le contempt and malignity, as he asked
the sufferer, "How like you the fire my coals have kindled?" The power
of motion, which terror suspended in his two brothers, seemed to be
restored to Martin by the energy of his courage. He raised himself
on the cart, bent his brows, and, clenching his fist, shook it at the
spectre with a ghastly look of hate and defiance. The goblin vanished
with his usual tremendous and explosive laugh, and left Waldeck
exhausted with this effort of expiring nature.

The terrified brethren turned their vehicle toward the towers of a
convent, which arose in a wood of pine-trees beside the road. They were
charitably received by a bare-footed and long-bearded capuchin, and
Martin survived only to complete the first confession he had made since
the day of his sudden prosperity, and to receive absolution from the
very priest whom, precisely on that day three years, he had assisted
to pelt out of the hamlet of Morgenbrodt. The three years of precarious
prosperity were supposed to have a mysterious correspondence with the
number of his visits to the spectral fire upon the bill.

The body of Martin Waldeck was interred in the convent where he expired,
in which his brothers, having assumed the habit of the order, lived and
died in the performance of acts of charity and devotion. His lands, to
which no one asserted any claim, lay waste until they were reassumed by
the emperor as a lapsed fief, and the ruins of the castle, which Waldeck
had called by his own name, are still shunned by the miner and forester
as haunted by evil spirits. Thus were the miseries attendant upon
wealth, hastily attained and ill employed, exemplified in the fortunes
of Martin Waldeck.

CHAPTER NINETEENTH.

Here has been such a stormy encounter
Betwixt my cousin Captain, and this soldier,
About I know not what!--nothing, indeed;
Competitions, degrees, and comparatives
Of soldiership!--
A Faire Qurrell.

The attentive audience gave the fair transcriber of the foregoing legend
the thanks which politeness required. Oldbuck alone curled up his nose,
and observed, that Miss Wardour's skill was something like that of the
alchemists, for she had contrived to extract a sound and valuable moral
out of a very trumpery and ridiculous legend. "It is the fashion, as I
am given to understand, to admire tho