and occasioned the most
uproarious mirth whenever any unfortunate devil who had overtasked his
powers in the attempt, happened to fail, and was forced to scamper
out of the subsiding flames with scorched limbs that set him a dancing
without music. In fact, those possessed of activity enough to clear them
were loudly cheered, and rewarded with a glass of whiskey, a temptation
which had induced so many to try, and so many to fail. When these
had been concluded about the minor fires, the victors and spectators
repaired to the great one, to try their fortune upon a larger and more
hazardous scale. It was now nearly half burned down, but was still a
large, glowing mass, at least five feet high, and not less than eighteen
in diameter at the base. On arriving there they all looked on in
silence, appalled by its great size, and altogether deterred from so
formidable an attempt.

It would be death to try it, they exclaimed; no living man could do it;
an opinion which was universally acceded to, with one single exception.
A thin man, rather above the middle size, dressed in a long, black coat,
black breeches, and black stockings, constituted that exception. There
was something peculiar, and even strikingly mysterious, in his whole
appearance. His complexion was pale as that of a corpse, his eyes dead
and glassy, and the muscles of his face seemed as if they were paralyzed
and could not move. His right hand was thrust in his bosom, and! over
his left arm he bore some dark garment of a very funereal cast, almost
reminding one of a mortcloth.

"There is one," said he, in a hollow and sepulchral voice, "that could
do it." Father Magauran, who was present, looked at him with surprise;
as indeed did every one who had got an opportunity of seeing him.

"I know there is," he replied, "a sartin individual who could do it;
ay, in troth, and maybe if he fell into the flames, too, he'd only
find himself in his own element; and if it went to that could dance a
hornpipe in the middle of it."

This repartee of the priest's elicited loud laughter from the
by-standers, who, on turning round to see how the other bore it, found
that he had disappeared. This occasioned considerable amazement, not
unmixed with a still more extraordinary feeling. Nobody there knew him,
nor had ever even seen him before; and in a short time the impression
began to gain ground that he must have been no other than the conjurer
who was said to have arrived in the tow