"Well, laugh on," said Jobson, "and I wish it may do you good. But I
say, I saw him again, the night before you was taken ill, and I know by
that it is all over with you."

The affectionate Jobson burst into tears as he spoke, while De Vallance
was extremely struck at the re-appearance of the animal. He reminded
Jobson that dogs were often extremely alike, and inquired how he knew
that this actually belonged to Eustace.

"How do I know," replied he, "that I am Ralph Jobson? Why it knew me,
and seemed to wag its tail; nay, made as though it would lick my hand."

"And did you not permit him?" said De Vallance.

The terrified trooper turned pale, and his teeth chattered with horror.
"I did not say that it was Fido's living self," exclaimed he; "and what
would have become of me, had I been touched by a ghost? why my arm would
have withered directly. I knew a man in village that had his nose beat
flat to his face, only for peeping into the belfry, while a ghost was
dancing among the bell-ropes.--No, to be sure, I flung a stone at it,
and it ran away setting up a howl."

De Vallance now laboured to convince Jobson, that admitting the reality
of spectral appearances in the human form, animals were not endowed with
a vital principle, capable of existing distinct from their bodies.
Jobson was shocked at his master's presumptuous neglect of warnings, and
he vehemently urged the impossibility of a living dog being at Worcester
in September, and in Wales at Christmas. He stated the privilege of
spirits to take any shape; and not nicely attending to the question of
identity, shewed from oral testimony, that they sometimes appeared as a
glazed pipkin, and sometimes as the skeleton of a horse's head. The
exertion of endeavouring to enlighten wilful absurdity increased the
debility of De Vallance. Jobson's forebodings were turned into
certainties, and he walked into the church-yard to see in what spot he
should bury his master, and hoping to hear the death-watch, as a sign
that he should rest beside him.

The landlady at the little inn, where the forlorn Arthur languished,
pitying the sufferings of her interesting guest, and the inactive grief
of his attendant, requested she might be permitted to send for an
excellent gentleman, who was come to live in the neighbourhood, and had
done many extraordinary cures.--"You need not," said she, "fear
troubling him, he takes no pay but the blessings of those he heals; and
he is said to