came in
search; and Constance, borne gently along, was soon restored to her
anxious parent. But he looked thoughtful and disturbed when the
stranger's person was described, evidently averse to hold any
communication on the subject. Nurse Agnes grew eloquent in his praise,
until the following conversation that same evening in the kitchen turned
aside the current of her opinions.

"A rough grey cloak, gossip, thou sayest?" again inquired a
hard-featured hind from the chimney-corner.

"I tell thee a cloak, and a cap turned up in front. He doused it off
nobly, and took to the water like a spaniel!"

"Why, 'tis the wild man of the woods!" said another listener, who had
hitherto been silent, but whose remark seemed to strike terror into the
whole group. They looked round as if anticipating a visit from this
fearful personage. Dame Agnes crossed herself, and muttered her prayers
with great despatch; something was at length audible and articulate, as
follows:--

"Mercy on me! my days are numbered. If it should indeed be this
incarnate,--forgive the thought!--we are all dead creatures. The very
horses and kine stagger, and fall into fits at times, when they come
home, and it is all along of 'em having seen or smelt the brimstone
from the pit. Davy had two died last week, and he was sure they had
either seen the deil or his deputy,--this same grey man of the woods.
Woe's me that I should ha' lived to behold this child of perdition!" The
old woman here gave way to an outburst of sorrow, that prevented any
further disclosures.

"It is about a three month agone since this same wild man was first
seen," said the old seneschal, whose office, though of little use, was
still filled up in the more ancient establishments. "I saw him myself
once, but I shook until the very flesh seemed to crawl over my bones.
They say he neither eats nor drinks, but is kept alive in the body by
glamour and witchcraft. He'll stay here until his time is done, and then
his tormentors will fetch him to his prison-house again. Ye should not
have tarried in the wood after sunset."

"That would I not," sharply replied Agnes; "but the child, poor thing,
would look at the daylight as it lingered on the hill-top, and I thought
no harm in't."

"Like enough. He dares not abroad, if so much as the value or size of my
thumb-nail of the sun's rim were left above the hill!"

"Come, Gaffer, strike up a merry trowl," said a thin, squeaking voice,
from a personage