Here, thought I, is the very place I am in search of, the identical thing I want. A haunted house, and, no doubt, some marvellous legend of "deep and awful interest," worth the recording.

"Why, as yet," replied I, to my rustic interrogator, "l have not been able, during my short stay in the west, to spare the requisite time sufficient for exploring the antiquities of the mansion you speak of. I remember, however, some years back, having wandered over its precincts, and having also minutely inspected its interior. But do I understand you rightly, when you tell me the manor house is entirely demolished?"-

"No, sir," replied he, "not entirely;" and mine host, who was really an intelligent man, and had some partiality for antiquities, besides being the oracle of the village, replied, breaking in upon the conversation (to the no small displeasure of the rustic), "I am much at a loss to know the reason why the , squire' has left the old weather-beaten gable, at the western end, still standing, roofless and exposed to the effects of the elements, which will, of course, in a few years, level it to the ground with the rest, even without our 'squire's permission. It is, if I recollect aright, standing as high as the second chamber, a curious monument of ancient ruins amidst modern finery, but ill suiting (in my mind) with the fine plantations, fish-ponds, and ail the other famous contrivances of its rich and splendid owner, that surround it on every side. But they tell me he is bound by an old charter to keep it as it is; and there is, moreover, a curious story going about of his reasons for so doing, but with what share of truth I am at a loss to guess. Perhaps yon have not heard how, that while one of his labourers was digging under the foundations of the old Roman-Catholic Chapel, joining the court-house, it was his good luck to discover, at a great depth under the soil, a great curiosity." -

"Indeed!" replied I "Some ancient crock, I suppose, filled to the brim with good old gold, or rare old coins!" -"No, Sir," he answered, "it was not exactly that, certainly, which the man hit on, in the nick of time (for it so happened, you must know, that the overseer of these poor men was away when it was found), but what, perhaps, a few persons, even in our unbelieving days, may count of value, namely, an old, worm-eaten, oaken coffer, containing, among sundry Popish relics, a battered silver crucifix, a leaden breastplate, with many uncouth crosses and signs upon it; and an old, soiled, discoloured, and partly-defaced parchment volume." -

At the mere mention of the lattert I at once saw the necea, sity of using some precaution, lest I should either lose sight of the precious relic, or be duped into paying perhaps quadruple its value, even to an antiquary, as I well knew the con-sciences of certain characters were not over scrupulous. However, after some further information, I adroitly turned the conversation to another subject; and, in the course of the evening, the treat of a few bottles of wine put me in possession of the name, residence, and character of the person who found the chest or coffer; and, on the following morning, the reader may rest assured, I lost no time in bartering sundry pieces of gold, with his most gracious majesty's impress upon them, for what, to me, was a treasure far more. precious, but to the rustic was but, as he afterwards confessed, "a parcel of ould worm-holed lumber, scarcely worth houseroom:" I mean, the coffer and its curious manuscript; as for the crucifix, he would not part with it on any t rms, being himself of the Catholic persuasion, which accounted for his refusal of a coin, which persons in his station of life rarely turn their eyes from.

It was, if I remember distinctly (for I have no memorandum of the date), some eight or ten years previous (accounting from the year 182 -), that I had in reality visited the mansion where the manuscript which forms the substance of the following pages was found. It was then a very ancient building, said to have been erected as early as the sixteenth century. This was evident, from the general outline of the mansion itself, its adherence to the monastic style of architecture, its pointed gables, perpendicular roofs, coated with lead of an immense .thickness, its massy architraves, ponderous friezes, ornamented with a variety of sacred and grotesque emblems, strangely combined ; its castellated wide embrasures, turreted clock-house, deep channeled windows, gothic oriels, and many other indications, external and internal, of those times of old, when the mitre and the crosier, the cross and the keys of St. Peter, bore ample sway. And within; its lofty halls, spacious apartments, rooms of state, tapestried chambers, fretted and vaulted roof, richly-worked ceilings, polished oak floors, and numerous heraldic feudal bearings, sculptured in freestone, or carved in oak and ebony, bore out the assumption. To these some later hand had (probably two centuries later) appended the royal arms of England and France; indeed it is still traditionally related, and in the village sacredly believed, that King Charles the Second, "the merry monarch," sojourned a night here, in rude disguise, in a secret closet, while retreating from one of his unfortunate battles with Cromwell. This closet was not only shown at that time as a curiosity, but some few yean afterwards, at a public sale in the Tillage, a block of wood was sold in chips at a high price, and eagerly purchased , upon which, it was affirmed, his sacred but unfortunate majesty that night rested from his fatiguing flight from his pursuers.