s from the cemetery where
his wife lay. Here he settled and tilled a small garden beside the
high-road.

Nothing seemed to be wrong with the man until the late summer, when
he stood before the Lewminster magistrates charged with a violent and
curiously wanton assault.

It appeared that one dim evening, late in August, a mild gentleman,
with Leghorn hat, spectacles, and a green gauze net, came sauntering
by the garden where the ex-engine-driver was pulling a basketful of
scarlet runners: that the prisoner had suddenly dropped his beans,
dashed out into the road, and catching the mild gentleman by the
throat had wrenched the butterfly net from his hand and belaboured
him with the handle till it broke.

There was no defence, nor any attempt at explanation. The mild
gentleman was a stranger to the neighbourhood. The magistrates
marvelled, and gave his assailant two months.

At the end of that time the man came out of gaol and went quietly
back to his cottage.

Early in the following April he conceived a wish to build a small
greenhouse at the foot of his garden, by the road, and spoke to the
local mason about it. One Saturday afternoon the mason came over to
look at the ground and discuss plans. It was bright weather, and
while the two men talked a white butterfly floated past them--the
first of the year.

Immediately the mason broke off his sentence and began to chase the
butterfly round the garden: for in the West country there is a
superstition that if a body neglect to kill the first butterfly he
may see for the season, he will have ill luck throughout the year.
So he dashed across the beds, hat in hand.

"I'll hat 'en--I'll hat 'en! No, fay! I'll miss 'en, I b'lieve.
Shan't be able to kill 'n if hor's wunce beyond th' gaate--stiddy, my
son! Wo-op!"

Thus he yelled, waving his soft hat: and the next minute was lying
stunned across a carrot-bed, with eight fingers gripping the back of
his neck and two thumbs squeezing on his windpipe.

There was another assault case heard by the Lewminster bench; and
this time the ex-engine-driver received four months. As before, he
offered no defence: and again the magistrates were possessed with
wonder.

Now the explanation is quite simple. This man's wits were sound,
save on one point. He believed--why, God alone knows, who enabled
him to drive that horrible journey without a tremor of the hand--that
his wife's soul haunted him in the form of a white bu