"This wandering ghost avoucheth," said he, after all was silent, "that there be two of them, and that they rest not until they have taken possession of this house, and driven the inhabitants therefrom." "Hard law this," said Nicholas Haworth; "but, for all their racket, I shan't budge." "Then must they have a sacrifice for the wrong done when they were i' the body; being slain, as they say, by their guardian, a wicked uncle, that he might possess the inheritance." Again he made question, looking all the while as though talking to something that was present and visible before him. "What would ye for your sacrifice, evil and hateful things? for I know, in very deed, that ye are not the innocent and heavenly babes whose spirits are now in glory, but devilish creatures who have been permitted to walk here unmolested, for the wickedness that hath been done. Again, I say that your unwillingness sufficeth not, for ye shall be driven hence this blessed day." Another shriek announced their apprehension at this threat, and again there was a murmuring as before. "He sayeth," cried the exorcist, after listening a while, "they must have a living body sacrificed, and in four quarters it must be laid; then shall these wicked spirits not return hither until what is severed be joined together. With this hard condition we must be content." "Then, by 'r lady's grace, if none else there be, thou shalt be the holocaust for thy pains," said Nicholas, "for I think we need not any other. What say ye, shall not this wizard be the sacrifice, and we then rid the world of a batch of evil things at once?" He looked with a cruel eye upon the mendicant; for he judged that his sister had, in some way or another, fallen a victim to his devilish plots; and he would have thought it little harm to have poured out his blood on the spot. The beggar seemed aware of his danger, but with a loud and peremptory tone he cried-- "There needeth not so costly an oblation. Bring hither the first brute animal ye behold, any one of you, on crossing the threshold of the porch." A messenger was accordingly sent, who returned with a barn-door fowl in his hand, a well-fed chanticleer, whose crow that morning had awakened his cackling dames for the last time. With great solemnity the conjuror went forth from the chamber, and in the courtyard the fowl was named "John;" sponsors standing in due form, as at an ordinary baptism. Then the bird was dismembered, or rather divided into four parts, according to the directions they had received. These were afterwards disposed of as follows:--one was buried at Little Clegg, in a field close by, another under one of the hearth-flags in the hall, another at the Beil Bridge, by the river which runs past Belfield, and the remaining quarter under the barn-floor. Nicholas continued to look on with a curious eye until the ceremony was concluded, when, after a brief pause, he inquired--