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Piari

HAVE passed the age at which one is anxious to account for every event. I am therefore not ashamed to admit that I do not possess sufficient knowledge to explain how, on that dark night, I could come from the ancient lake to the borders of the cremation-grounds, or whose footsteps they were that lured me thus out of my proper path. Even to-day these incidents are wrapped in mystery. But my admission must not be regarded as the admission of a belief in the existence of spirits. I remember a lunatic who lived in our village; he used to beg for his meals from house to house by day; at night he would take a small ladder and, covering it with a piece of cloth, would hold it on high and hover about in wayside gardens in the shadow of the trees. He frightened countless people out of their senses by this foolish masquerading of his. He could have no personal interest in it, and yet his intellect was never so active as in devising a hundred new means of frightening innocent people. He would tie dry faggots to a branch of a tree and set fire to them; he would smear his face over with soot and ink, and, climbing up to the roof of a temple, sit there in that state for hours; late at night he would creep close to the houses of poor peasants and call out their names in an unearthly voice. And yet he was never caught at these tricks. From his conduct during the day it was impossible for anyone to suspect him of the grim jests which he perpetrated at night, not only in our village but in a number