Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/243

 Rh prayer-book, and a loud scratching and whining began outside. All in the house, save my informant, were satisfied that the young man’s enemy had appeared outside, perhaps in the form of a dog; he alone attributed the sounds to the wizard’s own dog, which had not been allowed to enter the house. His scepticism, however, annoyed the wizard and his dupes so much that the lad was fain to keep it to himself.

A parallel to William Dawson’s wild incantations has been communicated to me by the Rev. J. F. Bigge. Not many years ago there lived at Newcastle a wizard named Black Jock, who was much consulted by the neighbouring people in all cases of doubt and difficulty. On one occasion, a farmer named William P——, who was tenant of Richmond Hill, lost a valuable horse by a sudden attack of disease so peculiar that it suggested the idea of unhallowed charm and evil eye, or at least of some strange injury inflicted by a spiteful neighbour. So to Black Jock went Farmer P——, and told his tale. The wizard listened, and then announced that the horse had been killed by poison administered to it in brewers’ grains; and on payment of one pound he gave the following directions for discovering the poisoner. The farmer and one chosen friend were secretly to cut up the horse and take out its heart, which they were to stick full of pins and roast before the fire between eleven and twelve o’clock at night, having previously closed carefully every aperture communicating with the outer air, whether door, window, or other opening, and stuffed every interstice with tow or some such material. When the clock struck the midnight hour, they might open the door, and, looking out, they would assuredly see passing by the form of him who had done the injury.

The wizard’s injunctions were obeyed with right good will by the farmer and his trusty servant, Forster Charlton; but when they looked out they saw with astonishment no faint and flitting shadow of a suspicious-looking form, but, as it chanced, one of the most respectable and kindly-disposed among their neighbours, passing by in the flesh, on his way to his own home. To accuse such a man of being privy to the poor horse’s death was plainly impossible, yet what were they to think? So, after