"And your masks will ne'er be the wiser for't, I trow," said the beggar, looking curiously upon them from beneath his penthouse lids. "But that I could laugh at his impertinence, Alice, I would even now chide him soundly, and send his pitiful carcase to the stocks for this presumption. Hark thee, I do offer good counsel when I warn thee to shift thyself, and that speedily, ere I use the readiest means for thy removal." "Gramercy, brave ruffler; but I must e'en gi'e ye the path; an' so pass on to the masking, my Lord Essex and his maiden queen." He said this with a cunning look and a chuckle of self-gratulation at the knowledge he had somehow or other acquired of the parts they were intended to enact. "Foul fa' thy busy tongue, where foundest thou this news? I've a month's mind to change my part, Alice, but that there's neither leisure nor opportunity, and they lack our presence at the nuptials." "How came he by this knowledge, and the fashion of our masks?" inquired Alice from her brother. "Truly, I could join belief with those who say that he obtained it not through the ordinary channels open to our frail and fallible intellects." Mistress Alice, "the gentle Alice," was reckoned fair and well-favoured. Strongly tinctured with romance, her superstition was continually fed by the stories then current in relation to her own dwelling, and by the generally-received opinions about witches and other supernatural things which yet lingered, loth to depart from these remote limits of civilisation. "Clegg-Hall Boggart" was the type of a notion too general to be disbelieved; yet were the inmates, in all probability, less intimately acquainted with the freaks and disturbances attendant thereon than every gossip in the neighbourhood; for, as it frequently happens, tales and marvels, for the most part originating through roguery, and the pranks of servants and retainers, were less likely to come to the ears of the master and his family than those of persons less interested, but more likely to assist in their propagation. The vagrant and erratic movements of "Noman" were, somehow or another, connected with the marvellous adventures and appearances in the "boggart chamber." At the Hall, this discarded room, being part of the old house yet remaining, was the one which he was permitted to occupy during his stay; and his appearance was generally the signal of a visit from their supernatural guest. To be sure, the strange sights he beheld rested on his testimony alone; but his word was never questioned, and his coming was of equal potency with the magician's wand in raising the ghost. "We shall have some news from our troublesome guest, I suppose, in the morning," said Alice to her brother, as they went slowly on: "I know not the cause; but yonder vagrant seems to waken our ancient companion from his slumbers, either by sympathy or antipathy, I trow."