would go near it after dark for love or money."

"Haunted!" I repeated; "and how does the spirit show himself?" I asked.

"Oh! lawk, sir, in all sorts of shapes--sometimes like an old woman
almost doubled in two with years," he answered, "sometimes like a little
child agoing along a full foot high above the grass of the graves; and
sometimes like a big black ram, strutting on his hind legs, and with a
pair of eyes like live coals; and some have seen him in the shape of a
man, with his arm raised up toward the sky, and his head hanging down,
as if his neck was broke. I can't think of half the shapes he has took
at different times; but they're all bad: the very child, they say, when
he comes in that shape, has the face of Satan--God bless us! and
nobody's ever the same again that sees him once."

By this time I was again seated in my vehicle, and some six or eight
minutes' quick driving whirled us into the old-fashioned street, and
brought the chaise to a full stop before the open door and well-lighted
hall of the Bell Inn. To me there has always been an air of
indescribable cheer and comfort about a substantial country hostelrie,
especially when one arrives, as I did, upon a keen winter's night, with
an appetite as sharp, and something of that sense of adventure and
excitement which, before the days of down-trains and tickets, always in
a greater or less degree, gave a zest to traveling. Greeted with that
warmest of welcomes for which inns, alas! are celebrated, I had soon
satisfied the importunities of a keen appetite; and having for some
hours taken mine ease in a comfortable parlor before a blazing fire, I
began to feel sleepy, and betook myself to my no less comfortable
bed-chamber.

It is not to be supposed that the adventure of the church-yard had been
obliterated from my recollection by the suppressed bustle and good cheer
of the "Bell." On the contrary, it had occupied me almost incessantly
during my solitary ruminations; and as the night advanced, and the
stillness of repose and desertion stole over the old mansion, the
sensations with which this train of remembrance and speculation was
accompanied became any thing but purely pleasant.

I felt, I confess, fidgety and queer--I searched the corners and
recesses of the oddly-shaped and roomy old apartment--I turned the face
of the looking-glass to the wall--I poked the fire into a roaring
blaze--I looked behind the window-curtains, with a vague anxiety, to
a