“The next morning being Thursday I went out very early by myself and walked for abt an hour’s space in meditation and prayer in ye field next adjoyning to ye Quartils. Soon after five I stept over ye stile into ye disturbed field, and had not gone above 30 or 40 paces before ye Ghost appeared at ye further stile. I spake to it with a Loud voice in some such sentences as ye way of these dealings directed me, whereupon it approached, but slowly. When I came near it, it mov’d not. I spake again and it answered in a voice neither very audible nor intelligable. I was not in ye Least terrifyed, and therefore persisted untill it spake again, and gave me satisfaction.
“But ye work could not be finished at this time; wherefore ye same evening, an hour after sun-set, it met me again near ye same place, and after a few words of each side it quietly vanished, and neither doth appear since, nor ever will more to any man’s disturbance.
“N.B. The discourse in ye morning Lasted abt a quarter of an hour.
“These things are true. I know them to be so with as much certainty as eyes and ears can give me; and until I can be perswaded that my senses do deceve me abt their proper objects (and by that perswasion deprive myself of ye strongest inducement to beleive ye Christian Religion) I must and will assert that these things in this paper are true.”
I omit the reflections made on this by the writer, who signs: “September 4th, 1665, John Ruddle.”
Every person and every place can be and has been identified by Mr. Robins, to whose article I refer the reader, should he care to go over the ground.[7]
Note.—Books on Launceston:—
Robins (A. F.), Launceston, Past and Present. Launceston, 1884.
Peter (R.), The Histories of Launceston and Dunheved. Plymouth, 1885.