that was shaped
something like a human being--it was nothing but seaweed. Still she
felt frightened, and hastened on; and as she hurried on, many things
she had heard in her childhood recurred to her thoughts, especially
all the superstitious tales about "_the apparition of the beach_"--the
spectre of the unburied that lay washed up on the lonely, deserted
shore. The body thrown up from the deep, the dead body itself, she
thought nothing of; but its ghost followed the solitary wanderer,
attached itself closely to him or her, and demanded to be carried to
the churchyard, to receive Christian burial.

"Hold on--hold on!" it was wont to say; and, as Anne Lisbeth repeated
these words inwardly to herself, she suddenly remembered her strange
dream, in which the women had clung to her, shrieking, "Hold on--hold
on!" how the world had sunk; how her sleeves had given way, and she
had fallen from the grasp of her child, who wished, in the hour of
doom, to save her. Her child--her own flesh and blood--the little one
she had never loved, never spared a thought to--that child was now at
the bottom of the sea, and it might come like "the apparition of the
beach," and cry, "Hold on--hold on! Give me Christian burial!" And as
these thoughts crowded on her mind, terror gave wings to her feet, and
she hurried faster and faster on; but fear came like a cold, clammy
hand, and laid itself on her beating heart, so that she felt quite
faint; and as she glanced towards the sea, she saw it looked dark and
threatening; a thick mist arose, and soon spread around, lying heavily
over the very trees and bushes, which assumed strange appearances
through it.

She turned round to look for the moon, which was behind her: it was
like a pale disc, without any rays. Something seemed to hang heavily
about her limbs as she attempted to hurry on. She thought of the
apparition; and, turning again, she beheld the white moon as if close
to her, while the mist seemed to hang like a mantle over her
shoulders. "Hold on--hold on! Give me Christian burial!" she expected
every moment to hear; and she did hear a hollow, terrific sound, which
seemed to cry hoarsely, "Bury me--bury me!" Yes, it must be the
spectre of her child--her child who was lying at the bottom of the
sea, and who would not rest quietly until the corpse was carried to
the churchyard, and placed like a Christian in consecrated ground. She
would go there--she would dig his grave herself; and she wen