witcheries. She is best known by the name of 'Mother
Red-Cap.'"

"I've heard of this same witch in my boyhood. But what should we fear?
She is flesh and blood like ourselves; and, in spite of the prevailing
belief, I could never suppose power would be granted to some,
generally the most wicked and the most worthless, which from the rest
of mankind is capriciously withholden."

"Hush, Gervase; thou knowest not how far the arch-enemy of mankind may
be permitted to afflict bodily our guilty race. I could tell thee such
tales of yonder creature as would stagger even the most stubborn of
unbelievers."

"I will speak to her, nevertheless. Tarry here, I prithee, Grace. It
were best I should go alone."

"Oh, do not--do not! None have sight of her, as I've heard, but
mischief follows. What disaster, then, may we not expect from her evil
tongue? I shudder at the anticipation. Stay here. I will not be left;
and I cannot cross this dangerous swamp."

Buckley was, however, bent on the adventure. His natural curiosity,
inflamed by forbidden longing after the occult and the mysterious, to
which he was too prone, even though sceptical as to their existence,
rendered him proof against his mistress' entreaties.

Probably from situation, or rather, it might be, the distance was
judged greater than in reality it proved, but the form before them
looked preternaturally enlarged, and as she raised her head her arms
were flung out high above it like withered and wasted branches on each
side. Trembling in every limb, Grace clung to her lover, and it was
after long persuasion that she suffered him to lift her over the
morass, and was dragged unwillingly up the hill. As though she were
the victim of some terrible fascination, her eyes were constantly
riveted on the object. A raven wheeled round them, every moment
narrowing the circle of its flight, and the malicious bird looked
eager for mischief.

As they approached nearer to the summit, this ill-omened thing, after
having brushed so close that they felt the very breath from its wings,
alighted beside the Red Woman, who hardly seemed to notice, though
well aware of their proximity.

They paused when several paces distant, and she rose up suddenly,
extending both arms, apparently to warn them from a nearer approach.
Her skinny lips, rapidly moving to and fro, and her dark withered,
bony, and cadaverous features, gave her more the appearance of a
living mummy or a resurrection from the