did not think of
any other crop. Her opinion was, that the potato blight was caused by
the lightning, because the turf burnt so _sulphurously_. "The
lightning," she says, "carries a burr round the moon, and makes the
_roke_ (fog) rise in the marshes, and smell strong."

A failure in the "Ash Keys," she pronounces a sign of a change in the
government.

"If the hen moult before the cock,
We get a winter as hard as a rock;
If the cock moult before the hen,
We get a winter like a spring.

"She put plenty of salt in the water while washing clothes, to keep the
thunder out, and to keep away foul spirits."

Of Good Friday, she says,

"If work be done on that day, it will be so unlucky, that it will have to
be done over again."

The story of Heard's Ghost she accompanies by an anecdote of one Finch,
of Neatishead, who was walking along the road after dark, and saw a dog
which he thought was Dick Allard's, that had snapped and snarled at him
at different times. Thinks he, "you have _upset_ me two or three times;
I will upset you now. You will not turn out of the road for me; and I
will not turn out of the road for you." Along came the dog, straight in
the middle of the road, and Finch kicked at him, and his foot went
through him, as through a sheet of paper--he could compare it to nothing
else; he was quite astounded, and nearly fell backwards from the force of
the kick.

She says that she has heard that the spirits of the dead haunt the places
where treasures were hid by them when living, and that those of the Roman
Catholics still frequent the spots where their remains were disturbed,
and their graves and monuments destroyed. Alas! what a ghost-besieged
city must poor Norwich be in such a case!

Of the cuckoo, she says, "When evil is coming, he sings low among the
bushes, and can scarcely get his "cuckoo" out. In the last week before
he leaves, he always tells all that will happen in the course of the year
till he comes again--all the shipwrecks, storms, accidents, and
everything. If any one is about to die suddenly, or to lose a relation,
he will light upon touchwood, or a rotten bough, and "cuckoo."

"He is always here three months to a day, and sings all the while. The
first of April is the proper day for him to come, and when he does so,
there is sure to be a good and early harvest. If he does not come till
May, then the harvest is into October. If he sings long after midsummer,
the