or another.

X.

THE PORPOISE.

The appearance of a porpoise, at the season when his favourite prey, the
salmon, comes up the river to spawn, is another high excitement to
dwellers on the Trent. I remember well the almost appalling interest
with which, in childhood, I beheld some huge specimen of this marine
visitor, drawn up by crane on a wharf, after an enthusiastic contest for
his capture by the eager sailors.

XI.

AGNES PLANTAGENET.

The very interesting relic of the Old Hall at Gainsborough is
associated, in the mind of one who spent more than half his existence in
the old town, with much that is chivalrous. Mowbrays, Percys, De Burghs,
and other high names of the feudal era are in the list of its
possessors, as lords of the manor. None, however, of its former tenants
calls up such stirring associations as 'Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured
Lancaster,' who, with his earldom of Lincoln, held this castle and
enlarged and beautified it. Tradition confidently affirms that his
daughter was starved to death by him, in one of the rooms of the old
tower,--in consequence of her perverse attachment to her father's
foe,--the knight of Torksey. Often have I heard the recital, from some
aged gossip, by the fireside on a winter's night; and the rehearsal was
invariably delivered with so much of solemn and serious averment--that
the lady was still seen,--that she would point out treasure, to any one
who had the courage to speak to her,--and that some families _had been_
enriched by her ghostly means, though they had kept the secret,--as to
awaken within me no little dread of leaving the fireside for bed in the
dark!

With indescribable feeling I wandered along the carven galleries and
ruined rooms, or crept up the antique massive staircases, of this
crumbling mansion of departed state, in my boyhood,--deriving from these
stolen visits to its interior, mingled with my admiring gaze at its
battlemented turret, and rich octagonal window, (which tradition said
had lighted the chapel erected by John of Gaunt,) a passion for
chivalry and romance, that not even my Chartism can quench. Once, and
once only, I remember creeping, under the guidance of an elder boy, up
to the 'dark room' in the turret; but the fear that we should really see
the ghostly Lady caused us to run down the staircase, with beating
hearts, as soon as we had reached the door and had had one momentary
peep!

Other traditions of high interest are connect