e at the vicarage. When I
entered on the discharge of my duties, another change took place. The
thing exhibited an atrocious determination to thwart me. It was with me
in the church--in the reading-desk--in the pulpit--within the communion
rails. At last, it reached this extremity, that while I was reading to
the congregation, it would spring upon the book and squat there, so that
I was unable to see the page. This happened more than once.

"I left Dawlbridge for a time. I placed myself in Dr. Harley's hands. I
did everything he told me. He gave my case a great deal of thought. It
interested him, I think. He seemed successful. For nearly three months I
was perfectly free from a return. I began to think I was safe. With his
full assent I returned to Dawlbridge.

"I travelled in a chaise. I was in good spirits. I was more--I was happy
and grateful. I was returning, as I thought, delivered from a dreadful
hallucination, to the scene of duties which I longed to enter upon. It
was a beautiful sunny evening, everything looked serene and cheerful,
and I was delighted. I remember looking out of the window to see the
spire of my church at Kenlis among the trees, at the point where one has
the earliest view of it. It is exactly where the little stream that
bounds the parish passes under the road by a culvert, and where it
emerges at the road-side, a stone with an old inscription is placed. As
we passed this point, I drew my head in and sat down, and in the corner
of the chaise was the monkey.

"For a moment I felt faint, and then quite wild with despair and horror.
I called to the driver, and got out, and sat down at the road-side, and
prayed to God silently for mercy. A despairing resignation supervened.
My companion was with me as I re-entered the vicarage. The same
persecution followed. After a short struggle I submitted, and soon I
left the place.

"I told you," he said, "that the beast has before this become in certain
ways aggressive. I will explain a little. It seemed to be actuated by
intense and increasing fury, whenever I said my prayers, or even
meditated prayer. It amounted at last to a dreadful interruption. You
will ask, how could a silent immaterial phantom effect that? It was
thus, whenever I meditated praying; It was always before me, and nearer
and nearer.

"It used to spring on a table, on the back of a chair, on the
chimney-piece, and slowly to swing itself from side to side, looking at me
all the time.