on tiptoe across the floor. He stole along, with all possible caution, for a few paces, but hearing the light steps and a noise resembling the fluttering of garments on his right, he thought his tormentor was endeavouring to pass him on that side, and turning suddenly about, he sprang forward, and tumbled headlong down a long flight of stone stairs.
"Oho! man o' the leather," were the first sounds he heard on recovering his senses. He was bloody, lamed, and almost disabled by the fall; but this eternal ejaculation set him on his legs again in an instant.
"I'll follow ye all night," said he, as he hobbled up stairs. "Curse ye—I'll murther ye-"
"Ho! ho! man o' the leather," again struck his ear, followed by the sound of feet apparently moving hastily and with less caution than before, up the stairs above him.
He pursued with all his speed, and in the course of an hour had involved himself in an inextricable labyrinth of passages, closets, byeways, and corridors. "Now what in the name of St. Dennis shall I do? I'm bleeding like a bullock—tired, sorry, and sore, and divel a light, and no living mortal can I come upon. I've lost that fiend's voice too now; vexing as it was, it encouraged me, and kept away weariness, and the spirit of the chace alive. The first sup o' the morning be poison to you—ye thief of all thieves, ye've enticed me here, and mazed and puzzled me, so that I'm lost—curse ye; but I'll
