Cornish Characters and Strange Events — John Shaqi
Cornish Characters and Strange EventsBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
Cornish Characters and Strange Events
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Cornwall (England : County) -- Biography; Cornwall (England : County) -- History; Legends -- England -- Cornwall (County)
"Thence we all four walked leisurely into the Quartils, and had passed
above half the field before the ghost made appearance. It then came
over the stile just before us, and moved with that swiftness that by
the time we had gone six or seven steps it passed by. I immediately
turned head and ran after it, with the young man by my side; we saw it
pass over the stile by which we entered, but no farther. I stepped
upon the hedge at one place, he at another, but could discern nothing;
whereas I dare aver that the swiftest horse in England could not have
conveyed himself out of sight in that short space of time. Two things
I observed in this day's appearance. (1) That a spaniel dog, who
followed the company unregarded, did bark and run away as the spectrum
passed by; whence it is easy to conclude that it was not our fear or
fancy which made the apparition. (2) That the motion of the spectrum
was not by steps and moving of the feet, but a kind of gliding, as
children upon ice or a boat down a swift river.
"But to proceed. This ocular evidence clearly convinced, but strangely
frightened, the old gentleman and his wife, who knew this Dorothy
Dingley in her lifetime, were at her burial, and now plainly saw her
features in this present apparition.
"The next morning, being Thursday, I went out very early by myself, and
walked for about an hour's space in meditation and prayer in the field
next adjoining the Quartils. Soon after five I stepped over the stile
into the disturbed field, and had not gone above thirty or forty paces
before the ghost appeared at the farther stile. I spake to it with a
loud voice, whereupon it approached, but slowly, and when I came near
it moved not. I spake again, and it answered, in a voice neither very
audible nor intelligible. I was not in the least terrified, and
therefore persisted until it spake again and gave me satisfaction. But
the work could not be finished at this time; wherefore the same evening,
an hour after sunset, it met me again near the same place, and after a
few words on each side it quickly vanished, and neither doth appear
since, nor ever will more to any man's disturbance. The discourse in the
morning lasted about a quarter of an hour.
"These things are true, and I know them to be so, with as much
certainty as eyes and ears can give me; and until I can be persuaded
that my senses do deceive me about their proper object, and by that
persuasion deprive myself of the strongest inducement to believe the
Christian religion, I must and will assert that these things in this
paper are true."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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