"Well, you see, sir, the law had no actual hold on her," replied the hostess; "but I have every reason to believe that she died hard. She was discovered dead one day on the floor of her hovel, in her day clothes, her eyes fixed and starting from her head, her features distorted, and her fingers extended like claws, as if grasping the floor. Some thought she had died in a fit, but, whatever the cause of her death, it is certain she must have suffered great agony, and I cannot look upon the mode of her death otherwise than as a judgment for her many sins. She had never been known to enter a church within the memory of man, and though she had led a notoriously bad life, it seems that the parish could not deny her a Christian burial, and she was interred in the old churchyard yonder with all due ceremony, but report said at the time that she had frequently been seen since by those who happened to be passing through the churchyard late at night or thereabouts, and that should a thunderstorm burst over the head of the benighted traveller, as he wended his weary steps past this abode of the dead, a shadowy form with a steeple-crowned hat and astride on a broomstick might be seen riding through the murky air, and behind her a black tom cat with a pair of flame-coloured eyes. Yells and groans, mingled with demoniacal laughter, were said to have been heard, as if proceeding from beneath the ground by those who happened to pass through the churchyard close to her grave after nightfall. Owls, bats, carrion crows, and other obscene birds would be found perched on the head of her grave, and, scared at the footsteps of a stranger, would fly screeching away. "At least, this is what the country folk would say; but never having seen nor heard any of these things myself, gentlemen, I cannot vouch for their authenticity, yet there are few folks in the village to this day but would not put themselves much out of the way in order to avoid passing through that same churchyard on a stormy night." "In fact," remarked Mr. Crucible, "there is every reason to believe that the old lady was d----" A storm had for some time past been gathering overhead, and just then a terrific clap of thunder prevented the conclusion of Mr. Crucible's sentence from being audible. "Lauk-a-daisy-me! what a peal!" exclaimed Dame Hearty. "It was enough to shake the house down. I'm terrible frightened of thunder. It makes me feel alloverish like." "I shouldn't wonder," suggested Mr. Blackdeed, "if old Madge on her broomstick should be riding overhead. Just go out and see, Dame Hearty, will you?" "Not I, sir, not for the world," quoth our hostess. "And pray don't talk of that horrible person in such weather, or I shall go off in a fit. Already I begin to fancy I see her before me, with her nose and chin meeting like a lobster's claws, with hardly room enough between them for a decent-sized hazel nut.