ugdale's devil come to pay
him a midnight visit. Then Richard laid stones like hens' eggs, and in the
manner of hens; and he flung them to incredible distances when newly laid,
and they felt warm as milk; and he showed a slight amount of power in the
matter of clairvoyance; but, oh faithless, feeble devil! when Drs. Chew
and Crabtree got hold of him, and bled him well, and gave him physic, the
devil, who hates blue pill and black draught worse than holy water, flew
away, and what all the prayers and fastings and exhortations of the
ministry could not do, the lancet and a good dose of calomel and aloes
effected without trouble. And then Richard Dugdale confessed that he had
never been possessed, but only ill, in consequence of a fight he had had
with a man at a rush-bearing at Whalley, while he, Master Richard, was in
drink. The next day he was heavy and troubled in his mind, and drank a
quantity of cold water while in the hay field making hay; but being
advised to go up to the hall and get a drink of something more nourishing,
he took the advice, and went into the house, where the cook maid gave him
some drink; and then he went into his own room and lay down. While thus on
the bed the chamber door seemed to him to open of itself, and there came a
thick smoke or mist, which on vanishing left him in extreme fear and
horror; then appeared one Hindle, a fellow servant, with his hair cropped
close to his ears, and he lay very heavy on his breast, but soon turned
himself into the likeness of a naked child, which he caught by the knee;
but the child became a "filmet" (foumart, pole-cat?), and went away with a
shrill shriek. After this he raved, and was delirious; but when Dr. Chew
physicked him, and Dr. Crabtree bled him, and Dr. Chew physicked him
again, he had no more "fits," no more "obsessions" or "possessions," was
no longer the demoniac of Surrey, half maniac, half impostor, but went
quietly back to ordinary life, and the whole tribe of exorcising ministers
were for once discomfited. It was a singular mercy to his friends and
acquaintances that Master Richard did not take it into his head to delate
any of them as witches, for assuredly he might have hanged half Lancashire
on the strength of the whelps inside his body, and his galloping on all
fours like a horse. He would not have been the first to shed innocent
blood for the sake of keeping up a notoriety which, originally begun in
very ordinary and natural disease, was aft