The boy was so terrified by what his mother said, that, for years after, he never ventured to wander by night, even when he hunted for Sir Rose, and was as stout a man as one might see of a market day; and the sight of a black bull or anything he took for such would always make him tremble.
There are many stories of this class about people having been enticed with devil's money, but few of them have so fortunate an ending as the old huntsman's relation.
[The Slighted Damsel of Gwinear.]
Trust me no tortures that the poets feign
Can match the fierce, th' unutterable pain
He feels who, day and night, devoid of rest,
Carries his own accuser in his breast.
Juvenal.
THERE is a general belief, in the western part of Cornwall, that if a greatly injured person, the last thing before death, reads or recites the 109th Psalm, usually called the "Cursing Psalm," applying its comminations to the injurer, the dying maledictions are sure to take effect.
Nearly a hundred years ago there lived in Gwinear Church-town a young man called Thomas Thomas, who for many years courted his cousin, Elizabeth Thomas, of the same place. She was much attached to the young man, who often promised to make her his wife; but, when she had shown her utmost trust in him, on some little disagreement, he slighted her and proposed to wed another damsel of the same village.