-read, while the countryman sat
watching its effects on the parson's countenance, and was surprised that
it changed not from its usual sedate and settled character. Turning at
length to the man, Mr Dodge inquired, "Are you, then, acquainted with my
good friend Mills?"

"I should know him, sir," replied the messenger, "having been sexton to
the parish for fourteen years, and being, with my family, much beholden
to the kindness of the rector."

"You are also not without some knowledge of the circumstances related in
this letter. Have you been an eye-witness to any of those strange
sights?"

"For myself, sir, I have been on the road at all hours of the night and
day, and never did I see anything which I could call worse than myself.
One night my wife and I were awoke by the rattle of wheels, which was
also heard by some of our neighbours, and we are all assured that it
could have been no other than the black coach. We have every day such
stories told in the villages by so many creditable persons, that it
would not be proper in a plain, ignorant man like me to doubt it."

"And how far," asked the clergyman, "is the moor from Lanreath?"

"About two miles, and please your reverence. The whole parish is so
frightened, that few will venture far after nightfall, for it has of
late come much nearer the village. A man who is esteemed a sensible and
pious man by many, though an Anabaptist in principle, went a few weeks
back to the moor ('tis called Blackadon) at midnight, in order to lay
the spirit, being requested thereto by his neighbours, and he was so
alarmed at what he saw, that he hath been somewhat mazed ever since."

"A fitting punishment for his presumption, if it hath not quite demented
him," said the parson. "These persons are like those addressed by St
Chrysostom, fitly called the golden-mouthed, who said, 'Miserable
wretches that ye be! ye cannot expel a flea, much less a devil!' It will
be well if it serves no other purpose but to bring back these stray
sheep to the fold of the Church. So this story has gained much belief in
the parish?"

"Most believe it, sir, as rightly they should, what hath so many
witnesses," said the sexton, "though there be some, chiefly young men,
who set up for being wiser than their fathers, and refuse to credit it,
though it be sworn to on the book."

"If those things are disbelieved, friend," said the parson, "and without
inquiry, which your disbeliever is ever the first to shrink