vigour of body beyond that of her sex.

"Michael de Poininges!"

The stranger started at this recognition.

"I warn thee! Thinkest thou yon fiend will forward thy mission. Wilt
thou tear the prey from the jaws of the famished and ravening wolf?
Beware!"

Some score of years had elapsed since De Poininges was a visitor in
these parts; and he was now upon some sacred mission to the Prior of
Burscough, Thomas de Litherland, whose great power and reckless
intrepidity of guilt had won for him a name of no common note, even in
those ages of privileged injustice and oppression. No bosom but his own,
at least in that neighbourhood, could have been privy to the business
which brought him hither; and yet he found a woman casually crossing his
path, whose knowledge of his errand was but too evident, and whose
appearance and deportment might well excuse the suspicions he
entertained as to her familiarity with the EVIL ONE.

"Go, poor beast! Thou art but fattened for the slaughter!" She said
this, apparently addressing a stout buck that was sheltering in the
thicket. De Poininges shuddered, as she looked on him askance, with some
dubious meaning.

"I'll meet thee at supper-time."

This was said with a slow and solemn enunciation, as though some
terrible warning was intended, yet durst he not question her further;
and ere he could reply she had disappeared in the recesses of the
forest.

The rain now poured down in torrents, and De Poininges was fain to
hasten with all possible expedition towards the porter's gate.

The priory of Burscough had been founded the century preceding, for a
brotherhood of Black Canons, by Robert Fitzhenry, Lord of Lathom. He
endowed it with considerable property, emoluments, and alms, and,
according to the weak superstition of the age, thought thereby to obtain
pardon and rest for the souls of Henry the Second, John, Earl of
Moreton, himself, his wife, and all his ancestors; at the same time
wishing the kingdom of heaven to all persons who would increase the
gifts, and consigning to the devil and his angels all who should
impiously infringe on his bequests.

It was dedicated to St Nicholas, and a rude effigy of the saint was
carved over the south porch of the chapel, with two or three naked
children at his feet. The building was not large, but the architecture
was chaste and beautiful, a noble specimen of the early Gothic, then
superseding the ponderous forms and proportions of the Norman, or