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"Egad!" he exclaimed, when returning breath suffered him to speak. Egad, you fellows are wonderfully alike; if it wasn't for Dalton's moustache I'm not sure I could tell which was which now. And if you really run off with my nieces, as I suppose you must, one of you must go abroad, or there'll be no end of bother and confusion!

Dalton acted on this very sound advice, and as Oakley and Mary chose to remain in England, Percy and Kate sailed for India, where they will doubtless have many a laugh at the story of their "Double Love?"

Christmas Bells.

Ring out, ye merry Christmas Bells,
A joyous tale your music tells;
For it proclaims a Saviour's birth,
To men Good-will, and Peace on earth.

Ring out, sweet bells, echo the song,
Heard the angelic hosts among;
Glory to God the Father be,
Now, and throughout Eternity.

Ring out, ring out both loud and clear,
That all the wondrous news may hear;
Ring out sweet chimes at early morn,
'Twas then the Heavenly Babe was born.

Ring out, the joyful tidings tell,
God is come down on earth to dwell;
Ring out, glad peals, no bells can stay
Mute on this first great holy day.

No, from the earth's remotest bound,
Where'er the House of God is found;
From village Church, from spire and dome,
The same triumphant sound doth come :

And to each eager heart doth say,
Thy Saviour Christ is born to day.
This the glad tale your music tells,-

Then sweetly chime, dear Christmas Bells.

MINNIE.

SUPERSTITION IN THE COTTAGE.

The time has happily passed away when witches were swum in the nearest horse-pond, and wizards weighed in the scales against the Church Bible. No "wise Prince" now draws up rules and regulations for the better finding out of such persons: not even does Lancashire itself boast of its Mothers Demdike and Chattox; nor does any small attorney Potts now upset our villages and cottage homes in searching for them. With education, that old superstition and ignorance have passed away, and when anything unaccountable happens, civilized England does not set it down as the work of witchcraft. Yet if in this way such things have gone from amongst us, superstition and ignorance are still rife in many, in almost all villages, amongst the poorer classes. Many a place not only boasts its quack doctor, but it has also even in these enlightened days its "wise woman." It is no uncommon thing when you ask a sick person if he has seen the doctor, to get for a reply, “Oh, no, he couldn't do anything; he didn't know what was the matter,” and then to be further told that the sufferer has been to some place or other to consult the "wise woman."

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Nor does modesty seem to keep back the men from such consultation; all appear to go to her, no matter what the nature of the disease. True, her fee is much less than that of the regular practitioner, one shilling generally paying for the "charm" required, or the exorcism pronounced over the disease. Sometimes it is cure, no pay," but oftener a small fee is deposited at every visit. Now it is not that these "wise women' are quacks; they do not use herbs or nostrums of their own concoction, but their skill lies in the utterance of some form of words which act as a charm to drive

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away the disease or remove a misfortune. These wise women, too, are consulted as to the probable issue of some undertaking, or the likelihood of some project turning out well or no. Nothing seems to come amiss to them, and at last from their frequent performance of the same act they come to believe in the efficacy of it themselves; just as a person who tells a wonderful story from frequently repeating it comes at last to believe that it really happened. How a woman comes to be a "wise woman" is not quite apparent, but probably, as in other things, by little and little.

Perhaps this belief is not to be wondered at if we consider the little superstitions which educated people, now-a-days even, give way to. There are many of the middle and higher classes who believe that a knotched elder stick buried in the ground will cure warts; that the warts will go as the stick decays. Others, that the rubbing of a wedding ring over what is called a wisp" in the eye will by its virtue remove it: as if the pressure of any other pure

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metal would not have the same effect. The belief, too, that a stick of hazel thrown into the river will twist round over the spot where a drowned person lies, is not confined solely to our poor. There is a farmer in our village now who puts his stockings crossed under the bed every night to keep away the cramp: it is asserted that cold water under the bed will keep it away, and there are many people who believe this. Double nuts, fossils, curiously twisted sticks, especially hazel, are all prolific sources of superstition and awe.

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What real superstition, too, attends the removal of a wedding ring from the finger; and what numbers of erroneous and really mischievous old wife's fables there are now current about babies. Here and there one hears of gross superstition; of acts not done with the idea of injuring or benefitting others, but for the sole use of some member of the house in which it is done. The article used to effect the cure must be borrowed; in another instance it must be begged; in some cases, where the remedy is composed of different things, one must be borrowed, another begged, and another bought; at all events, there must be some condition of this kind. breaking even the least of the accustomed formula, effectually destroys the efficacy of the charm. When the things are prepared, however, they are not always to be taken; sometimes they are to be buried for so many days, and then dug up; and if liquids, strained through so much earth or chaff or some other perfectly innocuous subject; occasionally they are to be hung up in a bag to the limb of a tree, and the disease goes as soon as the contents of the bag are destroyed. There are instances of the charm, or whatever it may be called, when prepared, being given to some animal belonging to the house, as a means of curing a sick member. An idea perhaps that as long as the draught is taken it is not much matter who or what takes it. The most general plan is to beg, borrow, or steal something or other, (the articles are so various that it is impossible to express them except in these vague terms) mix up together, and give to the patient in certain doses. An instance of this kind occurred to the writer of these notes during the present summer. A child had for some years been afflicted more or less with the nervous complaint known as "St. Vitus's dance;" all plans had been adopted for its cure, but none of them succeeded; they were averse to the very rational one of open air and exercise, and kept the poor little creature coddled up in bed till late in the morning. On asking one day if anything else had been tried, the mother said, "No, but she was a going to try something she had heard of, but she hadn't got it yet.' What was it she was going to get? "Well"-here she stopped as if unwilling to go further, perhaps she thought the "gentleman" would not believe in her nostrum, but on being further pressed she said, "Well, 'twas begged.' "Begged!" that was not at all plain as to what she meant. On being still further pressed she opened all her heart, and said, "Well, all the things was to be begged: it wasn't no manner of use to buy

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'em or steal 'em, they must be all begged, that was port wine, calves' lights, and another thing, (this she would not mention). The port wine and the other thing were to be mixed, and then poured on to the calves' lights. This she heard was a safe cure." It was very disheartening to hear such a thing as this, but it is useless, as experience shews, to try to persuade people with these ideas, that they are false, silly, and may we say wicked. The recipe for this charm had no doubt come from the "wise woman." Swimming and such like ordeals have passed away with the barbarous and ignorant times in which they were adopted, but should there not be some means taken to shew these "wise women," wise on the system of contraries, that they cannot practise their wicked calling, and disseminate their silly ideas amongst sillier people without punishment, or at least a warning.

Another prolific source of superstition amongst the lower orders, especially the women, is objects of natural history; and this is the more to be wondered at from the near relation they have to each other in every day life. A labourer's wife or daughter can scarcely leave their own door without coming into contact with some one of the animal creation; and yet there are numbers of perfectly harmless little creatures that either fill them with awe, or from which in dismay they hurry as fast as they can. There are numbers of people whom it would be useless to assure that the common toad does not spit at any one who may touch it. This person believes that a blind worm or eft," as he calls it, has a venemous sting, and no power on earth could induce him to touch it. Another is firmly persuaded that the "hoppers" come in the inside of his flitch of bacon in a mysterious way. He knows what they come to, but "he would just like you to find out how they got there;" you explain to him: still he can see no marks how they entered, and so would just like you to find out how they got there." Every one knows the old rhyme about the magpies, but few know that many attach real importance to it. The nailing a horse shoe over the door keeps away evil influence, and some old charm hung in a bag round the neck keeps off the small pox, or prevents some worldly calamity. These are things which, if belief in witchcraft has left this country, are still objects of awe and superstition to our labouring classes, and in many instances to those in a higher position.

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We once had a raven, and the dismay of some of the cottagers was very great if ever we brought it within their garden gate; it was looked upon at last as a nuisance, and we sent it away to a neighbouring town. As it was on its journey some wild ravens flying over croaked, the captive raven answered, and the person carrying it, a strong man, let the poor creature go far away from any house, and in his dismay and fright did not stop rnnning till a good mile had been placed between himself and the object of his superstition. A magpie pitching on a roof of a house is a sign of death; an owl hooting outside the window is significant of the same thing; while all birds are more or less objects of veneration, or the

contrary. A bird flying against a window after dark is a sign of very ill omen. It never occurs to the wise interpreters that the light is the attraction. To take the following case as an instance of this. A young woman was ill for some time. The care of her devolved entirely on her mother, an old woman, and a person very much given to believe in the prevailing superstitions of the village. To understand the matter rightly it will be necessary to state that there was one small window in the room where the sick person lay; that thick ivy, in which many birds of different kinds roosted, nearly covered the end of the house, coming close up to the one window, and that a light was constantly left burning in the chamber. The patient, moreover, was given to much groaning and other noises, which the pain arising from the nature of the disease, as it were, compelled her to make. Before she died, one of those strange circumstances which can always be accounted for in natural ways happened. "It was Monday, (the day is given to make the story more intelligible; the words are those of the mother,) four days before my daughter died; just at midnight I heard a fluttering outside the windows, and then a tapping: I went and looked, and there was a little bird, a sparrow, perched up against the glass; after a little while it flew away. Well, next night it came again, just at the same time, and I thought then there was something in it; the third night, that was Wednesday, it came again, and then I knew there was something, and I thought if that bird doesn't come again to-morrow then it's my Hannah's last night. The next night it did not come, and before the morning my daughter died; I knew it would be so; it is wonderful what sense there is in those birds, and how any one may go by what they do."

Such was her story. It was something wonderful the energy and evident belief with which she told it, then several years after it had happened. It only differed from the usual run of such tales in its losing sight of the mystical three; the third time the bird came was the proper night for the young woman to have died; but in this case it was the first night the bird ceased to come. The whole thing was easy of explanation with one exception, and even that seemed well able to be put aside. Many birds roosted in the ivy; doubtless they were disturbed by the woman's groans and moanings, and this one, seeing the light, flew straight to the window. But how did it happen that twelve o'clock was the hour each night that it came? Why probably the nature of the disease caused more pain, and consequently greater groaning just at that hour; or perhaps it was the time at which the mother had to move about the room to give her daughter her medicine. Be this as it may, it was a circumstance to which a person free from the influence of superstition would have paid no heed, but which any one giving way to such feelings would turn into all sorts of morbid and uncanny forebodings. It is necessary, however, in such cases, to have some reason to give for unbelief in such things, if you would have others disbelieve them too; but it is a difficult task to dispossess the lower and uneducated

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