ncanny
presence--leprous impurity, insane blasphemy, and the stony grin of
unearthly malice--and keep aloof.

To heighten their fun, this jovial company bellowed their abominable
ballads in the hall, one of them about 'Sally M'Keogh,' whose sweetheart
was hanged, and who cut her throat with his silver-mounted razor, and
they hooted their gibes up the stairs. And at last Mary Matchwell,
provoked by the passive quietude of her victim, summoned the three
revellers from the kitchen, and invaded the upper regions at their
head--to the unspeakable terror of poor Sally Nutter--and set her demon
fiddler a scraping, and made them and Dirty Davy's clerk dance a frantic
reel on the lobby outside her bed-room door, locked and bolted inside,
you may be sure.

In the midst of this monstrous festivity and uproar, there came, all on
a sudden, a reverberating double-knock at the hall-door, so loud and
long that every hollow, nook, and passage of the old house rang again.
Loud and untimely as was the summons, it had a character, not of riot,
but of alarm and authority. The uproar was swallowed instantly in
silence. For a second only the light of the solitary candle shone upon
the pale, scowling features of Mary Matchwell, and she quenched its wick
against the wall. So the Walpurgis ended in darkness, and the company
instinctively held their breaths.

There was a subdued hum of voices outside, and a tramping on the crisp
gravel, and the champing and snorting of horses, too, were audible.

'Does none o' yez see who's in it?' said the blind fiddler.

'Hold your tongue,' hissed Mary Matchwell with a curse, and visiting the
cunning pate of the musician with a smart knock of the candlestick.

'I wisht I had your thumb undher my grinder,' said the fiddler, through
his teeth, 'whoever you are.'

But the rest was lost in another and a louder summons at the hall-door,
and a voice of authority cried sternly,

'Why don't you open the door?--hollo! there--I can't stay here all
night.'

'Open to him, Madam, I recommend you,' said Dirty Davy, in a hard
whisper; 'will I go?'

'Not a step; not a word;' and Mary Matchwell griped his wrist.

But a window in Mrs. Nutter's room was opened, and Moggy's voice cried
out--

'Don't go, Sir; for the love o' goodness, don't go. Is it Father Roach
that's in it?'

''Tis I, woman--Mr. Lowe--open the door, I've a word or two to say.'

CHAPTER XCII.

THE WHER-WOLF.

About a quarter of an ho