now felt something slipped into his hand.

"Remember," said the voice, "when that shadow is on the pillar, thou
must return."

Immediately his bodily organs resumed their office, and the astonished
miller was not long in regaining his own threshold.

But he was a moody and an altered man. The dame could not help
shuddering as she saw his ashen visage, and his eyes fixed and almost
starting from their sockets. His cheeks were sunken, his head was
bare, and his locks covered with rime, and with fragments from the
boughs that intercepted his path.

"Mercy on me!" cried she, lifting up her hands, "what terrible thing
has happened? O Ralph, Ralph, thy silly gostering speeches, I do fear
me, have had a sting in their tail thou hast little dreamed of!"

Here she crossed herself with much fervour and solemnity. She then
turned to gaze on the doomed wretch, who, groaning heavily, seated
himself on the old settle without speaking.

"He has seen the fairies or the black dog!" said the dame in great
terror. "I will not upbraid thee with thy foolish speeches, yet would
I thou hadst not spoken so lightly of the good people. But take
courage, goodman; thou art never the worse yet for thy mishap, I trow;
so tell me what has befallen thee, and ha' done snoring there, like an
owl in a barn riggin'."

A long time elapsed ere the affrighted miller could reveal the nature
and extent of his misfortunes. But woman's wits are more fertile in
expedients, and therefore more adroit for plots and counterplots than
our own. The dame was greatly terrified at the recital, yet not so as
to prevent her from being able to counsel her husband as to the plan
he should pursue.

We now leave our honest miller for a space, while we introduce another
personage of great importance to the further development of our story.

Oliver Chadwyck was the second son of Jordan Chadwyck before-named,
then residing at their fort or peel of the same name, nearly two miles
from Healey. Oliver had, from his youth, been betrothed to Eleanor
Byron, a young and noble dame of great beauty, residing with her
uncle, Sir Nicholas Byron, at his mansion, two or three miles distant.
Oliver was a hot-brained, amorous youth, fitted for all weathers,
ready either for brotherhood or blows, and would have won his "ladye
love" at the lance's point or by onslaught and hard knocks.

Eleanor seemed to suffer his addresses for lack of other occupation.
She looked upon him as her fut