"Why do you weep, my little dear?" "The chimney stack!" she cried with fear, The people were drowned in the fiendish squall; Terrible wind! oh, who could deem, That thus it would rise like a monster vast, GHOST-STORIES, IN WHICH IT TURNS OUT THAT THE GHOSTS WERE NO GHOSTS AT ALL. ONE evening, when our old friends were again sitting with us, we children were very importunate for a ghost-story. "A ghost-story!" cried Cousin John-"a ghost-story? Why, what silly creature has been putting such trash into your heads? Phoh! nonsense! I tell you there are no ghosts; and the man, or woman either, ought to be whipped that tells innocent children any such mischievous trumpery." "Oh!" said my mother, laughing, "I'll tell you a ghost story!" "You, cousin!" exclaimed Cousin John, looking hard in my mother's face, as she sate quietly at her sewing -"You don't stuff your children with raw-head and bloody-bone tales, do you?" “You shall hear,” replied my mother smiling. CRACK-A-MARBLE, THE BOASTER. "I had been one day to the village of Loscoe, to see a worthy old friend of mine who was very ill,-I found him, indeed, so ill, and his family in such distress about him, that I could not feel easy to return till evening. It was in the winter time, and the nights were long and dark. My maid had come to see me home, and we were quietly plodding along Loscoe-lane, which, you know, is both a very solitary place and a very miry one, by the light of a lantern, picking our steps along the narrow causeway of stone, without which there would have been no getting on at all; and which yet were so broken, that without great care we should every minute have found ourselves up to the knees in mud or water. We had got within half a mile of this village, and a good way past the solitary old house known by the name of Loscoe-lane Bogard-house, when we heard some one coming behind us at a distance, shouting aloud, and making a very great noise. As it was the voice of a man, and as he advanced fast upon us, we thought it the best to conceal the lantern beneath the girl's thick cloak, and to stand close in a nook to let the fellow go past, if possible, without perceiving us. We did not stand long without discovering who the man was. It was a man that, especially in his drink, was accustomed to boast very largely of his prowess and fearlessness, and to use so continually to his comrades the absurd expression, I'll crack your marbles!' meaning he would, or could master them, knock them down, or do as he pleased with them; that he had got the nick-name of Crack-a-marble. On he came, now shouting aloud, Come on then, you Loscoe-lane bogards! Crack-a-marble fears none of you. Come a hundred of you bogards, barguests, bogles, or any of your comical family.Come as soon as you please-I'll crack your marbles in a jiffey !' "It was evident that the fellow was really afraid, and was swaggering to keep his courage up-and this was soon put to the proof; for he speedily passed by us as we stood concealed in the nook, and he had not got a hundred yards beyond us when we heard a most awful sound, something between a low roar and a groan: and Crack-a-marble heard it too, for great fellow as he was, being full six feet high, and strong to boot, and with all his swagger, he instantly took to his heels at a most wonderful rate. We heard his great hob-nailed shoes go rapidly clipper-clap, clipper-clap, along the causeway, all the way up the long hill as far as the nearest house, which was the Old Bear public-house. We saw a light flash across the road, from the door of the Old Bear, as it was opened, and speedily vanish again, as it was as quickly shut; and we knew that the valiant Crack-a-marble had taken refuge there from the groans of the Loscoe-lane bogard. There sure enough he had taken refuge, in a most awful fright, and in a desperate perspiration, what with his fright and his run up the hill; and a most marvellous tale he told, of horrible noises, rattling chains, flashing of fires, and crashing of hedges as if half a dozen wagons were going over them. For our parts, all that we heard when we came up to the place where Crack-a-marble had been so suddenly put to flight, was somebody behind the hedge, laughing to himself most outrageously. I called out, Who is there? who is that?' 'O! is that you, Mrs. Middleton?' said some one.' 'Yes,' I said, 'it is I, sure enough; but, who are you?' 'O! bless your life, it is Tom Caladine-old Tom Caladine-I've almost frightened that poor bragging Crackyour-marble to death, and now I think I shall die myself with laughing. I canna gie o'er! I canna gie o'er!' And then he burst out again, till he even groaned with excess of laughter, and we began to fear that the old man would really do himself some mischief. He was an old collier that had worked for Mr. Middleton for twenty years or more. At length we got him to restrain himself a little, and I asked him how he came to think of frightening poor Crack-a-marble so. 'Why Missis,' said he, 'I never yet knew a swaggerer but was a coward; and if you had seen this long-legged fellow bullying and vapouring over his drink as I have, threatening to crack honest men's marbles,-meaning, I reckon, their skulls,—and hectoring over simple folks that meddled none with him, you would have been glad to give him a fright too, I'm sure. So, as good luck would have it, I just chanced to hear my man coming shouting along as I was turning down home here; and the thought popped into my head in a moment, and I had but just time to get behind this bush when he came up. O lors! O lors! - how the fool did but jump, as he heard the first groan! and how he can run! If he be the biggest coward i'th' parish, which is sartain, I really believe there's never a man in this parish, or the next, that can match him at a race.' And with this Tom bid us good night, and went off home, stopping to laugh again every now and then as heartily as ever." "Well," said Cousin John, as soon as the company, who laughed almost as heartily as Tom Caladine himself, had regained their composure, and wiped the tears from their |