their wings. William kneeled down, and, with the last stroke of the clock, the first ball dropt from the mould.
The night-birds now ceased to croak, and the dead men’s bones to rattle; but there came an old wrinkled hag along the road, whose tottering steps were suddenly interrupted as with an iron barrier by the enchanted circle, beyond which she could not pass. The beldame appeared with a number of wooden spoons and ladles hung around her person, which rung against each other as she moved her withered limbs; and the owls hooted low at her approach and spread out their broad wings in token of welcome. The hag made a low obeisance to the bones and skulls, but the coals threw out long flames of fire towards her and compelled her to withdraw her sinewy hands which she had spread out before the fire. She then paced round and round the circle, and invited William to buy her wares: “Give me the bones,” said she in a low croaking voice, “and I will give you a nice little spoon;—give me that skull, what use have you for such matters? Come, come, thy fate is sealed; let us be merry together, crony mine!”
William trembled, but remained within the circle and pursued his work. He knew the old hag well, for he had often seen her begging in the neighbourhood in the same fantastic attire which she now wore, he then supposed her to be a poor wretch who had become deranged in intellect, and was told that she had been at last lodged in a mad-house. But he now knew not whether the object before him was an illusion or not. At last the beldame flung away her trumpery
