who was about a hundred paces in advance, and was provided with a dark lantern, occasionally directed its narrow stream of light upon

the tufts of scattered trees and underwood into which the outskirts of the forest were broken up, earnestly fixed his eye upon them for a minute, and then exclaiming, "all safe!" instantly concealed his light and walked on, when the vehicle advanced to the position which he had quitted. From the darkness of its hue, and its rolling silently over the soft grass, it could neither be seen nor heard, unless by any person who should happen to be in its immediate course, a circumstance little likely in that unfrequented tract of country, and at the hour of midnight. Such, however, was the hazardous nature of their enterprise, that its conductors did not for a moment relax in their precautions, not only peering around them in all directions, as far as their timid light could steal into the darkness, but frequently stopping to

listen. Nothing, however, was to be seen but the trunks of the trees, which, as they caught the faint glare of the lantern, seemed to be stepping forward out of the dense gloom that enshrouded them; and nothing was to be heard but the hoarse rustling of the wind, as it came by fits to agitate the boughs above them, and died away into a distant moaning as it swept the forest behind. Winning their way in this slow and suspicious manner, without a syllable being uttered except the occasional "all safe!" of the leader, they had reached the last glade that bordered upon the open country, when a low whistle was heard ahead of them, and the foremost of the two men halting, and brandishing the weapon with which he was provided, exclaimed in a loud whisper— "Who's there?"—"A friend !" was the reply.— "What's the word ?" continued the first speaker." Boscobel!" answered the second, and at the same moment a man disclosing himself from

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a clump of underwood, exclaimed, "You are late, Whittaker. I have been whistling a duet with the wind this half hour, when I might have heard the popping of corks, and have emptied a flagon or two of Gascoigne wine. Who is that with the cart-Nat. Culpepper?"

"Ay, ay, Sir John; that 's Nat. Culpepper, sure enough, and a steady old file he is. You may advance with the cart, Nat. ; it's only Sir John. And as to our being late, I am an old soldier, and after so many night alarms as we have had, while engaged in this ticklish service, you would hardly wish me to hurry forward, when it was your own orders that I should be careful in acting the scout."

Right, old Truepenny!" cried Sir John; "don't I know you for a sly fox in an ambush, and a fearless dasher in an onset? But you have had no alarms to-night, my doughty serjeant; the black ghost has not again crossed

your path, and you have heard no Scriptural ejaculations muttered from the bushes."

"No, Sir John, we have started nothing as we came along but a mottled stag, who dashed away from us as fast as four legs could carry him; and we have seen nothing blacker than the night, which is pitchy enough even for us, who care not how dark it is while we are playing this secret game of neck or nothing."

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Noa, noa, Sir John," cried Culpepper, who had now come up with the cart, and who seemed by his accent to be a north countryman, "I be pratty certain we sha'not see her to-night.”

"See her!" exclaimed Sir John; " you have made up your mind, then, that 'twas a woman whom we have more than once so strangely encountered in our secret expeditions."

""Twere a woman's voice, I'll take my Bible oath," cried Culpepper; " and I seed a bit of her black petticoat as she scudded away among

the trees into the thick of the forest.-Dang it! d'ye think I don't know a woman from a will-o'-the-wisp ?"

"I marked the figure myself, clearly enough," continued Sir John, "and but that the sound of a pistol might have endangered a discovery of our enterprize, and brought all our necks into jeopardy, I would have tried whether the mumbling old Jezabel was as difficult to reach with powder and ball, as with our three pair of legs, which she so easily and so unaccountably distanced. However, I am prepared for her now; I have a cross-bow here, which will bring down its bird without blabbing; and be it hag or hobgoblin, witch or wizard, ghost or gossip, spy or spectre, the devil or the devil's dam, if I can but catch a glimpse of it, I'll have a shot at its hide, and try whether it be made of flesh or flummery."

"As to ghosts or goblins," cried serjeant Whittaker, "they'll find they have got the