f a drunken debauch, passing aver London Bridge, he encounters
another brawl, wherein, having run at the watchman with his rapier,
one blow of the bill which they carry severed thy brother's head from
his trunk. The latter was cast over the parapet into the river. The
head only remained, which an eye-witness, if not a friend, hath sent
to thee!"

Eleanor fell senseless to the ground, whence her cousin conveyed her
to the bed from which she never rose.

The skull was removed, secretly at first, by Maria herself; but
invariably it returned. No human power could drive it thence. It hath
been riven in pieces, burnt, and otherwise destroyed; but ever on the
subsequent day it is seen filling its wonted place. Yet was it always
observed that sore vengeance lighted on its persecutors. One who
hacked it in pieces was seized with such horrible torments in his
limbs that it seemed as though he might be undergoing the same
process. Sometimes, if only displaced, a fearful storm would arise, so
loud and terrible, that the very elements themselves seemed to become
the ministers of its wrath.

Nor would this wilful piece of mortality allow of the little aperture
being walled up; for it remains there still, whitened and bleached by
the weather, looking forth from those rayless sockets upon the scenes
which when living they had once beheld.

Maria Downes was the only survivor of the family. Her brother's death
and deplorable end so preyed on her spirits that she rejected all
offers of marriage. The estate passed into other hands, and another
name owns the inheritance.

RIVINGTON PIKE;

OR,

THE SPECTRE HORSEMAN.

"Are you a man?
Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that
Which might appal the devil."

--SHAKESPEARE.

This beacon stands on a conical hill, at an elevation of 1545
feet from the level of the sea. An immense pile of wood was
raised here when the alarm of the French invasion prevailed, at
the beginning of the present century.

Rivington Hall was for many ages the seat of one of the
Pilkingtons, of which family Fuller says--"The Pilkingtons were
gentlemen of repute in this shire before the Conquest;" and the
chief of them, then sought for after espousing the cause of
Harold, was fain to disguise himself as a mower; in allusion to
which the man and scythe was taken as their crest. James
Pilkington, a descendant, and Master of St