Muttering over them some extraordinary gibberish, out of which the two men could only catch the following words,
“Higgory, diggory, digg’d
My sow has pigg’d.
There’s a good card for thee.
There’s a still better than he!
There is the best of all three,
And there is Niddy-noddee!”—
Witch-Bessie picked up these nine cards, and shuffled them long and fast.
She then handed them to Luke, face-downward, and bade him draw seven out of the nine. These she once more arranged, according to some occult plan, upon the grass, and pondered over them with wrinkled brow.