LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 13 



pipe, and his neighbour was a good performer on the flageolet. 

 When we had pleased our master by continued good conduct, he 

 would send for these two musicians, who gave us a delightful evening- 

 concert in the general play-room, Mr Storey himself supplying an 

 extra treat of fruit, cakes, and tea. 



" Tudhoe had her own ghosts and spectres, just as the neighbour* 

 ing villages had theirs. One was the Tudhoe mouse, well known 

 and often seen in every house in the village ; but I cannot affirm 

 that I myself ever saw it. It was an enormous mouse, of a dark 

 brown colour, and did an immensity of mischief. No cat could face 

 it ; and as it wandered through the village, all the dogs would take 

 off, frightened out of their wits, and howling as they ran away. 

 William Wilkinson, Mr Storey's farming man, told me he had often 

 seen it, but that it terrified him to such a degree, that he could not 

 move from the place where he was standing. 



" Our master kept a large tom-cat in the house. A fine young 

 man, in the neighbouring village of Ferryhill, had been severely 

 bitten by a cat, and he died raving mad. On the day that we got 

 this information from Timothy Pickering, the carpenter at^Tudhoe, 

 I was on the prowl for adventures, and in passing through Mr 

 Storey's back-kitchen, his big black cat came up to me. Whilst I 

 was tickling its bushy tail, it turned round upon me, and gave me a 

 severe bite in the calf of the leg. This I kept a profound secret, 

 but I was quite sure I should go mad every day for many months 

 afterwards. 



" There was a blacksmith's shop leading down the village to Tud- 

 hoe Old Hall. Just opposite this shop was a pond, on the other 

 side of the road. When any sudden death was to take place, or any 

 sudden ill to befall the village, a large black horse used to emerge 

 from it, and walk slowly up and down the village, carrying a rider 

 without a head. The blacksmith's grandfather, his father, himself, 

 his three sons, and two daughters, had seen this midnight apparition 

 rise out of the pond, and return to it before the break of day. John 

 Hickson and Neddy Hunt, two hangers-on at the blacksmith's shop, 

 had seen this phantom more than once, but they never durst ap- 

 proach it. Indeed, every man and woman and child believed in 

 this centaur-spectre, and I am not quite sure if our old master himself 



