I tell you it was not so pleasant for a little boy of
impressible nature to go up to bed in an old gambrel-roofed house, with
untenanted locked upper chambers, and a most ghostly garret,--with
'Devil's footsteps' in the fields behind the house, and in front of it
the patched dormitory, where the unexplained occurrence had taken place
which startled those godless youths at their mock devotions, so that one
of them was epileptic from that day forward, and another, after a
dreadful season of mental conflict, took to religion, and became renowned
for his ascetic sanctity."
It is a pity that Dr. Holmes does not give the whole story, instead of
hinting at it, for a similar tale is told at Brazenose College, and
elsewhere. Now take, along with Dr. Holmes's confession to a grain of
superstition, this remark on, and explanation of, the curious
coincidences which thrust themselves on the notice of most people.
"Excuse me,--I return to my story of the Commonstable. Young fellows
being always hungry, and tea and dry toast being the meagre fare of the
evening meal, it was a trick of some of the boys to impale a slice of
meat upon a fork, at dinner-time, and stick the fork, holding it, beneath
the table, so that they could get it at tea-time. The dragons that
guarded this table of the Hesperides found out the trick at last, and
kept a sharp look-out for missing forks;--they knew where to find one, if
it was not in its place.
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