The children were chiefly marked out as objects of dislike by their unearthly tormenter. The curtains of their beds would be violently pulled backward and forward. Anon, a heavy weight, as of a human being, would press them nearly to suffocation. They would then scream out for their “daddy” and “mammy,” who occupied the adjoining room, and thus the whole family was disturbed night after night. Things could not long go on after this fashion. The farmer and his good dame resolved to leave a place where they had not the least shadow of rest or comfort. The farmer, whose name was George Gilbertson, was following, with his wife and family, the last load of furniture, when they met a neighbouring farmer, whose name was John Marshall, between whom and the unhappy tenant the following colloquy took place— “Well, George, and soa you’re leaving t’ould hoose at last?” “Heigh, Johnny, ma lad, I’m forc’d till it, for that boggart torments us soa we can neither rest neet nor day for’t. It seems loike to have such a malice again’t poor bairns. It ommost kills my poor dame here at thoughts on’t, and soa, ye see, we’re forc’d to flitt like.” He had got thus far in his complaint when, behold! a shrill voice, from a deep upright churn, called out— “Ay, ay, George, we ’re flitting, you see.” “Confound thee,” says the poor farmer, “if I’d known thou’d been there I wadn’t ha stirrid a peg. Nay, nay, it’s to na use, Mally,” turning to his wife, “we may as weel turn back again to t’ould hoose, as be tormented in another that’s not sa convenient.” They are said to have turned back, but the boggart and they afterwards came to a better understanding, though it long continued its trick of shooting the horn from the knot–hole. THE DUERGAR. The following encounters with the _duergar_, a species of mischievous elves, are said to have taken place on Simonside Hills, a mountainous district between Rothbury and Elsdon in Northumberland. A person well acquainted with the locality went out one night to amuse himself with the pranks of these mysterious beings. When he had wandered a considerable time, he shouted loudly— “Tint! tint!” and a light appeared before him, like a burning candle in the window of a shepherd’s cottage. Thither, with great caution, he bent his steps, and speedily approached a deep slough, from whence a quantity of moss or peat had been excavated, and which was now filled with mud and water. Into this he threw a piece of turf which he raised at his feet, and when the sound of the splash echoed throughout the surrounding stillness, the decoying light was extinguished. The adventurer retraced his steps, overjoyed at his dexterity in outwitting the fiendish imps, and in a moment of exultation, as if he held all the powers of darkness in defiance, he again cried to the full extent of his voice— “Tint! tint!”