Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 5 1887.djvu/34

26 exorcising a man habited in black, who drove a sable coach, drawn by headless horses, across Black-a-down, a neighbouring moor, as this apparition, when they happened to meet it, frightened his people almost out of their wits. He acceded to this request, and late at night the two clergymen rode to the spot, "where they waited for some time, but seeing nothing decided to separate and return to their respective homes. Mr. Dodge, however, had not gone very far when his horse obstinately refused to proceed a step further in a homeward direction: this he interpreted to be a sign from heaven which he must obey, and giving it the rein he allowed it to go as it willed. It wheeled round and went back at a great pace to the moor. Here through the gloom he saw standing the black coach with the headless horses: its driver had dismounted, and the Rev. Grylls lay in a swoon at his feet. Mr. Dodge was terribly alarmed, but managed to keep his presence of mind, and began to recite a prayer: before he could finish it the driver said—"Dodge is come! I must begone!" jumped on to his seat and disappeared for ever. Mr. Grylls' parishioners now arrived in search of their rector; they knew there must be something amiss, for his horse, startled by the horrible spectres, had thrown its rider and galloped off, never stopping until it reached its stable (his friends, through fright, had also been, until the apparition vanished, almost unmanageable). They found him senseless, supported in Mr. Dodge's arms; but he soon revived, and they took him home, although it was some days before his reason recovered from the shock. A much fuller account of this may be found in the History of Polperro, by Mr. T. G. Couch. It has also been published by Mr. Robert Hunt in his Popular Romances of the West of England. The Rev. R. S. Hawker, in his Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall, gives some very interesting extracts from the "Diurnal" of one Parson Rudall, of Launceston, who in 1665, with the sanction of his bishop, laid the Botathen ghost—the spirit of a young woman by name Dorothy Dinglet, who could not rest in her grave—"Unquiet because of a certain sin." It is a very well-known fact that the Rev. John Wesley was a firm believer in supernatural agencies; he compiled a book of ghost-stories, that was lent to me when I was about ten years old by a kind but ignorant woman, the reading of which caused me