-back chair, in an attitude of thought, arranging,
it may have been, the heads of his next Sabbath's discourse. His heavy
eyebrows, throwing into shade his spacious eyes, and indeed the whole
contour of his face, marked him as a man of great firmness of character
and of much moral and personal courage. His suit of sober black and
full-bottomed periwig also added to his dignity, and gave him an
appearance of greater age. He was then verging on sixty. The time and
the place gave him abundant exercise for the qualities we have
mentioned, for many of his parishioners obtained their livelihood by the
contraband trade, and were mostly men of unscrupulous and daring
character, little likely to bear with patience, reflections on the
dishonesty of their calling. Nevertheless the vicar was fearless in
reprehending it, and his frank exhortations were, at least, listened to
on account of the simple honesty of the man, and his well-known kindness
of heart. The eccentricity of his life, too, had a wonderful effect in
procuring him the respect, not to say the awe, of a people superstitious
in a more than ordinary degree. Ghosts in those days had more freedom
accorded them, or had more business with the visible world than at
present; and the parson was frequently required by his parishioners to
draw from the uneasy spirit the dread secret which troubled it, or by
the aid of the solemn prayers of the church to set it at rest for ever.
Mr Dodge had a fame as an exorcist, which was not confined to the bounds
of his parish, nor limited to the age in which he lived.

"Well, my good man, what brings you hither?" said the clergyman to the
messenger.

"A letter, may it please your reverence, from Mr Mills of Lanreath,"
said the countryman, handing him a letter.

Mr Dodge opened it and read as follows:--

"MY DEAR BROTHER DODGE,--I have ventured to trouble
you, at the earnest request of my parishioners, with a matter,
of which some particulars have doubtless reached you, and which
has caused, and is causing, much terror in my neighbourhood.
For its fuller explication, I will be so tedious as to recount
to you the whole of this strange story as it has reached my
ears, for as yet I have not satisfied my eyes of its truth. It
has been told me by men of honest and good report (witnesses of
a portion of what they relate), with such strong assurances,
that it behoves us to look more closely into t