HOUGH a belief in witchcraft has long been banished from the fashionable and educated circles of society, the lower orders still cling to it with astonishing tenacity. In my boyhood, and my hair is not yet grey, I was personally acquainted with two or three old women who had the reputation of being "o'er thick wi' the deil," as the country people expressed it, and who, in consequence, were held in real and considerable dread by their neighbours. Of these, was one known by the appellation of LUCKY WINTER. She lived in a village on the banks of the Beaumont--a small Northumbrian stream, winding through a district worthy of nobler associations than my present sketch can be supposed to invest it with. She was a widow, and having never had any children by her husband, she resided alone, in a cottage at one extremity of the village, which soon, from her supposed unhallowed propensities, acquired the name of "The Witch's Cabin." The grass, it was said, withered where she set her foot-if pigs or poultry molested her, there was sure to be a mortality among them-and if an unlucky urchin of a boy happened to offend her, the most disastrous consequences were to be apprehended. Her "evil e'e" was thought to possess a power which few cared to encounter or to provoke. For this reason, the greatest part of her neighbours affected a cordiality with her; her favours were accepted, and returned with interest; and it was duly remarked, that her friends were generally prosperous, while those who shrunk from her intimacy seldom failed to be visited by some exemplary calamity. To recount all the stories told of her, would require a volume. It is sufficient for my purpose to say, that after having baffled the best beagles in that part of the country under the various shapes of hare, fox, and cat, she was at last fairly brought down by the great hunter, Death, who bags without distinction whatever prey is catered for him by his indefatigable blood-hounds, Disease and Accident.

Great was the turmoil in the village when the report spread that Lucky Winter was dying. It was a beautiful afternoon in autumn,

and this circumstance was noticed by the young people as contradicting all their traditions; but grey-haired men shook their heads and said, that Lucky Winter might not yet be so near death as was believed, for it was impossible that one of her stamp could leave this world without some manifestations of joy being exhibited by the evil spirit to whom she had devoted herself. The little clouds on the verge of the horizon were watched, therefore, with intense interest, as if they were expected to expand supernaturally over the whole extent of either, and to burst in thunder and lightning round the death scene of the witch! The opinion that the devil comes for those who, like Lucky Winter, may be said to be peculiarly his own servants, with a degree of pomp suited to the occasion, seems to be an established article of faith with these good people; though if my notion of the thing may be taken, I think his sable majesty is too wise, and too well acquainted with the world, to throw away much trouble on persons he is already sure of, and which, besides, would have the effect of terrifying others from the road. He seems to have thought so himself on the present occasion; for the sun set in unclouded grandeur, and the sheet was spread over the body of Lucky Winter, and the muffler over her face, without either thunder or earthquake having announced her departure.

The custom of sitting up over nights with the corpse till the day of interment is, it is well known, strictly observed by the peasantry of the north of England, as well as by those of the sister kingdom; and even the ill fame of Lucky Winter was not allowed to deprive her of a latewake, though the duty, in the present exigence, was of so arduous a nature, that no ordinary share of courage was requisite in the adventurers. The first person that volunteered his company for the former half of the night was Geordie Gibson, a man well reported of in the village for his pious conversation and deportment, and for his regular attendance at the burgher meeting-house on Sundays. He could discourse on all points of controversial divinity, and draw the exact line of distinction between popery and prelacy, which, in his opinion, required a very delicate hand, as the difference was exceedingly minute. The Romish church was the whore of Babylon, and the episcopalian at least her half-sister. But Geordie's religion was not limited to words; it showed itself, if truth be spoken, in exertions the most dangerous and appalling. A long dreary glen between Downham-hill-end and Presson is still pointed out as the scene of a personal conflict maintained by him with the Enemy himself, whom, however, he treated so heroically as to compel him, after a whole day's contest, to vanish in a flash of fire! I have sometimes contended for a figurative interpretation of this passage in the good man's biography,

but was always silenced by positive counter-assertions; so the reader may take it as he pleases. At that time Geordie was in the prime of manhood: now he was old, and probably felt himself less equal to such adventures, for it was not till he had put the Bible in one pocket and Boston in the other, that he declared himself ready for the perils of the vigil.

To the utter astonishment of all present, the next that offered himself was Tom Simpson. Their astonishment, it must be understood, arose not from any deficiency in courage, real or suspected, in Tom; but from his avowed disinclination to every thing savouring of religion, which was sure to be the theme, sole or paramount, wherever Geordie Gibson presided.—Tom was all for fun and frolic. He looked on all sanctity as hypocrisy.--He seldom put himself in the way of hearing a sermon, and generally fell asleep when he did. He was of a restless disposition, which in boyhood had impelled him to sea, then, after a few months' sailing, to return home, where he continued to show its unabated dominion over him by never remaining long in one employment, or under one master. Being also a bit of a rake, he was a great favourite with the lasses, though it might have been hard to decide whether they were more inclined to love or to laugh at him. In favour of the latter position, it must be told that his stature was diminutive, and when his sharp eyes peered from the root of his certainly not diminutive nose, there was so much fun and mischief, or, as the Ettrick Shepherd would call it deevilry in the tout ensemble of his face and figure, not to mention his dry jokes, that female laughter was ever loud in his presence. When, therefore, he offered to make one at Lucky Winter's latewake, half-a-dozen girls who had hitherto demurred about going, as much perhaps from a dread of Geordie's long prayers as of any other visitation, now tittered assent, being doubtless of opinion that Tom Simpson would not let time hang very heavily on their hands.

"An unco' unhallowed set, I doot, to gang on sic a solemn busi! said Geordie Gibson.

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Your leaven will leaven the whole lump, Geordie,” replied Tom Simpson, with gravity on one side of his face, and a mirthful leer on the other.

"That betokeneth mair acquaintance wi' holy writ than I thought the chield had," said Geordie, “and I hope we shall make this a night o' great yedification."

"Amen!" answered Tom, with the drawl of a parish clerk, and the party set off to Lucky Winter's.

When they arrived at the door of the dwelling, a sufficiency of twilight remained to show them a pretty numerous muster of cats

collected there, and superstition was instantly alive to the circum

stance.

"Lord guide us!" exclaimed one of the girls, "whae can tell but thae are auld Lucky's former companions come to haud her layquake."

"It's no unlikely," said Tom Simpson, and he was instantly surrounded by the whole group of terrified females. "For God's sake, haud off, ye haiverels! Geordie, shall we advance or retreat?"

But he who had not flinched from the devil himself, was not to be turned from his purpose by a few grimalkins, or, to suppose the worst, witches; and accordingly he moved firmly forward, the cats or witches, dispersing, and the train entering the cottage.

Few things are more impressive than the arrangements at a northern latewake. The table is covered with a white linen cloth; the looking glass is muffled, to intimate that all the vanity of dress or beauty is over with the deceased; and the clock is shrouded and stopped, to signify that time to him or her has become a blank. The leaves of the wooden bedstead are unfolded or drawn to their full width, and the body exposed, covered to the throat with a white sheet, the face and head wrapped in linen, and a plate with salt on it placed on the breast.-These little rites, adopted at once to show respect to the dead, and to give a solemn lesson to the living-and bearing, it will be remarked, a touch of superstition-were observed in the case of Lucky Winter, as far as the state of her hut afforded the means of doing so. But she had no clock to stop-no lookingglass to muffle. Her wooden bedstead, as well as her other furniture, was in the most wretched condition; and the solitary candle that stood on the ragged table-cloth, threw its beams, slightly mingled with a red gleam from dying embers on the hearth, on a coverlit equally ragged, on walls covered with dust, and rafters hung with cobwebs. No better illustration could be wanted of the utter worthlessness of the devil's service, even in a worldly point of view, than the hovel of Lucky Winter.

Geordie took his seat at the table where the candle stood, and a long form, brought from the neighbouring schoolhouse, offered its accommodation to Tom and the girls. But this the smallness of the house admitted to be placed only in one direction, and that, to the affected terror of Tom and the real horror of his attendants, was along the front of the bed, so that that they must sit with their backs to the corpse; and, as Tom took care to whisper, "the cauld hand of the witch might seize them before they were aware! At this suggestion, their screams were only suppressed by their sense of the awful presence of the dead; and it was not till Tom set the example,

by sitting down exactly in the centre of the opening, that they ventured to be seated, three on each side of the audacious young man. In the meantime, Geordie Gibson having spread his bible before him, smoothed his few grey hairs, and put on his spectacles, looked the very counterpart of Burns' Cottar.

"And let us worship God!' he said with solemn air." But he had scarcely got to the end of the first stanza of the 90th psalm, the solemnity of which justly recommends it on such occasions, when a kind of groan issued, as it seemed, from the couch of the deceased! The girls started simultaneously to their feet, and, abandoning Tom, flew to Geordie for protection.

"O ye of little faith!" cried the old man, "to be frightened by the cry of an owl or the wauw of a cat; for assuredly as I live it is one or other."

"It could be nae owl, Geordie, and most assuredly as I live nae cat ever uttered sound like yon," returned Tom with equal solemnity. "Let us to prayer, then," said the good man. Prayer is ever the best shield against the powers o' darkness, if sic be here. To your knees, young women. The prayer of the righteous availeth much." "Now I'm thinking," said Tom, " it may be as weel to let a sleeping dog lie."

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A, Tam Simpson! have a care o' us, how daur ye talk that gate?" cried the girls in chorus.

"I mean," said Tom, "to say, I think it may be as weel to let a' kind o' worship alane. Auld Lucky was never ower fond o't when alive, nor may she ha'e altered her mind muckle sin' death. I mind weel she locked her door when the folk were a' daft about Ha', o' Cruikham, that was come to preach."

"Ye speak like a fool, Tom," replied the veteran, "and like ane o' the simple minded. The puir and auld misguided bodie has gane to her lang account, and can nae mair either like or dislike ony thing we do beside her remains. I'se no deny, though, that evil spirits may be about, and for our security against them, no against Lucky Winter, do I propose prayer. As to what ye tell of her respecting Ha' o' Cruikham, I own its the only proof she ever gave of her taste. Tommy Ha' kens nae mair o' the rael marrow o' the Gospel than auld Janet Gregor, and she canna answer a question in the Single Cat."* "Ye're out there, at ony rate, Geordie," said Tom, "for when Tommy Ha', at ane o' his examinations, or catecheesings, or whatever name ye like to gi'e them, axed her, What does every sin deserve?'

* The shorter Catechism, used generally in the North of England, is vulgarly called the Single Cat, or Single Carritch.