at Waddow, killed first,
and then drowned i' the well by one o' the men for concubinage, as the
parson says; and so for the wrong done, her ghost ne'er having been
laid, you see she claims every seventh year an offering which must be
summat wick--and"----While he hesitated another took up the thread of
his narrative.

"This is the last night o' the year, you see," said the other in
continuation; "and we be just thinking to bid good-bye to th' old
chap, and greet th' new one with a wag of his paw, and a drink to his
weel-doing. But the first cause o' this disturbance was by reason of
its being Peggy's year, and as she hasn't had her sop yet, we thought
as how it would be no bad job to get rid o' this drunken tailor here,
and he might save some better man; so we have been daring him to cross
t' hippin-stones to-night; for there is but an hour or two to spare
before her time's up."

"It is not too late," said the stranger, with great solemnity. Every
eye was bent upon him. He still sat in the broad shadow projected by
one huge chimney-corner, his face overhung by a broad felt hat, girt
with a band and buckle; a drooping draggled feather fell over its
crown. His whole person was so curiously enveloped in a loose
travelling cloak that nothing but a dark unshapely mass, having some
resemblance to the human form, could be distinguished. Concealment
was evidently the object. Every one was awed down into silence. The
few words he had spoken seemed to have dried up, or rather frozen at
its surface, the babbling current of their opinions, that ran, whilom,
with unceasing folly and rapidity.

"Silence!" cried the sutor from the opposite ingleside.

This command operated like a charm. The ice was broken, and the
current became free. Without more ado, as if in opposition to the
self-constituted authority from the high-backed chair, the guests,
with one exception only, commenced with a vigorous discharge of "airy
missiles," which by degrees subsided into a sort of desultory
sharp-shooting; but their words were neither few nor well applied. It
was evident that a gloom and disquietude was upon the assembly. There
was a distinct impression of fear, though a vague notion as to its
cause--a sort of extempore superstition--a power which hath most hold
on the mind in proportion as its limits and operations are least known
or understood. The bugbear owing its magnitude and importance to
obscurity and misapprehension, becomes divested of