esser, electrified him into a
start of fear, which sensation went round every link of the living chain
about the hearth.

The next day the story spread through the whole neighbourhood,
accumulating in interest and incident as it went. Where it received the
touches, embellishments, and emendations, with which it was amplified,
it would be difficult to say: every one told it, forsooth, _exactly_ as
he heard it from another, but indeed it is not improbable that those
through whom it passed were unconscious of the additions it had received
at their hands. It is not unreasonable to suppose that imagination in
such cases often colours highly without a premeditated design of
falsehood. Fear and dread, however, accompanied its progress; such
families as had neglected to keep holy water in their houses borrowed
some from their neighbours; every old prayer which had become rusty
from disuse was brightened up--charms were hung about the necks of
cattle, and gospels about those of children--crosses were placed over
the doors and windows;--no unclean water was thrown out before sunrise
or after dusk--

"E'en those prayed now who never prayed before,
And those who always prayed, still prayed the more."

The inscrutable woman who caused such general dismay in the parish was
an object of much pity. Avoided, feared, and detested, she could find no
rest for her weary feet, nor any shelter for her unprotected head. If
she was seen approaching a house, the door and windows were immediately
closed against her; if met on the way she was avoided as a pestilence.
How she lived no one could tell, for none would permit themselves to
know. It was asserted that she existed without meat or drink, and that
she was doomed to remain possessed of life, the prey of hunger and
thirst, until she could get some one weak enough to break the spell by
drinking her hellish draught, to taste which, they said, would be to
change places with herself, and assume her despair and misery.

There had lived in the country about six months before her appearance in
it, a man named Stephenson. He was unmarried, and the last of his
family. This person led a solitary and secluded life, and exhibited
during the last years of his existence strong symptoms of eccentricity,
which for some months before his death assumed a character of
unquestionable derangement. He was found one morning hanging by a halter
in his own stable, where he had, under the influence of his