"Rest!" said the same voice that had plagued them through the night,
"rest!--what is rest? Boggart knows no rest."
"Plague tak' thee for a Boggart!" said the farmer next morning, on
hearing the strange story from his children: "Plague tak' thee! can thee
not let the poor things be quiet? But I'll be up with thee, my
gentleman: so tak' th' chamber an' be hang'd to thee, if thou wilt. Jack
and little Robert shall sleep o'er the cart-house, and Boggart may rest
or wriggle as he likes when he is by himsel'."
The move was accordingly made, and the bed of the brothers transferred
to their new sleeping-room over the cart-house, where they remained for
some time undisturbed; but his Boggartship having now fairly become the
possessor of a room at the farm, it would appear, considered himself in
the light of a privileged inmate, and not, as hitherto, an occasional
visitor, who merely joined in the general expression of merriment.
Familiarity, they say, breeds contempt; and now the children's bread and
butter would be snatched away, or their porringers of bread and
milk-would be dashed to the ground by an unseen hand; or if the younger
ones were left alone but for a few minutes, they were sure to be found
screaming with terror on the return of their nurse.
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