arlet
bearing a banner, on which was painted a grotesque figure in a
half-military, half-monastic garb, representing the "Earl of Poverty,"
with this distich beneath it:--

Priest and warrior--rich and poor,
He shall be hanged at his own door.

Next followed a tumbrel, drawn by two horses, in which sat the abbot
alone, the two other prisoners being kept back for the present. Then
came Demdike, in a leathern jerkin and blood-red hose, fitting closely
to his sinewy limbs, and wrapped in a houppeland of the same colour as
the hose, with a coil of rope round his neck. He walked between two
ill-favoured personages habited in black, whom he had chosen as
assistants. A band of halberdiers brought up the rear. The procession
moved slowly along,--the passing-bell tolling each minute, and a muffled
drum sounding hollowly at intervals.

Shortly before the procession started the rain ceased, but the air felt
damp and chill, and the roads were inundated. Passing out at the
north-eastern gateway, the gloomy train skirted the south side of the
convent church, and went on in the direction of the village of Whalley.
When near the east end of the holy edifice, the abbot beheld two coffins
borne along, and, on inquiry, learnt that they contained the bodies of
Bess Demdike and Cuthbert Ashbead, who were about to be interred in the
cemetery. At this moment his eye for the first time encountered that of
his implacable foe, and he then discovered that he was to serve as his
executioner.

At first Paslew felt much trouble at this thought, but the feeling
quickly passed away. On reaching Whalley, every door was found closed,
and every window shut; so that the spectacle was lost upon the
inhabitants; and after a brief halt, the cavalcade get out for Wiswall
Hall.

Sprung from an ancient family residing in the neighbourhood Of Whalley,
Abbot Paslew was the second son of Francis Paslew Of Wiswall Hall, a
great gloomy stone mansion, situated at the foot of the south-western
side of Pendle Hill, where his brother Francis still resided. Of a cold
and cautious character, Francis Paslew, second of the name, held aloof
from the insurrection, and when his brother was arrested he wholly
abandoned him. Still the owner of Wiswall had not altogether escaped
suspicion, and it was probably as much with the view of degrading him as
of adding to the abbot's punishment, that the latter was taken to the
hall on the morning of his executi