Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/567

 Rh A Droll.—"I see the men go by along the road; and one, he have a donkey; and he were beating the poor creature so, I call out to him. He say, 'Ah, you won't get the clock.' That were an old story he were meaning— an old Sufifolk tale. Once upon a time there were a man who promised some beautiful clock he had as a prize to whoever could mind his own business for a year. At the end of the time, a young man come to claim it, and he give such a proof that he had minded his business for a whole year. So the man were just about to give him the clock, and he say, as he go to fetch it: 'You're the second young man as made sure to get the clock.' 'Ah,' say the young man, 'and how did he miss getting it?' 'That's not your business', say the other. 'You won't get the clock.'" (Told me by the gardener and his wife.)

Exorcising Spirits.—"I once lived in a curious old house—the Barley House, out Debenham way—and that were haunted. There were a great horse-shoe nailed into the ceiling on one of the beams, and they say that were to nail in a spirit so as he couldn't get out — a lot of clergymen done it. There were a pond close by, round which a man {i.e., a ghost) always walked at night. So a clergyman he come with a rushlight, and put that into the pond, and he say the spirit were not to come out until the rushhght were burnt out. So he could never come out, for a rushlight could never burn out in a pond." (Mrs. H.)

Apparitions.—"My wife she live at the Weir Farm when she were a young woman. I never come to see her there, for there were n't any followers allowed. One night, when she and a fellow-servant were brewing in that long room they used to call the Cheese-room, they hear someone walking to-and-fro overhead. My wife, who never was afraid of anyone, she say she would go and see what it was, and she go up the stairs. No person met her .... but a noise met and passed her. She heard the rustling of a silk dress, and the sound of little feet in thin shoes, and a breathing passed her, like someone out of breath .... There is a passage underground which come from that door by the pulpit and go to the Weir Farm; it is closed up now, because of foul air; but they say there are rooms underground all ready furnished, and that in Roman Catholic days they went down there when they durst not go abroad." (Told me by our gardener. There is a place in the Weir Farm which I was told was once the opening of the secret passage. In the village there is the tradition that the Farm was once a religious house; but everything else points to its having been built and inhabited by a merchant, and there are merchants' marks on the house.)

"A girl who was in service at Mr. Manby's (the Weir Farm), she