But she saw
the witch come out of the porch and stand there looking under the
sharp of her hand toward her, and thereafter she went back again into
the house without giving any sign. Wherefore Birdalone deemed that
she had leave that day, and that she might take yet more holiday; so
she stepped lightly down from her place of vantage, turned her face
toward the east, and went quietly along the very lip of the water.
CHAPTER X. BIRDALONE COMES ON NEW TIDINGS
Soon she had covered up the house from her, for on that eastern end,
both a tongue of the woodland shoved out west into the meadow, and,
withal, the whole body of the wood there drew down to the water, and
presently cut off all the greensward save a narrow strip along by the
lake, off the narrowest whereof lay the rocky eyot aforesaid, nigher
unto the shore than lay Green Eyot.
Now never had Birdalone gone so far east as to be over against Rock
Eyot. In her childish days the witch had let her know that she might
go where she would, but therewith had told her a tale of a huge
serpent which dwelt in the dark wood over against Rock Eyot, whose
wont it was to lap his folds round and round living things that went
there, and devour them; and many an evil dream had that evil serpent
brought to Birdalone.
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