neighbourhood; with mullions, and quaint windows and doors to match; and was, I think, dated about 1521. Such another building you will certainly not find on this side of the county. Castleton Hall comes, in my opinion, nearest to it in venerable appearance; but Bamford Hall had a lighter and more cheerful aspect; its situation, also, almost on the edge of the rocky chasm of Simpson Clough, or, as it is often called, Guestless, ¿.e. Grislehurst Clough, gave an air of romance to the place, which I do not remember to have noticed about any ancient residence with which I am acquainted."

In

Stillness was falling upon the scene; but the evening wind sung lulling vespers in Grislehurst wood; and, now and then, there rose from the rustling green, the silvery solo of some lingering singer in those leafy choirs, as we worked our way through the shade of the wood, until we came to the bed of "Nadin Water," in the shrouded hollow of the clough. The season had been dry, and the water lay in quiet pools of the channel, gleaming in the gloom, where the light fell through the trees. We made our way onward, sometimes leaping from stone to stone in the bed of the stream, sometimes tearing over the lower part of the bank, which was broken and irregular, and scattered with moss-greened fragments of fallen rock, or slippery and swampy with lodgments of damp, fed by rindles and driblets of water, running more or less, in all seasons, from springs in the wood-shaded steep. some parts, the bank was overgrown with scratchy thickets, composed of dogberry-stalks, wild rose-bushes, prickly hollins and thorns, young hazles and ash trees; broad-leaved docks, and tall, drooping ferns; and, over all, hung the thick green of the spreading wood. Pushing aside the branches, we laboured on till we came into the opening where the streams combine. A stone bridge crosses the water at this spot, leading up to the woody ridge which separates the two ravines, in the upper part of the clough. Here we climbed from the bed of the stream, and got upon a cart-road which led out of the clough, and up to the Rochdale road, which crosses the lower end of it, at a considerable elevation. The thin crescent of a new moon's rim hung like a silver sickle in the sky; and the stars were beginning to glow in "Jove's eternal house!" whilst the fading world below seemed hushed with awe, to see that sprinkling of golden lights coming

We

out in silence once more from the over-spanning blue. walked up the slope, from the silent hollow, between the woods, and over the knoll, and down into Hooley Clough again, by the way we came at first. Country people were sauntering about, upon the main road, and in the bye-lanes, thereabouts, in twos and threes. In the village of Hooley Bridge, the inhabitants were lounging at their cottage doors, in neighbourly talk, enjoying the close of a summer day; and, probably, "Ned o' Andrew's" was sitting in some quiet corner of the village, amusing a circle of eager listeners with his quaint country tales.

A short walk brought us to the end of our ramble, and we sat down to talk over what we had seen and heard. My visit to Grislehurst had been all the more interesting that I had no thought of meeting with such a living evidence of the lingering superstitions of Lancashire there. I used to like to sit with country folk, hearkening to their old-world tales of boggarts, and goblins, and fairies,

That plat the manes of horses in the night,
And cake the elf lock in foul, sluttish airs;

and I had thought myself well acquainted with the boggart-lore of my native district; but the goblin of Grislehurst was new to me. By this time I knew that in remote country houses the song of the cricket and the ticking of the clock were beginning to be distinctly heard; and that in many a solitary cottage these were, now, almost the only sounds astir, except the cadences of the night wind, sighing around, and making every crevice into a voice of mystic import to superstitious listeners; while, perhaps, the rustle of the trees blended with the dreamy ripple of some neighbouring brooklet. The shades of night would, by this time, have fallen upon the haunted homesteads of Grislehurst, and, in the folds of that dusky robe, would have brought to the old cottagers their usual fears, filled with

Shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends;

and I could imagine the good old pair creeping off to repose, and covering up their eyes more carefully than usual from the goblin-peopled gloom, after the talk we had with them about Grislehurst Boggart.

HERE is a quiet little clough about three miles from Manchester, near the old village of Blackley. The best entrance to it is by a gateway leading from

the southern edge of a shady steep called "Entwisle Broo," on the highway from Manchester to Middleton. Approaching the spot in this direction, a winding road leads down between a low bemossed wall on the right, and a thorn hedge, which screens the green depth on the left. The trees which line the path overlap the way with shade in summer time, till it reaches the open hollow, where stands a brick-built farm-house, with its outbuildings, and gardens,-sheltered in the rear by the wooded bank of the clough. Thence, this pretty Lancashire dell wanders on southward for a considerable distance, in picturesque quietude. The township of Blackley, in which it is situated, retains many traces of its former rural beauty, and some remnants of the woods which once covered the district. As a whole, Blackley is, even yet, so pleasantly varied in natural feature as to rank among the prettiest scenery around Manchester, although its valleys are now, almost all of them, more or less, surrendered to

the conquering march of manufacture-all, except this secluded glen, known by the name of "Boggart Ho' Clough." Here, still, in this sylvan "deer-leap" of the Saxon hunter, the lover of nature, and the jaded townsman, have a tranquil sanctuary, where they can wander, cloistered from the tumults of life; and there is many a contemplative rambler who seeks the retirement of this leafy dell, the whole aspect of which seems to invite the mind to a "sessions of sweet, silent thought." One can imagine it such a place as a man of poetic temperament would delight in; and the interest which has gathered around it is not lessened by the fact, that before Samuel Bamford, the poet, left this district to take up his abode in the metropolis, he dwelt at a pleasant cottage, on the summit of the upland, near the eastern edge of the clough. And here, in his native sequestration, he may have sometimes felt the significance of Burns's words,

The rural charms and retired peacefulness of "Boggart Ho' Clough" might well, in the vicinity of a place like Manchester, account for part of its local celebrity; but not for the whole of it. The superstitions of the locality and the shaping power of imagination have clothed the place with an interest which does not solely belong to the embowered gloom of its green recesses,; nor to its picturesque steeps, overgrown with fern and underwood; nor to the beauty of its swardy holm, spreading out a pleasant space in the vale; nor to the wimpling rill which wanders through it from end to end,

Amongst the pumy stones, which seem to plaine,
With gentle murmure, that his course they do restraine.

Man has clothed the scene in a drapery of wonder and fear, woven in the creative loom of his own imagination. Any superstitious stranger, wandering there, alone, under the influence. of a midnight moon, would probably think this a likely place for the resort of those spiritual beings who "fly by night." He might truly say, at such an hour, that if ever "Mab" held court on the green earth, "Boggart Ho' Clough" is just such

a nook, as one can imagine, that her mystic choir would delight to dance in, and sing,

Come, follow, follow me,
Ye fairy elves that be,

Light tripping o'er the green,
Come follow Mab, your queen;
Hand in hand we'll dance around,
For this place is fairy ground.

The place is now associated with the superstitions of the district; and on that account, as well as on account of its natural attractions, it has been the theme of more than one notable pen. In Roby's "Traditions of Lancashire," there is a story called "The Bargaist, or Boggart," which is connected with " Boggart Ho' Clough." From this story, which was contributed to that work by Mr. Crofton Croker, author of "The Fairy Legends,” I quote the following:

"Not far from the little snug, smoky village of Blakeley, or Blackley, there lies one of the most romantic of dells, rejoicing in a state of singular seclusion, and in the oddest of Lancashire names, to wit, 'Boggart-Hole.' Rich in every requisite for picturesque beauty and poetical association, it is impossible for me (who am neither a painter nor a poet) to describe this, dell as it should be described; and I will, therefore, only beg of thee, gentle reader, who, peradventure, mayst not have lingered in this classical neighbourhood, to fancy a deep, deep dell, its steep sides fringed down with hazel and beech, and fern and thick undergrowth, and clothed at the bottom with the richest and greenest sward in the world. You descend, clinging to the trees, and scrambling as best you may,—and now you stand on haunted ground! Tread softly, for this is the Boggart's clough. And see in yonder dark corner, and beneath the projecting mossy stone, where that dusky, sullen cave yawns before us, like a bit of Salvator's best: there lurks that strange elf, the sly and mischievous Boggart. Bounce! I see him coming;-oh no, it was only a hare bounding from her form; there it goes-there!

"I will tell you of some of the pranks of this very Boggart, and how he teased and tormented a good farmer's family in a house hard by; and I assure you it was a very worthy old lady who told me the story. But, first, suppose we leave the Boggart's demesne, and pay a visit to the theatre of his strange doings.

"You see that old farm-house about two fields distant, shaded by the sycamore tree: that was the spot which the Boggart or