. The legend, as it is
often told, is one of those wild improbable fictions, based on facts
distorted and embellished to suit the taste of the listener or the
fancy of the narrator. It will be our task to make out from these
imaginative materials a narrative divested as much as possible of the
marvellous, but at the same time retaining so much as will interest
and excite the reader and lover of legendary lore.

It was in one of those genial, mellow, autumnal evenings--so dear to
all who can feel their influence, and so rare a luxury to the
inhabitants of this weeping climate--when all living things wear the
hue and warmth of the glowing atmosphere in which they are enveloped,
that two lovers were sauntering by the rivulet, a "wimpling burn"
that, rising among the bare and barren moorlands of this uncultivated
region, runs past Buckley Hall into the valley of the Roch.

It was near the close of the sixteenth century, in the days of good
Queen Bess, yet their apparel was somewhat homely even for this era of
stuffed doublets and trunk-hose. Such unseemly fashions had hardly
travelled into these secluded districts; and the plain, stout, woollen
jacket of their forefathers, and the ruffs, tippets, stays, and
stomachers of their grandmothers, formed the ordinary wear of the
belles and beaux of the province. Fardingales, or hooped petticoats,
we are happy to say, for the sake of our heroine, were unknown.

"Be of good cheer," said the lover; "there be troubles enow, believe
me, without building them up out of our own silly fears--like boys
with their snow hobgoblins, terrible enough in the twilight of fancy,
but a gleam of sunshine will melt and dissipate them. Thou art sad
to-night without reason. Imaginary fears are the worst to cope withal;
having nor shape nor substance, we cannot combat with them. 'Tis hard,
indeed, fighting with shadows."

"I cannot smile to-night, Gervase; there's a mountain here--a
foreboding of some deadly sort. I might as soon lift 'Robin Hood's
Bed' yonder as remove it."

"No more of this, my dearest Grace; at least not now. Let us enjoy
this bright and sunny landscape. How sharply cut are those crags
yonder on the sky. Blackstonedge looks almost within a stride, or at
least a good stone's-throw. Thou knowest the old legend of Robin Hood;
how that he made yonder rocks his dormitory, and by way of amusement
pitched or quoited huge stones at a mark on the hill just above us,
being some four or f