"What, Satan! is this the Dancing that Richard gave himself to thee for?
Can'st thou Dance no better? Ransack the old Records of all past Times and
Places in thy Memory: Can'st thou not there find out some better way of
Trampling? Pump thine Invention dry: Cannot that universal Seed-plot of
subtile Wiles and Stratagems spring up one new Method of Cutting Capers?
Is this the top of Skill and Pride, to shuffle Feet, and brandish Knees
thus, and to trip like a Doe, and skip like a Squirrel? And wherein
differs thy Leapings from the Hoppings of a Frog, or Bouncings of a Goat,
or Friskings of a Dog, or Gesticulations of a Monkey? And cannot a Palsy
shake such a loose Leg as that? Dost thou not twirl like a Calf that hath
the Turn, and twitch up thy Houghs just like a Spring-hault Tit?" This was
one of the conversations, or rather exhortations, which the dissenting
ministers had with the devil inhabiting Richard Dugdale--he who was called
by some the Surrey demoniac,[157] by others the impostor, as faith or
reason was the stronger. Richard drew largely upon the faith of his
generation, largely even for the credulous generation flourishing in the
year of our Lord 1695: for Richard the "possessed" vomited gold, silver,
and brass rings, hair buttons, blue stones like flints, and once a big
stone bloody at the edges; and he was transformed sometimes to the manner
of a horse, when he would gallop round the barn on all fours, quite as
quickly as any cob ever foaled, and whinny like a cob, and eat provender
like a cob; and sometimes he was like a dog, "harring" and snarling and
growling and barking so like a mastiff, that once a dog, a real mastiff
and no counterfeit, set upon him, and would have given him rather an
undesirable taste of canine fraternity had he not been prevented. Then he
would be heavy or light in the same fit--now so heavy that six men could
not lift him, now so light that he did not weigh six pounds: "sometimes
light as a Feather-Boulster, but before he came out heavier than a Load of
Corn," says a husbandman; "as light as a Chip, and as heavy as a horse,"
says a carpenter: and he had fits of leaping, as fast as a man could
count; and he would dance on his toes and his knees, with marvellous
agility--dance more quickly than ordinary men, not possessed, could do on
their honest feet; then he would lie as if dead; or he would gape and
snatch with his mouth, catching at flies; and he had noises in his mouth
and breast, as if a family of young whelps were lapping, snarling, or
sucking in his inside; and he rolled up his tongue into a lump and turned
his eyes inward; and talked gibberish, which some one said was Latin; and
played with rushes as if they had been dice and bowls. "And when he had
thrown the 'Jack,' he said, 'I must now throw my Gill;' then running a
good way, as if he had been running after a bowl, swearing, 'Run, Run,
Flee, Flee, Hold a Biass;' and sometimes he catched up rushes, as if they
had been bowls, swearing, 'Sirrah, stand out of the Way, or I'll knock out
your Brains,' adding, 'I never was a Bowler, But don't Gentlemen do
thus?'" which is scarcely evidence to us that he was possessed, or in any
abnormal condition whatsoever. Neither was his habit of swearing and
cursing, "so that he would have affrighted ordinary men," any very
distinct sign of supernaturalism; nor yet his insolence in saying to Mr.
Carrington, who had adjured the devil in him mightily, "Thou shalt be
Porter of Hell-Gates, Thou'st have Brewis and Toad Broath." Any bold-faced
lad of eighteen might have said the same under cover of what he chose to
call a fit. And as for the strange swelling, as big as a turkey's egg,
which ran like a mouse about his body, whatever in that account was
naturally impossible was either trick on his part, or self-deception on
the part of those who gave their testimony. Besides, they were all
inclined to believe. Why, John Fletcher, who slept one night with
Richard, and felt something come up towards his knees, creeping higher and
higher till it got to his heart--something about the bigness of a little
cat or dog, which when he thought to catch "slipped through his hands like
a Snig"--even that most unterrifying occurrence was transformed into a
demoniacal visitant, and the thing that slipped through John Fletcher's
hands like a snig was no other than Richard Dugdale'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 afterwards continued in deception,
fraud, and lies.