ugh one or more adventurous horsemen had
swam the swollen waters recently, a little higher up than the ford,
pursuing their slippery way by the very margin, along the woods, for
some distance, when their track was lost amid these deep and almost
pathless recesses.

"Mercy o' me," said one, "it is deep enough thereabouts to drown the
castle and hill to boot. Neither horse nor man could wade that
hurly-burly there last night, for the waters were out, and the footboy
from Waddow told me that nobody could even cross the hippin-stones at
eight o'clock. He came round by the bridge."

"But if the beasts could swim?" said another, of more knowledge and
shrewdness than the rest.

"Swim!--Go to!" said the small leathern-aproned personage whose
functions we have before adverted to at the bright and merry ingle of
old Wiswall; "neither man nor beast could have held breast against the
torrent."

This was a complete negation to the whole. Nevertheless something had
crossed, whether cloven-footed or not they were unable to distinguish,
inasmuch as the demon, or whatsoever it might be, had taken the
precaution to make its passage in a pair of horse-shoes. The
probability was, that Peggy had varied the usual mode of her
proceedings, and sent a messenger with a strong arm and a fiery steed
to seize her victim.

"We're none on us safe," cried one, "fro' this she div--div--Save us!
I'd like to ha' made a bad job on't."

"The bloody vixen is ne'er satisfied," said an old gossip, whose nose
and chin had been gradually getting into closer fellowship for at
least a long score of winters. "I'll hie me to Bet at the Alleys for a
charm that'll drive aw t' hobgoblins to the de'il again. When I waur a
wee lassie, the scummerin' dixies didn't use to go rampaging about
this gate. There was nowt to do, but off to t' priest, an' th' job
waur done. Now-a-days, what wi' new lights, doctrines, an' lollypops,
Anabaptists an' Presbyterians, they're too throng wranglin' wi' one
another to tak' care o' the poor sheep, which Satan is worrying and
hurrying like hey go mad, and not a soul to set the dog at him, nor a
callant to tak' him by t' horns, an' say 'Boh!'"

It seems "the good old times," even in those days, were objects of
regret, still clung to with fondness and delight--reversing the
distich; for--

"Man never is, but always _has been_, blest!"

It is a principle in our very nature that we should look back with
yearnings to our youth