it," replied the figure, peremptorily; when suddenly, and, as it were, formed immediately at his side, appeared another figure, similar to the first, assuming nearly the same attitude and manner, save that the latter looked something taller and more majestic.

   "St Mary's grace and the abbot's, there 's twa of us!" cried the first figure, no less a personage than Dick Empson, who had been daring enough to adopt this disguise, according to the instructions he had received at the abbey. He uttered the words in a tone of thrilling and horrible apprehension, like the last shriek of the victim writhing in the fangs of his destroyer.

   The terrible apparition cried out to his surreptitious representative—"Nay, miscreant; but one. This thou shalt know, and feel too. Fool and impostor, thy last hour is come!"

   As he spake he seized on the miserable wretch in their presence, swinging him round by the waist like an infant, and bore him off, up the turret stairs, to the summit. Ere he disappeared he uttered this terrible denunciation—

   "Your ruin is at hand. Flee! This fool hath betrayed ye, and I return no more!"

   Darting up the staircase, the shrieks of Dick Empson were heard, as if rapidly ascending to the summit. A wilder and

   more desperate struggle—then a heavy plunge, and the waters closed over their prey!

   Dick's body was cast up by the waves, but the terrible unknown did not return; nor was he ever seen or heard of again, save, it is said, that when the priest received his death-wound, soon afterwards, on the field of battle, this awful form appeared to rise up before him, and with scoff and taunt upbraided him as the cause of his own ruin, and the downfall of his hopes.

   The next day, from whatever cause, the troops began to move from their post. Ere the second evening, they had completely evacuated the castle and the island, which the wary Abbot of Furness soon turned to his own advantage, occupying the place with some of his armed vassals. The rebels, proved to be such by their ill success, took up a tolerably advantageous position upon Swartz Moor, in the neighbourhood of Ulverstone, where, waiting in vain for the expected reinforcements, they found themselves obliged to move forward, or be utterly without the means either of subsistence or defence. Sir Thomas Broughton, and a few more of little note, accompanied them to Stokeford, near Newark, where, engaging the king's forces on 

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