If you've the branch of blessed quicken wood
That women hang upon the post of the door
That they may send good luck into the house?
Remember they may steal new-married brides
After the fall of twilight on May Eve,
Or what old women mutter at the fire
Is but a pack of lies.

FATHER HART. It may be truth
We do not know the limit of those powers
God has permitted to the evil spirits
For some mysterious end. You have done right.

(to MARY);

It's well to keep old innocent customs up.

(MARY BRUIN has taken a bough of quicken wood from a seat and
hung it on a nail in the doorpost. A girl child strangely
dressed, perhaps in faery green, comes out of the wood and takes
it away.)

MARY. I had no sooner hung it on the nail
Before a child ran up out of the wind;
She has caught it in her hand and fondled it;
Her face is pale as water before dawn.

FATHER HART. Whose child can this be?

MAURTEEN. No one's child at all.