gossip--that a thousand local legends concerning the venerable
mansion, sanctified by their antiquity in the ears of the family,
afforded a fertile source of jesting to Jonas Sparks. The Hall
abounded in concealed staircases and iron hiding-places, connected
with a variety of marvellous traditions of the civil wars; besides a
walled-up suite of chambers, haunted, as becomes a walled-up suite of
chambers; and justice-rooms and tapestried-rooms, to which the long
abandonment of the house, and the heated imaginations of the few
menials left in charge of its desolate vastness, attributed romances
likely enough to have provoked the laughter of a matter-of-fact man
like the owner of Lexley Park. But neither Sir Laurence nor his old
servants were likely to forgive this insult offered to the family
legends of a house which had little else left to boast of. Even the
neighbouring families were displeased to hear them derided; and my
grandfather never liked to hear a joke on the subject of the
coach-and-four which was said to have driven into the court-yard of
the Hall on the eve of the execution of the rebel lords in 1745,
having four headless inmates, who were duly welcomed as guests by old
Sir Robert Altham. Nay, as a child, I had so often thrilled on my
nurse's knees during the relation of this spectral visitation, that I
own I felt indignant if any one presumed to laugh at a tale which had
made me quake for fear.

Among those who were known to resent the familiar tone in which Mr
Sparks had been heard to criticise the pomps and vanities exhibited at
Lexley Hall by the Althams of the olden time, was a certain General
Stanley, who, inhabiting a fine seat of his own at about ten miles'
distance, was fond of bringing over his visitors to visit the old
Hall, as an interesting specimen of county antiquity. _He_ knew the
peculiarities of the place, and could repeat the traditions connected
with the hiding-places better than the housekeeper herself; and I have
heard her say it was a pleasure to hear him relating these historical
anecdotes with all the fire of an old soldier, and see his venerable
grey hair blown about as he stood with his party on the battlements,
pointing out to the ladies the fine range of territory formerly
belonging to the Althams. The old lady protested that the general was
nearly as much grieved as herself to behold the old mansion so shorn
of its beams; and certain it is, that once when, on visiting the hall