en
gown, whose specially was a dismal narrative of a landlord by the
roadside, whose visitors unaccountably disappeared for many years, until
it was discovered that the pursuit of his life had been to convert them
into pies. For the better devotion of himself to this branch of
industry, he had constructed a secret door behind the head of the bed;
and when the visitor (oppressed with pie) had fallen asleep, this wicked
landlord would look softly in with a lamp in one hand and a knife in the
other, would cut his throat, and would make him into pies; for which
purpose he had coppers, underneath a trap-door, always boiling; and
rolled out his pastry in the dead of the night. Yet even he was not
insensible to the stings of conscience, for he never went to sleep
without being heard to mutter, "Too much pepper!" which was eventually
the cause of his being brought to justice. I had no sooner disposed of
this criminal than there started up another of the same period, whose
profession was originally house-breaking; in the pursuit of which art he
had had his right ear chopped off one night, as he was burglariously
getting in at a window, by a brave and lovely servant-maid (whom the
aquiline-nosed woman, though not at all answering the description, always
mysteriously implied to be herself). After several years, this brave and
lovely servant-maid was married to the landlord of a country Inn; which
landlord had this remarkable characteristic, that he always wore a silk
nightcap, and never would on any consideration take it off. At last, one
night, when he was fast asleep, the brave and lovely woman lifted up his
silk nightcap on the right side, and found that he had no ear there; upon
which she sagaciously perceived that he was the clipped housebreaker, who
had married her with the intention of putting her to death. She
immediately heated the poker and terminated his career, for which she was
taken to King George upon his throne, and received the compliments of
royalty on her great discretion and valour. This same narrator, who had
a Ghoulish pleasure, I have long been persuaded, in terrifying me to the
utmost confines of my reason, had another authentic anecdote within her
own experience, founded, I now believe, upon _Raymond and Agnes, or the
Bleeding Nun_. She said it happened to her brother-in-law, who was
immensely rich,--which my father was not; and immensely tall,--which my
father was not. It was always a point with th