Page:Costello - A pilgrimage to Auvergne from Picardy to Velay - A 30154 1.pdf/21

Rh struction by the Father of Ill, who once exerted his skill in these parts, hoping to obtain possession of the soul of a young farmer who imprudently taunted him with inability to make a paved road of a certain extent between midnight,—the hour at which they probably met on the marsh,—and cock-crow. So rapidly did the Evil One set to work, and so solid and far spreading became the road he made, that but for the presence of mind of the young man’s wife, his soul must have fallen a prey to the destroyer ; she, however, hit upon the notable expedient of pulling the eock by the tail as he sat at roost, and thus caused him to utter his shrill salutation to day earlier than usual. The artful One was defeated, and his road, on the yery verge of completion, left as a monument to after ages of the triumph of female wit. About a league from Arras may still be seen two enormous stones, brought there under the infernal wing, and cast down in haste when he was foreed to desist in his enterprise. Another time it is related that a poor monk having been charged to form a long and difficult, road, impatient of the labour he underwent, consented to accept the assistance of a doubtful-looking stranger, who offered his aid “for a consideration.” The work went on and was soon entirely completed, when to his horror the monk found that his soul was the price to he