You heard the terms of his bargain ?" "What do you mean ?" asked Mary.
"Why, about him you know, G---- H----, Madge the witch's son.

He sold himself to the deuce, my dear, on condition of ruining a poor girl every year.

And he has kept his contract hitherto.

If he don't, you know--come here, I want to whisper to you." The poor girl whispered rapidly in her ear; but Mary broke away from her and fled rapidly down the street, poor Ellen shouting after her, "Ha, ha! the parson's daughter too,--ha, ha!" "Let me get out of this town, O Lord!" she prayed most earnestly, "if I die in the fields." And so she sped on, and paused not till she was full two miles out of the town towards home, leaning on the parapet of the noble bridge that even then crossed the river Exe.
The night had cleared up, and a soft and gentle westerly breeze was ruffling the broad waters of the river, where they slept deep, dark, and full above the weir.

Just below where they broke over the low rocky barrier, the rising moon showed a hundred silver spangles among the broken eddies.
The cool breeze and the calm scene quieted and soothed her, and, for the first time for many days, she began to think.
She was going back, but to what?
To a desolated home, to a heart-broken father, to the jeers and taunts of her neighbours.