out of sympathy with it, where it stands as much out of its element as a stranded boat. But all the same there is nothing ghostly or terrible about Murkley Castle. It involves no particular mystery of any kind--nothing but the folly of a man who built a house without counting the cost, and who found himself without means to complete, far less enjoy, the palace he had constructed. Not the less is it a strange feature in the landscape, and it would be still stranger if popular superstition did not see sights and bear sounds in it of nights, for which the wiser persons in the country declared they could not account, though of course they did not believe in anything supernatural. This was the reason given by the driver of the gig from the "George" at Kilmorley for the round he wanted to make on a certain June night in the lingering daylight, as he conducted the gentleman reckoned as No. 5 in the books at the 'George' to Murkley village, where this ill-advised person, not knowing when he was well off, as the "George" was of opinion, meant to establish himself at the village inn, which was no better than a public-house. "It's no from ony superstition," the driver said. "I'm no a man, I hope, to be feared for ghosts; I'm mair feared for flesh and blood. I've a good watch in my pocket, and life's sweet, and if it's tramps, as is maist likely, that have a howff in the auld castle, and mak' a' thae noises to frichten the countryside, the mair reason, say I, to gi'e the auld castle a wide berth." "But it's daylight," said the traveller; for, after all, as in the days of Mr. G. P. E. James, it is a traveller of whose early impressions the historian avails himself; "and there are two of us; and that beast of yours could surely show a clean pair of heels----" He spoke with a slight accent which was foreign, but which the countryman took to be "high English:" and had certain little foreign ways, which Duncan was not clever enough to understand. He responded, cautiously, "Oh, ay; she'll gang weel enough--but a mare ye see's a flighty creature--they're mair nervous than a fine leddy--and, if they think they see something they canna account for----" "But, man alive!" cried the stranger, "you're not afraid of ghosts in broad daylight." "I'm no speaking about ghosts--and ye ca' this braid daylicht! It's just the eeriest licht I ever saw. Do you ken what o'clock it is? Nine o'clock at nicht, and ye can see as plain as if it was nine in the morning. I come from the South mysel', and I'm no used to it. Nor it's no canny either. It's no the sun, it's no the moon; what is it? Just the kind of time, in my opinion, that ye might see onything--even if it wasna there----" This lucid description gave our traveller great pleasure. "I had not thought of that," he said, "but it is quite true. Here is a half-crown for you, if you will drive by Murkley--is it Murkley you said?"