Having twice repeated this operation,
the patient, who had before been utterly helpless, rose from his seat
and walked about the house, to the surprise of seven persons who had
witnessed the miracle. From that day the boy's pains left him, his
memory was restored, and his health became re-established. This mystic
hand, it seems, was removed from Bryn Hall to Garswood, a seat of the
Gerard family, and subsequently to the priest's house at
Ashton-in-Makerfield. But many ludicrous tales are current in the
neighbourhood, of pilgrims having been rather roughly handled by some
of the servants, such as getting a good beating with a wooden hand, so
that the patients rapidly retraced their steps without having had the
application of the "holy hand."

It is curious to find that such a ghastly relic as a dead hand should
have been preserved in many a country house, and used as a talisman,
to which we find an amusing and laughable reference in the "Ingoldsby
Legends":

Open, lock,
To the dead man's knock!
Fly bolt, and bar, and band;
Nor move, nor swerve,
Joint, muscle, or nerve,
At the spell of the dead man's hand.
Sleep, all who sleep! Wake, all who wake!
But be as dead for the dead man's sake.

The story goes on to tell how, influenced by the mysterious spell of
the enchanted hand, neither lock, bolt, nor bar avails, neither
"stout oak panel, thick studded with nails"; but, heavy and harsh, the
hinges creak, though they had been oiled in the course of the week,
and

The door opens wide as wide may be,
And there they stand,
That wondrous band,
Lit by the light of the glorious hand,
By one! by two! by three!

At Danesfield, Berkshire--so-called from an ancient horseshoe
entrenchment of great extent near the house, supposed to be of Danish
origin--is preserved a withered hand, which has long had the
reputation of being that presented by Henry I. to Reading Abbey, and
reverenced there as the hand of James the Apostle. It answers exactly
to "the incorrupt hand" described by Hoveden, and was found among the
ruins of the abbey, where it is thought to have been secreted at the
dissolution.

FOOTNOTES:

[33] Baines's "Lancashire," iii., 638; Harland and Wilkinson's
"Lancashire Folklore," 158-163.

CHAPTER IX.

DEVIL COMPACTS.

MEPHISTOPHELES.--I will bind myself to your service here,
and never sleep nor slumber at yo