tossed and driven. Many people had gathered on the shore in the darkness. No one had thought of calling me, for here we are out of the world, Morva; but the spirits come more easily to the lonely moor than to the busy town. Ebben Owens was there, and little Ann, and all the servants and the people from the farms beyond the moor, but no one could help the poor ship in her distress. At last the light went out, and we knew the waves had swallowed her up, and all night on the incoming tide came spars and logs and shattered timber, and many of the drowned sailors. Stiven 'Storrom' was there as usual, and in the early dawn, when there was just a streak of light in the angry sky, he shouted out that he had found something, and we all ran towards him, and there, tied safely to a hencoop, lay a tiny baby, wet and sodden, but still alive. It was thee, child, so wasn't I right to call thee Morforwyn?[1] though indeed we soon shortened it to Morva. When I saw thee I knew at once 'twas thy mother who had come to me here, and had led me down to the shore, and I begged them to give me the baby. 'There is a reason,' I said, but I did not tell them what it was. What was the good, Morva? They would not understand. They would only jeer at me as they do, and call me Sara ''spridion.'[2] Well, let them, I am richer than they, oh! ten thousand times, and I would not change my life here on the lonely moor, and the visions I have here, for any riches they could offer me."