When Mr. Hooper leans over the coffin of the dead maiden, his veil falls away from his face so that, if she were alive she would be able to see his face beneath the veil. The narrator says that Mr. Hooper "hastily caught [it] back," meaning that he quickly grabbed the veil and pulled it back toward his face so that his face would not be revealed to the young woman's body inside the coffin.
An old woman who witnessed this moment swears that in the instant when the maiden would have been able to glimpse the minister's face beneath his veil, "[her] corpse had shuddered," lightly rustling the maiden's cap and death shroud, though her face never moved or indicated any change. However, it was only this one superstitious old woman that actually claims to have observed this interaction, and so it is not widely credited as truth.
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