thatch, and the knight will have no house to live in. The knight is too proud to take shelter in a poor man's cottage."

"And this is what you advise?" said Edgar.

"Oh, don't follow my advice unless you like it. I had rather you did not; for the knight is a good friend of mine." And so they parted.

Whilst Edgar was balancing in his mind the wickedness of the scheme against the advantages to be gained from it, he was met by friar John, a pious man, who occasionally visited that part of the island. What passed between them does not appear; however, the manor-house was not burned.

Thus the Hermit of the Culver went on doing favours and contriving mischief-sought after, but feared, by every one.

Some time after this he became suddenly more than usually active, calling at the different houses, advising, condoling, and assisting; occasionally giving money without any prospect of return, or, apparently, seeking for anything beyond barren thanks. He

would doctor the old women, and tell the fortunes or carry love-letters for the young ones. In short, all his malicious propensities appeared to have left him; and he came forth in the new light of an universal benefactor.

But he said that all his endeavours to do good were counteracted by another old man who was then lurking in the neighbourhood. If a cow died or the beer turned sour—if a sow had a litter of dead pigs—or if a lady's newborn babe was not a perfect beauty, and the very image of its papa and mamma, it was all the machinations of the man in the grey cowl. Still nobody saw this malevolent being, although the Hermit of the Culver had accurately described him. He had been searched for everywhere, yet nobody ever met him.

At length some of the folks who thought themselves wiser than other people began to shake their heads, as if they doubted the existence of the man in the grey cowl.

One evening, however, the Hermit of the Culver went round and visited all his prin

cipal friends at Woolverton, and told them that he had discovered that the villanous man in the grey cowl was coming to poison the water in the holy well at a certain hour the next day, and cautioned them not to let him escape.

It is necessary, however, before we proceed further, that some account should be given of this well. It was a plentiful spring of the purest water, which rose from the ground in a small basin, about three feet in diameter, without ornament of any sort-in short, it was nothing more than a hole in the ground. But on a little knoll immediately above it stood a rude stone column which had formerly been a cross; but of which the upright piece now alone remained. On this were carved the following rude verses :—

While the oose flows pure and free,

Burg and tune shall happy bee,

The net bee heavy in the sea,

And wheaten seed shall yield plentie.

When sained blood in the burn shall well,

It shall light a flame so hot and snell,

Shall fire the burg from lock to fell,
Nor sheeling bide its place to tell,

And Culvert's Nass shall ring its knell.

If there has been a mystery in modern days with regard to the ancient town of Woolverton, in the days of the prosperity of that town there was a much greater mystery with regard to the holy well. For that the well was holy no one presumed to doubt, but what saint had blessed it, tradition did not inform them. That its water was endowed with some miraculous power nobody questioned, but exactly what this miraculous quality was had never been precisely ascertained. People afflicted with all manner of diseases had bathed in the water, but it could not be perceived that it affected them in any way, except that some few caught colds They had tried it, also, internally—they had taken it cold, they had taken it hot-they had taken it without sugar, they had taken it with sugar-but all without avail: and no wonder! they did not know the secret of the fountain. Some said that this secret had been written upon the arm-pieces of the

cross, which had long ago perished; some said it consisted in pronouncing the name of the right saint when they used the water, and of this they were ignorant; neither had they any tradition respecting the erection of the stone column or cross. But in this one

thing all were agreed that the fountain possessed certain wonderful qualities, if people could only find out what they were.

The Hermit of the Culver, we have said, had warned the inhabitants of Woolverton that their mischievous enemy, the old man in the grey cowl, was coming to poison the holy well at a certain hour the next day. Accordingly, considerably before the appointed time, all who had been afflicted with cramps, or pains, or sickness-all whose cows had died, or whose beer had turned sour-all who had been unsuccessful in raising corn or breeding pigs-all fathers and mothers who had had the misfortune to become the parents of ugly children, stood lurking about in groups, ready to wreak their vengeance upon the old man in the grey cowl, the sole author of all these misfortunes.