words had just let himself
out to the other end o' the line and was lookin' back? He'd got himself
right into the middle o' the bigness o' things, and that's what you
can't do as long as you keeps inside your own skin. But I tell you that
when you gets outside for the first time it gives you a pretty shakin'
up. You begins to think what a fool you've been all your life long."

Beyond such statements as these, repeated many times and in many forms,
I could get no light on Snarley's dealings with the heavens.

To interpret his dealings with "the spirits" is a still harder task. It
was one of his common sayings that this matter also could not be
discussed in terms intelligible to the once-born. That he did not mean
by "spirits" what the vulgar might suppose, is certain. It is true that
at one time he used to attend spiritualistic seances held in a large
neighbouring village, and he was commonly regarded as a "medium." This
latter term was adopted by Snarley in many conversations I had with him
as a true description of himself. But here again it was obvious that he
used the term only for want of a better. He never employed it without
some sort of caveat, uttered or implied, to the effect that the word
must be taken with qualifications--unstated qualifications, but still
suggestive of important distinctions.

It is noteworthy in this connection that a bitter quarrel existed
between Snarley and the spiritualists with whom he had once been
associated. They had cast him forth from among them as a smoking brand;
and Snarley on his part never lost a chance of denouncing them as liars
and rogues. One of the most violent scenes ever witnessed in the
tap-room of the Nag's Head had been perpetrated by Snarley on a certain
occasion when Shoemaker Hankin was defending the thesis that all forms
of religion might now be considered as done for, "except spiritualism."
Even Hankin, who reverenced no thing in heaven or earth, had protested
against the unprintable words which with Snarley greeted his logic;
while the landlord (Tom Barter of happy memory), himself the lowest
black-guard in the village, had suggested that he should "draw it mild."

This reminds me that Snarley regarded strong drink as a means, and a
legitimate means, for obtaining access to hidden things; nor did he
scruple at times to use it for that end. "There's nowt like a drop o'
drink _for openin' the door_," he remarked. "But only for them as is
born to it. If you're