t’ Boggart;” that is, playing with the Boggart.  An old tailor, whom I but faintly remember, used to say that the horn was often “pitched” at his head, and at the head of his apprentice, whilst seated here on the kitchen table, when they went their rounds to work, as is customary with country tailors.  At length the goblin, not contented with flinging the horn, returned to his night persecutions.  Heavy steps, as of a person in wooden clogs, were at first heard clattering down-stairs in the dead hour of darkness; then the pewter and earthern dishes appeared to be dashed on the kitchen-floor; though in the morning all remained uninjured on their respective shelves.  The children generally were marked out as objects of dislike by their unearthly tormentor.  The curtains of their beds would be violently pulled to and fro,—­then a heavy weight, as of a human being, would press them nearly to suffocation, from which it was impossible to escape.  The night, instead of being the time for repose, was disturbed with screams and dreadful noises, and thus was the whole house alarmed night after night.  Things could not long continue in this fashion; the farmer and his good dame resolved to leave a place where they could no longer expect rest or comfort:  and George Cheetham was actually following with his wife and family the last load of furniture, when they were met by a neighbouring farmer, named John Marshall.

“Well, Georgey, and soa you’re leaving th’ owd house at last?” said Marshall.

“Heigh, Johnny, ma lad, I’m in a manner forced to ’t, thou sees,” replied the other; “for that wearyfu’ Boggart torments us soa, we can neither rest neet nor day for’t.  It seems loike to have a malice again’t young ans,—­an’ it ommost kills my poor dame here at thoughts on’t, and soa thou sees we’re forc’d to flitt like.”

He had got thus far in his complaint, when, behold, a shrill voice from a deep upright churn, the topmost utensil on the cart, called out—­“Ay, ay, neighbour, we’re flitting, you see.”

“’Od rot thee!” exclaimed George:  “if I’d known thou’d been flitting too I wadn’t ha’ stirred a peg.  Nay, nay,—­it’s to no use, Mally,” he continued, turning to his wife, “we may as weel turn back again to th’ owd house as be tormented in another not so convenient.”

They did return; but the Boggart, having from the occurrence ascertained the insecurity of his tenure, became less outrageous, and was never more guilty of disturbing, in any extraordinary degree, the quiet of the family.

[Illustration:  INCE HALL, NEAR WIGAN.

Drawn by G. Pickering.  Engraved by Edw^d Finden.]

THE HAUNTED MANOR-HOUSE.

    “But he was wary wise in all his way,
      And well perceived his deceitful sleight;
    No suffered lust his safety to hetray;
      So goodly did beguile the guiler of the prey.”

—­SPENSER.