ir guide. Suddenly checking himself,
he stood as erect as the nature of his form would admit, before the
astonished auditors.

"Ye lazy caterpillars! ye cowardly scum of humanity! if ye follow me
not, I'll rouse the Welsh bull-dogs. Sir Osmund hath ta'en him to the
dungeon, I tell ye; and who is there that will not lend a hand to the
rescue of Sir William Bradshaigh?"

Grim was among the foremost of the invading army; on hearing this news,
a latent spark enkindled his courage most opportunely into a blaze.
Seizing a cudgel, he brandished it in front of his comrades, like one
half-frantic, crying, "It is, it is; I have seen him this blessed
day!--Hurrah for Sir William!"

"Hurrah!" shouted the crowd, whose courage, augmenting with their
numbers, soon manifested itself in an immediate attack on the cell,
whence they speedily extricated their lord. Intoxicated with joy, they
vowed a summary vengeance on the discourteous knight who had so vilely
entreated him.

Sir William's first care was for the rescue of his lady. She almost
forgot her own sorrows on witnessing his joy when once more folding the
children to his embrace. A short interval elapsed ere he sought his
adversary; but he had fled, along with his unworthy followers. Such was
the wrong Sir William had suffered, that his yet untamed spirit deemed
it an offence too foul to be expiated by aught but the blood of his
merciless foe. Armed, and with but few attendants, he hotly pursued him,
and, as old chronicles tell, at a place called Newton, he overtook and
slew him in single combat. Returning in safety, he lived happily with
his lady to a good old age. They lie buried in the chancel of All
Saints, Wigan, where, carved on the tomb, their effigies still exist,
the rarest of the monumental antiquities in that ancient edifice.

The Lady Mabel's spirit had been too sorely wounded to recover its
tranquillity. For the purpose of what was then deemed an expiation to
her unintentional offence, she performed a weekly penance, going
barefooted from Haigh to a place outside the walls at Wigan, where a
stone cross was erected, which bears to this day the name of "MAB'S
CROSS."

THE PRIOR OF BURSCOUGH.

"Quhere are ye boun, ye bold prior,
With that ladye on your knee?"
"I'm boun to the hills, I'm boun to the dales,
I'm boun to the grey priory."

_Old Ballad. M.S._

Of the once renowned priory of Burscough, only two pillars, belonging to
th