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Marty prepared her a comfortable place, and she sat down in the circle,

and listened to Fitzpiers while he drew from her father and the

bark-rippers sundry narratives of their fathers', their grandfathers',

and their own adventures in these woods; of the hts they

had seen--only to be accounted for by supernatural agency; of white

witches and black witches; and the standard story of the spirits of the

two brothers who had fought and fallen, and had haunted Hintock House

till they were exorcised by the priest, and compelled to retreat to a

swa to their old

quarters at the rate of a cock's stride every New-year's Day, old

style; hence the local saying, "On New-year's tide, a cock's stride"

It was a pleasant time The smoke from the little fire of peeled

sticks rose between the sitters and the sunlight, and behind its blue

veil stretched the naked arms of the prostrate trees The sled with the s wood, and the

sticky inner surface of the scattered bark glistened as it revealed its

pale hly satisfied at having