This much the neighbours report and the clergyman confirms, as also that all went well with the young couple for the better part of two years. The girl grew swiftly towards womanhood, became sleek and well-liking; had a glow and a promise of ripeness which bid fair to be redeemed. A few omens, however, remained, disquieting when those who loved her thought of them. One was that she got no human speech, though she understood everything that was said to her; another that she showed no signs of motherhood; a third that Bessie Prawle could not abide her. She alone of all the little community avoided the King household, and scowled whensoever she happened to cross the path of this gentle outland girl. Jealousy was presumed the cause; but I think there was more in it than that. I think that Bessie Prawle believed her to be a witch.
To eyes prepared for coming disaster things small in themselves loom out of a clear sky portentous. Such eyes had not young Andrew King the bride-groom, a youth made man by love, secure in his treasure and confident in his power of keeping what his confidence had won. Such eyes may or may not have had Mabilla, though hers seemed to be centred in her husband, where he was or where he might be. George King was old and looked on nothing but his sheep, or the weather as it might affect his sheep. Miranda King, the self-contained, stoic woman, had schooled her eyes to see her common duties. Whatever else she may have seen she kept within the door of her shut lips. She may have known what was coming, she must have known that whatever came had to come. Bessie Prawle, however, with hatred, bitter fear and jealousy to sharpen her, saw much.
Bessie Prawle was a handsome, red-haired girl, deep in the breast, full-eyed and of great colour. Her strength was remarkable. She could lift a heifer into a cart, and had once, being dared to it, carried Andrew King up the brae in her arms. The young man, she supposed, owed her a grudge for that; she believed herself unforgiven, and saw in this sudden marriage of his a long-meditated act of revenge. By that in her eyes (and as she thought, in the eyes of all Dryhope) he had ill-requited her, put her to unthinkable shame. She saw herself with her favours of person and power passed over for a nameless, haunted, dumb thing, a stray from some other world into a world of men, women, and the children they rear to follow them. She scorned Mabilla for flinching so much, she scorned her for not flinching more. That Mabilla could be desirable to Andrew King made her scoff; that Andrew King should not know her dangerous kept her awake at night.