scure corner in the cellar beneath an
uninhabited wing of the mansion at Waddow. Superstition had invested
this rude misshapen relic with peculiar terrors; and the generation
having passed to whom its origin was known, from some cause or another
it became associated with Peggy's disaster, who, as it was currently
believed, either took possession of this ugly image, or else employed
it as a kind of spy or bugbear to annoy the inhabitants of the house
where she had been so cruelly treated. There did certainly appear some
connection between Peggy's freaks and this uncouth specimen of
primitive workmanship. Though bearing evident marks of some rude
effigy, the spoliation of a religious house at some reforming, or, in
other words, plundering, era--the ideal similitude probably of a
Romish saint--yet, whenever Peggy's emissaries were abroad and a
victim was to be immolated, this disorderly cast-out from the calendar
was particularly restless; not that any really authenticate, visible
cases were extant of these unidol-like propensities to locomotion, but
noises and disturbances were heard for all the world like the uncouth
and awkward gambols of such an ugly thing; at least, those who were
wiser than their neighbours, and well skilled in iconoclastics, did
stoutly aver that they had heard it "clump, clump, clump," precisely
like the jumping and capering of such a misshapen, ill-conditioned
effigy, when inclined to be particularly merry and jocose. Now this
could not be gainsaid, and consequently the innocent and mutilated
relic, once looked upon as the genius or tutelary guardian of the
house, was unhesitatingly assigned to the evil domination of Peggy. It
might be that the rancour she displayed was partly in consequence of
an adequate retribution having failed to overtake her betrayer, and
the family, then resident at Waddow, not having dealt out to him the
just punishment of his deserts. Thus had she been permitted to pervert
the proper influences and benevolent operations of this mystic
disturber to her own mischievous propensities; and thenceforth a
malignant spirit troubled the house, heretofore guarded by a saint of
true Catholic dignity and stolidity.

But it seemed the time was now come when these unholy doings were to
be put an end to. The present owner of Waddow, tired, as we have seen,
of such ridiculous alarms, and the terrors of her domestics, and
wishful to do away with the evil report and scandal sustained there