old bones. Zooks! when I think of the jolly doings we have had there, I can hardly bear to look on 't.”

"Away then with all such gloomy thoughts,” cried Jocelyn, anxious to cheer his father's spirits, "and let us look forward to better times. You shall soon recover your rights; and the huntsman's horn, and the rattling glass, and the jovial song shall resound through the halls of Brambletye as merrily as ever."

"So they shall, my brave boy," cried Sir John, elated at the thought, at the same time slapping his son on the knee, singing in a loud voice an appropriate verse of the cavalier song

'And then shall a glass,

To our undoers pass,

Attended with two or three curses;

May plagues sent from hell,

Stuff their bodies, as well

As the Cavalier's coin does their purses.'

Yes, my boy, we 'll soon get the roof on again, and then

"Anathema! maranatha!" exclaimed a sepulchral voice immediately behind him; "never shall a roof again cover the house of sacrilege!"

"Damn her! there's the black ghost!" cried the Baronet, starting up, and throwing his staff in the direction of the sound. "At her, Jocelyn! catch her, for she runs too fast for me; seize the Jezabel, cut out her croaking tongue with your ra

pier, grapple her, hamstring her, throttle her, don't let the she-devil escape."-Startled at the sounds which had fallen upon his ear with a doubly solemn effect after the blithe echoes of the song, and puzzled at the meaning of his father's passionate expressions, Jocelyn remained for some moments in suspense, until Sir John again cried out, "Run boy run, catch the cursed jade, if you love me," when he commenced a pursuit, but presently returned, declaring that he could not even hear a footfall, and that in the darkness of the forest it was impossible to discern a single object. "Ay, the old story," exclaimed Sir John-“ a cunning jade, and as fleet as a Yorkshire tike; but we shall trap the bitch-fox still, and if she pay not blood-sauce for her pranks, you may e'en pick out my brains with my own sword, and spread 'em on a Banbury cake." He now rose wrathfully to return home, relating as they proceeded towards the moated house, the different mysterious appearances of this figure, the strange import of her banning language, for which he professed himself utterly unable to account, and the marvellous power which she seemed to possess of rendering herself invisible, or, at least, of escaping where it would seem almost impossible for any thing human to avoid apprehension. Although more free from superstition and credulity than most of his contemporaries, Jocelyn could not help being struck by the singularity of this inexplicable narrative, as well as by the recent

VOL. II.

occurrence of which he had himself been a witness; while the coincidence between the malisons of this secret visitant, and the continued misfortunes with which Brambletye House had been assailed, seemed to prove that there was something more than madness or malice in her denunciations. During their walk home Sir John maintained a stern silence, only interrupted by an occasional curse at his tender foot, which began to wince at the length of the excursion; Jocelyn revolved in his mind the mystery of the black ghost; and neither of them was in a very complacent cheer when they terminated their walk, and again crossed the threshold of the moated house.

CHAPTER III.

"O heav'ns! wert thou for this loose life preserv'd, Are there no gods nor laws to be observ'd?"

LORD ROCHESTER.

"'SLIFE!" exclaimed Sir John to his son two or three mornings after his arrival, “is it not a burning sin and shame, that I who for years together hardly ever doffed buff and steel-cap; who was in the great saddle from sun-rise to sun-set, ever ready to gallop in the King's cause where there was flashing of powder and clashing of swords; who sat in a pool of my own blood after Worcester fight, and yet rode twenty miles with Don Carlos and Pendril to assist the King's escape; who served him abroad, and advanced money for him, (for which I have never been paid,) after I was ruined and driven from home; I say Jocelyn, isn't it a crying sin and a cruel, that I should be not only forgotten by Rowley, but kept out of my own estate by a rascally Roundhead? Four letters have I written to the King himself, but the deuce a word of acknowledgment of any sort; and as to assist

ance, it seems to me that the poor Cavaliers, now they have served the turn, and formed the ladder to the throne, are to be kicked down and trampled upon, even by the rogues that bowed the knee to Noll. They say you must run the buck down to make sure of his horns, and I would have gone up to London myself, but this cursed gout, and the Juffrouw-in short, something or other has always cried, hark back."

"My dear sir," cried Jocelyn, "why not entrust me with this commission? Confident am I that our old friend the Marquess of Ormond-"

"Ay, he has had his reward, and been created a duke," interrupted Sir John, "and is at this moment in Ireland; without a friend at court nothing can be done, and I know none of the young dogs that now run down the game for the King, and make him follow wherever they give tongue. Jack Wilmot, indeed, who is one of the chief favourites, ought to remember me; for I once sat him behind me when he was a boy, and galloped with him after the hounds till he had hardly a puff of breath in his body. Ah! his father and I have rode together many a time after the red-coats, though we have been runaways in our turn. Well do I recollect our taking the King his dinner, when he was disguised as a wood-cutter in the copse at Whiteladies, with a bill in his hand; and how hungry the King was, and how frightened we all were when a stag started out from the brake behind us! We