"SUPERSTITIONS AND FORTUNES"
_Thirteen at Table_
There is no doubt that there have been many occasions upon which
thirteen people have sat down to dinner, all of which people at the end
of a year have been alive and well; there is no doubt also that there
have been many occasions upon which thirteen have sat down to dine, and
the first of them to rise has died within twelve months. Therefore, I
prefer not to take the risk, and to sit down to dinner in any number but
thirteen.
A curious story is told in connection with this superstition. A lady was
present at a dinner party given by the Count D---- in Buda-Pesth, when
it was discovered that the company about to sit down numbered thirteen.
Immediately there was a loud protest, and the poor Count was at his
wits' end to know how to get out of the difficulty, when a servant
hurriedly entered and whispered something in his ear. Instantly the
Count's face lighted up. "How very fortunate!" he exclaimed, addressing
his guests. "A very old friend of mine, who, to tell the truth, I had
thought to be dead, has just turned up. We may, therefore, sit down in
peace, for we shall now be fourteen." A wave of relief swept through
the party, and, in the midst of their congratulations, in walked the
opportune guest, a tall, heavily bearded young man, with a strangely set
expression in his eyes and mouth, and not a vestige of colour in his
cheeks. It was noticed that after replying to the Count's salutations in
remarkably hollow tones that made those nearest him shiver, he took no
part in the conversation, and partook of nothing beyond a glass of wine
and some fruit. The evening passed in the usual manner; the guests, with
the exception of the stranger, went, and, eventually, the Count found
himself alone with the friend of his boyhood, the friend whom he had not
seen for years, and whom he had believed to be dead.
Wondering at the unusual reticence of his old chum, but attributing it
to shyness, the Count, seeing that he now had an opportunity for a chat,
and, anxious to hear what his friend had been doing in the long interval
since they had last met, sat down beside him on the couch, and thus
began: "How very odd that you should have turned up to-night! If you
hadn't come just when you did, I don't know what would have happened!"
"But I do!" was the quiet reply. "You would have been the first to rise
from the table, and, consequently, you would have died within the year.
That is why I came."
At this the Count burst out laughing. "Come, come, Max!" he cried. "You
always were a bit of a wag, and I see you haven't improved. But be
serious now, I beg you, and tell me what made you come to-night and what
you have been doing all these years? Why, it must be sixteen years, if a
day, since last I saw you!"
Max leaned back in his seat, and, regarding the Count earnestly with his
dark, penetrating eyes, said, "I have already told you why I came here
to-night, and you don't believe me, but WAIT! Now, as to what has
happened to me since we parted. Can I expect you to believe that?
Hardly! Anyhow, I will put you to the test. When we parted, if you
remember rightly, I had just passed my final, and having been elected
junior house surgeon at my hospital, St Christopher's, at Brunn, had
taken up my abode there. I remained at St Christopher's for two years,
just long enough to earn distinction in the operating theatre, when I
received a more lucrative appointment in Cracow. There I soon had a
private practice of my own and was on the high road to fame and fortune,
when I was unlucky enough to fall in love."
"Unlucky!" laughed the Count. "Pray what was the matter with her? Had
she no dowry, or was she an heiress with an ogre of a father, or was she
already married?"
"Married," Max responded, "married to a regular martinet who, whilst
treating her in the same austere manner he treated his soldiers--he was
colonel of a line regiment--was jealous to the verge of insanity. It was
when I was attending him for a slight ailment of the throat that I met
her, and we fell in love with each other at first sight."
"How romantic!" sighed the Count. "How very romantic! Another glass of
Moselle?"
"For some time," Max continued, not noticing the interruption, "all went
smoothly. We met clandestinely and spent many an hour together, unknown
to the invalid. We tried to keep him in bed as long as we could, but his
constitution, which was that of an ox, was against us, and his recovery
was astonishingly rapid. An indiscreet observation on the part of one of
the household first led him to suspect, and, watching his wife like a
cat does a mouse, he caught her one evening in the act of holding out
her hand for me to kiss. With a yell of fury he rushed upon us, and in
the scuffle that followed----"
"You killed him," said the Count. "Well! I forgive you! We all forgive
you! By the love of Heaven! you had some excuse."
"You are mistaken!" Max went on, still in the same cold, unmoved
accents, "it was I who was killed!" He looked at the Count, and the
Count's blood turned to ice as he suddenly realised he was, indeed,
gazing at a corpse.
For some seconds the Count and the corpse sat facing one another in
absolute silence, and then the latter, rising solemnly from the chair,
mounted the window-sill, and, with an expressive wave of farewell,
disappeared in the absorbing darkness without. Now, as Max was never
seen again, and it was ascertained without any difficulty that he had
actually perished in the manner he had described, there is surely every
reason to believe that a _bona fide_ danger had threatened the Count,
and that the spirit of Max in his earthly guise had, in very deed,
turned up at the dinner party with the sole object of saving his friend.
_Spilling Salt_
Everyone knows that to avoid bad luck from spilling salt, it is only
necessary to throw some of it over the left shoulder; but no one knows
why such an act is a deterrent to misfortune, any more than why
misfortune, if not then averted, should accrue from the spilling.
That the superstition originated in a tradition that Judas Iscariot
overturned a salt-cellar is ridiculous, for there is but little doubt it
was in vogue long before the advent of Christ, and is certainly current
to-day among tribes and races that have never heard of the "Last
Supper."
In all probability the superstition is derived from the fact that salt,
from its usage in ancient sacrificial rites, was once regarded as
sacred. Hence to spill any carelessly was looked upon as sacrilegious
and an offence to the gods, to appease whom the device of throwing it
over the left, the more psychic shoulder, was instituted.
_Looking-glasses_
The breaking of a looking-glass is said to be an ill omen, and I have
certainly known many cases in which one misfortune after another has
occurred to the person who has had the misfortune to break a
looking-glass. Some think that because looking-glasses were once used in
sorcery, they possess certain psychic properties, and that by reason of
their psychic properties any injury done to a mirror must be fraught
with danger to the doer of that injury, but whether this is so or not is
a matter of conjecture.
_Psychic Days_
"Friday's child is full of woe." Of all days Friday is universally
regarded as the most unlucky. According to Soames in his work, _The
Anglo-Saxon Church_, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit on a Friday
and died on a Friday. And since Jesus Christ was crucified on a Friday,
it is naturally of small wonder that Friday is accursed.
To travel on Friday is generally deemed to be courting accident; to be
married on Friday, courting divorce or death. Few sailors care to embark
on Friday; few theatrical managers to produce a new play on Friday. In
Livonia most of the inhabitants are so prejudiced against Friday, that
they never settle any important business, or conclude a bargain on that
day; in some places they do not even dress their children.
For my part, I so far believe in this superstition that I never set out
for a journey, or commence any new work on Friday, if I have the option
of any other day. Thursday has always been an unlucky day for me. Most
of my accidents, disappointments, illnesses have happened on Thursdays.
Wednesday has been my luckiest day. Monday, Thursday, Friday, and
Saturday the days when I have mostly experienced occult phenomena. On
All-Hallows E'en the spirits of the dead are supposed to walk. I
remember when a child hearing from the lips of a relative how in her
girlhood she had screwed up the courage to shut herself in a dark room
on All-Hallows E'en and had eaten an apple in front of the mirror; and
that instead of seeing the face of her future husband peering over her
shoulder, she had seen a quantity of earth falling. She was informed
that this was a prognostication of death, and, surely enough, within the
year her father died. I have heard, too, of a girl who, on All-Hallows
E'en, walked down a gloomy garden path scattering hempseed for her
future lover to pick up, and on hearing someone tiptoeing behind her,
and fancying it was a practical joker, turned sharply round, to confront
a skeleton dressed exactly similar to herself. She died before the year
was out from the result of an accident on the ice.
I have often poured boiling lead into water on All-Hallows E'en and it
has assumed strange shapes, once--a boot, once--a coffin, once--a ship;
and I have placed all the letters of the alphabet cut out of pasteboard
by my bedside, and on one occasion (my door was locked, by the way, and
I fully satisfied myself no one was in hiding) found, on awakening in
the morning, the following word spelt out of them--"Merivale." It was
not until some days afterwards that I remembered associations with this
word, and then it all came back to me in a trice--it was the name of a
man who had once wanted me to join him in an enterprise in British West
Africa.
On New Year's Eve a certain family, with whom I am very intimately
acquainted, frequently see ghosts of the future, as well as phantasms of
the dead, and, when I stay with them, which I often do at Christmas, I
am always glad when this night is over. On one occasion, one of them saw
a lady come up the garden path and vanish on the front doorsteps. She
saw the lady's face distinctly; every feature in it, together with the
clothes she was wearing, stood out with startling perspicuity.
Some six months later, she was introduced to the material counterpart of
the phantasm, who was destined to play a most important part in her
life. On another New Year's Eve she saw the phantasm of a dog, to which
she had been deeply attached, enter her bedroom and jump on her bed,
just as it had done during its lifetime. Not in the least frightened,
she put down her hand to stroke it, when it vanished. I have given
several other instances of this kind in my _Haunted Houses of London_
and _Ghostly Phenomena_--they all, I think, tend to prove a future
existence for dumb animals.
The 28th of December, Childermass Day, or the Feast of the Holy
Innocents, the day on which King Herod slaughtered so many infants (if
they were no better mannered than the bulk of the County Council
children of to-day, one can hardly blame him), is held to be
unpropitious for the commencement of any new undertaking by those of
tender years.
The fishermen who dwell on the Baltic seldom use their nets between All
Saints and St Martin's Day, or on St Blaise's Day; if they did, they
believe they would not take any fish for a whole year. On Ash Wednesday
the women in those parts neither sew nor knit for fear of bringing
misfortune upon their cattle, whilst they do not use fire on St
Lawrence's Day, in order to secure themselves against fire for the rest
of the year.
In Moravia the peasants used not to hunt on St Mark's or St Catherine's
Day, for fear they should be unlucky all the rest of the year. In
Yorkshire it was once customary to watch for the dead on St Mark's
(April 24) and Midsummer Eve. On both those nights (so says Mr Timbs in
his _Mysteries of Life and Futurity_) persons would sit and watch in the
church porch from eleven o'clock at night till one in the morning. In
the third year (for it must be done thrice), the watchers were said to
see the spectres of all those who were to die the next year pass into
the church.
I am quite sure there is much truth in this, for I have heard of
sceptics putting it to the test, and of "singing to quite a different
tune" when the phantasms of those they knew quite well suddenly shot up
from the ground, and, gliding past them, vanished at the threshold of
the church. Occasionally, too, I have been informed of cases where the
watchers have seen themselves in the ghastly procession and have died
shortly afterwards.
_Fortune-telling_
Before ridiculing the possibility of telling fortunes by cards, it would
be just as well for sceptics to inquire into the history of cards, and
the reason of their being designated the Devil's pasteboards. Their
origin may be traced to the days when man was undoubtedly in close touch
with the occult, and each card, _i.e._ of the original design, has a
psychic meaning. Hence the telling of fortunes by certain people--those
who have had actual experience with occult phenomena--deserves to be
taken seriously; and I am convinced many of the fortunes thus told come
true.
_Palmistry_
That there is much truth in palmistry--the palmistry of those who have
made a thorough study of the subject--should by this time, I think, be
an established fact. I can honestly say I have had my hand told with
absolute accuracy, and in such a manner as utterly precludes the
possibility of coincidence or chance. Many of the events, and
out-of-the-way events, of my life have been read in my lines with
perfect veracity, my character has been delineated with equal fidelity,
and the future portrayed exactly in the manner it has come about--and
all by a stranger, one who had never seen or heard of me before he "told
my hand."
To attempt to negative the positive is the height of folly, but fools
will deny anything and everything save their own wit. It does not follow
that because one palmist has been at fault, all palmists are at fault. I
believe in palmistry, because I have seen it verified in a hundred and
one instances.
Apart from the lines, however, there is a wealth of character in hands:
I am never tired of studying them. To me the most beautiful and
interesting hands are the pure psychic and the dramatic--the former with
its thin, narrow palm, slender, tapering fingers and filbert nails; the
latter a model of symmetry and grace, with conical finger-tips and
filbert nails--indeed, filbert nails are more or less confined to these
two types; one seldom sees them in other hands.
Then there are the literary and artistic hands, with their mixed types
of fingers, some conical and some square-tipped, but always with some
redeeming feature of refinement and elegance in them; and the musical
hand, sometimes a modified edition of the psychic, and sometimes quite
different, with short, supple fingers and square tips. And yet
again--would that it did not exist!--the business hand, far more common
in England, where the bulk of the people have commercial minds, than
elsewhere. It has no redeeming feature, but is short, and square, and
fat, with stumpy fingers and hideous, spatulate nails, the very sight of
which makes me shudder. Indeed, I have heard it said abroad, and not
without some reason, that, apart from other little peculiarities, such
as projecting teeth and big feet, the English have two sets of toes!
When I look at English children's fingers, and see how universal is the
custom of biting the nails, I feel quite sure the day will come when
there will be no nails left to bite--that the day, in fact, is not far
distant, when nails, rather than teeth, will become extinct.
The Irish, French, Italians, Spanish, and Danes, being far more dramatic
and psychic than the English, have far nicer hands, and for one set of
filbert nails in London, we may count a dozen in Paris or Madrid.
Murderers' hands are often noticeable for their knotted knuckles and
club-shaped finger-tips; suicides--for the slenderness of the thumbs
and strong inclination of the index to the second finger; thieves--for
the pointedness of the finger-tips, and the length and suppleness of the
fingers. Dominating, coarse-minded people, and people who exert undue
influence over others, generally have broad, flat thumbs. The hands of
soldiers and sailors are usually broad, with short, thick, square-tipped
fingers; the hands of clergy are also more often broad and coarse than
slender and conical, which may be accounted for by the fact that so many
of them enter the Church with other than spiritual motives. The really
spiritual hand is the counterpart of the psychical, and rarely seen in
England. Doctors, doctors with a genuine love of their profession, in
other words, "born" doctors, have broad but slender palms, with long,
supple fingers and moderately square tips. This type of hand is typical,
also, of the hospital nurse.
It is, of course, a gross error to think that birth has everything to do
with the shape of the hand; for the latter is entirely dependent on
temperament; but it is also a mistake to say that as many
beautiful-shaped hands are to be found among the lower as among the
upper classes in England. It is a mistake, because the psychic and
dramatic temperaments (and the psychic and dramatic type of hand is
unquestionably the most beautiful) are rarely to be found in the middle
and lower classes in England--they are almost entirely confined to the
upper classes.
_Pyromancy_
Predicting the future by fire is one of the oldest methods of
fortune-telling, and has been practised from time immemorial. I have
often had my fortune told in the fire, but I cannot say it has ever
proved to be very correct; only once a prognostication came true,--a
sudden death occurred in a family very nearly connected with me, after a
very fanciful churchyard had been pointed out to me amid the glowing
embers.
_Hydromancy_
There are many ways of telling the fortune by means of water. One of the
most usual methods is to float some object on the water's surface,
predicting the future in accordance with the course that object takes;
but I believe future events are just as often foretold by means of the
water only.
Many people believe that especially successful results in
fortune-telling may be obtained by means of water only, on All-Hallows
E'en or New Year's Eve.
On the former night, the method of divining the future is as
follows:--Place a bowl of clear spring water on your lap at midnight,
and gaze into it. If you are to be married, you will see the face of
your future husband (or bride) reflected in the water; if you are to
remain single all your life, you will see nothing; and if you are to die
within the year, the water will become muddy. On New Year's Eve a
tumbler of water should be placed at midnight before the looking-glass,
when any person, or persons, destined to play a very important rôle in
your life within the coming year, will suddenly appear and sip the
water. Should you be doomed to die within that period, the tumbler will
be thrown on the ground and dashed to pieces.
The conditions during the trial of both these methods are that you
should be alone in the room, with only one candle burning.
_The Crystal_
I often practise crystal-gazing, and the results are strangely
inconsistent. I see with startling vividness events that actually come
to pass, and sometimes with equal perspicuity events that, as far as I
know, are never fulfilled. And this I feel sure must be the case with
all crystal-gazers, if they would but admit it. My method is very
simple. As I cannot concentrate unless I have absolute quiet, I wait
till the house is very still, and I then sit alone in my room with my
back to the light, in such a position that the light pours over my
shoulders on to the crystal, which I have set on the table before me.
Sometimes I sit for a long time before I see anything, and sometimes,
after a lengthy sitting, I see nothing at all; but when a tableau does
come, it is always with the most startling vividness. When I want to be
initiated into what is happening to certain of my friends, I concentrate
my whole mind on those friends--I think of nothing but them--their
faces, forms, mannerisms, and surroundings--and then, suddenly, I see
them in the crystal! Visions are sometimes of the future, sometimes of
the present, sometimes of the past, and sometimes of neither, but of
what never actually transpires--and there is the strange inconsistency.
I do not know what methods other people adopt, I daresay some of them
differ from mine, but I feel quite sure that, look at the crystal how
they will, it will invariably lie to them at times.
A day or so before the death of Lafayette, when I was concentrating my
whole mind on forthcoming events, I distinctly saw, in the crystal, a
stage with a man standing before the footlights, either speaking or
singing. In the midst of his performance, a black curtain suddenly fell,
and I intuitively realised the theatre was on fire. The picture then
faded away and was replaced by something of a totally different
character. Again, just before the great thunder-storm at the end of May,
when Holy Trinity Church, Marylebone, was struck, I saw, in the crystal,
a black sky, vivid flashes of lightning, a road rushing with brown
water, and a church spire with an enormous crack in it.
Of course, it is very easy to say these visions might have been mere
coincidences; but if they were only coincidences, they were surpassingly
uncommon ones.
_Talismans and Amulets_
Amulets, though now practically confined to the East, were once very
much in vogue throughout Europe.
Count Daniel O'Donnell, brigadier-general in the Irish Brigade of Louis
XIV., never went into battle without carrying with him an amulet in the
shape of the jewelled casket "Cathach of Columbcille," containing a
Latin psalter said to have been written by St Columba. It has quite
recently been lent to the Royal Irish Academy (where it is now) by my
kinsman, the late Sir Richard O'Donnell, Bart. Count O'Donnell used to
say that so long as he had this talisman with him, he would never be
wounded, and it is a fact that though he led his regiment in the thick
of the fight at Borgoforte, Nago, Arco, Vercelli, Ivrea, Verrua,
Chivasso, Cassano, and other battles in the Italian Campaign of 1701-7,
and at Oudenarde, Malplaquet, Arleux, Denain, Douai, Bouchain, and
Fuesnoy, in the Netherlands, he always came through scathless. Hence,
like him, I am inclined to attribute his escapes to the psychic
properties of the talisman.
The great family of Lyons were in possession of a talisman in the form
of a "lion-cup," the original of Scott's "Blessed Bear of Bradwardine,"
which always brought them good luck till they went to Glamis, and after
that they experienced centuries of misfortune.
Another famous talisman is the "Luck of Edenhall," in the possession of
Sir Richard Musgrave of Edenhall, in Cumberland; and many other ancient
families still retain their amulets.
_"The Evil Eye"_
I was recently speaking to an Italian lady who informed me that belief
in "the evil eye" is still very prevalent in many parts of Italy. "I
myself believe in it," she said, "and whenever I pass a person whom I
think possesses it, I make a sign with my fingers"--and she held up two
of her fingers as she spoke. I certainly have observed that people with
a peculiar and undefinable "something" in their eyes are particularly
unlucky and invariably bring misfortune on those with whom they are in
any degree intimate. These people, I have no doubt, possess "the evil
eye," though it would not be discernible except to the extremely
psychic, and there is no doubt that the Irish and Italians are both far
more psychic than the English.
People are of opinion that the eye is not a particularly safe indicator
of true character, but I beg to differ. To me the eye tells everything,
and I have never yet looked directly into a person's eyes without being
able to satisfy myself as to their disposition. Cruelty, vanity, deceit,
temper, sensuality, and all the other vices display themselves at once;
and so with vulgarity--the glitter of the vulgar, of the ignorant,
petty, mean, sordid mind, the mind that estimates all things and all
people by money and clothes, cannot be hidden; "vulgarity" will out, and
in no way more effectually than through the eyes. No matter how "smart"
the _parvenu_ dresses, no matter how perfect his "style," the glitter of
the eye tells me what manner of man he is, and when I see that strange
anomaly, "nature's gentleman," in the service of such a man, I do not
say to myself "Jack is as good"--I say, "Jack is better than his
master."
But to me "the evil eye," no less than the vulgar eye, manifests
itself. I was at an "at home" one afternoon several seasons ago, when an
old friend of mine suddenly whispered:
"You see that lady in black, over there? I must tell you about her. She
has just lost her husband, and he committed suicide under rather
extraordinary circumstances in Sicily. He was not only very unlucky
himself, but he invariably brought misfortune on those to whom he took a
liking--even his dogs. His mother died from the effects of a railway
accident; his favourite brother was drowned; the girl to whom he was
first engaged went into rapid consumption; and no sooner had he married
the lady you see, than she indirectly experienced misfortune through the
heavy monetary losses of her father. At last he became convinced that he
must be labouring under the influence of a curse, and, filled with a
curious desire to see if he had 'the evil eye,'--people of course said
he was mad--he went to Sicily. Arriving there, he had no sooner shown
himself among the superstitious peasants, than they made a sign with
their fingers to ward off evil, and in every possible way shunned him.
Convinced then that what he had suspected was true, namely, that he was
genuinely accursed, he went into a wood and shot himself."
This, I daresay, is only one of many suicides in similar circumstances,
and not a few of the suicides we attribute, with such obvious
inconsistency (thinking thereby to cover our ignorance), to "temporary
insanity," may be traceable to the influence of "the evil eye."
_Witches_
Though witches no longer wear conical hats and red cloaks and fly
through the air on broomsticks, and though their _modus operandi_ has
changed with their change of attire, I believe there are just as many
witches in the world to-day, perhaps even more, than in days gone by.
All women are witches who exert baleful influence over others--who wreck
the happiness of families by setting husbands against wives (or, what is
even more common, wives against husbands), parents against children, and
brothers against sisters; and, who steal whole fortunes by inveigling
into love, silly, weak-minded old men, or by captivating equally silly
and weak-willed women. Indeed, the latter is far from rare, and there
are instances of women having filled other women with the blindest
infatuation for them--an infatuation surpassing that of the most doting
lovers, and, without doubt, generated by undue influence, or, in other
words, by witchcraft. Indeed, I am inclined to believe that the orthodox
witch of the past was harmless compared with her present-day
representative. There is, however, one thing we may be thankful for, and
that is--that in the majority of cases the modern witch, despite her
disregard of the former properties of her calling, cannot hide her
danger signals. Her manners are soft and insinuating, but her eyes are
hard--hard with the steely hardness, which, granted certain conditions,
would not hesitate at murder. Her hands, too, are coarse--an
exaggeration of the business type of hand--the fingers short and
club-shaped, the thumbs broad and flat, the nails hideous; they are the
antipodes of the psychic or dramatic type of hands: a type that,
needless to say, witches have never been known to possess. Once the
invocation of the dead was one of the practices of ancient witchcraft:
one might, perhaps, not inappropriately apply the term witch to the
modern spiritualist.
If we credit the Scriptures with any degree of truth, then witches most
certainly had the power of calling up the dead in Biblical days, for at
Endor the feat--rare even in those times--was accomplished of invoking
in material form the phantasms of the good as well as the evil. Though I
am of the opinion that no amount of invocation will bring back a
phantasm from the higher spiritual planes to-day, unless that invocation
be made in very exceptional circumstances, with a specific purpose, I am
quite sure that _bona fide_ spirits of the earth-bound do occasionally
materialise in answer to the summons of the spiritualist. I do not base
this statement on any experience I have ever had, for it is a rather
singular fact that, although I have seen many spontaneous phenomena in
haunted houses, I have never seen anything resembling, in the slightest
degree, a genuine spirit form, at a séance. Therefore, I repeat, I do
not base my statement, as to the occasional materialisation of _bona
fide_ earth-bound spirits, on any of my experiences, but on those of
"sitters" with whom I am intimately acquainted. What benefit can be
derived from getting into close touch with earth-bound spirits, _i.e._
with vice and impersonating elementals and the phantasms of dead idiots,
lunatics, murderers, suicides, rakes, drunkards, immoral women and silly
people of all sorts, is, I think, difficult to say; for my own part, I
am only too content to steer clear of them, and confine my attentions to
trying to be of service to those apparitions that are, obviously, for
some reason, made to appear by the higher occult powers. Thus, what is
popularly known as spiritualism is, from my point of view, a mischievous
and often very dangerous form of witchcraft.
A Frenchman to whom I was recently introduced at a house in Maida Vale,
told me the following case, which he assured me actually happened in the
middle of the eighteenth century, and was attested to by judicial
documents. A French nobleman, whom I will designate the Vicomte
Davergny, whilst on a visit to some friends near Toulouse, on hearing
that a miller in the neighbourhood was in the habit of holding Sabbats,
was seized with a burning desire to attend one. Consequently, in
opposition to the advice of his friends, he saw the miller, and, by dint
of prodigious bribing, finally persuaded the latter to permit him to
attend one of the orgies. But the miller made one stipulation--the
Vicomte was on no account to carry firearms; and to this the latter
readily agreed. When, however, the eventful night arrived, the Vicomte,
becoming convinced that it would be the height of folly to go to a
notoriously lonely spot, in the dark, and unarmed, concealed a brace of
pistols under his clothes. On reaching the place of assignation, he
found the miller already there, and on the latter enveloping him in a
heavy cloak, the Vicomte felt himself lifted bodily from the ground and
whirled through the air. This sensation continued for several moments,
when he was suddenly set down on the earth again and the cloak taken off
him. At first he could scarcely make out anything owing to a blaze of
light, but as soon as his eyes grew accustomed to the illumination, he
perceived that he was standing near a huge faggot fire, around which
squatted a score or so of the most hideous hags he had ever conceived
even in his wildest imagination. After going through a number of strange
incantations, which were more or less Greek to the Vicomte, there was a
most impressive lull, that was abruptly broken by the appearance of an
extraordinary and alarming-looking individual in the midst of the
flames. All the witches at once uttered piercing shrieks and prostrated
themselves, and the Vicomte then realised that the remarkable being who
had caused the commotion was none other than the devil. Yielding to an
irresistible impulse, but without really knowing what he was doing, the
Vicomte whipped out a pistol, and, pointing at Mephistopheles, fired. In
an instant, fire and witches vanished, and all was darkness and silence.
Terrified out of his wits, the Count sank on the ground, where he
remained till daylight, when he received another shock, on discovering,
stretched close to him, the body of the miller with a bullet wound in
his forehead. Flying from the spot, he wandered on and on, until he
came to a cottage, at which he inquired his way home. And here another
surprise awaited him. For the cottagers, in answer to his inquiries,
informed him that the nearest town was not Toulouse but Bordeaux, and if
he went on walking in such and such a direction, he would speedily come
to it. Arriving at Bordeaux, as the peasant had directed, the Vicomte
rested a short time, and then set out for Toulouse, which city he at
length reached after a few days' journeying. But he had not been back
long before he was arrested for the murder of the miller, it being
deposed that he had been seen near Bordeaux, in the immediate
neighbourhood of the tragedy, directly after its enaction. However, as
it was obviously impossible that the Vicomte could have taken less than
a few days to travel from Toulouse to a spot near Bordeaux, where the
murder had taken place, a distance of several hundreds of miles, on the
evidence of his friends, who declared that he had been with them till
within a few hours of the time when it was presumed the crime was
committed, the charge was withdrawn, and the Vicomte was fully
acquitted.