lled--dared to stir one inch; and you may well suppose how delighted
they both were when the first grey light of the morning appeared.

"We'st now ha' some rest, happen," said John, turning on his side in the
expectation of a good nap, and covering himself up with the bed-clothes,
which the pulling of Robert so often backwards and forwards had tumbled
about sadly.

"Rest!" said the same voice that had plagued them through the night,
"rest!--what is rest? Boggart knows no rest."

"Plague tak' thee for a Boggart!" said the farmer next morning, on
hearing the strange story from his children: "Plague tak' thee! can thee
not let the poor things be quiet? But I'll be up with thee, my
gentleman: so tak' th' chamber an' be hang'd to thee, if thou wilt. Jack
and little Robert shall sleep o'er the cart-house, and Boggart may rest
or wriggle as he likes when he is by himsel'."

The move was accordingly made, and the bed of the brothers transferred
to their new sleeping-room over the cart-house, where they remained for
some time undisturbed; but his Boggartship having now fairly become the
possessor of a room at the farm, it would appear, considered himself in
the light of a privileged inmate, and not, as hitherto, an occasional
visitor, who merely joined in the general expression of merriment.
Familiarity, they say, breeds contempt; and now the children's bread and
butter would be snatched away, or their porringers of bread and
milk-would be dashed to the ground by an unseen hand; or if the younger
ones were left alone but for a few minutes, they were sure to be found
screaming with terror on the return of their nurse. Sometimes, however,
he would behave himself kindly. The cream was then churned, and the pans
and kettles scoured without hands. There was one circumstance which was
remarkable;--the stairs ascended from the kitchen, a partition of boards
covered the ends of the steps, and formed a closet beneath the
staircase. From one of the boards of this partition a large round knot
was accidentally displaced; and one day the youngest of the children,
while playing with the shoe-horn, stuck it into this knot-hole. Whether
or not the aperture had been formed by the Boggart as a peep-hole to
watch the motions of the family, I cannot pretend to say. Some thought
it was, for it was called the Boggart's peep-hole; but others said that
they had remembered it long before the shrill laugh of the Boggart was
heard in the house. However