which her husband did not come in for his share, nor would she monopolise the satisfaction, even, of reading; she, therefore, on his return from his daily occupations, usually entertain'd him with some very marvellous work, which she read with the nasal, and monotonous, tone of a parish-clerk, when giving out the psalms.

One evening, she met him at the door, with a volume in her hand, and an expression of great satisfaction in her countenance. "Oh! Barny!" she cried, "I be mortalious glad ye be come. What do'ee think I ha' got?"

65

Why, I do know, well enow, what thee ha' got," replied he.

"But, I tell'ee, thee dost not. I ha' gotten sich a book from Patty Pearmain, who ha' brought it all the way from Lunnun; it be call'd "The Castle of Some' at," and shows how a poor boy were crush'd all to shivers by a big tub kivered all o'er wi' black feathers, and the loike of that there."

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Dang it, dame! thee beest feather-headed I do fancy," said her husband. "Kill'd

wi' a tub, kivered all wi' black feathers?

That mun a been a tub of tar, I take

it."

"Yes," rejoin'd Susan," they do call it a cask*: but, come, let's get a morsel of supper, and you shall hear all about it."

Having dispatch'd this weighty business, and old Treadaway having stuck himself behind half a yard of clay, whence the smoke issued in volumes, Susan wiped her spectacles, and began the excellent romance, of "The Castle of Otranto;" and, as she read, Barnaby, (who was as timid and superstitious as his helpmate, though he generally strove to rally his spirits, and, by rating his wife for her fears, sought to conceal his own) Barnaby, I say, cast many a suspicious glance around the room, dreading to encounter" the nodding plume," or gigantic leg;" and when she came to the passage where the portrait of Alfonso quits the canvas, Susan leer'd at a print of the baldheaded Duke of Cumberland, (suspended over the chimney-piece) with as much ter

* A casque.

ror as any poor Highlander ever experienced at sight of him, and, inwardly blest her stars, that he, and his black charger, were stationary.

Once had the portentous cinder bounced from the fire, and twice had Susan clipt large letters from the solitary taper-the wind howl'd over the neighbouring heath, and the church-clock struck twelve; nevertheless, spite of the terrors which the tale had inspired, so much were they interested in it, that they made up their minds to conclude it, before they retired for the night. They, accordingly, drew their chairs a few inches nearer to the hearth, and had proceeded to that horrific incident, where the hermit lifts up his cowl, and exhibits the fleshless jaws of a skeleton, when (even at that awful period) a deep sepulchral voice, in a lengthen'd tone, cried, Hol-lo!"

The good man happen'd to be moistening his mouth with a draught of beer, and, sans cérémonie, discharged the whole, full, in his wife's face, who threw away the book, and scream'd aloud.

"Lord ha' mercy on us!" cried she, hitching her chair closer to her husband's, "what were that noise?"

"Tha....tha....that! wha....wha....what?" demanded he, his eyes glaring, and his cheeks as pale as the walls of his own cottage. "I didn't hear no....thing, at all. What a dickins ha' scared thee so?-Wha ....what be thee so devilishly froighten'd

at "

"M....m....me! bless thy soul! I ben't froighten'd a bit, to speak of-but don't 'ee talk of the devil, when he may be at your elbow." (The voice was repeated, with a loud knocking at the door). "Goodness

seave us! there it be, again!-Oh! Barny! Barny! this do come of your throwing down salt, at dinner-time; and, I do declare, I I dreamt I were married to old Digdeep, the sexton, last night, a sure sign o'mischief, Barny."(The noise was, now, louder than before). "Oh! I shall foint! I shall foint! I shall foint!" concluded the old woman.

The door was instantly burst open: Susan was sitting with her back towards it, and, the apartment not being very spacious,

she was pitch'd forwards against the table, which came in contact with her husband's stomach, (a very corpulent one, by the bye) and stretch'd him, at full length, upon the floor; a large pot full of porridge stood behind him, in a corner, into which went his head, and the vessel adhered to it, so that he arose, ornamented with this crown, the drops of which

"Coursed one another down his innocent nose, "In piteous chase"

time enough to behold two men, arm'd with pistols, and their faces conceal'd with crapes.

"Oh! the devil! the devil!" vociferated the affrighted pair.

"Avast!" cried one of the strangers, in a hoarse voice," where sits the wind now ?— The devil?-What, are you afraid of going to him, before your time, that you kick up such a breeze?-But, stir; swab the spray from your bows, (for you both seem to have been turning to windward) give us a can of beer, for 'tis a thundering cold night, and then we'll overhaul our dispatches."