Terrified beyond measure at the extinction of their lights, but still clinging tenaciously to the branches, which apparently had proved so ineffectual to preserve them against the power of the witches, the men hurried away. They had not proceeded far in the direction in which they supposed the farm lay, when, with a cry, the farmer, who was a little in advance of his aged companion, fell and vanished. He had slipped down the cleft, on the brink of which Isaac stood, tremblingly endeavouring to pierce the darkness below.
Not a sound came up to tell the old man that his master had escaped with his life; and, as no response came to his shouts, at length he turned away, feeling sure that he was masterless, and hoping to be able to reach the farm, and obtain assistance. After wandering about for some time, however, half-blinded by the lightning, and terrified beyond measure at the result of their mutual boldness, Isaac crept under a large stone, to wait for the dawn. Influenced by the cold and by fatigue, the old man fell asleep; but no sooner had the first faint rays of coming day kissed the hill-summit, than he was aroused by the old bulldog licking his face, and as he gazed around in sleepy astonishment some men appeared. The farmer's wife, terrified by the arrival of the howling dog, and the non-arrival of the 'leeters,' had made her way to a distant farm-house and alarmed the inmates, and a party of sturdy fellows had started off to find the missing men. Isaac's story was soon told; and when the searchers reached the gorge the farmer was found nursing a broken leg.
Great were the rejoicings of the goodwife when the cavalcade reached the farm, for, bad as matters were, she had expected even a worse ending; and afterwards, when unwonted prosperity had blessed the household, she used to say, drily, 'Yo' met ha' kept th' candles in to leet yo' whoam, for it mon ha' bin after midneet when he blew 'em aat,' a joke which invariably caused the farmer and old Isaac to smile grimly.
[THE CHRISTMAS-EVE VIGIL.]
MANY years have passed since the living of Walton-le-Dale was held by a gentleman of singularly-reserved and studious habits, who, from noon till night, pored over dusty black-letter folios. Although he was by no means forgetful of the few duties which pertained to his sacred office, and never failed to attend to the wants of those of his parishioners who were in trouble and had need of kind words of sympathy and advice, or even of assistance of a more substantial nature, the length of time he devoted to his mysterious-looking volumes, and a habit he had of talking to himself, as, late at night, with head bent down, he passed along the village street, and vanished into the darkness of a lonely lane, gave rise to cruel rumours that he was a professor of the black art; and it was even whispered that his night walks were pilgrimages to unholy scenes of Satanic revelry. These suspicions deepened almost into certainty when the old people who had charge of his house informed the gossips that the contents of a large package, since the arrival of which the women in the village had been unable to sleep for curiosity, were strange-looking bottles, of a weird shape, with awful signs and figures upon them; and that, during the evening, after the carrier had brought them, noises were heard in the clergyman's room, and the house was filled with sulphurous smoke. Passing from one gossip to another, the story did not fail to receive additions as usual, until when it reached the last house in the straggling village the narrator told how the student had raised the Evil One, who, after filling the house with brimstone, vanished in a ball of fire, not, however, without first having imprinted the mark of his claws upon the study table.
Had the unconscious clergyman lived more in the everyday world around him, and less in that of black-letter books, he would not have failed to perceive the averted looks with which his parishioners acknowledged his greetings, or, what would have pained him even more deeply, the frightened manner in which the children either fled at his approach, if they were playing in the lanes, or crept close to their parents when he entered the dwellings of the cottagers. Ignorant alike of the absurd rumours, and unobservant of the change which had come over his flock, or at least acting as though unaware of them, the clergyman continued to perform the duties of his sacred office, and to fly from them to his beloved volumes and experiments, growing more and more reserved in his habits, and visibly paling under his close application.
After matters had gone on in this way for some time, the villagers were surprised to see a friendship spring up and ripen between their pastor and an old resident in the village, of almost equally strange habits. There was, however, in reality but little to wonder at in this, for the similarity between the pursuits and tastes of the two students was sufficiently great to bridge over the gulf of widely-different social positions.