r son. Said I, warily, 'The case is
strange, but by no means impossible. It is one that I will study, and
fear not to handle, if the lad will be free with me, and fulfil all that
I desire.' The mother was overjoyed, but I perceived that old Mr Bligh
turned pale, and was downcast with some thought which, however, he did
not express. Then they bade that Master Bligh should be called to meet
me in the pleasaunce forthwith. The boy came, and he rehearsed to me his
tale with an open countenance, and, withal, a modesty of speech. Verily
he seemed 'ingenui vultus puer ingenuique pudoris.' Then I signified to
him my purpose. 'To-morrow,' said I, 'we will go together to the place;
and if, as I doubt not, the woman shall appear, it will be for me to
proceed according to knowledge, and by rules laid down in my books.'"

The unaltered scenery of the legend still survives, and, like the field
of the forty footsteps in another history, the place is still visited by
those who take interest in the supernatural tales of old. The pathway
leads along a moorland waste, where large masses of rock stand up here
and there from the grassy turf, and clumps of heath and gorse weave
their tapestry of golden purple garniture on every side. Amidst all
these, and winding along between the rocks, is a natural footway worn by
the scant, rare tread of the village traveller. Just midway, a somewhat
larger stretch than usual of green sod expands, which is skirted by the
path, and which is still identified as the legendary haunt of the
phantom, by the name of Parson Rudall's Ghost.

But we must draw the record of the first interview between the minister
and Dorothy from his own words. "We met," thus he writes, "in the
pleasaunce very early, and before any others in the house were awake;
and together the lad and myself proceeded towards the field. The youth
was quite composed, and carried his Bible under his arm, from whence he
read to me verses, which he said he had lately picked out, to have
always in his mind. These were Job vii. 14, 'Thou scarest me with
dreams, and terrifiest me through visions'; and Deuteronomy xxviii. 67,
'In the morning thou shalt say, Would to God it were the evening, and in
the evening thou shalt say, Would to God it were morning; for the fear
of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine
eyes which thou shalt see.'

"I was much pleased with the lad's ingenuity in these pious
applications, but for mine ow