would have hunted the old man to death. I
gave my father's enemy house and lands,
when he came as a beggar to my door;
—I followed my wicked wayward heart
in this, instead of minding my dying father's
words. Strike again, and avenge him yet
more!"

But he would not, because she bade
him. He unloosed his sash, and bound
her arms tight, tight together, and she never
struggled or spoke. Then pushing her so,
that she was obliged to sit down on the bed
side:

"Sit there," he said, "and hear how I will
welcome the old hypocrites you have dared
to ask to my house—my house and my ancestors'
house, long before your father—a
canting pedlar—hawked his goods about, and
cheated honest men."

And, opening the chamber window right
above those Hall-steps where she had awaited
him in her maiden beauty scarce three
short years ago, he greeted the company of
preachers as they rode up to the Hall with
such terrible hideous language, (my lady
had provoked him past all bearing, you see,)
that the old men turned round aghast, and
made the best of their way back to their own
places.

Meanwhile, Sir John's serving-men below
had obeyed their master's orders. They had
gone through the house, closing every window,
every shutter, and every door, but leaving
all else just as it was;—the cold meats
on the table, the hot meats on the spit,
the silver flagons on the side-board—all
just as if it were ready for a feast; and
then Sir John's head-servant, he that I
spoke of before, came up and told his master
all was ready.

"Is the horse and the pillion all ready?
Then you and I must be my lady's tire-women:"
and as it seemed to her in mockery,
but in reality with a deep purpose, they
dressed the helpless woman in her riding
things all awry, and, strange and disorderly.
Sir John carried her down stairs; and he
and his man bound her on the pillion; and
Sir John mounted before. The man shut
and locked the great house-door, and the
echoes of the clang went through the empty
Hall with an ominous sound. "Throw the
key," said Sir John, "deep into the mere
yonder. My lady may go seek it if she lists,
when next I set her arms at liberty. Till
then I know whose house Morton Hall shall
be called."

"Sir John! it shall be called the Devil's
House, and you shall be his steward."

But the poor lady had better have held her
tongue; for Sir John only laughed, and told
her to rave on. As he passed through the
village, with his serving men riding behind,
the tenantry came out and stood at their
doors, and pitied him for having a mad wife,
and praised him for his care of her, and of
the chance he gave her of amendment by
taking her up to be seen by the King's physician.
But somehow the Hall got an ugly
name; the roast and boiled meats, the ducks,
the chickens had time to drop into dust,
before any human being now dared to enter
in; or, indeed, had any right to enter in, for
Sir John never came back to Morton; and
as for my lady, some said she was dead, and
some said she was mad and shut up in
London, and some said Sir John had taken
her to a convent abroad.

"And what did become of her?" asked we,
creeping up to Mrs. Dawson.

"Nay, how should I know?"

"But what do you think?" we asked, pertinaciously.

"I cannot tell. I have heard that after
Sir John was killed at the battle of the Boyne
she got loose and came wandering back to
Morton, to her old nurse's house; but indeed,
she was mad then out and out, and I've no
doubt Sir John had seen it coming on. She
used to have visions and dream dreams; and
some thought her a prophetess; and some
thought her fairly crazy. What she said
about the Mortons was awful. She doomed
them to die out of the land, and their house
to be razed to the ground, while pedlars and
huxters such as her own people, her father,
had been should dwell where the knightly
Mortons had once lived. One winter's night
she strayed away, and the next morning they
found the poor crazy woman frozen to death
in Drumble meeting-house yard; and the Mr.
Morton who had succeeded to Sir John had
her decently buried where she was found, by
the side of her father's grave."

We were silent for a time. "And when
was the old Hall opened, Mrs. Dawson,
please?"

"Oh! when the Mr. Morton, our Squire
Morton's grandfather, came into possession.
He was a distant cousin of Sir John's, a much
quieter kind of man. He had all the old
rooms opened wide, and aired, and fumigated;
and the strange fragments of musty food
were collected and burnt in the yard; but
somehow that old dining-parlour had always
a charnel-house smell, and no one ever liked
making merry in it—thinking of the grey old
preachers, whose ghosts might be even then
scenting the meats afar off, and trooping un-bidden
to a feast, that was not that of which
they were baulked. I was glad for one when
the Squire's father built another dining-
room; and no servant in the house will go
an errand into the old dining-parlour after
dark, I can assure ye."

"I wonder if the way the last Mr. Morton
had to sell his land to the people at Drumble
had anything to do with old Lady Morton's
prophecy," said my mother, musingly.

"Not at all," said Mrs. Dawson, sharply.
"My lady was crazy, and her words not to
be minded. I should like to see the cotton-spinners
of Drumble offer to purchase land
from the Squire. Besides, there's a strict