stark with mute terror. These were

Fearn."

"Saint John's

Turning eastward, the Clough narrows, and the path becomes difficult, being sometimes obstructed by fallen trees, and sometimes breaking off altogether in consequence of a slip in the land. It is best, therefore, to keep by the brookside crossing and re-crossing from time to time. In a little while a lofty and picturesque knoll rises in front of you, and seems to bar farther progress. Here, indeed, what is usually known as The Clough comes to an end; but by a little scrambling you may get into a contributory dingle which runs on still farther for about half a mile, and finally loses itself in the level fields. In this dingle there are yet some of the rarer wild flowers to be found; and here, in the long summer evenings, far away from intruders and all the noise of the town, you may often come across one of those Lancashire working botanists-quiet and unobtrusive creatures—who, like the plants they seek, are, it is to be feared, becoming every year increasingly un

common.

Returning from the dingle we climb the knoll; and here, on the summit, and curiously near the precipitous edge, is the lonely farmhouse which gives the place its name-Boggart Hole Clough, the

Boggart Clough in fact, 'hole' and 'clough' being one of those duplications so common in all languages. The legend attached to this house will be found under the title of 'The Bar-Gaist' in the first volume of Roby's 'Traditions of Lancashire.' Although appearing with Roby's own work it was really written by Crofton Croker, the well-known author of 'The Fairy Legends.' The salient points of the story are concisely put in Tennyson's 'Walking to the Mail':His house, for so they say,

Was haunted with a jolly ghost, that shook
The curtains, whined in lobbies, tapt at doors,
And rummaged like a rat: no servant stay'd:
The farmer vext packs up his beds and chairs,
And all his household stuff; and with his boy
Betwixt his knees, his wife upon the tilt,

Sets out, and meets a friend who hails him, 'What!
You're flitting!' 'Yes, we're flitting,' says the ghost,
(For they had pack'd the thing among the beds,)
'Oh, well,' says he, 'you flitting with us too—
Jack, turn the horses' heads and home again.'

The farmer who was the victim of the pranks of this Robin Goodfellow, this drudging goblin' and 'lubber fiend' as Milton puts it, has been long gone; and his successors are gone too, for the house is now untenanted save by the rats and the birds, and is fast falling into decay. Its antiquity is proved by the nature of the building, for the walls, in some parts at least, are of what was called 'rubble and daub'—

loose stones covered with plaster and intermingled with beams of wood In the grey November evening, with the mist beginning to fill the Clough and already lying along the fields, it looks, as a haunted house should, both weird and uncanny. The fences are thrown down; the trim garden has become a wilderness; all signs of life have disappeared, the windows are blocked with wood, the doors are made fast with nails, the hearth is cold and the fire will never be kindled upon it again. The Bar-Gaist was a homely sprite; and, as this is a home no longer, he is gone too. By climbing we manage to look into one of the deserted and empty chambers. The walls are ragged, the narrow stairs are broken, the roof lets in the sky, and we feel that even the presence of a goblin would make the place more cheerful than it now is.

Leaving the Clough, and crossing a few fields, we come to Booth Hall, an old mansion which bears the date of 1640. Humphrey Booth, the builder of the ⚫ house, founded the Trinity Church in Salford; and left sundry legacies 'to the poor for ever.' That quaint chronicler, Hollingworth, says of him that, 'Being in great weakness, he earnestly desired that he might live to see the chapel finished, which he did; but immediately after the solemn dedication of

it by the Bishop of Chester he more apparently weakened; then he earnestly begged that he might partake of the Lord's Supper there, and then he would not wish to live longer. It pleased God to revive him in such a measure as that he was able to go to the chapel constantly till he was partaker of the Supper (which could not be done of some months after the consecration) in the chapel, and was never able to go forth after, nor scarce to get home. He was a man just in his trading, generous in entertainment of any gentlemen of quality that came to the town, though mere strangers to him; bountiful to the Church and poor; and faithful to his friend.'

The lights are already glimmering in the windows of Booth Hall when we turn homeward. Our nearest way is through a branch of Boggart-Hole locally known as Oliver's Clough. This is really the finest part of the whole ravine, and has suffered least. The trees are many of them noble in their proportions; and, as the path is carried along the high ground, you look through the tree trunks to the brook which runs at a great depth below. When we reach the open glade the twilight has already fallen, and we can hear the birds fluttering low among the trees. At the entrance to the Clough we meet a group of children who are making for home. They huddle

together, and hurry past with scared faces.

Proba

bly they are still believers in the existence of the Boggart.

XLVI.-NOVEMBER FOG.

November 27.

ABOUT the middle of the month, and after the snow had departed, there came some days of cheerful weather. It seemed as though November were about to pass by without its usual concomitant of fog. There were at this time several bright mornings, on which we comforted ourselves by observing how much of autumnal beauty was left us even in the midst of this wintry month. 'The country,' we said, 'is always beautiful; look how tender, even now, is the colour of the grass, and how delicately it changes in the lights and shadows along the undulating ground, and on the broken acclivity of the dell ; and the trees, though almost entirely leafless, do they not give, with a blue or even a soft grey sky above them, such an infinite repetition and variety of form, and such a picture of free development on the lines of rigid order as is not to be seen even in summer?' And each morning there was the waning moon in the south-west, a thin crescent, pale, and only distinguish