The means were certainly simple enough, if anything would come of them. The bereaved one must let the full moon pass for as short a time as possible; and then, at twelve of the middle-day, go to the dress last worn by the lost one, and take something from the left side pocket, or failing that cut a piece out. Then he might carry on as he pleased, until it came to bed-time, and then do as follows. Under the pillow on his left-hand side, he must place whatever he had taken from the dress, and then instead of his common prayers, pray in the following manner—
“Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Bring me back my love that’s gone.
Bring her white, or bring her red,
According as she is ’live or dead.”
Then he must throw the window up, or out, if it was a lattice, and look at the moon which would then be up (for he was supposed to keep good hours, as all gentle lovers should); and after that he must lie down, with his left ear on the pillow, and repeat the Doxology—which Tabby called the “Doxy”—until it made him go to sleep. Then, as sure as he was a living man—or in the other case a living woman—the lost one would appear at midnight, and tell him all about it. Only he, or she, must ask no questions, and above all offer no contradiction.
Now, I have never been superstitious; though some of the wisest men I have met with seem at times to be so; and I laughed at all this stuff of Tabby’s, although I had found her truthful. Then I asked her to go through it all for me; but she stared at my stupidity; “As if her would come nigh me!” she said. “It is the love as does it, and the angels to the back of it.”
But when she kept on so about it, and assured me that much wiser people than I, and a long sight better—as she was good enough to say—had tried this plan and been set up by it; I began to think that it could do no harm, and if it afforded her any pleasure—why, no one else need hear of it. Except that the sin of witchcraft is most strongly denounced in the Bible; and many might think that this proceeding savoured of that character. However, if the Church of England could be brought to sanction it, the Powers of the air might do their worst; for our church is built upon a rock.
The Rev. Peter Golightly said, when I opened out this case to him, that he was a little surprised to find me listening to such nonsense. I told him that it was very far from my desire to do so; but if it was likely to ease the minds of others, it might be my duty to go on with it. At this he laughed, and did not say, but seemed perhaps to mean it, that I was not bound to make a fool of myself, because my brother fools wished it. However, I was not going to be argued down about it; and I put the question point-blank to him, whether there was any sin in it. He could not say that there was any; but being more on his mettle now, declared that it was rank folly, and insisted very strongly on the superiority of prayer. There I had him on the nail; for what was this but a mode of prayer, invoking also those holy writers, who alone have taught us the use of prayer? He shook his head, as if unconvinced; but his daughter called him away just then, and I did not care to renew the subject, feeling that now I had his permission; which he might recall, if argued with.
The moon was full at six o’clock in the morning, as Uncle Corny said; and he always knew everything about her, except the weather she would bring. And at noon I went to my dear wife’s frock, the one she had worn on the very day before she disappeared from me. She had kept them on a row of hooks—for we were not rich in wardrobes—with a scarf of something drawn along to keep the dust from settling. It had been one of my sorest jobs to unhang them very reverently, remembering when she had worn them last, and how my arm had been round them. For she had a very pretty way of coming up in the morning (when her hair was done, and her collar on) for me to tell her how she looked, and to see that all her strings were right But now these empty dresses lay, all folded, and locked in the bottom drawer.