"By the side of the house, and through the whole length of the valley, wends a sickly, tan-coloured rindle, which, issuing from the great White Moss, comes down, tinged with the colour of its parent swamp. Opposite the modern house, a forbidden road cuts through the plantation on the right towards Moston Lane. Another path leads behind the house, up precipitous banks, and through close bowers, to Booth Hall; and a third, the main one, proceeds along the kloof, by the side of the stream, and under sun-screening woods, until it forks into two roads: one a cattle-track, to 'The Bell,' in Moston; and the other a winding and precipitous footpath, to a farm-house at 'Wood-end,' where it gains the broad upland, and emerges into unshaded day.
"About half way up this kloof, is an open, cleared space of green and short sward: it is probably two hundred yards in length, by sixty in width; and passing along it from Blackley, a group of fine oaks appear, on a slight eminence, a little to the left. This part of the grove was, at the time we are concerned with, much more crowded with underwood than at present.[55] The bushes were then close and strong; fine sprouts of 'yerth-groon' hazel and ash were common as nuts; whilst a thick bush of bramble, wild rose, and holly, gave the spot the appearance of a place inclosed and set apart for mysterious concealment. Intermingled with these almost impervious barriers, where tufts of tall green fern, curling and bending gracefully; and a little separate from them and near the old oaks, might be observed a few fern clumps of a singular appearance; of a paler green than the others—with a flatter and a broader leaf—sticking up, rigid and expanded, like something stark with mute terror. These were 'Saint John's Fern;' and the finest of them was the one selected by Plant for the experiment now to be described.
"A little before midnight, on the eve of St. John, Plant, Chirrup, and Bangle, where at the whale-jaw gate before-mentioned; and, having slightly scanned each other, they proceeded, without speaking, until they had crossed the brook at a stepping-place, opposite the old Fyrin-ho'. The first word spoken was—'What hast thou?'
"'Mine is breawn an' roof,'
said Plant, exhibiting a brown earthern dish. 'What hast thou?' he then asked.
"'Mine is breet enough,'
said Chirrup, showing a pewter platter, and continued, 'What hast thou?'
"'Teed wi' web an' woof,
Mine is deep enough,'
said Bangle, displaying a musty, dun skull, with the cap sawn off above the eyes, and left flapping like a lid by a piece of tanned scalp, which still adhered. The interior cavities had also been stuffed with moss and lined with clay, kneaded with blood from human veins, and the youth had secured the skull to his shoulders by a twine of three strands of unbleached flax, of undyed wool, and of woman's hair, from which also depended a raven black tress, which a wily crone had procured from the maid he sought to obtain.