Page:Antidote to superstition, or, A cure for those weak minds which are troubled with the fear of, ghosts and witches (NLS104184264).pdf/15

( 15 ) underſtanding, thinks himſelf obliged to fall in with all the paſſions and humours of his yoke-fellow: Do not you remember, child, fays ſhe, that the pigeon-houſe fell the very afternoon that our careleſs wench ſpilt the ſalt upon the table? Yes, ſays he, my dear, and the next poſt brought us an account of the battle of Almanza. The reader may gueſs at the figure I made, after having done all this miſchief. I diſpatched my dinner, as ſoon as I could, with my ufſual taciturnity; when to my utter confuſion the lady ſeeing me quitting my knife and fork, and laying them acroſs one another upon my plate, deſired me that I wouid humour her ſo far as to take them out of that figure, and place them ſide by ſide. What the abſurdity was which I had committed I did not know, but I ſuppoſe there was ſome traditionary ſuperſtition in it: and therefore, in obedience to the lady of the houſe, I diſpoled of my knife and fork in two parallel lines, which is the figure I ſhall always lay them in for the future, though I do not know any reaſon for it.

It is not difficult for a man to ſee that a perſon has conceived an averſion to him. For my own part, I quickly found, by the lady's looks, that ſhe regarded me as a very odd kind of fellow, with an unfortunate aſpect. For which reaſon I took my leave immediately after dinner, and withdrew to