host, 'even if I be dead, the harp shall ring in your ears, your wine-cup shall be filled, and, noble guest, your bed shall be as well-aired and as warmly spread as when you honoured my poor hostel last.'-Some maudlin tears were then shed—I say not they were insincere, for mine eyes gushed over this day when Sir Paladour foiled thee in the lists, De Monfort." "Finish thy goblet and thy tale," said De Monfort.

"Odo the Lion was then conveyed to his bed," said Sir Aymer; "and they say he murmured, as he went, that he would slay every prior in France, and do penance after for the deed, provided that the hostel of le Cochon Noir lay in his way as he rode."

"The storm increases," said the abbot of Normoutier, starting from a dose. "Were

we not best to bed?-not that I could close an eye I must tell my beads all night.'

2

"Such a storm as fell to-night," said Sir Aymer, "chanced the night that a twelvemonth after mine uncle set out on his wonted pilgrimage: heavy rains, mixed with gusts

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from the mountains, fell during the short day, the night closed, and matters grew worse the guides, though well-accustomed to their way, lost the track-the deluges ploughed up the roads, and made every brook a river-flashes of pale lightning glimmered round the horizon, but there was not a peal of thunder; nought but the roar of streams, and of winds conflicting with woods, and the yells of wolves, that, though distant, sounded but too near in the watchful ear of terror. Odo the Lion himself, in attempting to ford a stream, was well nigh lost in the strong current; two of his squires swam beside to hold him on his steed, and by dint of a vow to the Trinity of Gaeta at his utmost need he won the hither bank: his train followed as they might - a light gleamed at scant distance, to which they tended, and which issued from the hostel, now a drenched hovel rocking in a morass. The noble guest was received, however, with joy, ushered to his wonted chamber, and his shivering train spread themselves before the fire below, after placing

one or two wine flagons they had saved on a table before their lord. After he had drained them, and warmed his chilled limbs, (for he still rode barefooted,) his heart began to glow, and his memory to return; and as he expanded himself to the grateful heat, he could not choose but exclaim, 'Would that my merry old host were here to touch harp or lute, and sing me some drowsy strain, betwixt whose changes I might wake and nod, and then be lulled again!' Odo the Lion, on his dying bed, and to an holy friar, but not of St. Bernard's, assevered, that as he uttered these words, (nay, all his life-time he told the same tale,) the dull low tinkling of a lute was heard in the pauses of the wind. Mine uncle had two companions, one his confessor, the other his squire; the latter became senseless at the sound; the other, being a bold as well as a holy man, sat out this awful visitation. The sounds increased, and were accompanied by words that seemed to come neither from below the earth nor above it; still less did it resemble any sound on earth. Mine uncle was wont to

term it the ghost of speech. These words, so sepulchral, unnatural, and fearful to human ears, were, nevertheless, part of the welcome song his former host used to sing to his guest; and as they ended, my kinsman, turning his head, saw something faint, shapeless, and featureless, stand in the corner of the chamber he said there was a film or gauze either before his eyes, (which he allowed grew a little dim on the occasion,) or before the aspect of that something; for, though no human visage could be traced, he swore it bore a kind of fearful indefinite resemblance resemblance to his ancient host. He added, that the garb was neither that of living man, nor the last dreary array of a shrouded corse, but a shadowy envelopment he could not describe. Odo, collecting his spirits when his head was averted, stamped for his attendants to spread for supper; they prepared to do so, but first applied themselves to the recovery of the squire, who recovered only to a state of idiotism. This Odo did not much regard the table was spread, and the attendants were

prompt; but Odo observed one more prompt than them all, his eye followed the swift silent figure as it flitted around, and he saw who filled his trencher ere he could swallow its contents, and made his goblet sparkle to the brim when he thought he had drained it, so over officious was this mute attendant. The confessor himself avouched that there was one more in the chamber than he could reckon ; and though he began and ended the tale* over and over again, still there was one in the chamber who completely perplexed his calcu lation, and whom, though he saw, he never could count among the number- he ever saw twelve, but could number but eleven. The confessor betook him to his beads, and my kinsman to his bed, (the poor squire being in a lamentable state); but he had not rested long when he was awoke by some one softly and lightly pacing round his bed, and ever and anon adjusting the clothes. Odo started up, and beheld the same shapeless, nameless thing, employed, as it seemed, officiously around his bed; and what was worse, as the bed was but * Accompt.