"Besides," resumed the old goatherd, "how can she be thought a wicked, unearthly thing, being, as she is, so young and handsome ?"

I considered this argument none of the worst; and I certainly admired the ingenious method which the old man had of guiding his judgment in matters of witchcraft and diabolical interposition. I moreover concluded that the tia majura, the cripple tailor, and the hunchback, were indebted for their supposed magical powers to their extreme ugliness and superfluity of back. Ugliness and shrewdness are, indeed, regarded amongst ignorant people as sure tokens of mischief; and the inference is not, perhaps, devoid of some shadow of rea

son.

The devil is depicted, by some learned divines, as an extremely ugly and remarkably clever personage; and people naturally enough conclude that persons who possess those two qualities in an eminent degree, must of necessity have some connexion with the common enemy of mankind;—a hint this to every old, ugly woman, deformed wight, and sharp wit, speedily to remove from scanty villages to large towns, where anything passes muster, and is not subject to special observation.

But to return. The old goatherd, well satisfied with the approving looks which I bestowed upon his reasoning, very contentedly continued

"No, no; there is nothing to indicate supernatural practices in that young woman. I think I ought to know something of these matters, for I am an old man; and, besides, our curate agrees with me in opinion; and sure enough the holy man is the most proper person to consult concerning these sort of affairs."

"How long has she been a wanderer about these places?" I then inquired.

"It is about a week since we saw her for the first time; but the motive

"How does she contrive to procure a subsistence in her wandering life? These places seem not much adapted to the maintenance of rational beings."

"Alack! Senor, she feeds on acorns, like a wild boar; she eats anything she can find ; and often, too, when she approaches the hamlet, some of us take care to leave food in her way, which she snatches up greedily, and then disappears."

"And this is all you can tell me concerning the poor female ?” "As I am a Christian, it is.” Now the information I received, instead of satisfying, naturally enough tended to heighten my desire of knowing more of the story of the unfortunate wanderer. Night had closed in unusual darkness, and I became apprehensive I should not be able to find my way back to the town. In this dilemma, I requested the young goatherd to be my guide; but the timorous bumpkin would as soon have condescended to conduct me into a lion's den. He exhibited a most vacant and prodigious dismay at the bare proposal; and even the persuasive eloquence of a purse shown to him was entirely thrown away upon his unenlightened mind.

Keep your money, Senor," he replied peevishly, " and do not come to tempt poor honest folks with it. I want none of your gold, if I am to procure it at the peril of my life, and, what is worse, by endangering my salvation. A goodly company are we likely to find in these places at night and a night like this withal !" The old man seemed more accom

modating; he did not, indeed, offer himself as a guide, but frankly invited me to pass the night in his hut. In my situation, I thought the most prudent course to pursue was to accept his hospitality, which I accordingly did, and, dismounting, went to inspect what accommodation I was to hope for. A very frugal supper served as a prologue to a bed, composed of a mattress of dry straw, and tattered rags for a coverlid. I slept, however, very soundly, and, strange to say, I was not visited by any dreams of the female maniac. But, if absent in my sleep, she was the first subject to occupy my imagination when I awoke. I left the hut early in the morning, and pursued my journey to — where I arrived full of the adventure which had marked my visit to the famous vale and chapel of Covadonga. I was here, however, equally unable to gather any satisfactory account concerning the mysterious female who had so strangely crossed my path. Time, that general destroyer of everything human, gradually obliterated from my mind the recollection of my adventure; and in less than a month I had scarcely a thought to bestow on an incident which had absorbed all the powers of my imagination but a short time before.

Ten years had now elapsed-ten years full of variety of incident and peril. I had left my native city, Oviedo, with the intention of seeing the world; I witnessed the stirring scenes rehearsed in France during the despotic period of Napoleon's gigantic power; and I had taken arms in defence of my country, when that mighty conqueror ventured upon his imprudent invasion. After the downfal of that great man-for great I must call him, although my hated enemy-at the ever-memorable field of Waterloo, I returned to Oviedo to enjoy a life of tranquillity, after the many disasters, troubles, and perplexities, which had until now distinguished it.

The restoration of Ferdinand to the throne of Spain gave birth to many

brilliant hopes, which were unhappily rendered abortive. This was a new inducement to make me prefer the solitude and obscurity of my paternal home to the glittering scene of the court of Madrid. On the day after my arrival at Oviedo, I was awakened early in the morning by a visit from Don Lorenzo Navas, my intimate friend. After the first greetings, I inquired of him the cause of a confused rumor that I had heard in the street.

"What!" said Don Lorenzo, "you don't know anything then of the strange event which is about to take place?"

"Not I, indeed; how, in the name of fortune, should I, arriving but yesterday, after an absence of ten years? But what is this strange event?"

"They are going to hang a poor helpless female."

"And that you call a strange event! Upon my word, your affairs at Oviedo must go on upon a very monotonous, uninteresting footing, since a public execution is calculated to produce such an effect."

"It is not, my good friend, the execution in itself that occasions this unusual excitement in the public mind, but the strange circumstances connected with the unfortunate culprit."

'Well, well, let me hear her story."

"It is, in sooth, a mournful one. The wretched being, who is to be the heroine of the tragedy of this day, was once well known to me, as one of the most beautiful and innocent lasses of a neighboring village.

Maria Sanchez was, indeed, a most amiable creature, until she fell into the power of the ruffian who wrought her ruin. Maria was the daughter of a reduced farmer, a tenant of the Bishop of The ne

phew of this prelate found means to insinuate himself into the heart of the unsuspecting girl. His fervent protestations were listened to-his reiterated promises of marriage believed. In the seclusion of her retired life, it could not be expected that Maria should in any way have become aware of the plot and artifices of an experienced seducer. She confided impli

citly in the honor of her admirer, and in an evil hour she fell. Too late she deplored her error; the assiduities of her lover became less frequent; his caresses were no longer continued with the warmth of a fervent heart. He grew cold-indifferent; and she could only weep over the change.

"She was alarmed, but could not as yet surmise the whole extent of the dreadful fate that awaited her. She became a mother; and this circumstance, which she considered would endear her to her neglectful lover, seemed only to estrange his affections more and more. His indifference soon grew into disgust; he saw but seldom the unfortunate girl; and her tears and agony growing daily more irksome, he ultimately abandoned her to her wretched lot. The heavy weight of her misfortunes and her shame now glaringly flashed upon the aching sight of poor Maria. She fled from the village, where she had been the idol of all around her; she was now become a by-word of contumely -an object of pity or abhorrence; she soon grew frantic with her sorrows, and, for some time continued a houseless wanderer. Once more she chanced to meet with her heartless seducer; but her agonising expostulations and scalding tears were poured in vain. He was grown callous even to the voice of pity; and some new amour in which he was now engaged completely alienated from his mind even the memory of the affection which he had once professed for the unfortunate Maria. This last proof of unkindness drove the wretched victim to the verge of insanity. In a fit of despair she committed a dreadful, an unnatural crime, which rendered doubly horrible her already too miserable fate. She deprived of life the wretched offspring of her guilty affection. From that fatal moment, the pangs of her remorse and woe were augmented. The common instinct of personal safety made her at first solicitous to conceal the perpetration of the fearful act, and to avoid observation. In a distracted state, she wan

dered for some time in unfrequented solitude; but suspicion had already been awakened by her strange conduct, and she did not long elude the avenging and awful pursuit of justice, which tracked her with slow but sure steps. She was at length taken, and conducted to the jail of this city, where she was tried, convicted of infanticide, and condemned to death. At this awful moment, it seems that a pang of remorse visited the heart of the merciless seducer. He could not, without shuddering, contemplate the misery of which he was the sole author. He passionately appealed to his uncle, the bishop, whose influence at court was immense. His application did not prove fruitless. The prelate was himself eager to prevent the fulfilment of the sentence, and obtained a royal decree to have the cause investigated by the Council of Castile. The French invasion succeeded, and, in the confusion of those times, the sentence was suspended, and Maria lingered in prison. a lapse of ten years, new judges have ordered the award of justice to be carried into execution:"

After

"Can this be possible? Is such an instance of barbarity offered by a civilized nation? Methinks the ten years' confinement is ample punishment for the unfortunate girl.”

"Well, but they say that strict justice requires her life."

"Then strict justice ought to have required that life ten years ago. But I don't see how we can reconcile this double punishment with ideas of justice."

A sullen murmur interrupted our conversation, and the bell tolled solemnly-the moment for the execution was arrived. An instinctive impulse hurried me to the place; an immense crowd surrounded the scaffold.

Presently the wretched victim appeared, supported by two friars; she seemed ready to drop into the earth. I shuddered at the sight of the poor maniac prisoner; but my astonishment, my horror increased, when I recognised, in the unfortunate culprit,

The fatal noose was already round the neck of poor Maria. I could not support the horrid scene; and, with feelings of mingled pity, disgust, and indignation, I turned my eyes away,

POOR old Hannah! I see her now before me her short stout figure, framed as it was for labor-her round red face, which long exposure to the weather had so befreckled and betanned, that not one tint of her original complexion was left-her small, deepseated, merry grey eyes, and the little turned-up, impertinent-looking nose, that gave, by its singular elevation, such a grotesque and humorous expression to her countenance. Often have I stolen out into the fields to listen to her odd tales, a pastime which I infinitely preferred to the detested task of conning my lessons. I can see her now before me, as she sat crouched on her three-legged stool, milking her favorite red cow, Strawberry, beneath the shade of the noble old ash in the meadow. They were happy days when I paused delighted by the side of the little white gate, leading into the garden, to catch the snatches of her old songs-to shudder at the treachery of False Anachin, and to enter, heart and soul, into the tragedy of Lord Thomas and fair Ellen.

Hannah first initiated me in ghostly lore. From her I learned that villagemaids had sweethearts, and that men60 ATHENEUM, VOL. 1, 3d series.

"heaven save the mark !"-had died for love. Even at that tender age, this last piece of legendary information seemed an inscrutable mystery. But Hannah, for a while, satisfied my doubts, by telling me that "I was young at present; before I died I should know all about it." From Hannah I learned that gipsies could actually tell fortunes-that Fridays were unlucky days to travel on-and that charms were infallible.

I verily believe that the old woman had tried every species of this kind of necromancy, from the age of fifteen to fifty, without obtaining, through the potent influence of magic, the desired effect-a husband! Hannah was a spinster-or, as the country people denominate a single woman, who has to support a family-a grace widow.

Charms were, with this antiquated graceless damsel, a cure for every complaint that afflicts humanity. For the cramp, she wore the cramp-bone of a sheep, so placed as to touch the part affected; for headach, a parcel of mustard seed, sewed up in a small flannel bag, and fixed under her cap on the crown of her head; and, if her teeth pained her, she forthwith proceeded to the orchard, and culled from

the oldest codling-tree a small withered apple, which she deposited by moonlight on the gate-post of a distant field, whither she expected chance would never direct her steps again. But for the ague, that terror of the poor, a host of magical remedies were resorted to, with pretty equal success. The unerring cure, however, for this cruel disorder, shocked my organ of benevolence, with its selfishness, even when I was a child; but Hannah, though very charitable, felt no such scruples. Here it is" Any person afflicted with the ague, and wishing a fair riddance of this evil disorder, must, when the shaking fit is on, go down into a marsh, or low meadow, through which flows a running stream that has a plank over it for the benefit of foot passengers. The person, male or female, must cross the bridge without looking behind, and, standing on the bank, with face to the sun and back to the rivulet, suddenly throw the plank to the opposite shore, chaunting these lines:

Ague! Ague! Ague! seize, I pray, The first living thing that comes this way, And throws the plank across the river, But cease to plague me now forever. Take them, and shake them-torment them

sore,

But, Ague, return to me no more.'

"The afflicted person is then to return home, carefully avoiding the road by which he came; and the first man, woman, or child, who is so unfortunate as to pass that way, and throw the plank over the stream, receives the evil spirit, which, like the hobgoblins of yore, has not the power to cross a running brook."

At Hannah's instigation, as I advanced towards womanhood, I have placed my shoes, "going and coming," when resting in a strange bed, in the vain hope of beholding in my sleep my future spouse. For the same wise purpose, I have picked up a white stone, when passing over ground I had never before trodden, and, on my return home, deposited the prize under my pillow, as a mystic treasure that could reveal to me the secrets of futurity. I have blunted many a good

penknife by cutting fern roots aslant, and paring apples, to try for the initials of the favored swain by waving the parings nine times over my head, and casting them, with a sudden jerk, over my left shoulder. And then, the pips! When seated round a cheerful fire, at the present social season of the year, how often has that potent spell passed from girl to girl, as bright eyes and rosy cheeks bent anxiously over the roaring blaze, expecting, with ill-concealed impatience, the result of their invocation!

"If he loves me, crack and fly!

If he hates me, lie and die." And I, with whom laughter was almost a disease, have often, out of bravado, reversed the charm, yet listened, with a beating heart, to the snap that annihilated my hopes.

Charms of deeper importance no persuasions from Hannah could ever induce me to try. All her rhetoric, enforced with the true Suffolk whine, and a long pause between every letter, could never prevail on me to eat the apple before the looking-glass at midnight to behold my sweetheart peeping over my left shoulder. The very idea of the thing rendered me nervous. I considered it a crime little short of mother Eve's eating the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden, and had I seen any reflection in the glass, I should have devoutly taken the apparition for no less a personage than the prince of darkness. However, one new year's eve, a clergyman (an old bachelor to boot) presented me with a piece of bridecake, which had been drawn nine times through the wedding-ring by the bride; proposing, on the whim of the moment, that we should both try the efficacy of the charm by dreaming upon it that very night. I eagerly entered upon the visionary speculation, and dreamed

Queen Mab herself must have inspired the dream-that I was married to the King! The donor of the cake was less ambitious, and less fortunate. He imagined that a swarm of wasps maliciously invaded his bed, and devoured the cake from beneath his pil