Page:The Necromancer, or, The Tale of the Black Forest Vol. 2.djvu/95

 firmly believed him to be on an intimate footing with his satanic majesty, because he now and then displayed, when in good humour, proofs of his juggling skill, which they beheld with gaping terror. This hoary man, who lived in a mean cottage, in apparent indigence, and could not be suspected of possessing ill-gotten goods, went oftentimes abroad, but whither he journeyed, or what called him so frequently from his abode, nobody could tell with certainty; some said he went a begging, others, more superstitious, pretended to have seen him, through the chinks of the half decayed window shutters, stretched lifeless on the floor; and some insisted upon having seen him riding through the air on a broom-stick, to pay, as it was supposed, his court to his infernal master, to whom his soul and body was said to be mortgaged.

Very fortunately this man was not at A when the church-robbery was committed, to the greatest satisfaction of some who thought him to be an harmless man, and to the greater