ran after it,
with the young man by my side. We saw it pass over the stile at which we
entered, and no farther. I stepped upon the hedge at one place and the
young man at another, but we could discern nothing; whereas I do aver
that the swiftest horse in England could not have conveyed himself out
of sight in that short space of time. Two things I observed in this
day's appearance: first, a spaniel dog, which had followed the company
unregarded, barked and ran away as the spectrum passed by; whence it is
easy to conclude that it was not our fear or fancy which made the
apparition. Secondly, the motion of the spectrum was not _gradatim_ or
by steps, or moving of the feet, but by a kind of gliding, as children
upon ice, or as a boat down a river, which punctually answers the
description the ancients give of the motion of these Lamures. This
ocular evidence clearly convinced, but withal strangely affrighted, the
old gentleman and his wife. They well knew this woman, Dorothy Durant,
in her life-time; were at her burial, and now plainly saw her features
in this apparition.

"The next morning, being Thursday, I went very early by myself, and
walked for about an hour's space in meditation and prayer in the field
next adjoining. Soon after five I stepped over the stile into the
haunted field, and had not gone above thirty or forty paces before the
ghost appeared at the further stile. I spoke to it in some short
sentences with a loud voice; whereupon it approached me, but slowly, and
when I came near it moved not. I spoke again, and it answered in a voice
neither audible nor very intelligible. I was not in the least terrified,
and therefore persisted until it spoke again and gave me satisfaction;
but the work could not be finished at this time. Whereupon the same
evening, an hour after sunset, it met me again near the same place, and
after a few words on each side it quietly vanished, and neither doth
appear now, nor hath appeared since, nor ever will more to any man's
disturbance. The discourse in the morning lasted about a quarter of an
hour.

"These things are true," concludes the Rev. John Ruddle, "and I know
them to be so, with as much certainty as eyes and ears can give me; and
until I can be persuaded that my senses all deceive me about their
proper objects, and by that persuasion deprive me of the strongest
inducement to believe the Christian religion, I must and will assert
that the things contained in this paper are