accordance with their original design; and under his hands the Old Hall at Samlesbury has become one of the most interesting and instructive mansions in the county. "Sir John Southworth was the most distinguished personage of his race. He was high in military command during the early years of the reign of Elizabethhe mustered three hundred men at Berwick; and served the office of Sheriff of Lancashire in 1562. His possessions included Southworth, Samlesbury, Mellor, besides lands in eighteen other townships; but he was illiterate, bigoted, and self-willed. His rigid devotion to the faith of his ancestors led him to speak rashly of the changes introduced into the national religion; he also acted unwisely in contravening the laws, for which he was ultimately cast into prison, and otherwise treated. with much severity until his death in 1595.

"Tradition states that during his later years one of his daughters had formed an acquaintance with the heir of a neighbouring knightly house. The attachment was mutual, and nothing was wanting to complete their happiness except the consent of the lady's father. Sir John was thereupon consulted; but the tale of their devoted attachment only served to increase his rage, and he dismissed the supplicants with the most bitter denunciations. 'No daughter of his should ever be united to the son of a family which had deserted its ancestral faith,' and he forbade the youth his presence for ever. Difficulty, however, only served to increase the ardour of the devoted lovers; and after many secret interviews among the wooded slopes of the Ribble, an

elopement was agreed upon, in the hope that time would bring her father's pardon. The day and place were unfortunately overheard by one of the lady's brothers, who was hiding in a thicket close by, and he determined to prevent what he considered to be his sister's disgrace.

"On the evening agreed upon both parties met at the hour appointed; and as the young knight moved away with his betrothed, her brother rushed from his hiding-place, and slew both him and two friends by whom he was accompanied. The bodies were secretly buried within the precincts of the domestic chapel at the Hall; and Lady Dorothy was sent abroad to a convent where she was kept under strict surveillance. Her mind at last gave way-the name of her murdered lover was ever on her lips, and she died a raving maniac. Some years ago three human skeletons were found near the walls of the Hall, and popular opinion has connected them with the tradition. The legend also states that on certain clear, still evenings, a lady in white can be seen passing along the gallery and the corridors, and then from the Hall into the grounds: that she then meets a handsome knight who receives her on his bended knees, and he then accompanies her along the walks. On arriving at a certain spot, most probably the lover's grave, both the phantoms stand still, and as they seem to utter soft wailings of despair, they embrace each other, and then their forms rise slowly from the earth and melt away into the clear blue of the surrounding sky."

SAMPFORD PEVERELL.

THE well-known "Sampford Peverell Ghost" is one of those notorious cases of continuous haunting with which local history in England is rife. Again and again has it been asserted that the whole matter has been found out, the fraud has been discovered, the perpetrators have confessed, and so forth; and yet, as in so many other cases, when these allegations have been investigated they have been found to be baseless, and the mystery remains as much a mystery as ever. As far as we have been enabled to learn, the Sampford Peverell Ghost has never been discovered to be the work of human agency.

The Rev. Caleb C. Colton, the well-known and unfortunate author of Lacon, decidedly gave a much wider notoriety, and more important character, to the manifestations about to be chronicled than they would otherwise have acquired, by the publication, in 1810, of his Narrative of the Sampford Ghost. From this scarce pamphlet, supplemented by some particulars in a subsequent work by the same author, and a few additional data from other sources, the following account. is compiled.

The fact that so many of the circumstances connected with this curious case of supposed supernatural manifestation were vouched for by the Vicar of Kew and Petersham, at the time a resident in Sampford, as having taken place under his own personal observation, natu

rally created considerable excitement, not only in the immediate neighbourhood, but, indeed, all over the country; and the fact that the affair differed in many respects from the ordinary accounts of haunted houses, as, for instance, in the manifestations taking place in the day as well as in the night, and in physical results following blows received from invisible agents, made it all the more marvellous and sensational.

The village of Sampford Peverell, where all these wonders came to pass, is about five miles from Tiverton, in the county of Devon; and the events to be recorded occurred in 1810 and the following years, in the house of a Mr. John Chave. According to the accounts published by the Rev. C. C. Colton, some very unaccountable things had occasionally happened in this said house previous to the manifestations he makes special record of. An apprentice boy had been greatly terrified by the apparition of a woman, and had declared that he had heard some extraordinary sounds in the night; but little or no attention was paid to his statements. About April 1810, however, the inhabitants of the house were alarmed by terrific noises being heard in every apartment, even in the daytime. Upon anyone going up-stairs and stamping on the floor in any of the rooms, say five or six times, the sounds would be repeated instantly, but louder, and generally more in number, and the vibrations of the boards caused by these repeated sounds could be sensibly felt through the soles of one's boots, whilst dust was thrown up with such velocity, and in such quantity, as to affect the eyes.

At mid-day the cause of these effects would announce its approach by loud knockings in some apartment or other of the house, above or below, as the case might be. At times more than a dozen persons have witnessed these mid-day knockings at once. The noises would very often, and in repeated instances, follow the persons through any of the upper apartments, and faithfully answer the stamping of their feet wherever they went. If persons were in different rooms, and one stamped with his foot in one room, the sound was instantly repeated in the other. These phenomena continued day by day, almost incessantly, for about five weeks, when they gradually gave place to others still more curious and alarming.

There were two apartments in the house in which the females who slept in them were dreadfully beaten by invisible agency. Mr. Colton stated that he himself heard more than two hundred blows given in the course of a night, and he could compare them to nothing but a strong man striking with all his force, with a closed fist, on the bed. These blows left great soreness, and visible marks. Mr. Colton saw a swelling, at least as big as a turkey's egg, on the cheek of Ann Mills, who voluntarily made oath that she was alone in the bed when she received the blows from an invisible hand. Mrs. Dennis, and Mary Woodbury, also, both swore voluntarily before Mr. Colton, Mr. Sully, an exciseman, and Mr. Govett, a surgeon, that they were so beaten as to experience a peculiar kind of numbness, and were sore for many days after. Their shrieks while being