hbours? The heth isn't haunted, I know; but we'd better
get home....Ah, what was that?"

"Only the wind," said the turf-cutter.

"I don't think Fifth-of-Novembers ought to be kept up by night except in
towns. It should be by day in outstep, ill-accounted places like this!"

"Nonsense, Christian. Lift up your spirits like a man! Susy, dear, you
and I will have a jig--hey, my honey?--before 'tis quite too dark to see
how well-favoured you be still, though so many summers have passed since
your husband, a son of a witch, snapped you up from me."

This was addressed to Susan Nunsuch; and the next circumstance of which
the beholders were conscious was a vision of the matron's broad form
whisking off towards the space whereon the fire had been kindled. She
was lifted bodily by Mr. Fairway's arm, which had been flung round her
waist before she had become aware of his intention. The site of the fire
was now merely a circle of ashes flecked with red embers and sparks, the
furze having burnt completely away. Once within the circle he whirled
her round and round in a dance. She was a woman noisily constructed;
in addition to her enclosing framework of whalebone and lath, she wore
pattens summer and winter, in wet weather and in dry, to preserve her
boots from wear; and when Fairway began to jump about with her, the
clicking of the pattens, the creaking of the stays, and her screams of
surprise, formed a very audible concert.

"I'll crack thy numskull for thee, you mandy chap!" said Mrs. Nunsuch,
as she helplessly danced round with him, her feet playing like
drumsticks among the sparks. "My ankles were all in a fever before, from
walking through that prickly furze, and now you must make 'em worse with
these vlankers!"

The vagary of Timothy Fairway was infectious. The turf-cutter seized old
Olly Dowden, and, somewhat more gently, poussetted with her likewise.
The young men were not slow to imitate the example of their elders, and
seized the maids; Grandfer Cantle and his stick jigged in the form of a
three-legged object among the rest; and in half a minute all that could
be seen on Rainbarrow was a whirling of dark shapes amid a boiling
confusion of sparks, which leapt around the dancers as high as their
waists. The chief noises were women's shrill cries, men's laughter,
Susan's stays and pattens, Olly Dowden's "heu-heu-heu!" and the
strumming of the wind upon the furze-bushes, which formed a kind of tune
to the demoniac meas