Although John of Chester had, at first, in all honour towards De Marchmont, undertaken the capture of Edith, with an intent to fulfil his promise, as the latter had pledged himself to unite his daughter with the constable; still the old baron, when he had witnessed her beauty, and thought over the vast extent of her broad lands, began to repent of his rash promise, and had hitherto entertained hopes that he might yet obtain her hand; but these hopes had in some measure vanished when he heard her allude so bitterly to his grey hairs. He was not, however, a man to be daunted by a shadow; and when he again calculated, with all that he could summon up against himself, he found that the possession of Edith was one great advantage in his favour.

The wily baron had at first decided upon bearing the lady to his own castle, but having changed his mind respecting his promise to De Marchmont, and knowing that the latter would spare neither man nor horse to regain her, he at length came to the resolution of placing her for a short space of time in a grange which belonged to one of his own followers, and which stood without the boundary of the forest. Since their conceal

ment from the outlaws, the baron had conducted his party through circuitous and difficult paths, always using the greatest caution, which seemed to increase the more as the twilight darkened.

The cavalcade at length came to the entrance of a deep glen or ravine, the descent to which was so precipitous, that each horseman was compelled to dismount and lead his palfrey down the steep. Edith only remained in her saddle, while the baron with his own hand conducted her steed in safety to the bottom. This path was not chosen as being the only one that led to the place, where the constable intended to lodge his prisoner, but as a way, of all others, the most likely to be free from either outlaw or traveller. Tradition had long called it the Haunted Glen, and the superstitious peasants had peopled it with their own imaginings, until they believed in the existence of such things as their fancies had created, over the cheerful fire on long winter nights, when the tale of ghost and goblin was recounted.

The imagination could picture no spot wilder or better adapted to indulge in the thoughts of superstitious reverie, than the one which our travellers now pursued. Even in its present

state, when nearly every trace of the ancient Forest of Sherwood is swept away, this wild spot still remains, although centuries have passed over it, and forgotten tempests echoed through its gloomy depths, and made darker its shaggy sides. Still it is to be seen, with its precipitous banks overhung with hoary hawthorns, and filled with the music of the same tinkling stream which flowed of yore, and at this hour yet rolls on to the romantic entrance of the rural village of Lamley. But the twilight that deepened upon the same scene, on the night which Edith traversed its depths, threw its blue dimness over a wilder and more terrible prospect than is now seen, where tree overhung tree, and branch rose high above branch, more like those threatening piles of rock and mountain that lift their craggy and spiry heads among the Alps, and fill the musing mind of the passing traveller with a melancholy joy.

Here might be seen a solitary horseman pricking his way carefully on some narrow ledge of the glen, and stooping so low to evade the overhanging brushwood, that his helmet seemed placed on the head of his horse. There the armour of another glittered, as he occasion

ally passed some opening between the dwarf and stubborn trees, until at length their deep umbrage shut him out from the sight, and only the point of his spear or the swallow-tail of his gonfanon were visible above the dark line of branches. Lower down, and beside the stream rode Edith, her palfrey led by one of the constable's followers on foot, for the road was too narrow to admit of two riding abreast. In some places a straggling starbeam found its way through the network of boughs, and fell upon the clear deep glen-current in which it stood mirrored like a gem set in a ground of dark

ness.

Here and there the stream broke away in a mass of white foam, with a louder noise, as if it had grown angry while contending with the massy and fallen fragments, which had for a few moments interrupted its progress. Behind Edith, rode John of Chester in silence, which was unbroken, saving by the two followers who brought up the rear, one of them riding on the ledges or rugged embankment, while the other wended along beside the stream at the bottom of the glen. In accordance with the constable's orders they both rode at a considerable distance from

the retinue, that they might be in readiness to give warning in case of pursuit.

"Didst hear aught behind us, Neville ?" said the rider who occupied the higher ground, half averting his head as he spoke, yet seeming afraid of looking fairly back.

"Nothing," replied the other, edging his steed nearer to the bank on which his companion rode. "Nothing," replied an echo which sounded through the glen, and had before played with the interrogation of Neville.

"Heard you that?" inquired Neville ;-the words were again echoed, and in the deep silence that afterwards reigned, seemed to fall more audibly than before.

"The spirits are abroad," said the other, in a low tone, which was again reverberated in the same cadence in which it had been spoken.

Neville then began to mutter a paternoster, but the echo was just as perfect in the bad Latin as himself, and answered word for word.

"Avaunt, Sathanas, I defy thee!" said the soldier; "I defy thee!" was again echoed and seemed to come both bolder and clearer in defiance.