m shall poke it
out."

Dame Eleanor went to the little burn below. Stooping, she scooped a
hole in the gravel under water; there she laid the ring, and covered
it over with stones.

"Thou'rt always after some of thy megrims, dame," said the elder
Buckley, who had been watching her from the porch. "Some spell or
counter-charm, I'se warrant."

With a look of great contempt for the incredulity of her spouse, she
replied--

"Ay, goodman, sit there and scoff your fill. If't hadn't been for my
care and endeavours you had been penniless ere now. But so it is, I
may slave night and day, I reckon. The whole roof-tree, as a body may
say, is on my shoulders, and what thanks? More hisses than thanks,
more knocks than fair words."

Never so well pleased as when opportunity was afforded for grumbling,
the dame addressed herself again to her evening avocations.

Pondering deeply what should be the issue of these things, Gervase set
out with Grace Ashton to her house at Clegg Hall, a good mile distant.
Evening had closed in--a chill wind blew from the hills. The west had
lost its splendour, but a pure transparent brightness filled its
place, across which the dark wavy outline of the high moorlands rested
in deep unvarying shadow. In these bright depths a still brighter star
hung, pure and of a diamond-like lustre, the precursor, the herald of
a blazing host just rising into view.

As they walked on, it may well be supposed that the strange
occurrences of the last few hours were the engrossing theme of their
discourse.

"My mother is a little too superstitious, I am aware," said Gervase;
"but what I have witnessed to-night has rendered me something more
credulous on this head than aforetime."

"I don't half like this neighbourhood," said his companion, looking
round. "It hath an ill name, and I could almost fancy the Red Woman
again, just yonder in our path."

She looked wistfully; it was only the mist creeping lazily on with the
stream.

They were now ascending the hill towards Beil or Belfield, where the
Knights Templars had formerly an establishment. Not a vestage now
remains, though at that period a ruinous tower covered with ivy, a
gateway, and an arch, existed as relics of their former grandeur.

"Here lived the Lady Eleanor Byron," said Grace, pointing to the old
hall close by, and as though an unpleasant recollection had crossed
her. She shuddered as they passed by the grim archway beneath the
tower. Whether it