Page:ONCE A WEEK JUL TO DEC 1860.pdf/591

 17, 1860.] pain, than the tones of the human voice under any conceivable circumstances.

You will readily suppose that I could not withdraw my eyes from the strange white figure, which emitting these most fearful shrieks, was now swiftly traversing the road in my direction, first down the little hollow at the foot of the fir wood, then over the strip of level ground near the gate which leads to a foot path through fields into Lyme, and at length up the very acclivity on which I was standing.

I have often endeavoured to analyse the feelings I experienced on this occasion; but although much startled and surprised, I think the predominant sensation was that of curiosity at the unearthly sounds. If these hideous outcries uttered by the figure at a distance had startled and surprised me, the figure itself, as it approached, occasioned me still greater perplexity.

Imagine for yourself, in the clear moonlight, a spinning, whirling and shrieking creature, making swift progress, with motionless, outstretched arms like those of a huge white scare-crow, extended at right angles with the body. The figure was of a tall man’s height, clothed in something which appeared to me like a gown or waggoner’s frock, of white material, falling in one long droop to the ground! The extended arms were also of the same light colour.

The head of the figure I could not distinguish, for (strange to say) the creature, of whatever nature it was, engaged in this nightly ramble, advanced in a series of whirls, so rapid as to defy my attempts, as it speeded past me, to catch even a glimpse of its features. It combined with this eccentric movement, so swift an onward progress, that, as nearly as I could judge, the whole space of time, from the moment when it first came in sight, to that in which it disappeared from my view, having traversed in that period a distance of at least half a mile, did not exceed a very few minutes. Its shrieks, as it passed close by me, keeping the centre of the road, were horrifying in the extreme; and rang in my ears long after it had disappeared in the direction of the Devil’s Bellows.

I cannot say that I felt anything like what I should imagine would attend a supernatural manifestation. My sensations were chiefly those of surprise, and I had even prepared myself for the possibility of self-defence in case the figure, if human, should attack me, in what seemed the unrestrained outbreak of some ferocious and irreclaimable maniac! This idea flashed across my mind as the only possible solution; and I anticipated that, on the following day, I should find that the whole neighbourhood had been alarmed, and that, in some way or other, the mystery would be cleared up.

No such elucidation, however, took place; nor could I ever learn that any one but myself had been favoured with a manifestation of this frantic and fantastic apparition.

During the whole of the subsequent week I passed the time in a state of bewilderment. What