of the little enclosure, on the contrary, they say, you may discover
the broom and the rag-wort, in which witches mysteriously delight. But
this is perhaps a scandal.

Mall Carke was for many a year the _sage femme_ of this wild domain.
She has renounced practice, however, for some years; and now, under
the rose, she dabbles, it is thought, in the black art, in which she
has always been secretly skilled, tells fortunes, practises charms,
and in popular esteem is little better than a witch.

Mother Carke has been away to the town of Willarden, to sell knit
stockings, and is returning to her rude dwelling by Dardale Moss. To
her right, as far away as the eye can reach, the moor stretches. The
narrow track she has followed here tops a gentle upland, and at her
left a sort of jungle of dwarf-oak and brushwood approaches its edge.
The sun is sinking blood-red in the west. His disk has touched the
broad black level of the moor, and his parting beams glare athwart the
gaunt figure of the old beldame, as she strides homeward stick in
hand, and bring into relief the folds of her mantle, which gleam like
the draperies of a bronze image in the light of a fire. For a few
moments this light floods the air--tree, gorse, rock, and bracken
glare; and then it is out, and gray twilight over everything.

All is still and sombre. At this hour the simple traffic of the
thinly-peopled country is over, and nothing can be more solitary.

From this jungle, nevertheless, through which the mists of evening are
already creeping, she sees a gigantic man approaching her.

In that poor and primitive country robbery is a crime unknown. She,