, but I seemed now
to be in a flat space of bog. I could only grope blindly forwards away
from the moss-hole, hoping that soon I might come to a lift in the
hill.

Suddenly from the distance of about half a mile there fell on my ears
the most hideous wailing. It was like the cats on a frosty night; it
was like the clanging of pots in a tinker's cart; and it would rise now
and then to a shriek of rhapsody such as I have heard at field-preachings.
Clearly the sound was human, though from what kind of crazy
human creature I could not guess. Had I been less utterly forwandered
and the night less wild, I think I would have sped away from it as fast
as my legs had carried me. But I had little choice. After all, I
reflected, the worst bedlamite must have food and shelter, and, unless
the gleam had been a will-o'-the-wisp, I foresaw a fire. So I hastened
in the direction of the noise.

I came on it suddenly in a hollow of the moss. There stood a ruined
sheepfold, and in the corner of two walls some plaids had been
stretched to make a tent. Before this burned a big fire of heather
roots and bog-wood, which hissed and crackled in the rain. Round it
squatted a score of women, with plaids drawn tight over their heads,
who rocked and moaned like a flight of witches, and two--three men were
on their knees at the edge of the ashes. But what caught my eye was the
figure that stood before the tent. It was a long fellow, who held his
arms to heaven, and sang in a great throaty voice the wild dirge I had
been listening to. He held a book in one hand, from which he would
pluck leaves and cast them on the fire, and at every burnt-offering a
wail of ecstasy would go up from the hooded women and kneeling men.
Then with a final howl he hurled what remained of his book into the
flames, and with upraised hands began some sort of prayer.

I would have fled if I could; but Providence willed it otherwise. The
edge of the bank on which I stood had been rotted by the rain, and the
whole thing gave under my feet. I slithered down into the sheepfold,
and pitched headforemost among the worshipping women. And at that, with
a yell, the long man leaped over the fire and had me by the throat.

My bones were too sore and weary to make resistance. He dragged me to
the ground before the tent, while the rest set up a skirling that
deafened my wits. There he plumped me down, and stood glowering at me
like a cat with a sparrow.

"Who are ye, and what do ye