ere's no youngsters to please."

"Cap'n Vye has been for a long walk to-day, and is quite tired out,"
said Grandfer Cantle, "so 'tisn't likely to be he."

"And he would hardly afford good fuel like that," said the wide woman.

"Then it must be his grand-daughter," said Fairway. "Not that a body
of her age can want a fire much."

"She is very strange in her ways, living up there by herself, and such
things please her," said Susan.

"She's a well-favoured maid enough," said Humphrey the furze-cutter;
"especially when she's got one of her dandy gowns on."

"That's true," said Fairway. "Well, let her bonfire burn an't will.
Ours is well-nigh out by the look o't."

"How dark 'tis now the fire's gone down!" said Christian Cantle,
looking behind him with his hare eyes. "Don't ye think we'd better
get home-along, neighbours? 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 f