“Well, George, and soa you’re leaving t’ould hoose at last?”
“Heigh, Johnny, ma lad, I’m forc’d till it, for that boggart torments us soa we can neither rest neet nor day for’t. It seems loike to have such a malice again’t poor bairns. It ommost kills my poor dame here at thoughts on’t, and soa, ye see, we’re forc’d to flitt like.”
He had got thus far in his complaint when, behold! a shrill voice, from a deep upright churn, called out—
“Ay, ay, George, we ’re flitting, you see.”
“Confound thee,” says the poor farmer, “if I’d known thou’d been there I wadn’t ha stirrid a peg. Nay, nay, it’s to na use, Mally,” turning to his wife, “we may as weel turn back again to t’ould hoose, as be tormented in another that’s not sa convenient.”
They are said to have turned back, but the boggart and they afterwards came to a better understanding, though it long continued its trick of shooting the horn from the knot-hole.
THE DUERGAR.
The following encounters with the duergar, a species of mischievous elves, are said to have taken place on Simonside Hills, a mountainous district between Rothbury and Elsdon in Northumberland.