Page:Account of some imaginary apparitions (NLS104186561).pdf/5

 go, ſo that he was at home and got into the houſe, long before his man Gervais could get up with him.

The maſter, as ſoon as he came into the light, ſwooned away, and the fright had ſuch an effect upon him, that when with much difficulty they had brought him to himſelf, he continued very ill; and when his lady and a ſiſter he had in the houſe with him, as much over-run with the Hippo as himſelf, came to enquire what had happened to him, he told them a formal ſtory, that at ſuch a bridge he met the Devil; that he placed himſelf juſt at the coming off from the bridge, on his left hand, at the corner of the wall; that he ſtood and ſtared in his face, and that he could diſtinctly perceive it was the Devil in the ſhape of a Bear, He gave other deſcriptions, ſo punctual and particular, that there was no room to doubt but it was an apparition, and that it was in the ſhape of a great bear.

GERVAIS came home ſoon after, and going into the ſtable directly, as was his buſineſs, to take care of his maſter's horſe as well as his own, there he told the ſtory his way, among the other ſervants, and eſpecially two or three grooms or ſervants belonging to gentlemen that were neighbours; and he tells them that his maſter was in great danger of being thrown over the wall of the bridge, for that his horſe was frighted at an aſs which ſtood at the corner of the wall, and it was my fault indeed, ſays Gervais, for it was a young horſe, and I had never told my maſter