midnight
Young men and women , out on a holiday from the big towns near , and carrying little red or green ` guides , ' spoke of the ` Mermaid 's Pool ' with the accent of romantic interest . But the boy had also discovered that no native-born farmer or shepherd about had ever heard of the name , or would have a word to say to it . And for the first time he had stumbled full into the deep deposit of witch-lore and belief still surviving in the Kinder Scout district , as in all the remoter moorland of the North . Especially had he won the confidence of a certain ` owd Matt , ' a shepherd from a farm high on Mardale Moor ; and the tales ` owd Matt ' had told him -- of mysterious hares coursed at night by angry farmers enraged by the ` bedivilment ' of their stock , shot at with silver slugs , and identified next morning with some dreaded hag or other lying groaning and wounded in her bed -- of calves ' hearts burnt at midnight with awful ceremonies , while the baffled witch outside flung herself in rage and agony against the close-barred doors and windows -- of spells and wise men -- these things had sent chills of pleasing horror through the boy 's frame . They were altogether new to him , in this vivid personal guise at least , and mixed up with all the familiar names and places of the district ; for his childish life had been singularly solitary , giving to books the part which half a century ago would have been taken by tradition ; and , moreover , the witch-belief in general had now little foothold among the younger generation of the Scout , and was only spoken of with reserve and discretion among the older men . But the stories once heard had struck deep into the lad 's quick and pondering mind . Jenny Crum seemed to have been the latest of all the great witches of Kinder Scout .