; which
however happened pretty often. The smoke escaped much less through the
chimney than through the chinks of the wall; enveloping every object in
a dusky shade, and deepening the gloom. Perfect silence reigned in the
house; and no living creature appeared to be present. But once, when
the fire happened to shoot forth a livelier gleam, the clouds of smoke
parted and discovered a female countenance--old, and with striking
features, and fixing a pair of large dark-grey eyes upon a pan or
cauldron which hung over the fire. Sometimes, when a cloud of vapour
arose from the pan, and collected in a corner into fantastic wreaths,
she pursued it with her eyes, and a smile played over her withered
cheeks: but, when it dispersed or escaped through the chinks, a low
muttering and sometimes a moaning might be distinguished. She had, as
Bertram observed, a spinning-wheel between her feet: but busy as her
hands seemed, and mechanically in motion, it was evident that she did
little or no work. At intervals she sang: but what she sang was more
like a low muttered chaunt, than a regular song: at least Bertram
understood not a word of it, if words they were that escaped her.

After one of these chaunts, the old woman rose suddenly from her seat,
wrung her hands, seemed to trace strange circles in the air, and then
scattered some substance into the fire which raised a sudden burst of
flames that curled over the cauldron, lit up the house for a few
moments, and then roaring up the chimney left all in greater darkness
than before. During these few moments however Bertram had time to
observe the whole appearance of the woman with some distinctness. She
seemed to have the stature of a well-grown man; but her flesh had
fallen away so remarkably that the red frieze gown which she wore hung
in loose folds about her. Much as Bertram was shocked at first by the
spectacle of her harsh bony lineaments, her fiery eye, and her grey
disheveled hair,--he yet perceived in her face the traces of former
beauty. She raised her bony arms, as if in supplication, to that
quarter of the room where Bertram was lying: he perceived however that
it was not himself, but some object near him which drew her attention.
To his great alarm he now discovered close to himself a chair--the only
one in the room,--and sitting upon it some motionless figure in the
attitude of a living man. The old woman stretched out her hands with
more and more earnestness to this object,