draw the bark
wrapper out of the grave, and take the baby's body out of it. Then she
sat back on her heels, and threw her head up, just like a dog, and
bayed at the moon. She did it three times, and I do not know what there
was in the sound that jangled up one's nerves, but each time I heard it
my hair fairly lifted. Then she laid the little body down in a position
that seemed to have something to do with the points of the compass, for
she took a long time arranging it before she was satisfied with the
direction of its head and feet.

'Then she got up and began to dance round and round the grave. It was
not a pretty sight, out there in the semi-darkness, and miles away from
every one and everything, to watch this abominable old hag capering
uncleanly, while those restless, noiseless lips of hers called upon all
the devils in Hell, in words that we could not hear. Juggins pushed
harder against me than ever, and his hand on my arm gripped tighter and
tighter. I looked at his face, and saw that it was as white as chalk,
and I daresay mine was not much better. It does not sound much, as I
tell it to you here, in a civilised house, but at the time the sight of
that weird figure dancing in the moonlight, with its ungainly shadow,
fairly scared me.

'She danced silently like that for some minutes; setting to the dead
baby, and to her own uncouth capering shadow, till the sight made me
feel sick. If anybody had told me that morning, that I should ever be
badly frightened by an old woman, I should have laughed; but I saw
nothing to laugh at in the idea, while that grotesque dancing lasted.

'When it was over she squatted down again with her back towards us, and
took up the baby. She nursed it as a mother might nurse her child. I
could see the curve of the thing's head beyond her thin left arm, and
its little legs dangled loosely near her right elbow. Then she began to
croon to it, swinging it gently from side to side. She rocked it slowly
at first, but gradually the pace quickened, until she was swaying her
body to and fro, and from side to side, at such a pace, that to me she
looked as though she was falling all ways at once. And all the time that
queer crooning kept getting faster and faster, and more awful to listen
to. Then suddenly she changed the motion. She seized the thing she was
nursing by its arms, and began dancing it up and down, still moving at a
fearful pace, and crooning worse than ever. I could see the little