a mark of respect
for the dead; but in former times, and within this century, it was
firmly held that if the corpse were not watched, the devil would carry
off the body, and many stories were current of such an awful result
having happened. One such story was told me by a person who had received
the story from a person who was present at the wake where the occurrence
happened. I thus got it at second hand. The story ran as follows:--The
corpse was laid out in a room, and the watchers had retired to another
apartment to partake of refreshments, having shut the door of the room
where the corpse lay. While they were eating there was heard a great
noise, as of a struggle between two persons, proceeding from the room
where the corpse lay. None of the party would venture into the room, and
in this emergency they sent for the minister, who came, and, with the
open Bible in his hand, entered the room and shut the door. The noise
then ceased, and in about ten minutes he came out, lifted the tongs from
the fireplace, and again re-entered the room. When he came out again, he
brought out with the tongs a glove, which was seen to be bloody, and
this he put into the fire. He refused, however, to tell either what he
had seen or heard; but on the watchers returning to their post, the
corpse lay as formerly, and as quiet and unruffled as if nothing had
taken place, whereat they were all surprised.

From the death till the funeral it was customary for neighbours to call
and see the corpse, and should any one see it and not touch it, that
person would be haunted for several nights with fearful dreams. I have
seen young children and even infants made to touch the face of the
corpse, notwithstanding their terror and screams. If a child who had
seen the corpse, but had not been compelled to touch it, had shortly
afterwards awakened from a sleep crying, it would have been considered
that its crying was caused by its having seen the ghost of the dead
person.

If, when the funeral left the house, the company should go in a
scattered, straggling manner, this was an omen that before long another
funeral would leave the same house. If the company walked away quickly,
it was also a bad omen. It was believed that the spirit of the last
person buried in any graveyard had to keep watch lest any suicide or
unbaptized child should be buried in the consecrated ground, so that,
when two burials took place on the same day, there was a striving to be
firs