h at them. He says there are several of
his old parishioners who remember when the village had its bar-guest,
or bar-ghost--a spirit supposed to belong to a town or village, and to
predict any impending misfortune by midnight shrieks and wailings. The
last time it was heard was just before the death of Mr. Bracebridge's
father, who was much beloved throughout the neighbourhood; though
there are not wanting some obstinate unbelievers, who insisted that it
was nothing but the howling of a watch-dog. I have been greatly
delighted, however, at meeting with some traces of my old favourite,
Robin Goodfellow, though under a different appellation from any of
those by which I have heretofore heard him called. The parson assures
me that many of the peasantry believe in household goblins, called
Dubbies, which live about particular farms and houses, in the same way
that Robin Goodfellow did of old. Sometimes they haunt the barns and
outhouses, and now and then will assist the farmer wonderfully, by
getting in all his hay or corn in a single night. In general, however,
they prefer to live within doors, and are fond of keeping about the
great hearths, and basking, at night, after the family have gone to
bed, by the glowing embers. When put in particular good-humour by the
warmth of their lodgings, and the tidiness of the house-maids, they
will overcome their natural laziness, and do a vast deal of household
work before morning; churning the cream, brewing the beer, or spinning
all the good dame's flax. All this is precisely the conduct of Robin
Goodfellow, described so charmingly by Milton:

"Tells how the drudging goblin sweat
To earn his cream-bowl duly get,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail had thresh'd the corn
That ten day-labourers could not end;
Then lays him down the lubber-fiend,
And, stretch'd out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength,
And crop-full, out of door he flings
Ere the first cock his matin rings."

But beside these household Dubbies, there are others of a more gloomy
and unsocial nature, that keep about lonely barns at a distance from
any dwelling-house, or about ruins and old bridges. These are full of
mischievous and often malignant tricks, and are fond of playing pranks
upon benighted travellers. There is a story, among the old people, of
one that haunted a ruined mill, just by a bridge that crosses a small
stream; how that, late one ni