The Witch, seated on top of her hut, gave what is called in old stories, an eldritch laugh when she saw Sir Gladys advancing on one side of the Moor, and Lady Floretta, more slowly climbing up the other. When the Lady Floretta heard the strange laugh of the Witch, she was startled and alarmed and stood still for the space of a full half-hour, while her seven maidens coaxed her to go on, and so Sir Gladys, who was less affected by the eldritch laugh than she and who, moreover, was alone, arrived first at the Witch's haunt and secured audience at once. He gave the Witch a gold-plated candlestick and two sugar spoons of silver, then explained his woeful plight, and asked advice and counsel. The Witch clutched the articles eagerly in her claw-hands, climbed down from the little hut, and standing in her low door croaked out: "By the light of yonder moon, Look and see your fortune soon!" She thrust the candlestick and sugar spoons into a bag at her girdle, and, curling up within her hut, fell fast asleep without ceremony, leaving Sir Gladys peering doubtfully in at the door which she had left open. What she had said was certainly vague and unsatisfactory and he felt that he had been imposed upon. He tried in vain to arouse the creature and tiring at last of shouting into the hut at a figure apparently of stone, he turned away but to meet, fair and full, the beautiful Lady Floretta Beamish attended by the seven maidens carrying seven lighted horn lanterns, and followed by a gentle snow-white cow with golden horns and hoofs. Sir Gladys swept the heather with his plumed hat, as he bowed before the Lady Floretta. "Madam," he said, with deep respect, "upon what quest do you come upon this lonely moor by the uncertain light of the moon feebly aided by the seven lanterns carried by your maidens?" The Lady Floretta could not speak. Her embarrassment and confusion were such that she could scarcely stand even when supported by her maidens. She looked around for a chair. Sir Gladys took from his shoulders his cloak of purple velvet, and spread it at the lady's feet. "Rest," he said, "rest, and recover your strength, fair and honored Lady! I will await your pleasure, meanwhile examining the unusual specimen of the animal kingdom which I see following your gracious footsteps." He took a step or two toward the Enchanted Cow--for it was she--but she shook her golden horns, and he remained standing near the Lady Floretta, who sat down, affably and quite comfortably, upon the cloak of purple. "Hark to the thunder!" said the Lady Floretta. "It is going to rain!" and she began to chide the maids for not bringing umbrellas. Each it is true had a small parasol to ward off moon-stroke, but there was not one umbrella worthy of the name among them all. "It is not thunder that you hear, sweet lady," said Sir Gladys. "'Tis but the stertorous and unseemly breathing of the foul Witch in the den."