_Ince Hall_ stands about a mile from Wigan, on the left-hand of the high road to Bolton. It is a very conspicuous object, its ancient and well-preserved front--one of those black and white half-timbered façades now almost confined to the two counties palatine of Lancashire and Cheshire--generally attracting the notice and inquiry of travellers. About a mile to the south-east stands another place of the same name, once belonging to the Gerards of Bryn. The manor is now the property of Charles Walmsley, Esq., of Westwood, near Wigan. The two mansions _Ince Hall_ and _Ince Manor House_, are sometimes confounded together in topographical inquiries; and it is not now certain to which of them properly belongs a tradition about a forged will and a ghost, on which Mr. Roby has founded a very graphic story, in his _Traditions of Lancashire_. There are the Boggart of _Clegg Hall_, near Rochdale; the _Clayton Hall_ Boggart, Droylsden; the _Clock House_ Boggart, in the same neighbourhood; the _Thackergate_ Boggart, near Alderdale; and many others: indeed they are too numerous for us to attempt a full enumeration. Mr. Higson observes[43] that few sombre or out-of-the-way places, retired nooks and corners, or sequestered by-paths, escaped the reputation of being haunted. Many domiciles had their presiding boggart, and _feeorin'_ [fairies] swarmed at every turn of the dark old lanes, and arch-boggarts held revel at every "three-road-end." After dusk, each rustle of the leaves, or sigh of the night wind through the branches, to the timid wayfarer heralded the instant and unceremonious appearance of old wizards and witches, "Nut Nans," and "Clapcans," or the terrific exploits of headless trunks, alias "men beawt yeds," or other traditionary "sperrits," hobgoblins, and sprites, or the startling semblances of black dogs, phantoms, and other indescribable apparitions. Aqueous nymphs or _nixies_, yclept "Grindylow," and "Jenny Green Teeth," lurked at the bottom of pits, and with their long, sinewy arms dragged in and drowned children who ventured too near. On autumnal evenings, the flickering flame (carburetted hydrogen, spontaneously ignited) of the "Corpse Candle," "Will-o'-th'-Wisp," or "Jack" or "Peg-a-Lantern" (for the sex was not clearly ascertained), performed his or her fantastic and impossible jumps in the plashy meadows near Edge Lane, to the terror of many a simple-minded rustic. Fairies, also, were believed to commit many depredations; such as eating the children's porridge, nocturnally riding out the horses, loosing the cows in the shippon, or churning the milk whilst "calving," by the fireside, and stealing the butter; and hence, behind many a door, as yet observable in Clayton, both of dwelling and shippon, was carefully nailed a worn horse-shoe, believed to be a potent counter-charm or talisman against their freaks and fancies. There were certain localities in the township of Droylsden notorious as the