“Well,” said she, after looking in the brewpot, and in the mirror, and in the Book, “it be main queer, but I can’t rightly tell ye what’s happened to her.  If ye hear of aught, come and tell me.”

So they went their ways; and as days went by, and never a Moon came, naturally they talked—­my word!  I reckon they did talk! their tongues wagged at home, and at the inn, and in the garth.  But so came one day, as they sat on the great settle in the Inn, a man from the far end of the bog lands was smoking and listening, when all at once he sat up and slapped his knee.  “My faicks!” says he, “I’d clean forgot, but I reckon I kens where the Moon be!” and he told them of how he was lost in the bogs, and how, when he was nigh dead with fright, the light shone out, and he found the path and got home safe.

So off they all went to the Wise Woman, and told her about it, and she looked long in the pot and the Book again, and then she nodded her head.

“It’s dark still, childer, dark!” says she, “and I can’t rightly see, but do as I tell ye, and ye ’ll find out for yourselves.  Go all of ye, just afore the night gathers, put a stone in your mouth, and take a hazel-twig in your hands, and say never a word till you’re safe home again.  Then walk on and fear not, far into the midst of the marsh, till ye find a coffin, a candle, and a cross.  Then ye’ll not be far from your Moon; look, and m’appen ye ’ll find her.”

So came the next night in the darklings, out they went all together, every man with a stone in his mouth, and a hazel-twig in his hand, and feeling, thou may’st reckon, main feared and creepy.  And they stumbled and stottered along the paths into the midst of the bogs; they saw nought, though they heard sighings and flutterings in their ears, and felt cold wet fingers touching them; but all at once, looking around for the coffin, the candle, and the cross, while they came nigh to the pool beside the great snag, where the Moon lay buried.  And all at once they stopped, quaking and mazed and skeery, for there was the great stone, half in, half out of the water, for all the world like a strange big coffin; and at the head was the black snag, stretching out its two arms in a dark gruesome cross, and on it a tiddy light flickered, like a dying candle.  And they all knelt down in the mud, and said, “Our Lord, first forward, because of the cross, and then backward, to keep off the Bogles; but without speaking out, for they knew that the Evil Things would catch them, if they didn’t do as the Wise Woman told them.”

Then they went nigher, and took hold of the big stone, and shoved it up, and afterwards they said that for one tiddy minute they saw a strange and beautiful face looking up at them glad-like out of the black water; but the Light came so quick and so white and shining, that they stept back mazed with it, and the very next minute, when they could see again, there was the full Moon in the sky, bright and beautiful and kind as ever, shining and smiling down at them, and making the bogs and the paths as clear as day, and stealing into the very corners, as though she’d have driven the darkness and the Bogles clean away if she could.