she was obliged to run to keep them in view; and she all the time
cried to her continually, "Come back, come back, bonnie Laurie!"
until, getting over a bank, she was met by a white-faced old man, and
so frightened was she, that she thought she fainted outright. At all
events, she did not come to herself until the birds were singing their
vespers in the amber light of sunset, and the day was over.

No trace of the direction of the girl's flight was ever discovered.
Weeks and months passed, and more than a year.

At the end of that time, one of Mall Carke's goats died, as she
suspected, by the envious practices of a rival witch who lived at the
far end of Dardale Moss.

All alone in her stone cabin the old woman had prepared her charm to
ascertain the author of her misfortune.

The heart of the dead animal, stuck all over with pins, was burnt in
the fire; the windows, doors, and every other aperture of the house
being first carefully stopped. After the heart, thus prepared with
suitable incantations, is consumed in the fire, the first person who
comes to the door or passes by it is the offending magician.

Mother Carke completed these lonely rites at dead of night. It was a
dark night, with the glimmer of the stars only, and a melancholy
night-wind was soughing through the scattered woods that spread
around.

After a long and dead silence, there came a heavy thump at the door,
and a deep voice called her by name.